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Utilizing the theoretical foundation of the stimulus-organism-response framework, the present work developed and investigated a conceptual model. The work explores the effects of perceived risk of COVID-19 on tourists' choice hesitation and choice confidence. Furthermore, it examines the impacts of choice hesitation and choice confidence on psychological distress, which, in turn, influences purchase intentions and risk-protective behavior. Additionally, the study assesses the boundary effects of vulnerability on the association between choice hesitation, choice confidence, and psychological distress.

An online survey was administered in China during COVID-19 to assess the postulated hypotheses. We collected 491 responses using purposive sampling, and covariance-based structural equation modeling (CB-SEM) was performed to investigate the relationships.

Results show that the perceived risk of COVID-19 positively influences the choice hesitation and negatively impact choice confidence. It was also found that choice hesitation and choice confidence positively developed psychological distress, which, in turn, negatively triggered purchase intentions and positively developed risk-protective behavior. Additionally, perceived vulnerability had a significant moderating impact on the proposed relationships, strengthening psychological distress.

In the current context, this study measures bipolar behavioral outcomes using the S-O-R model. Because cognitive processes influence participation in health preventative behavior during the spread of diseases, we highlighted how the perception of risk and vulnerability to a pandemic serves as a reliable indicator of certain behaviors. This study advances understanding of how the psychological mindset of tourists copes with such circumstances. Due to the pandemic, tourists face limitations in their choices and are placing greater emphasis on adopting protective measures to mitigate associated risks.

Organizational approaches to racial inequality have provided contextual insight into a host of traditional stratification outcomes (e.g., hiring, earnings, authority). This chapter extends the organizational approach by drawing on the health-stress framework to explore how organizational context affects experiential and health-related outcomes – discrimination, social support, and psychological distress. Drawing on a sample of Black workers in the United States, we examine the relationship between workplace racial composition and psychological distress, as well as two potential mediators – racial discrimination and workplace social support. Our findings reveal that psychological distress is similar for Black workers in token (<25% Black coworkers), tilted other race (25–49.99% Black coworkers), and tilted same race (50–74.99% Black coworkers) job contexts. Workers in Black-dominated jobs (>75% Black coworkers), however, experience significantly less psychological distress than other compositional thresholds, net of individual, job, and workplace characteristics. This relationship is not explained by either racial discrimination experiences or supervisor and coworker social support. This finding suggests that researchers need to theorize and examine other protective factors stemming from coworker racial similarity.

The sequence of stress, distress and somatization has occupied much of the late twentieth-century psychological research. The anatomy of stress can be viewed from interactional and hybrid theories that suggest that the individual relates with the surroundings by buffering the harmful effects of stressors. These acts or reactions are called coping strategies and are designed as protection from the stressors and adaptation to them. Failure to successfully adapt to stressors results in psychological distress. In some individuals, elevated levels of distress and failed coping are expressed in physical symptoms, rather than through feelings, words, or actions. Such “somatization” defends against the awareness of the psychological distress, as demonstrated in the psychosocial literature. The progression of behavior resulting from somatic distress moves from a private domain into the public arena, involving an elaborate medicalization process, is however less clear in sociological discourse. The invocation of a medical diagnosis to communicate physical discomfort by way of repeated use of health care services poses a major medical, social and economic problem. The goal of this paper is to clarify this connection by investigating the relevant literature in the area of women with breast cancer. This manuscript focuses on the relationship of psychological stress, the stress response of distress, and the preoccupation with one’s body, and proposes a new theoretical construct.

This study examines how leaders’ narcissistic rivalry (LNR) affects the in-role performance (IRP) and proactive customer service performance (PCSP) of employees in the hospitality industry. Specifically, this study investigates the mediating role of psychological distress and the moderating role of locus of control (LOC) in the aforementioned relationships.

This study administered a multi-wave, multi-source questionnaire survey with 323 employees working in 11 full-service hotels in China. Statistical analyses were performed using the PROCESS macro in SPSS 26 software and structural equation modeling using Mplus 8.3 software.

