Personality and Stress in the Modern Office Environment

To investigate the differences in experienced stress and how this was moderated by the personality factors of work locus of control (WLOC) and extraversion between open plan-offices and activity based-offices (ABW), a questionnaire was sent out to the employees of nine different offices. 171 participants answered the questionnaire which consisted of five scales that measured perceived stress, distraction, privacy, WLOC, and extraversion. Three hypotheses were stated; there was going to be a difference in how perceived stress and how the stressors (distraction and privacy) were rated in the two office-types, there were going to be main-effects of the personality factors on the perceived stress and stressors, and lastly there were going to be interaction effects between the different personality factors, office-type, and stress and stressors. No support for these hypotheses was found. The only significant result was the effect of WLOC on stress and stressors; these results were not expected, after a discussion on the methodology used in this study, the conclusion is that the questions it has raised serve as a firm base for relevant and fruitful future research