Goal conflict’s effects on stress : multiple goals of entrepreneurs

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Master Thesis: Goal conflict’s effects on stress

Multiple goals of entrepreneurs

MSc. In Business Administration – Leadership & Management ABS, UvA

Johannes (Jos) Peter Kampkuiper, 11120797 Date of submission: 22-08-2016, final version First Supervisor: Dr. W. van Eerde

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Statement of originality

This document is written by Jos Kampkuiper who declares to take full

responsibility for the contents of this document.

I declare that the text and the work presented in this document is original

and that no sources other than those mentioned in the text and its references

have been used in creating it.

The Faculty of Economics and Business is responsible solely for the

supervision of completion of the work, not for the contents.

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1. Abstract

Current literature about entrepreneurship is neglecting the personal lives of entrepreneurs. However, the personal lives of entrepreneurs are relevant for their business success. Combining theories from entrepreneurship literature with theory on multiple goals, the effects of conflict between goals on different domains are studied in relation to perceived stress. The domains studied are work, relations, health, leisure and self-development. Furthermore, possible remedies against the stress were studied. The first is facilitation, the mutual support of different goals. The second is the portion of time spent on priorities. The third is the attainment of goals compared to effort that is put in. The fourth is putting the priorities on goals in line with the general values a person has. In order to test this conceptual model, a diary study with Dutch entrepreneurs was conducted (N=21). The study uses methods developed for analyzing multiple goals: Personal Project Appraisal and the Personal Project Matrix. The results indicate that conflict between different domains is a predictor of stress, that facilitation helps to utilize time more efficient and that putting priorities in line with general values decreases stress. Further research is needed to explore the full implications of goals in different domains and to understand the effects these goals have on the lives and the businesses of entrepreneurs.

Keywords: entrepreneur, conflict, stress, facilitation, prioritizing, domains, multiple goals, personal projects.

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2. Introduction

Entrepreneurs and their start-ups are of high economic value to our society. They represent a substantial part of the Dutch economy (Gorgievski, Ascalon, & Stephan, 2011). In addition, their innovations, competition and employment creation benefit the regions they are operating in (Sternberg & Wennekers, 2005; Van Praag & Versloot, 2007). Self employment differs in many ways from working for an employer. Patzelt and Sheperd (2011) argue that self-employment involves more risk-taking and income and job-uncertainty than being employed. Furthermore it is more autonomous than working for an employer. These differences make that self-employment induces different emotions and requires different characteristics to (McGrath, MacMillan, & Scheinberg, 1992). Entrepreneurs tend to be highly achievement oriented, are passionate about their goals and tend to be more optimistic (Cardon, Wincent, Singh, & Drnovsek, 2009; Collins, Hanges, & Locke, 2004). Entrepeneurs are more individualistic in general, have more stressfull occupations, score high on loneliness and work more hours on average too (Cardon & Patel, 2015; Sexton & Bowman, 1986).

Entrepreneurship research is criticized for neglecting the personal lives of entrepreneurs. In particular, because many studies suggest that the personal lives of entrepreneurs are of great interest to their financial businesses success (Jennings & McDougald, 2007). To illustrate, personal values are sometimes more important to an entrepreneur than the financial success of the company (Gorgievski et al., 2011; Shepherd, Marchisio, Morrish, Deacon, & Miles, 2010) and firms are known to shut down for other reasons then financial reasons only (Bates, 2005). Moreover, entrepreneur’s personal income is directly influencing their business success, money that they spend on their personal life, is money that they can’t invest in their business (Gorgievski, Bakker, Schaufeli, Veen, & Giesen, 2010). The other way around, entrepreneurs also take their business home, work related issues spill over to other domains. As Cardon and Patel (2015) explain, entrepreneurs strongly identify with their work and find it hard to disengage from work, the moment they leave. They notice, that sometimes entrepreneurs are even so occupied with their business goals, that they can’t find time to diet or exercise. Often, they have unhealthy ways of coping with their stress caused by their business, such as smoking, drinking and eating unhealthy food. Moreover, they get tired home from work, left with no energy to pursue personal interest and they find it hard to relax when they get home. Not only that, investments are often borrowed from family members, making business

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problems possibly cross-over to the family domain (Gorgievski et al., 2010). Shepherd et al. (2010) argue that work and family are always in tension with each other, and that this needs balancing, or the conflict caused likely leads to lowered work performance, lowered life satisfaction and possibly, burnout. They also claim that entrepreneurs need to put more effort in balancing their personal, relational and work matters. The conflict between domains costs emotional energy and generates stress (Hmieleski & Baron, 2009; Sexton & Bowman, 1986). It is needed to find ways to handle some symptoms of entrepreneurship, such as domain conflict, on stress and health (Cardon & Patel, 2015). Prioritizing and facilitation are possibly ways to cope with the conflict.

Prioritizing means ranking a list of needs or wants, based on priority, whereby priority means it needs to happen first. Prioritizing helps to deal with time more effectively, when people truly act on their priorities (Claessens, Van Eerde, Rutte, & Roe, 2007). Facilitation deals with time and energy constraints by action that serves multiple goals at once (Riediger & Freund, 2004). In this study I will test if entrepreneurs are indeed more stressed if they feel more conflict between goals in different domains (work, health, relationships etc.). Furthermore, I will look what the effects are of acting on priorities and facilitation in diminishing this possible relationship between conflict and stress. I will study these phenomena by means of a diary study. This type of study makes it possible to reflect on daily events and capture more detail than traditional studies, making diary studies especially useful for goals and health studies (Harris, Daniels, & Briner, 2003).

3. Problem definition and research question

Research about entrepreneurship neglects the personal lives of entrepreneurs, although the personal lives and values are important to their business success. One of the characteristics of an entrepreneurial life is the high degree of conflict between different life area’s (domains) (Cardon & Patel, 2015). This is imminently stressful. Another issue neglected by the literature on goalsetting, is that most studies study only one goal, although people in natural environments have multiple goals, that cannot be strived for all at the same time and together make up a complex system (Kernan & Lord, 1990; Laguna, Alessandri, & Caprara, 2016). It is theoretically interesting how goals work together and how people choose to allocate their

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resources to different goals. Practically, entrepreneurs need ways to handle the conflicting goals, especially when it increases the stress in their already stressful life.