The authors' results suggest that LNR can negatively affect hospitality employees’ IRP and PCSP and that these relationships are mediated by psychological distress. Additionally, the impact of LNR on psychological distress can be lessened by internal LOC.

This study contributes to the literature on leader narcissism by investigating how LNR affects IRP and PCSP among hospitality employees. Drawing on conservation of resources theory, this study also identifies a novel mediating mechanism (psychological distress) connecting LNR to hospitality employees’ service outcomes. Furthermore, this study reveals the moderating role of LOC in the relationship between LNR and psychological distress.

The COVID-19 pandemic resulted in immense pressure on healthcare workers (HCWs) and healthcare systems worldwide. The current multi-centre evaluation sought to explore the association between coping behaviours and levels of psychological distress among HCWs working during the initial onset of COVID-19.

Between April and July 2020 HCWs at three urban hospitals in England were invited to complete an online survey measuring personal and professional characteristics, psychological distress and coping. A principal component analysis (PCA) identified components of coping and structural equation modelling (SEM) was used to test the relationship between components of coping and psychological distress.

A total of 2,254 HCWs participated (77% female, 67% white, 66% in clinical roles). Three components for coping were retained in the PCA analysis: external strategies, internal strategies and self-criticalness/substance use. SEM indicated that internally based coping was associated with lower levels of psychological distress, whereas externally based coping and self-criticalness were associated with greater psychological distress. The final model accounted for 35% of the variance in psychological distress.

This multi-centre evaluation provides unique insight into the level of psychological distress among HCWs during the initial onset of the COVID-19 pandemic (2020) and associated coping strategies. Addressing self-criticalness and supporting cognitive-based internal coping strategies among HCWs may protect against prolonged exposure to psychological distress. Findings highlight the importance of developing a culture of professional resilience among this vital workforce as a whole rather than placing pressure on an individual's personal resilience.

Healthcare workers are considered to be the most vulnerable to face mental health. Therefore, this paper aims to examine how negative leadership (despotic leadership) affects employees' psychological distress. Specifically, the authors investigated bullying behavior as mediating mechanism and hostile attribution bias as boundary condition that trigger psychological distress.

The authors collected data from 252 nurses and their immediate supervisors (as a coping strategy for common method bias) through “Google Forms” from various public and private hospitals.

The authors applied structural equation modeling and noted that despotic leadership positively affects employees' psychological distress through bullying behavior. In addition, hostile attribution bias is identified as an important factor in amplifying the effect of bullying behavior on psychological distress.

The authors collected data from high-power distance culture where negative leadership is more prevalent as compared to low-power distance culture. Their findings suggest management to discourage self-centered leaders (despotic) and employees with negative personality traits (hostile attribution bias) as these affect their mental health.

Drawing upon conservation of resources theory, this study is the first of its kind that has investigated how and when despotic leadership affects employees' psychological distress. In addition, the authors also highlighted the importance of negative personality traits (hostile attribution bias) that can amplify the association between bullying behavior and psychological distress.

This study aims to investigate the indirect relationship between exploitative leadership (EL) and psychological distress through emotional complexity. This study also predicted that belief in organizational conspiracy theories moderates the association between EL and emotional complexity. Furthermore, forgiveness climate acts as a boundary condition between emotional complexity and psychological distress.

The respondents of this time-lagged study (N = 325) were working in five-star and four-star hotels in three cities located in Pakistan, namely, Rawalpindi, Islamabad and Lahore. Data were collected through the questionnaire.

Results revealed that exploitative leaders cause emotional complexity among hotel employees, enhancing their psychological distress. The study further showed that hotel employees who believe in organizational conspiracy theories are more likely to experience emotional complexity under an exploitative leader. Additionally, the perceived forgiveness climate moderates the relationship between emotional complexity and psychological distress.

Hotel managers should avoid hiring those candidates for leadership positions who have a tendency to engage in exploitative behavior. Managers should maintain regular communication with hotel workers to minimize beliefs in organizational conspiracy theories. Managers should also develop a forgiveness climate to minimize psychological distress among hotel employees.

