Organizational Neuroscience

  • 1.  Organizational stress and organizational neuroscience

    Posted 08-13-2021 04:42
    Dear all!

    I wonder if anyone can refer me to published empirical articles about organizational stress and organizational neuroscience?

    I have searched for such studies in the databases and on google scholar, but I mostly find more general studies about stress and neuroscience. I am currently working on a book about organizational stress where my co-authors and I would like to add a section about organizational stress and organizational neuroscience. Therefore it is important to us to double check if there exists any empirical studies that we have not detected.

    Thank you for your help in advance!

    Best regards,

    Christina

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    Christina Nerstad
    Professor
    BI Norwegian Business School
    Oslo
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  • 2.  RE: Organizational stress and organizational neuroscience

    Posted 08-15-2021 05:00

    Hi Christina,

    not sure how you actually search for such papers (the two terms are too broad), but if you use keywords that includes "hormones" / hormonal measurements and occupational stress will probably give you many papers. I would further focus on Cortisol, Melatonin, and Glucocorticoid. I would also add Vitamin D.

    Skin conductance has been very often used as a marker for stress, so you might also want to use this term

    Expanding you might want to add sleep and occupational stress. Sleep can be measured by questionnaires like PSQI; but nowadays one can also use wearables. i would classify sleep studies under neuroscience.

    Some occupations might have received more attention, especially nurses, doctors and shift workers in relation to stress.

    In my Lab we also consider the physical attributes of the environment (air, light etc) as factors largely determined by the organization but directly affecting biology. In this paper we show that perception of air, temperature, noise and light is directly associated with psychological distress. sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S0360132320301578

    Hope this helps!

    Sincerely

    George

    --

    George Christopoulos, Ph.D. University of Cambridge

    Associate Professor, Nanyang Technological University, Singapore

    Research Director, Culture Science Innovations

    Decision, Environmental, and Organizational Neuroscience LAB (deonlab)

    https://deonlabblog.com/  

     



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    George Christopoulos
    Associate Professor
    Nanyang Technological University
    Singapore
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  • 3.  RE: Organizational stress and organizational neuroscience

    Posted 08-17-2021 03:47

    Hi George!

     

    Thank you so much for your kind and helpful response and suggestions. It is highly appreciated.

     

    You have a very good point and I realize that I was not specific enough in the posting of my question. I apologize for that.

    Given the page limit of the publisher we had to narrow the chapter down to concern organizational stress and the brain. Thus, we focus on the brain areas which are involved in the stress process, and we draw upon organizational stress theory such as Cognitive Activation Theory of Stress, the transactional theory of stress etc. What we have been searching for are organizational stress studies which contribute to better understand the central role the brain plays in explaining the organizational stress process and potential outcomes of it.

     

    Thank you for sharing your interesting article. Your comments and suggestions are very helpful.

     

    Sincerely,

     

    Christina

     

     

     






  • 4.  RE: Organizational stress and organizational neuroscience

    Posted 08-17-2021 04:07
    Great, sounds very interesting! Especially for stress, I would consider the whole brain-body interaction (instead of brain areas only) as stress includes many peripheral signals (i.e. HPA axis etc.) Looking forward to the chapter please share here when is published!

    George

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    George Christopoulos
    Associate Professor
    Nanyang Technological University
    SINGAPORE
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  • 5.  RE: Organizational stress and organizational neuroscience

    Posted 08-17-2021 06:11

    Thank you so much George! Your input is again very helpful.

    We have to some extent considered the whole brain-body interaction because we also have included another chapter about work related strain where we present the allostatic load model and go more into the role of hormones etc. However, in the chapter about organizational stress and the brain we focus more specifically on the brain areas. Still, we will take your advice into consideration and emphasize the importance of the brain-body interaction more explicitly.

     

    I would like to acknowledge your kind help in the book. I hope that is alright with you. I will also gladly share when published.

     

    Best regards,

     

    Christina

     

     

    Christina G. L. Nerstad, Ph.D.