One way to measure conflict is through personal project analysis, analyzing the goal conflict in goal systems of entrepreneurs. It will be of practical and theoretical relevance to know how this conflict relates to stress and what possible solutions there are to diminish them. Literature on conflict suggests that one possible way to deal with the conflict is prioritizing. However, prioritizing can be less effective when it merely a cognitive decision, but not results behavior (Bandura & Locke, 2003; Fishbach & Dhar, 2005). I wonder if people feel less stressed when they act according to their priorities. Another possible way to deal with the conflict is facilitation. I wonder of saving resources like time and energy by facilitation decreases the stress that comes with the conflict.

Given this problem definition, the research question of this study is:

Does conflict between goals of different domains have a negative effect on stress and can facilitation or acting according to priorities, decrease this stress?

3.1 Practical relevance

Entrepreneurs are a group at risk of experiencing low well-being for three reasons. Firstly, being an entrepreneur, they have more chances to get cut off from their social support than non-entrepreneurs (Sexton & Bowman, 1986). Second, their goals and project dimensions qualify for negative effects to well-being (Little & Chambers, 2004). Third, they are likely to have conflict between different life areas (Chay, 1993; Gorgievski et al., 2010; McGrath et al., 1992). Lower well-being of owners influences the performance of their companies. A longitudinal study by Gorgievski et al. (2011) shows that low well-being of entrepreneurs negatively influences the financial performance of small-business owners. Additionally, low well-being of entrepreneurs is an underlying reason for why businesses eventually quit (Gorgievski et al., 2010). I am interested in to what extent entrepreneurs well-being gets affected by their demanding life. Everything taken into account, entrepreneurs seem to handle the demands of entrepreneurial life better than one normally would expect. This is unlikely to be fully explained by their characteristics (Carland, Carland, & Stewart, 2015). Another plausible explanation could be that entrepreneurs find better ways to cope. If so, their coping mechanisms might work for more people. Therefore, in this study I will look what

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the effects of conflict are on the perceived stress of entrepreneurs. Furthermore, I will check what the effects are on perceived stress of two coping mechanisms, preventive coping through facilitation and coping through acting on priorities.

3.2 Theoretical relevance

Studies into entrepreneurs have increased our knowledge about entrepreneurship dramatically over the last years, but what we do not know yet is how entrepreneurs allocate their time and what actions and behaviors they carry out through the day (Mueller, Volery, & Von Siemens, 2012). This study will give some more insight in the intentions and behaviors of entrepreneurs in their personal lives.

Furthermore, this study will hopefully add to the research field of work-family conflict, that could further be studied by the project matrix, and is partially studied by the personal project matrix in this study (Laguna et al., in press; Wiese & Salmela-Aro, 2008).

Next, researchers note the use prioritizing can have in addressing conflict (Emmons, King, & Sheldon, 1993; Kernan & Lord, 1990).Prioritizing helps to diminish the effects of a conflicting time schedule (Claessens et al., 2007). Hence, prioritizing might help diminish the effects of a conflicting life, an area that needs more study (Claessens et al., 2007). Not only the cognitive intentions of prioritizing are important, behaving accordingly might be as well (Gollwitzer, 1993). To my knowledge does no author in the research field of multiple goals make the distinction between cognitive and behavioral priorities. This study will look at the effects of acting on priorities in diminishing the effects of stress.

An innovative part of this study is that it will look at between domain conflict scores. Theoretically it is interesting if conflict between domains is harmful to well-being, as conflict within domains is.

4. Theoretical framework

4.1 outline

The theoretical framework has five parts. First I will explain why the research is relevant to theory and practice. Afterwards, I will explain, from broad to specific, several subjects that build towards the execution his study. First there will be explained how entrepreneurship is defined and what makes it different from other occupations, and how entrepreneurs

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themselves differ. Then I will explain how this relates to conflict, stress and well-being issues. Subsequently, some ways of dealing with stress and conflict is discussed. Next, I discuss some of the methods that others use to study these concepts.

4.2 Definitions of entrepreneur

Before I explain more about the differences between entrepreneurs and others, it is important to define what I mean with the term entrepreneur in this study. In the entrepreneurship literature there is no consistent definition of what an entrepreneur is, different articles use different definitions. I found several conditions in articles to classify someone as entrepreneur or not (Collins et al., 2004; Laguna et al., 2016; McGrath et al., 1992; Sternberg & Wennekers, 2005). The first is ownership; an entrepreneur is generally owner of (a part of) venture (Laguna et al., 2016). The second is profit; an entrepreneur does normally not have a wage, but is dependent on the profit of the venture that he or she can pay out, where employees have a right for their pay check. The third is initiative; entrepreneurs usually start the business themselves, they come up with a business idea and pursue it (Sternberg & Wennekers, 2005). The fourth is ambition; some authors argue that there is a difference between small business owners and entrepreneurs. According to them, entrepreneurs have an ambition for high growth of their company, frequently in order to sell it and start something new. Small business owners just want to make a living out of it (Collins et al., 2004). The fifth is autonomy; an entrepreneur has a certain freedom in making decisions on what direction the business should go (McGrath et al., 1992).

For the definition of entrepreneur in this study, not all conditions are agreed upon or affect conflict between domains as much as the others. For instance, during the last decade, small business owners are subjected to a normative criteria of growth too (Gorgievski et al., 2010). Furthermore, sometimes entrepreneurs buy a business, this does not necessarily exclude them from being an entrepreneur (Sternberg & Wennekers, 2005). For this study the agreed upon conditions are: ownership, profit dependency and autonomy. Henceforth this study counts everybody as entrepreneur that has to make a living of their own business and can make business direction decisions.

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4.3 Differences

The nature of the entrepeneurial jobs is different than the jobs of non entrepreneurs. Furthermore studies show that on average entrepreneurs differ in their characteristics from non entrepreneurs. The next section discussion some of the important differences and the section thereafter discusses how this relates to stress conflict and well-being.

4.3.2 Ownership is different

Self-employment jobs differ in many ways from working for an employer. Patzelt & Sheperd (2011) identified several differences: First, self-employed people are their own boss, so in general, they can schedule their work and adapt their work manners, in more ways then employed people can. On the other hand, being an owner gives more responsibilty, sometimes they have to take investors into account and they need to dicipline themselves (Patzelt & Shepherd, 2011). Second, the task environment is more uncertain, changing and complex for self-employed people than for employed people. Therefore, self-employment involves more risk-taking and income and job uncertainty than working for a boss. On the other hand, self-employment is more autonomous. Entrepreneurs, who are self-employed, can adapt their work and schedule more according to their preferences. To illustrate, when entrepreneurs get stressed working on risky projects, they can try to accept only more safe projects. Similarly, when they get lonely at work, they can choose to join peer-groups (Sexton & Bowman, 1986). This is not as easy for employed people, they have to comply with the rules of their boss (Patzelt & Shepherd, 2011). This is another reason that the lives of self-employed people appear different, compared to people that are employed, and that their lives induce different emotions.

