It’s All In Your Personality: Combatting Technostress In The Workplace

Contemporary information and communication technologies like e-mail and instant messenger are pervasive in the workplace. Our “always-on” lifestyle has had a dramatic impact on business productivity and technology-induced stress, termed technostress. We know very little about how personality influences technostress or how perceptions of stress and objective strain differ from each other. In this study, we examine three personality characteristics: locus of control, self-efficacy, and negative and positive affect to see how they correlate with perceived stress, objective strain, and perceived performance. We found that stress and strain are not correlated and that they inversely correlate with performance. Secondly, we found that an internal locus of control positively influences objective strain. Finally, we found that negative affects are more likely to feel stress and have less confidence in their technology skills. The results provide insight into how personality differently affects stress and strain.