Workplace stress is a physiological and psychological response that is triggered when the demands of the work environment exceed an individual’s cognitive and emotional resources. Assessing it with sensitive tools can help anticipate difficulties in executive functioning and inform effective intervention plans that improve both occupational health and organisational efficiency.
What Is Workplace Stress and How Does It Affect Employees and Organisations?
Understanding what workplace stress is means recognising that it is not simply the result of a temporary increase in workload. Rather, it is a sustained state of activation that disrupts the balance between external demands and internal resources, affecting neuropsychological functioning. Within organisations, this phenomenon affects more than individual wellbeing: it can directly impact productivity, increase absenteeism, and contribute to a poorer working environment. For those individuals who are assessed, workplace stress can interfere with decision-making, emotional regulation, and the effective functioning of executive processes. This can reduce their ability to adapt to the day-to-day challenges of the workplace.
What Are the Causes and Symptoms of Workplace Stress?
What causes workplace stress? This question requires a multifactorial approach. Common triggers include excessive workloads, role ambiguity, limited autonomy, interpersonal conflicts, and a lack of recognition or organizational support. Individual factors such as perfectionism, low frustration tolerance, and difficulty managing pressure can also increase vulnerability. When it comes to workplace stress, symptoms can manifest at several levels:
- Physiological: insomnia, chronic fatigue, headaches, muscle tension, and digestive issues.
- Emotional: irritability, anxiety, emotional instability, and a persistent feeling of being overwhelmed or unable to cope.
- Cognitive and behavioural: attentional difficulties, concentration issues, impulsive decision-making, frequent forgetfulness, and mental blocks.
These manifestations can often go unnoticed in traditional assessments, yet they can have a significant functional impact and highlight the need for assessment from a neuropsychological perspective applied to the workplace.
Impact of Workplace Stress on Cognitive Processes
Prolonged exposure to stress can affect executive and attentional functioning. These changes can be objectively measured across specific cognitive processes.
Sustained Attention
The ability to maintain attention during prolonged tasks is reduced, leading to an increase in omission errors.
Selective Attention
The ability to filter out irrelevant stimuli becomes less efficient, which can interfere with performance in environments with multiple distractions.
Working Memory
Stress can impair the active retention and manipulation of relevant information, affecting the planning and execution of complex tasks.
Inhibitory Control
Stress can make it more difficult to inhibit impulsive responses, increasing the risk of errors or inappropriate reactions.
Cognitive Flexibility
The ability to adapt to changes or modify strategies is reduced, which can lead to behavioural rigidity.
Processing Speed
Mental processing may become slower, affecting performance on routine tasks and tasks carried out under pressure.
Perseveration
Stress can increase the repetition of incorrect responses when relevant information is not adequately updated.
How Can Workplace Stress Be Measured and Assessed?
To understand what workplace stress is and how to measure it, it is important to go beyond self-report questionnaires. Assessing its impact on executive functions using neuropsychological tests provides objective data that can inform effective interventions.
Assessing Workplace Stress with Neuropsychological Tests: Nesplora Aquarium
Nesplora Attention Adults Aquarium is a virtual reality tool designed to assess cognitive processes that may be affected by stress. It measures selective and sustained attention, working memory, inhibitory control, processing speed, and perseverations. Thanks to its immersive environment and ecological validity, it can accurately detect cognitive difficulties that may go unnoticed in conventional assessments. This approach is supported by empirical evidence, including a study by González Torrecillas et al. (2020), which used Nesplora Aquarium to assess cognitive deficits in people with minor psychiatric disorders, including conditions associated with workplace stress. Furthermore, Nesplora Executive Functions Ice Cream complements this assessment by evaluating cognitive flexibility and planning, executive functions that can be particularly sensitive to chronic stress. Integrating these tools makes it possible to identify psychosocial risk factors using scientifically grounded criteria and to develop prevention strategies based on objective data. This can benefit both employees and overall organisational performance.
References:
- Ganster, D. C., & Rosen, C. C. (2013). Work stress and employee health: A multidisciplinary review. Journal of Management, 39(5), 1085–1122. https://doi.org/10.1177/0149206313475815
- Ørhede, E. M., Madsen, I. E. H., Burr, H., Rugulies, R., & Bonde, J. P. (2017). Job strain as a risk factor for clinical depression: Systematic review and meta-analysis with additional individual participant data. Psychological Medicine, 47(8), 1342–1356. https://doi.org/10.1017/S003329171600355X
- Netterstrøm, B., Conrad, N., Bech, P., Fink, P., Olsen, O., Rugulies, R., & Stansfeld, S. (2015). Job strain and depressive symptoms: A systematic review and meta-analysis of prospective studies. BMC Public Health, 15, 738. https://doi.org/10.1186/s12889-015-1954-4
- González Torrecillas, J. L., Marín, B., & Alonso, B. (2020). Aplicación de realidad virtual (Nesplora Aquarium) en la valoración cognitiva y control de incapacidad temporal por contingencia común en pacientes con trastorno psiquiátrico menor. Revista de la Asociación Española de Especialistas en Medicina del Trabajo, 29(3), 223–235. https://scielo.isciii.es/pdf/medtra/v29n3/1132-6255-medtra-29-03-223.pdf