4.3.3 Entrepreneurial characteristics

Besides the different job descriptions of entrepreneurs, owning a business requires different characteristics than working for an employer as well (McGrath et al., 1992). One of the reasons many entrepreneurs started their own business is because they have a hard time accepting authority and prefer to be their own boss (McGrath et al., 1992). Moreover, entrepreneurs score in general high on individualism. They need less social support then non-entrepreneurs and they tend to find it difficult to communicate with friends, family, associates (Sexton & Bowman, 1986). Additionally, entrepreneurs score high on masculinity, they value things and

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money and “live to work” (McGrath et al., 1992). Their individualism and work ethics make entrepreneurs score higher on loneliness than non-entrepreneurs and loneliness makes entrepreneurs score higher on stress (Sexton & Bowman, 1986). Another characteristic of entrepreneurs is need for achievement. Entrepreneurs are very passionate about their work (Cardon et al., 2009), and they are driven to succeed in their goals (McGrath et al., 1992). Entrepreneurs also tend to be more optimistic (Hmieleski & Baron, 2009). Additionally, they have an internal locus of control (Chay, 1993; McGrath et al., 1992). Therefore, entrepreneurs believe that they can change the external environment by putting in effort (McGrath et al., 1992). They need this optimism and passion to succeed with their business against the odds (Cardon et al. 2009). However, their positivism has a negative side. By seeing everything overly optimistic, they have more goal conflict than non-entrepreneurs (Hmieleski & Baron, 2009). Furthermore, they value time more as a limited resource (Hmieleski & Baron, 2009; McGrath et al., 1992). Most of the above mentioned characteristics entrepreneurs possess more than non-entrepreneurs come in handy when starting (and having) a business (McGrath et al., 1992; Rahim, 1996), but impair entrepreneurs well-being at the same time (Sexton & Bowman, 1986).

4.4 Domain conflict and stress

In this section I will explain why conflict of other domains with work are likelier for entrepreneurs, and result in stress.

4.4.1 The concept of stress

Referring to the circumstances and characteristics of entrepreneurs, their well-being is at stake. Before I discuss this more in depth, it is important to explain the relations that different well-being concepts have to each other. The different well-being concepts are interrelated and are highly correlated (Schneiderman, Ironson, & Siegel, 2005). Often they have the same directions in the relation to other concepts. Now and then their effects and how they are affected are different (Diener, Emmons, Larsen, & Griffin, 1985). Stress is the easiest affected of the well-being concepts. Stressful life events occur when the demands of the situation threatens to exceed the resources a person has (Dijkhuizen, van Veldhoven, & Schalk, 2016; Lazarus & Folkman, 1984). The general stress health models postulate that perceived stress leads to strains such as dissatisfaction, boredom, anxiety, depression, and physical illness

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(Cardon & Patel, 2015; Tetrick & LaRocco, 1987). In addition, the stress health model suggests that there are all sorts of moderators in the relationship between stress and health, both internally in a person and externally in the environment (Tetrick & LaRocco, 1987). In general, chances are higher that a person is stressed, when the person experiences burnout (Shepherd et al., 2010), depression(Pollack, Vanepps, & Hayes, 2012), anxiety (Cardon & Patel, 2015) and lowered satisfaction (Tetrick & LaRocco, 1987). When I found that these well-being concept were influenced by conflict or another variable of interest to this study, I assumed the chances more likely that the stress would be affected by these variables as well.

4.4.2 Balance overall

Entrepreneurs in the Netherlands reported that balance between work and personal life is even more important to them than growth and innovation (Gorgievski et al., 2011). If entrepreneurs are as passionate and optimistic as previous studies show, and it is really that hard to succeed with business, they probably run into a lot of conflict between their different life areas. Although, they are likely to have more energy than other people to spend (Sexton & Bowman, 1986), they have less time to spend outside work (Chay, 1993). Furthermore, they work very hard and because entrepreneurs want to combine business with personal relationships in their lives, they probably need the skills to switch their attention between their business and personal lives. Skinner (1980) notices how prioritizing exclusively on work was associated with lowered marital satisfaction, especially when family obligations were excluded due to this work overload (Skinner, 1980). Developing these skills takes hard cognitive work and gives even more pressure (Little & Chambers, 2004)

4.4.3 Domains

Entrepreneurs report that they find balance between work and their personal life important. The personal lifes they have, consist of different important areas. Some studies investigated what the most important domains are. Little and Chambers (2004) found that the major goals and plans people had were on the domains: work, health, interpersonal, intrapersonal, leisure and maintenance. Additionally, Salmela-Aro and Nurmi (1997) found that the most important goal categories were: achievement-oriented, family- and friends- oriented, self-oriented and hobby-oriented. Concluded, there is agreement on the most listed domains people have goals and plans in. Interpersonal, intrapersonal, work, leisure and health goals are recognized in

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several studies. Additionally, they are important to feelings of subjective well-being in multiple studies (Cantor, Norem, Niedenthal, Langston, & Brower, 1987; Klinger & Cox, 2004; Little & Chambers, 2004; Salmela-Aro & Nurmi, 1997). Although this may be true, the projects a person is occupied with have also to do with the age and life transition a person is in at the time (Salmela-Aro and Nurmi, 2007). Students top categories for example, were academic and interpersonal categories. In work settings the most mentioned project categories are work- and interpersonal- categories (Little & Chambers, 2004). A balance of having projects in all domains is positively related to well-being (Little & Chambers, 2004). In other words, some projects can be more important or time-consuming than others, but lacking an entire domain is bad to well-being. Hence, it is important for entrepreneurs well-being that their business is not getting too resource-consuming, leading to the complete neglect of other domains.

