SOC227H5 Lecture 9: SOC227ExamGuideShortAnswersAndEssay
Short Answer Q’s:
Alienation and Stress
● Alienation:
○ An imbalance in social relationships due to a low level of integration or shared beliefs and
a high level of isolation between individuals or between an individual and a group of
people in a community or work environment
○ Characteristic of capitalism
● Alienation = A systematic result of capitalism
● A macro-structural objective condition existing externally to workers regardless of whether they
are aware of it
● Marx observed that when working under capitalism, it is inevitable for workers to be steered away
from the control they have over their lives because they have no control over their work
● Worker is completely powerless over the conditions of their work
● Marx saw work as an essential social process to a person’s individuality and a sense of belonging
in the world
○ It provides the means through which humans can realize the fullness of their humanity
● Powerlessness, social isolation, self-estrangement, meaninglessness, normlessness
● Little or no control over the conditions of their work, it exists even if workers do not consciously
recognize it
● In capitalist societies, it is common for alienation, and workers experience different kinds of
alienation
○ Alienation from their product
○ Alienation from their own productive activity
○ Alienation from their own nature or species beings
○ Alienation from other workers
● Alienation from their product:
○ Bc of the division of labour, and increase use of advanced machinery
○ Not able to have creative input on the design and how products are made
○ Results in the workers feeling insignificant and experience a loss of autonomy
● Alienation from their own productive activity:
○ Work becomes repetitive and uninteresting
○ Therefore worker is unsatisfied
● Alienation from their own nature or species beings:
○ Species beings referring to the free will of humans to create
■ Abstract thought, capacity to plan, reflect, create art, speak language
○ Capitalism possesses opposite qualities - mentally incapacitating, boring, monotonous
● Alienation from other workers:
○ Compete for wages
○ Compete for benefits
● Alienation accounts for job dissatisfaction,
Work Stress:
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● Stressors: Objective situations or events that have the potential to produce a negative subjective
or physical response
■ Inadequate resources to complete a task
■ Job insecurity
■ Low extrinsic job rewards
■ Continual exposure to health and safety hazards
■ Physically uncomfortable work settings
■ Shift work, and long hours
■ Constantly face-paced work
■ Performance-based pay systems
■ Constant organizational restructuring
■ Unreasonable supervisors
■ Workplace harassment, discrimination, or bullying
■ Trying to balance work and family
■ Women - pressure of trying to meet family responsibilities while trying to devote
self to a job or career
● Research has shown that physical reactions to stress can include fatigue, insomnia, muscular
aches and pains, ulcers, high blood pressure, heart disease
○ Mental reactions include, depression, anxiety, irritation, low self-esteem
● Workplace stress is also costly for employers and the economy, since it is associated with
reduced productivity, absenteeism, and disability claims
● What is the process by which stressors translate into work-related stress?
○ 4 main models:
■ Person-Environment Fit Model
■ Demand-Control Model
■ Effort-Reward Imbalance Model
■ Transactional Model --- Heavy psychological emphasis
● Person-Environment Fit Model:
○ Behaviour influenced by both the person and the situation
○ It is an intersectional process
○ Stress results from a gap bw the individual's needs, abilities, and preferences, and what
the job allows
● Demand-Control Model:
○ Stress results from degree of incongruence between:
■ The jobs psychological demands
■ The amount of control the worker has over the demands
● Effort-Reward Imbalance Model:
○ Effort at work is a psychological contract based on a norm of social reciprocity
○ Rewards for effort come in form of money, esteem, and career opportunities
○ Stress results from a perceived imbalance bw the effort and the expected reward
● Transactional Model:
○ Central is the individual’s cognitive assessment of:
■ The perceived demands made on the worker
■ Their perceived ability and resources to deal with those demands
○ Stress happens when:
■ The perceived demands outweighs the perceived ability and resources to deal
with those demands
Unionism:
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● Principle for having a union in the workplace = to equalize the inherent power imbalance and
competing interests between the employer and employees
○ Power imbalances intentionally or unintentionally encourage arbitrary behaviour towards
the power disadvantaged party
○ Unions minimize potential for arbitrary behaviour through a collective agreement
○ The threat of strike action or a lockout(conflict) is an important tool that can even this
power imbalance, by threatening the employer’s economic viability
■ But strikes are merely an organized form of conflict. Unorganized conflict might
occur as well
● Unions and Workplace Control:
○ The competing interests that are a constantly shifting frontier of control:
○ Mangers:
■ Maximize profit goals for owners and shareholders
■ Gain cooperation and commitment from employees to accomplish this
○ Union:
■ Higher wages
■ Better working conditions
■ Less work for more pay
■ More job autonomy and job security
●
● Worker Resistance and Employer Control:
○ Business Unionism:
■ Emphasizes on increasing economic rewards more than increasing control over
the labour process
● Higher pay for the work members
● More benefits and job security
● Less resistance to employer control of labour process, in exchange for
greater material benefits
○ Job-Control Unionism:
■ More decision-making authority for workers in their jobs
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Document Summary
An imbalance in social relationships due to a low level of integration or shared beliefs and a high level of isolation between individuals or between an individual and a group of people in a community or work environment. Alienation = a systematic result of capitalism. A macro-structural objective condition existing externally to workers regardless of whether they are aware of it. Marx observed that when working under capitalism, it is inevitable for workers to be steered away from the control they have over their lives because they have no control over their work. Worker is completely powerless over the conditions of their work. Marx saw work as an essential social process to a person"s individuality and a sense of belonging in the world. It provides the means through which humans can realize the fullness of their humanity. Little or no control over the conditions of their work, it exists even if workers do not consciously recognize it.
