Schaubroeck and his co-authors, James Jones of the University of Nebraska in Omaha and Jia Lin Xie of the University of Toronto's Scarborough campus, are all professors of management. Xie is currently a visiting professor at City University of Hong Kong. The journal is published by the American Psychological Association. The researchers asked each a series of questions designed to reveal how workers felt about their jobs - whether they felt confident they could do their jobs effectively, how they felt about being responsible for other people, how they attributed responsibility when things went wrong. They also took saliva swabs from the subjects, looking for levels of immune antibodies, and checked for respiratory symptoms.
Stress is known to suppress one's ability to fight off illness.
Employees who felt they had high levels of control in their job but didn't trust their abilities or who blamed themselves for workplace problems were more likely to have lower antibody levels and experience more colds and flus, they found. The researchers decided to test the widely held belief that giving workers a lot of control mitigates workplace stress. The Job Demands Decisions Latitude Model has be popular since the late 1970s, Schaubroeck said. While the idea is popular, it hasn't always been supported by studies. Still, the idea appeals intuitively, he said.