4.4.4 Domain conflict

Balance for entrepreneurs is hard to keep because of the high occupation of their jobs. Indeed, studies find that it is hard for entrepreneurs to engage well in all the domains and that that could negatively affect the well-being of entrepreneurs. Klinger and Cox (2004) point out how the relational domain is especially important to well-being. The absence of interpersonal contact makes people feel lonely (Akande, 1994). Several studies found that entrepreneurs score high on loneliness (Patzelt & Shepherd, 2011). Gumpert and Boyd (1984) identified reasons for loneliness of entrepreneurs by four factors: 1) the lack of relationship with trusted colleagues, 2) the desire to be perceived as strong, 3) conflict, with family and friend on values, 4) achievement orientation of entrepreneurs. The reasons are interlinked. Achievement orientation causes entrepreneurs to work harder than average (McGrath et al., 1992). Conflict with family and friends is explained by high occupation from entrepreneurs with their business (Sexton & Bowman, 1986). Furthermore, by wanting to be perceived as strong in the eyes of competitors, customers and subordinates, they feel lonelier, compared to having alike colleagues to share their pursuits with (Gumpert & Boyd, 1984). Last, because entrepreneurs are individualistic oriented and do not need as much support as others, they easy forget that their close relationships conversely still do need their support (Sexton & Bowman, 1986). Thereby, the individuals who could bring company as resolution to loneliness are unwittingly pushed away (Sexton & Bowman, 1986). Studies confirm that entrepreneurs indeed receive less social support than, for example, managers (Rahim, 1996). All in all, entrepreneurs are on

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average a group at risk of neglecting their social contacts, receiving less social support and feeling lonely.

Entrepreneurs also report more health problems than managers (Buttner, 1992). Often only until problems arise that interfere with work demands, entrepreneurs take actions to improve their health, such as exercising (Buttner, 1992). They usually have unhealthier ways of coping such as substance use (food, alcohol, smoking etc.), than non-entrepreneurs (Cardon & Patel, 2015). Running a business is time and energy consuming and the commitment to their business drains also their time and energy at the expense of leisure pursuits (Buttner, 1992; Cardon & Patel, 2015). Leisure, promotes mental health and helps recovering from work and alleviate negative work-experiences (Jones, Burke, & Westman, 2013).

Entrepreneurs value learning (Lans, Wesselink, Biemans, & Mulder, 2004). Schooling for entrepreneurs is behind, and they have to learn entrepreneurship by doing, experimenting and mentorship (Sullivan, 2000). However, while learning is a priority to entrepreneurs and increases growth chances of their firms, they often lack the time for additional learning and development(Deakins & Freel, 1998; Lans et al., 2004).

As shown above, due to their demanding jobs, what entrepreneurs lack most is time and energy. In the end the strain of this high demand possibly leads to well-being problems (Jamal, 2007). In contrast, benefits of entrepreneurship are high autonomy, flexibility, and no possibility of being fired. It is a life that entrepreneurs have chosen themselves and might be the life of their preference (McGrath et al., 1992).

4.5 Coping

Recognizing problems of loneliness, stress and a busy schedule, an entrepreneur must find ways to handle these issues (Uy, Foo, & Song, 2013). This is called coping. Pearlin and Schooler (1978) refer to coping by “the behaviour that protects people from being psychologically harmed by problematic social experience” and define it as “any response to external life-strains that serves to prevent, avoid or control emotional distress”. Coping through preventing distress could possibly be accomplished by facilitation, where different area’s support each other to decrease the stress of a demanding schedule. Handling stress can be physically done for example, by muscle relaxation exercises, good nutrition, or getting enough sleep (Cardon & Patel, 2015). Prioritizing could be another way of handling stress. Although life events might be stressful, by choosing to handle the ones that need to happen first (prioritizing), some of

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the stress may be reduced. Additionally, stress can be controlled afterwards. For instance, psychologically, by valuing the problem less and creating distance between the self and the problem. To illustrate this, when there are financial problems, it could help to decrease stress by thinking: “I don’t need to be rich to be happy”. Along these more direct ways to handle the problem, one can also temporally choose to get away from the stressful situation, called avoidance coping (Uy et al., 2013). Coping mechanisms work differently for different stressful events. To deal with problems in the finance and job sphere, control coping is most important to reduce stress, but in interpersonal relationships, prevention coping is more important, for example by engaging more with important relations (Pearlin & Schooler, 1978). All in all, coping is important to handle negative life issues entrepreneurs might face, because the effects to well-being are much more detrimental without coping (Baumann, Kaschel, & Kuhl, 2005). In the following parts, two ways of coping of interest to this study are discussed; facilitation and prioritizing.

4.5.1 Facilitation

Facilitation means that one part is supportive to the existence of another part or increases the likelihood of successfulness of the other part (Riediger & Freund, 2004). In the context of goals, one goal is supportive of another goal. Facilitation deals with time and energy constraints, by action that serves multiple goals at once (Riediger & Freund, 2004). Therefore, facilitation is a prevention type of coping, that could possibly be a solution to the conflicting life of entrepreneurs. Take for example the situation that an entrepreneur wants to self-develop to increase his/her capacity, feels lonely without colleagues and wants to expand his/her business network. This person could join a learning network with a peer-group of entrepreneurs (Bergh, Thorgren, & Wincent, 2011). This serves three goals at once; 1) they have more social contact and feel less lonely. 2) It helps their business and their business network 3) it stimulates their self-development and learning. Entrepreneurs have enough opportunity for facilitation, to deal with the high workload associated with self-employment, because they have the autonomy to make their own schedule (Patzelt & Shepherd, 2011). Facilitation is shown in studies to help better functioning in multiple areas of life (Wiese & Salmela-Aro, 2008). Entrepreneurs may use facilitation opportunities to solve possible goal conflict, in order to increase well-being.

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4.5.2 Prioritizing

Prioritizing is a way of allocating resources (time, energy etc.) in order to deal effectively with resource constraints, feel more in control and have less stress (Adams & Jex, 1999; Claessens et al., 2007; Tripoli, 1998). Generally, one ranks a list of needs or wants, based on priority (Macan, Shahani, Dipboye, & Phillips, 1990). If a need or want gets priority, it is acknowledged that it needs to happen first (Claessens, Van Eerde, Rutte, & Roe, 2010; Tripoli, 1998). The resources are allocated in such a way that is most effective and action can accordingly be taken, so that goals are most likely to be achieved (Claessens, Van Eerde, Rutte, & Roe, 2004; Macan et al., 1990). Furthermore, it lowers the problem when a goal is not achieved. Take for example the life-areas work and family. Prioritizing family means that, when family and work are in conflict, family goes first. By applying prioritizing, the lower prioritized area, gives more strain, but the strain is less likely to result in stress, because the significance of the problem is lowered and results in less stress (Pearlin & Schooler, 1978; Skinner, 1980). Other studies confirm that prioritizing one domain over another can help to flourish more in life (Cantor et al., 1987; Little & Chambers, 2004). Furthermore, prioritizing has shown its effectiveness in task completion (Claessens et al., 2010). Looking at the conflicting life of entrepreneurs and the demanding schedule, prioritizing is a useful tool for entrepreneurs to cope with stress.

