Mediating the relation between workplace stressors and distress in ID support staff: comparison between the roles of psychological inflexibility and coping styles.
Psychological inflexibility, not wishful coping, is the main pipe that carries workplace stress into staff distress.
01Research in Context
What this study did
Kurz et al. (2014) asked ID support staff to fill out a survey. The survey measured workplace stressors, coping styles, and a trait called psychological inflexibility.
The team then used statistics to see which factor best explained why stress turns into personal distress.
What they found
Psychological inflexibility carried almost all the weight. When staff scored high on this trait, workplace stress hit them harder.
Old-school coping styles like wishful thinking added little. Inflexibility outperformed every other variable in the model.
How this fits with other research
Hatton et al. (1999) first flagged wishful coping as a key lever for staff well-being. Solomon’s data now show that targeting psychological inflexibility gives you more bang for your buck.
Lambrechts et al. (2009) found staff emotions rise with client challenging behavior, but the link to actual helping was shaky. Solomon tightens the story: inflexibility is the clear middle step between stress and distress.
Eisenhower et al. (2006) tested whether staff attributions predict helping intent and came up empty. Solomon shifts focus from “what staff think” to “how rigidly they react,” a move that finally yields a strong mediator.
Why it matters
If you run in-service training, add brief ACT-based drills that build flexibility—values clarification, mindfulness, and committed action. These target the mediator Solomon caught red-handed, not the coping style the 1999 paper chased. One eight-minute exercise per staff meeting could chip away at the rigidity that fuels burnout.
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02At a glance
03Original abstract
The present study examined how different patterns of coping influence psychological distress for staff members in programs serving individuals with intellectual disabilities. With a series of path models, we examined the relative usefulness of constructs (i.e., wishful thinking and psychological inflexibility) from two distinct models of coping (i.e., the transactional model and the psychological flexibility models, respectively) as mediators to explain how workplace stressors lead to psychological distress in staff serving individuals with intellectual disabilities. Analyses involved self-report questionnaires from 128 staff members (84% female; 71% African American) from a large, state-funded residential program for individuals with intellectual and physical disabilities in the southern United States of America. Cross-sectional path models using bootstrapped standard errors and confidence intervals revealed both wishful thinking and psychological inflexibility mediated the relation between workplace stressors and psychological distress when they were included in separate models. However, when both variables were included in a multiple mediator model, only psychological inflexibility remained a significant mediator. The results suggest psychological inflexibility and the psychological flexibility model may be particularly useful for further investigation on the causes and amelioration of workplace-related stress in ID settings.
Research in developmental disabilities, 2014 · doi:10.1016/j.ridd.2014.06.003