Conspicuous in Its Absence: The Lack of Positive Conditions as a Source of Stress

Abstract

Stress research has concentrated on the presence of negative conditions as a source of stress and largely has ignored stress reactions that result from a lack of positive conditions. In an attempt to demonstrate the seriousness of this omission of stress theory, for samples of students (N = 84) and professionals (N = 205) the presence of negative and absence of positive life and work features were each related to the experiences of life and work tedium and satisfaction/dissatisfaction. Two hypotheses were proposed: that the presence of negative and lack of positive life and work features are (1) both significantly related to tedium and satisfaction/dissatisfaction and (2) are independent of each other. The hypotheses were confirmed for both samples except in the case of work satisfaction/dissatisfaction, which was related only to the lack of positive features. These results highlight the need in stress research to consider lack of positive conditions as a source of stress.