4.5.3 Intention to behaviour

Although prioritizing is useful, prioritizing alone might not be enough to release stress. Gollwitzer (1993) explains that the course of goal pursuit has four phases. The first phase is the pre-decisional phase. In this phase priorities are set on wishes and desires. Then follows the post-decisional phase, where actions are planned, to work towards the realization of wishes and desires. Action planning can involve concrete goal setting, prioritizing concrete goals and allocation of when to act. The third phase is the action phase, where the action itself towards the desire is carried out. The fourth phase is the evaluative phase, where the attainment is compared to what was desired and is determined if the action was worthwhile or further action is needed. Not all studies find that prioritizing helps in effectively pursuing goals during conflict (E.g. Locke, Smith, Erez, Chah, & Schaffer, 1994). The explanation could be that goal pursuit consists of four phases and taking cognitive action alone through prioritising might not be enough to reduce conflict. Action according to those priorities then, is needed as well. Additionally, in each phase there are different effects possible to

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psychological well-being. For instance, when setting goals, people get energized (Collins et al., 2004). When people fall short of their goals, they feel discontent (Collins et al., 2004). All in all, in this study it is expected that it is important that life areas not only get priority, but that these values are also carried out through fitting plans, goals, time allocation and action. In other words, prioritizing cognitively only is not enough, people have to act according to these priorities as well.

4.6 Measuring multiple goals

It is recognized in literature about goals, that it is important to look at multiple goals instead of one, and that the interactions of goals in natural settings influence the effects on a single goal. Since then, authors started pointing out several differences in the stream of research on multiple goals. In the next section I will discuss some of the most relevant concepts, that are related to this study and party used to execute this study. First I will discuss personal action constructs, that partly describe differences that goals can have in terms of time orientation and how consciousness they are on people’s minds. Next I will discuss personal project appraisal and personal project matrix. Both are ways to compare different goals on their characteristics. Afterwards is discussed why diary studies is of particular relevance to this study.

4.6.1 Personal action constructs

Around the ’80’s applied psychology researchers became more interested in multiple personal goals people engage in during life, as well as in how these goals could conflict with or facilitate each other. Goals are laddered in a hierarchical system, ranging from life goals to everyday pursuits and concerns (Little & Chambers, 2004). It is one of the reasons, there are different ways to measure personal goal pursuit, and the overarching term is personal actions constructs (PACs). All PACs have slightly different approaches, but are very closely related (Salmela-Aro & Nurmi, 1997). PACs are able to explain more variance in subjective well-being then personality traits or demographics (Emmons, 1986).

The PACs have in common that they motivate action, towards an internally desired state (Hyvönen, Feldt, Salmela-Aro, Kinnunen, & Mäkikangas, 2009; Little & Chambers, 2004). All PACs are slightly differently defined and contain a different, but often overlapping, aspect of personal action (Hyvönen et al., 2009). The differences are that they have a different time

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frame, that they can be internally or externally oriented, conscious or unconscious and they can have different places up the hierarchical ladder. With time frame is meant that some are lifelong goals, such as: “being the best possible version of myself”. Others are more short term oriented, for example “putting outside the garbage, in order to have a cleaner house”. PACs can be classified from external to internal orientation, whereby external oriented means that the PAC is more tangible and easier observed for the outside world. All forms of personal action are generally more unconscious than not, but at are at the same time accessible for the conscious mind (Brunstein, Schultheiss, & Maier, 1999). However, some goals are easier to access for the conscious mind than others. The goals that are the most internal orientated are usually also hardest to access for the conscious mind (Brunstein et al., 1999). Often the constructs are hierarchical laddered. For example, “putting outside the garbage” helps “keeping the house clean”, helping a person to “keep order” in order to “become a better version of him/herself”.

The following PACs are frequently studied:

- “Personal strivings” relate to deep-down motivations behind behaviours. this PAC conceives to the most unconscious motivations, that partly explain daily behaviours. The set of personal strivings that a person has, is characteristically for what the person is aiming to accomplish. For example, the deep- down striving behind a behaviour might be that a person wants to be accepted by others or control other people (Emmons 1986). Most of the time a personal striving is unconscious and hard to access for the conscious mind (Emmons, 1986).

- “Possible selves” refer to internal desires of what kind of person a person dreams or fantasizes to be. It is a long-term future state that a person is working a towards. This drives other motives and goals and behaviours as well. Take for example a young athlete, who has the possible self to become the best athlete in her sport. Her actions will we partly driven by this possible self (Markus & Nurius, 1986).

- “Current life tasks” (Cantor et al., 1987) “are defined as the set of tasks that a person see him/herself work on during a specified period in their life” (Cantor et al., 1987). Examples of a specific period for a set of life tasks would be the time as a student and typical life tasks in this period are “making friends” and “doing well academically”.

- “personal goals” are defined as internal representations of desired states (Little, 1983; Hyvönen, 2011). Personally I find this the vaguest defined concept. Many of papers using the

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term personal goals without any definition being provided. the term is used interchangeably for different concepts (Brunstein et al., 1999).

- “current concerns” are the processes accompanying goals. Current concerns are the total process of goal pursuit and can include dreams, feelings and thoughts on how to reach the goal. Everything that helps to reach a goal belongs within a current concern. A current concern starts when the goal is generated and stops when a goal is attained or removed. The goal and the full process towards it, is often more unconscious than not. Because people have multiple goals at the same time, only some can be activated and worked on consciously. In the meantime, unconsciously there are multiple current concerns (Klinger & Cox, 2004). A person can have many current concerns that the person is not aware of in that moment (Klinger & Cox, 2004).

- “Personal projects” are defined as "an interrelated sequence of actions intended to achieve some personal goal" (Little, 1983). They are planned actions that together work towards a desired end state. Personal projects are broad in their nature. They can range from small acts to life-long strivings (Little, 1983). Examples go from “stop biting my nails”, to “deliver a great salespitch” to become “CEO of my multinational company”. Participants can be asked to restrict their goals to a certain timeframe (McGregor & Little, 1998).

The PAC best suited for this study is that of personal projects. They are more concrete, conscious and externally oriented than other concepts, making them easier to grasp for participants of the study. Additionally, they include a broad range of time. It is possible to shape the time frame that conforms with the research goals (Little, 1983). With the above in mind, projects can be listed down, prioritised and sorted into domains (Little & Chambers, 2004). Personal projects include both internal processes and external barriers and restrictions.