    Professor of Organizational Psychology

    Department of Leadership and Organizational Behaviour
     

     

     

     






  • 6.  RE: Organizational stress and organizational neuroscience

    Posted 08-16-2021 09:25
      |   view attached
    Hi Christina,

    How broadly are you defining neuroscience for the purposes of writing your book? There are several studies looking at the HPA axis in occupational stress (an alternative search term, I think) - see attached for some examples. I'm not familiar with studies looking at neurological end-points. Mainly hormonal and biochemical endpoints. A number of studies have looked at general changes in biochemistry and drawn conclusions related to changes in neurochemistry e.g. Sood et al., Rotter et al. and Chen et al. (included in the attached).

    I look forward to reading your book when it comes out.

    Best regards,

    Gareth

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    Gareth Shackleton
    ALNWICK
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    Attachment(s)



  • 7.  RE: Organizational stress and organizational neuroscience

    Posted 08-17-2021 06:29

    Hi Gareth!

     

    Thank you so much for your kind and helpful response. Also, thanks for the attachment with very relevant references. I will definitely look into those studies.

    Based on your question and other comments I have received I realize that I was not specific enough in the posting of my initial question. I apologize for that.

     

    Given the page limit of the publisher we had to narrow the chapter down to concern organizational stress and the brain. Thus, we focus on the brain areas which are involved in the stress process, and we draw upon organizational stress theories such as Cognitive Activation Theory of Stress, the transactional theory of stress etc. What we have been searching for are organizational stress studies which contribute to better understand the central role the brain plays in explaining the organizational stress process and potential outcomes of it. That is, for example studies of organizational stress which apply methods such as EEG and fMRI.

     

    Thank you for drawing our attention to the studies looking at the HPA axis in occupational stress. It is also a great idea to apply "HPA axis" as an alternative search term.

    I hope that it is alright with you that we acknowledge your kind help in the book.

     

    Best regards,

     

    Christina

     

     

     

    Christina G. L. Nerstad, Ph.D.

    Professor of Organizational Psychology

    Department of Leadership and Organizational Behaviour

     

     

     






  • 8.  RE: Organizational stress and organizational neuroscience

    Posted 08-17-2021 09:44
    Hi Christina,

    I'm not familiar with fMRI/EEG studies into organizational stress per se. However, there are some studies into flow and flow-proneness as a eustress state. For example Ulrich et al., Barros et al., Kavous et al.

    Part of the problem with looking at organizational stress using MRI or EEG is how the measurement platforms affect stressor perception and the stress response (you can't put a policeman in an MRI while he deals with a difficult arrest). So experimental stressors are used, such as the TSST e.g. Wand et al. who used PET scanning to look at dopaminergic signalling. It is then questionable whether this is organizational stress.

    Hope that helps. I have no objection to being acknowledged, although it hardly seems warranted.

    Best regards,

    Gareth

    1. Ulrich, M., Keller, J., Hoenig, K., Waller, C., & Grön, G. 2014. Neural correlates of experimentally induced flow experiences. NeuroImage, 86: 194–202.
    2. Ulrich, M., Keller, J., & Grön, G. 2015. Neural signatures of experimentally induced flow experiences identified in a typical fMRI block design with BOLD imaging. Social Cognitive and Affective Neuroscience, 11(3): 496–507.
    3. Barros, M. F. de S., Araújo-Moreira, F. M., Trevelin, L. C., & Radel, R. 2018. Flow experience and the mobilization of attentional resources. Cognitive, Affective, & Behavioral Neuroscience, 18(4): 810–823.
    4. Kavous, S. N., Park, K., Silpasuwanchai, C., Wang, Z., & Ren, X. 2019. The relationship between flow proneness in everyday life and variations in the volume of gray matter in the dopaminergic system: A cross-sectional study. Personality and Individual Differences, 141: 25–30.
    5. Wand, G. S., Oswald, L. M., McCaul, M. E., Wong, D. F., Johnson, E., et al. 2007. Association of Amphetamine-Induced Striatal Dopamine Release and Cortisol Responses to Psychological Stress. Neuropsychopharmacology, 32(11): 2310–2320.

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    Gareth Shackleton
    ALNWICK
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  • 9.  RE: Organizational stress and organizational neuroscience

    Posted 08-18-2021 11:25

    Hello again Gareth!

     

    Thanks for your additional comments and suggestions. I will definitely look into the studies you refer to. This is so helpful. Thank you.

     

    Best regards,

     

    Christina