It is one of the few studies investigating the negative consequences of EL, particularly in the hospitality industry. This study has also identified the underlying causes of psychological distress among hotel workers.

Drawing on conservation of resources (COR) theory, this study aims to explore the influencing mechanism of exploitative leadership on knowledge hiding. Specifically, this study focuses on the mediating role of psychological distress and the moderating role of hostile attribution bias in affecting the mediation.

Data were collected from 324 employees of a high-technology company in China by a three-wave questionnaire survey. Hierarchical regression analysis and bootstrapping approach were employed to test hypotheses.

This study found that exploitative leadership was positively related to knowledge hiding and that psychological distress mediated this relationship. Moreover, the results revealed that the positive relationship between exploitative leadership and psychological distress and the indirect effect of exploitative leadership on knowledge hiding via psychological distress were stronger when hostile attribution was high rather than low.

The findings of this study offer guidance for managers to better undermine the negative effects of exploitative leadership.

First, this study extends the literature on exploitative leadership by verifying the positive effect of exploitative leadership on knowledge hiding. Second, this study enriches one’s understanding of the “black box” underlying the link between exploitative leadership and its consequences by demonstrating the mediating role of psychological distress. Third, by verifying the moderating role of hostile attribution bias, this study provides insights into the boundary conditions of the impact of exploitative leadership.

The purpose of this paper is to examine individual differences in people's resilience to changes in psychological distress following the 22 February 2011 Christchurch earthquake.

Data were based on a subsample of the New Zealand Attitudes and Values Study (NZAVS) – an annual nation-wide longitudinal study of New Zealand adults that began in 2009. In both waves of the NZAVS examined here, participants completed measures of the Big-Five, psychological distress, and demographic covariates. As such, the analyses, which focus on participants who were living in the Canterbury region before the 2011 earthquake (n=325), use measures of personality collected in late October of 2010 (Time 1) to predict changes in psychological distress after the devastation that unfolded on 22 February 2011.

Time 1 levels of Emotional Stability were inversely associated with increases in psychological distress following the 2011 earthquake. Psychological distress assessed at Time 1, however, was uncorrelated with changes in Emotional Stability.

These results show that Emotional Stability protects people against decrements to mental health following a disaster. Thus, efforts to rebuild disaster-stricken communities should ensure that those who are particularly likely to experience increases in psychological distress (i.e. those who, before a disaster, are low on Emotional Stability) receive the help they need.

This study assesses a subsample of respondents from a longitudinally based national probability study to show that Emotional Stability exerts a cross-lagged effect on changes in psychological distress following a natural disaster. The access to such measures affords us the rare opportunity to explain how people cope in the wake of a catastrophic disaster.

The purpose of this paper is to compare levels of psychological distress in 2001 and 2010 in eight countries of the former Soviet Union and to explore how these changes vary for different population groups.

Data were collected using two related studies from 2001 (n=14,242) and 2010 (n=15,081). Both studies consisted of nationally representative cross‐sectional household surveys in Armenia, Belarus, Georgia, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Moldova, Russia and Ukraine using a standardized questionnaire. Psychological distress was measured using a 12 item instrument, with scores of 10‐12 indicating high psychological distress. Changes in prevalence of high psychological distress were measured between 2001 and 2010 by country, gender, age group, educational level, disability status, personal support and household economic status using descriptive and prevalence rate ratio analysis.

Levels of high psychological distress decreased from 8.7 per cent in 2001 to 4.9 per cent in 2010 for the whole study region (4.5 per cent to 2.8 per cent for men; 12.0 per cent to 6.5 per cent for women). All study countries recorded decreases in high psychological distress. The adjusted relative rate ratios indicate the observed decreases have not been experienced by men, older age groups, less educated respondents, those with a disabling health condition, low levels of support and bad household economic status.

The study shows decreases in levels of high psychological distress in the study countries, but that decreases were less for socially and economically marginalised populations. This highlights the cycle of poverty, social exclusion and poor mental health in the region. Despite decreases of psychological distress among women, they continue to bear a significantly higher burden than men.