4.6.2 Personal Project Appraisal

One of the methods to study project is the appraisal method. With the appraisal method people must appraise their listed down projects on different dimensions such as their importance, progress, and enjoyment from 0-10. The appraisal method makes it possible to compare projects and their effects (Little, 1983). There are over 26 dimensions of personal projects used in different studies but every study uses another set of dimensions, depending on the subject. it is possible to select to the study relevant dimensions, in order to decrease survey time (Little, 1983). For this study some dimensions might be more relevant than others

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as well. I will address seven of the most relevant dimensions to this study, either because they are relevant to conflict, or relevant to well-being.

4.6.3 Personal Project Matrix

The personal project Matrix is used to measure two constructs. the first is project conflict. Project conflict indicates to what extent a project conflict with other projects in general. The second one is project facilitation and it measures to what extent this project supports other projects. In other words, project matrices measure the conflicting/facilitating impact of projects on each other. Riediger and Freund (2004) criticized that most matrices treat goal facilitation and conflict as one unipolar scale. It is argued that both facilitation and conflict are different scales, with different effects. Put differently, goals can conflict with and facilitate each other at the same time. For example, “working out with colleagues” and “professional success” can support each other, because it might strengthen the bond with the colleagues. However, “working out” time might take away “work” time and makes the goals conflicting and facilitating at the same moment (Riediger & Freund, 2004). Project conflict is negatively related to well-being and found to be associated with lower life satisfaction, negative affect, depression, psychosomatic complaints, health-centre visits and illness in the past year (Michalak, Heidenreich, & Hoyer, 2004; Palys & Little, 1983; Riediger & Freund, 2004). Facilitation helps to pursue goals in the long term. A study on working-women found that they

felt happier when the domains facilitated each other (Skinner, 1980). Studies with a matrix

that measures facilitation find no definite conclusion on facilitation, but it is either positive related to well-being, or has no effect (Little & Chambers, 2004; Riediger & Freund, 2004). All in all, the matrix is a proper way to measure conflict and facilitation between goals that predict the relation between conflicting goals that entrepreneurs have on different domains and stress.

4.6.4 Diary study

Diary studies let respondents frequently collect responses about events or experiences in their daily lives (Bolger, Davis, & Rafaeli, 2003). Diary studies have the ability to capture more details of life than traditional studies. Accordingly, diary studies are getting more popular for studying daily events and behaviours (Bolger et al., 2003; Harris et al., 2003). Harris et al. (2003) explain why diary studies are especially interesting for studies on goals and for studies on well-being.

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Diary studies are suited for goal studies, because goals are a desired state, that someone is working towards over time. Therefore, a goal generally inhibits a process towards that goal. The progress towards the goal can differ across days and hence, engender different affective reactions. The same holds for studies on well-being. Wellbeing generally fluctuates during weeks and even during days and after events. For this reason, well-being is more reliably measured over multiple points in time. Henceforth, diary studies are widely used in well-being studies (Bolger et al., 2003). Last, diary studies measure multiple points in time and are therefore more suited than cross-sectional studies to establish causality (Bolger et al., 2003).

4.7 Theoretical model and hypotheses

In the next chapter follows a description of the conceptual model that is used in this study, along with the underlying hypotheses. The purpose of this model is to study the effects of goal conflict on stress for entrepreneurs, with goals of different domains. Moreover, it tests possible counters against the stress: the fit of priorities for the coming week with general values, acting on priorities, attainment according to effort, and facilitation. These effects are supported by theory and other studies and the next section explains how this model is building on previous scientific literature. The conceptual model is derived from there.

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4.7.1 Effect of domain goal conflict on stress

Theoretically, goal conflict should relate to stress. Conflict impairs goal attainment and goal progress and should therefore increase negative well-being that a person experiences (Boudreaux & Ozer, 2013). Moreover, goal conflict causes decisional conflict; whereby an individual needs to make a choice between two types of action, and reject the other one. Those decisional conflicts bear psychological stress, such as anxiety, because it implies unanticipated social or material losses (Janis & Mann, 1977). Goal conflict gives decisional conflict, because with goal conflict, both goals can generally not be achieved at the same time due to energy and time constraints, or the nature of the goal for example. Hence, it has to be decided which course of action to choose, and which course of action to reject, therefore causing decisional conflict and stress. Additionally, it is argued in theory that time and energy are more likely to exhaust when people are involved in multiple roles and the chances of role conflict increases. Due to the time pressure and the role expectations that are not reachable for them, psychological distress enhances as well (Coverman, 1989).

Studies also show that conflict between multiple goals bears stress and other negative effects to well-being. Goal systems full of conflict showed in multiple studies devastating effects to positive affect, negative affect, life satisfaction and many other measures of well-being (Little & Chambers, 2004). Additionally, people with goal conflict tend to be more hesitant, depressed and anxious, which are all indications of stress (Boudreaux & Ozer, 2013) Previous research has also shown the negative effects of within and between domain conflict on stress. Wiese and Salmela-Aro (2008) found that conflict on work lead to lower work well-being and the effects of conflict between the work and the family domain are known to cause both work related and family related stress (Coverman, 1989; Elloy & Smith, 2003). The studies together show that all sorts of conflict decrease well-being and increase stress. The studies that found no significant negative relation between conflict and well-being, did not measure conflict and facilitation on a separate scale, but the effects were strong and consistent when studies did (Riediger, 2007). Since goal conflict and role conflict both lead to stress it is expected that goals of different domains (e.g. family and work) that are in conflict with each other, increase stress as well. Therefore, I test the following hypothesis in this study:

H1: Goal conflict of goals on different domains has a positive relationship with perceived stress, such that entrepreneurs with more goal conflict also have more stress.

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If conflict, between domains, goals or roles, indeed causes time pressure, as some studies suggest (Coverman, 1989), then time management might be a solution to problems caused by conflict. One solution offered by time management literature is prioritizing (Adams & Jex, 1999). Through prioritizing someone establishes an order of what needs to happen first. Especially since people are working on different goal simultaneously, they need to prioritize on what goal they want to act first (Boudreaux & Ozer, 2013). Prioritizing is one possible way of decreasing conflict and the stress it causes (Boudreaux & Ozer, 2013). Prioritizing decreases the stress caused by conflict in two ways. First of all, prioritizing helps in structuring activities and determining what action to follow, so that resources are allocated well and goals are more likely to be achieved (Claessens et al., 2004; Macan et al., 1990). The second positive effect of prioritizing is that it enhances feelings of control over time (Adams & Jex, 1999; Macan, 1994). Previous research has found that prioritizing decreases the negative effects of work-family conflict on well-being (Adams & Jex, 1999). However, not all studies find that prioritizing helps in effectively pursuing goals during conflict (E.g. Locke et al., 1994). The explanation could be that goal pursuit consists of four phases and taking cognitive action alone through prioritising might not be enough to make a difference. There is a difference between planning behaviour, such as prioritizing, and actually acting on the chosen priorities (Claessens et al., 2004). To put it another way, prioritizing is a cognitive commitment, where the action itself shows a behavioural commitment. There are three stages a person goes through before the prioritizing renders actual outcomes; pre-decisional, post-decisional and the action phase. (Gollwitzer, 1993). With this in mind and when facing all kinds of daily pressures, things don’t always go as prioritized: The priorities for the coming week might not reflect the priorities in general, the actual time spend on priorities might not reflect the true priorities of the person (Tripoli, 1998) and the desired outcomes might not be reflected in the time spent. The better the stages fit together, the likelier it is that goal progress is going well and feelings of psychological well-being increase (Collins et al., 2004; Gollwitzer, 1993). The fit of the different stages will be discussed in the following sections.

