Psychosocial Work Factors
Also known as: Psychosocial Risk Factors · Psychosocial Work Environment
Framework holding that measurable characteristics of how work is organized — demands, control, support, rewards, predictability, justice, insecurity — shape workers' health, motivation, and performance. It integrates the major work environment theories rather than following one: demand-control-support (Karasek & Theorell), effort-reward imbalance (Siegrist), job demands-resources, work-family conflict, and workplace social capital. Exposure is a property of the work environment, measured as workers' perceptions of current conditions, dimension by dimension, not a trait of the person.
- Source:
- Burr, H., Berthelsen, H., Moncada, S., et al. (2019). The Third Version of the Copenhagen Psychosocial Questionnaire. Safety and Health at Work, 10(4), 482-503.
Constructs
Quantitative Demands
The mismatch between the volume of work and the time available to perform it — tasks piling up, work left undone, insufficient time. A core demand dimension of the psychosocial work environment (Burr et al., 2019); high scores indicate exposure to work overload.
Work Pace
The speed the work demands from moment to moment — working very fast and at a high pace throughout the day. Distinct from the volume of work (quantitative demands), it captures sustained work speed as its own exposure (Burr et al., 2019).
Emotional Demands
The extent to which work places the worker in emotionally disturbing situations or requires dealing with other people's personal problems. An exposure reading characteristic of care, teaching, and service work (Burr et al., 2019).
Demands for Hiding Emotions
The requirement to conceal feelings and keep opinions unexpressed at work — staying kind regardless of how one is treated. It names the self-containment load carried by many people-facing roles (Burr et al., 2019).
Influence at Work
The degree of say a worker has over decisions concerning their own work, including the amount of work and how it is done. A classic buffering resource in the demand-control tradition: the same demands weigh differently with and without it (Karasek & Theorell; Burr et al., 2019).
Possibilities for Development
Whether the work offers the possibility of learning new things and using one's skills and expertise. A resource dimension of the work environment: work that neither stretches nor draws on the worker is a documented path to disengagement (Burr et al., 2019).
Control over Working Time
The worker's control over the timing of their own work — deciding when to take a break, taking holidays roughly when wanted, leaving the workplace for private business. Small time freedoms measured as a distinct resource dimension (Burr et al., 2019).
Meaning of Work
Whether the work is experienced as meaningful and important. One of the strongest sustaining resources a job can offer; its absence makes even light work heavy (Burr et al., 2019).
Predictability
Whether information arrives when needed — advance notice of important decisions and changes, and all the information required to do the work well. Uncertainty about one's own near future at work is a stressor in its own right (Burr et al., 2019).
Recognition
Whether one's work is recognized and appreciated by the management. Measured by a single item in the COPSOQ III middle version, it reads whether sustained effort visibly registers above (Burr et al., 2019).
Role Clarity
Whether the work has clear objectives, known areas of responsibility, and explicit expectations. High clarity lets energy go to the work itself instead of to decoding what counts (Burr et al., 2019).
Role Conflicts
Exposure to contradictory demands at work and to tasks one believes should be done differently. A property of how the role is designed — work that argues with itself (Burr et al., 2019).
Illegitimate Tasks
The share of work tasks that seem unnecessary to the person performing them. The operational reading of illegitimate tasks — work experienced as an offence to one's professional sense of self (stress-as-offence-to-self tradition; Burr et al., 2019).
Quality of Leadership
How good the immediate superior is at the concrete craft of leading — planning the work, solving conflicts, developing people. Read as a working capability of the leader, not charisma (Burr et al., 2019).
Social Support from Supervisor
How often help, support, and a willing ear are available from the immediate superior when needed. A support resource that determines whether difficulties escalate to solutions or accumulate (demand-control-support tradition; Burr et al., 2019).
Social Support from Colleagues
How often help, support, and a willing ear are available from colleagues when needed. One of the classic protective factors in demanding work; without it, individual difficulties are carried alone (Burr et al., 2019).
Sense of Community at Work
The atmosphere between colleagues and the feeling of being part of a community at the workplace — the social fabric dimension of the work environment (Burr et al., 2019).
Job Insecurity
Worry about becoming unemployed and about how difficult it would be to find another job. A documented stressor that acts well before — and whether or not — any job is actually lost (Burr et al., 2019).
Insecurity over Working Conditions
Worry about unwanted changes to the conditions of the job — being transferred, having the schedule changed, or pay reduced against one's will. Insecurity about the shape of the job, distinct from insecurity about keeping it (Burr et al., 2019).
Quality of Work
Satisfaction with the quality of the work performed at one's workplace. Measured by a single item in the COPSOQ III middle version; low scores often mark conditions that force work below one's own standard (Burr et al., 2019).
Job Satisfaction
Overall satisfaction with the job — work prospects, pay, and the job as a whole, everything taken into consideration. The summary evaluation that the other work environment dimensions feed (Burr et al., 2019).
Work Life Conflict
Whether work drains so much energy, and takes so much time, that it negatively affects private life. The spillover dimension of the work-family conflict tradition: the job's cost measured where it lands outside work (Burr et al., 2019).
Horizontal Trust
Whether employees in general trust each other. A workplace social capital dimension: trust between colleagues makes information move and cooperation cheap, and its absence taxes every interaction (Burr et al., 2019).
Vertical Trust
Trust between management and employees, in both directions — whether management trusts the employees to do their work well, whether the employees can trust the information coming from management, and whether views and feelings can be expressed upward (Burr et al., 2019).
Organizational Justice
Whether conflicts are resolved in a fair way and the work is distributed fairly — the perceived fairness of the organization's procedures, a workplace social capital dimension (Burr et al., 2019).
Self-rated Health
The worker's general rating of their own health, from excellent to poor. A single-item measure with a long epidemiological record as a predictor of health outcomes; in the COPSOQ III it provides individual context for the environmental dimensions (Burr et al., 2019).
Instruments
- Copenhagen Psychosocial Questionnaire II — Brazilian short version(COPSOQ II-Br)Gonçalves, Moriguchi, Chaves & Sato2021
- Copenhagen Psychosocial Questionnaire III(COPSOQ III)Burr, Berthelsen, Moncada, et al.2019
Tests built on this theory
Psychosocial Work Environment (COPSOQ III)
The international reference questionnaire on psychosocial working conditions — 26 dimensions of your work environment, one 0-100 reading each.
Learn more →Brazilian Psychosocial Risk Assessment (COPSOQ II-Br)
The validated Brazilian instrument for psychosocial risks at work — 23 dimensions, each read against published safe/attention/risk bands.
Learn more →