4.7.2 Domain priority – goal priority

For achieving high levels of well-being it is important for a person to have valued goals that can strongly be committed to. When conditions are not favourable for the commitment to this values, for example because people lack the social and environmental resources, it creates

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distress (Brunstein et al., 1999). Values drive to some extent the goals that we set (Collins et al., 2004). Of course, goals are not only influenced by our values, but also by the values of others, or the system that we live in and other external triggers (Kasser, Cohn, Kanner, & Ryan, 2007). Some people even have a tendency to merely act accordingly to what others expect them to do (Kuhl & Kazén, 1994). Progress in goals does not necessarily increase well-being, it is important that the goals “contribute to the satisfaction of basic motives” in order to experience well-being (Brunstein et al., 1999). In other words, the goals have to be aligned with underlying values of that person in order to have the highest increases in well-being. These propositions are supported by multiple studies on different values in different settings and consistently generate the same results, it matters to well-being if one acts according to his/her values (Baumann et al., 2005). In these studies, participants were checked for their goals, their values and their well-being. All of the participants were committed to achieving both goals according to their values and goals that weren’t in line with their values. However, they reported lower well-being when striving for the goals that were not in line with their values (Baumann et al., 2005). The studies show that it is important for emotional well-being to pursue goals that are in line with the values of a person. Given these studies I expect that:

H2: The discrepancy between domain priority and goal priority for the goal on the same domain has a positive relationship with perceived stress, such that entrepreneurs with a high domain-domain goal discrepancy also have more stress.

4.7.3 Goal priority – time spent on goals

Although a person can set their own goals according to their values, he or she has to account for tasks and the demands that are inescapable of the particular sociocultural environment (Brunstein et al., 1999). Comparisons between someone’s present situation an unmet goal or desire lead to feelings of unhappiness, unworthiness and motivation to take action to reduce these unpleasant feelings, indicating stress (Kasser et al., 2007). Some goals are given more priority then other lower-end goals, but we get easily distracted in our goal pursuit, for example by other goals and cues from our environment (Ashford & Northcraft, 2004; Schwarzer, 1999). Hence, sometimes the less important goals consume more of resources than we want to (Fishbach & Dhar, 2005). In contrast, movement towards an important goal increases positive affect, whereas “interruption of goal directed activity” is associated with negative affect and stress (Emmons, 1986). Goals are set in order to promote to good

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situations or prevent bad situations. When goal progress is tempered, it inclines loss, harm threat or challenge, that inclines unpleasant moods, depression and stress (Bandura & Locke, 2003; Brunstein et al., 1999; Lazarus & Folkman, 1984). Action is inherently needed to promote goal progress and reduce the discrepancy between a desire and the current state, that subsequently reduces stress (Fishbach & Dhar, 2005). Last, people that act according to their interests report greater well-being than people who don’t (Kasser et al., 2007). Given these points I expect that:

H3: Time spent on priorities has a negative relation with stress, such that entrepreneurs who spent relatively more time on their priorities have less stress.

4.7.4 Time spent on goals – goal attainment

Multiple studies replicate the findings that there is a negative relation between goal failure and well-being. A study on self-compassion finds that failing to achieves goals gives a feeling of suffering, anxiety, and possibly feelings of incompetence and a loss of self-worth that can lead to self-pitying and self-absorption (Bandura & Locke, 2003; Neff, Hsieh, & Dejitterat, 2005). Individuals who fail at their goals need to reduce their attitudes or lower their goals, in order to reduce the anxiety that it produces (Bandura & Locke, 2003; Neff et al., 2005).Studies on depression find that constantly failing in a desired and strived for goal results in anxiety and ultimately in depression (Strauman, 2002). A study on stretch goals finds that repeated failure on stretch goals increases stress and anxiety (Gary, Yang, Yetton, & Sterman, In review). Hockey (2013) explains that the more effort and commitment somebody shows in attaining a goal, the more likely it is that failure and low rewards result in stress. Firstly, when effort is not in line with the rewards it produces stress itself (Hockey, 2013). Secondly, when people strive with much effort, they get tired of the striving. When someone fails the strived for goal, they often want to strive again for the goal, while being tired, with even more effort, resulting in a downward spiral with more strain and stress (Hockey, 2013). More effort sets higher expectations and when expectations are higher, it is more likely that failure decreases well-being and increases stress (Kernan & Lord, 1990; Lazarus & Folkman, 1984). Derived from the above literature, I expect the following hypotheses:

H4: attainment compared to the time spent on a goal has a negative relation with stress, such that entrepreneurs with higher attainment compared to the relative time spent on that

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goal have less stress and entrepreneurs with lower attainment compared to the relative time spent on that goal have more stress.

4.7.5 Facilitation

The purpose of facilitation is saving resources through action that serves multiple goals at once (Riediger, 2007). Hence, it should be a solution to goals that conflict on resources such as time and energy (Patzelt & Shepherd, 2011). When facilitation happens, the resources can be directed in attaining other goals as well, and reduce more conflict (Boudreaux & Ozer, 2013). For example, Riediger, Freund, & Baltes (2005) Found in a study among elderly people that facilitation helped to pursue more goals. When resources such as time and energy can be saved, it generally decreases stress (Hockey, 2013). Studies that measure conflict and facilitation as being one construct sometimes find a positive impact of facilitation on well-being and sometimes don’t find any effect (Boudreaux & Ozer, 2013; Palys & Little, 1983). When the two concepts are measured on a separate scale, it reveals better results for facilitation, although the results are still not consistent (Riediger, 2007). For instance, Boudreaux & Ozer (2013) found facilitation was increasing life satisfaction, but not decreasing anxiety. Riediger and Freund (2004) found that facilitation increased goal-pursuit, but well-being to a lesser extent. The results of different studies contradict. Although this may be true, theoretically facilitation should decrease stress, hence I expect the following hypothesis:

H5: Facilitation of goals has a negative relation with stress, such that people with more facilitation have less stress.

5. Method

Table 1: Measurement of variables

Variable Measurement

Pre-test

Age Number

Gender Male/female

Number of employees Number

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Daily test

Goal conflict today Personal Project Matrix – conflict score

Time allocation

(Hours worked on goal this day)

Number in hours

Goal facilitation today Personal Project Matrix – facilitation score

Perceived stress today Perceived Stress Scale (day)

Post-test

Goal attainment 1-100 Project Appraisal (Boudreaux & Ozer,

2013)

Perceived stress last week Perceived Stress Scale (week)

Constructed variables

Conflict last week Aggregated mean conflict

Facilitation last week Aggregated mean facilitation

Stress last week Aggregated mean stress

Total wanted time on all goals Sum of wanted time on all goals

Total time on all goals Sum of all time spent on all goals

Relative time on all goals Total time on all goals/ wanting time to work

on goals

Average domain priority 1-100

Average goal priority 1-100

Fit: Domain priority & that domain’s goal priority

Absolute difference between domain priority score and goal priority score

Fit: Time spent on goals & goal attainment (1+) Relative goal time / attainment

Domain priority per domain 1-100 (based on PPA)

Goal formulation for every domain Text

Goal priority per goal 1-100 (based on PPA)

Wanting hours working on goal next week Number in hours

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Constructed variables via the long data file

Fit: Goal priority & time spent on goal Relative time spent on each separate goal *

priority for that goal each day, summed up for all the days and aggregated as sum to the width file

Variables in the long data file

Daily stress Perceived Stress Scale (day)

Daily conflict Average score on Personal Project Matrix

that day

Daily facilitation Average score on Personal Project Matrix

that day

Hours spent Number in hours

Relative time on goals Hours spent that day/wanting hours to

spend coming week

Time on priorities Relative time x priority for that goal summed

up for each day.

5.1 Data collection

There are different definitions for the term entrepreneur. For this study I only approached entrepreneurs who worked as self-employed, who had their venture as their main source of personal financial income and who were (one of the) main owner(s) of the company.

I invited entrepreneurs to participate through different channels. First of all, I approached entrepreneurs in my personal network. I asked around twenty people, about twelve agreed to participate and ten truly filled in the complete questionnaire. Furthermore, I invited entrepreneurs through presenting at a business club of about thirty people, whereof ten agreed to participate and four filled in the whole survey. Last I asked relatives of they knew any entrepreneurs. Through them, another sixteen people agreed to participate, of which eventually ten people started the survey and seven completed it. Furthermore, I walked into stores to ask for participation, but it didn’t deliver the hoped for results. I promised to enrol participants in a lottery to win a gift, a small thank you gift for participating and their personal outcomes of the test.

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The study is a diary study, including a pre-test, five consecutive days and a post-test. The questions were asked to fill in at the end of each consecutive day. Entrepreneurs were reminded every day through email and WhatsApp. Sometimes people forgot to fill in a day, and filled in the day after. When they didn’t fill in the questions for that evening, they were urged again the next day if they could fill it in as quickly as possible from their memory. Some people did not choose a goal in one of the health, self-development or leisure time domains Many entrepreneurs stopped halfway through, the main reason was that they felt to busy or stressed to make it to the end. Sometimes they asked beforehand if they could skip a day (for example because of the weekend) and I always granted their requests in order to get as much data as possible. This made the data collection a bit messy and it could influence the data to some extent.

5.2 Questions/survey

The survey was distributed through Qualtrics and could be filled in online. There were 33 questions in the pre-test, 29 question every day, for five succeeding days, and nine questions in the post test, which made a total number of 187 questions per person.

In the pre-test people had to fill in their base records, such as gender, age and hours worked. Additionally, they had to fill in their goals and decide on a 1-100 bar with shuffle, a function in Qualtrics, how much priority they gave to their goals and domain. Moreover, they had to take the shortened Perceived Stress Scale on a five point Likert-scale, with in it questions about the previous month. In the daily questions, people were asked how much hours they had spent on their goals. Their conflict and facilitation between goals was measured using the Personal Project Matrix. Stress was measured daily with a shortened version of the Perceived Stress Scale. Then, in the post-test, the attainment of the goals was asked on a 1-100 bar with shuffle. Last, the Perceived Stress Scale was completed again, with questions about the last week.

5.3 Respondents

After clearing up the people that did not complete the survey and one person that completed the whole survey in one day, there were 21 respondents left. eighteen of those were male and three were female (14%), therefore the sample is skewed towards men. Women are less likely to be entrepreneur then man, only 34% of Dutch entrepreneurs was female in 2014

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(CBS, 2016). The mean age is 40,2 (SD = 12,1). The mean number of employees these entrepreneurs have is 5,2 (SD = 5,2) and they work 50,9 (SD = 10,6) hours on average. Some entrepreneurs did not fill in all the questions, one entrepreneur did not fill in the conflict and facilitation questions for example. Moreover, some responses were odd. To illustrate, one person filled in 25 hours worked on one goal in one day. How I dealt with those individual extraordinary situations is described later on in the section on data preparation.

5.4 Variables

5.4.1 Stress

Stress is the dependent variable in this study. Stress is measured using the shortened version of the Perceived Stress Scale (PSS) (Cohen, Kamarck, & Mermelstein, 1983). The full version of this scale contains fourteen items about how often a certain feeling or situation occurred in the past month and is answered on a 5 point Likert-scale from “never” to “very often”. Seven questions are reversely questioned. The PSS is designed to capture the degree of uncontrollability, unpredictability and overload of the lives of respondents, because these issues are found to be central to feelings of stress (Cohen et al., 1983) The α of the full scale is 0,85. The shortened 4-item version developed by Cohen et al. (Cohen et al., 1983) contains four questions, of which two are reversely asked. The reliability of this scale is reasonable with cronbach’s α of these four items being 0.72 or 0.73 in several studies (Aspinwall & Taylor, 1992; Cohen et al., 1983). The questions of the four-item shortened scale can be found in table 2.

4-Item PSS Question

1. In the last month, how often have you felt that you were unable to control the important things in your life?

2.a In the last month, how often have you felt confident about your ability to handle your personal problems?

3.a In the last month, how often have you felt that things were going your way? 4. In the last month, how often have you felt difficulties were piling up so high

that you could not over them? α = .73 a Scored in the reverse direction.