Journal of Occupational Health Psychology © 2015 American Psychological Association

2015, Vol. 20, No. 3, 289 –300 1076-8998/15/$12.00 http://dx.doi.org/10.1037/a0038684

Stressful Work Environment and Wellbeing: What Comes First?

Marko Elovainio Tarja Heponiemi

National Institute for Health and Welfare, Helsinki, Finland and National Institute for Health and Welfare, Helsinki, Finland
University of Helsinki

Markus Jokela and Christian Hakulinen Justin Presseau

University of Helsinki Newcastle University

Anna-Mari Aalto Mika Kivimäki

This article is intended solely for the personal use of the individual user and is not to be disseminated broadly.

National Institute for Health and Welfare, Helsinki, Finland University College London
This document is copyrighted by the American Psychological Association or one of its allied publishers.

The association between the psychosocial work environment, including job demands, job control, and
organizational justice, and employee wellbeing has been well established. However, the exposure to
adverse work environments is typically measured only using self-reported measures that are vulnerable
to reporting bias, and thus any associations found may be explained by reverse causality. Using linear
regression models and cross-lagged structural equation modeling (SEM), we tested the direction of the
association between established job stress models (job demand control and organizational justice models)
and 3 wellbeing indicators (psychological distress, sleeping problems, and job satisfaction) among 1524
physicians in a 4-year follow-up. Results from the longitudinal cross-lagged analyses showed that the
direction of the association was from low justice to decreasing wellbeing rather than the reverse.
Although the pattern was similar in job demands and job control, a reciprocal association was found
between job control and psychological distress.

Keywords: psychosocial factors, risk factors, sleeping problems, stress, working population

A large number of published studies support the risk status of
the leading occupational stress models (Elovainio, Kivimaki, &
Vahtera, 2002; Kivimäki, Nyberg, Batty, Fransson, & Heikkilä, et
al., 2012). Recently, the direction of the association between
work-related psychosocial factors and mental health problems has
been questioned (Ybema & van den Bos, 2010; Lang, Bliese,
Lang, & Adler, 2011). Although the occupational stress models
suggest that environmental psychosocial factors affect wellbeing
and health, it is reasonable to assume that also health problems and
reduced wellbeing may affect the perception of environmental
demands and challenges. Using self-reported measures of both
environmental factors and potential outcomes creates a risk of
This article was published Online First February 23, 2015.
Marko Elovainio, National Institute for Health and Welfare, Helsinki,
Finland and Department of Behavioural Sciences, University of Helsinki;
Tarja Heponiemi, National Institute for Health and Welfare, Helsinki, Finland;
Markus Jokela and Christian Hakulinen, Department of Behavioural Sci-
ences, University of Helsinki; Justin Presseau, Institute of Health and
Society, Newcastle University; Anna-Mari Aalto, National Institute for
Health and Welfare, Helsinki, Finland; Mika Kivimäki, Department of
Epidemiology and Public Health, University College London.
This study has been supported by the Finnish Work Environment Fund
and the Academy of Finland.
Correspondence concerning this article should be addressed to Marko
Elovainio, National Institute for Health and Welfare, P.O. Box 30, 00270
Helsinki, Finland. E-mail: marko.elovainio@thl.fi
reversed causality. The direction of the association is important in
making causal inferences and, therefore, in designing preventive
interventions (Hemingway & Marmot, 1999). In this study, we
specifically tested the direction of the association between work
related psychosocial risks, such as high job demands, low job
control, and organizational injustice, and wellbeing problems, in-
cluding sleeping problems, psychological distress, and job dissat-
isfaction (Karasek & Theorell, 1990; Robbins, Ford & Tetrick,
2012).
The two established occupational stress models used in epide-
miological studies, the job demands– control model (Karasek &
Theorell, 1990) and the organizational justice model (Colquitt,
Greenberg, & Zapata-Phelan, 2005), focus on different environ-
mental factors as wellbeing and health risks. The job demands–
control (job-strain) model introduced by Karasek and Theorell
(1990) includes two central components: high job demands (the
need to work quickly and hard), and lack of control over skill use,
time allocation, and organizational decisions. The theory suggests
that workers who have concurrent high demands and low job
control (experience job strain) cannot moderate the stress caused
by the high demands through time management or learning new
skills. Thus, they become subject to high stress at work, and if
ongoing, are at increased risk of psychological distress and dis-
ease.
A more recent organizational justice model (Colquitt, Green-
berg, & Zapata-Phelan, 2005) focuses on perceived unfairness in
resource distribution, decision-making principles, and treatment

289
 290 ELOVAINIO ET AL.
practices within organizations (referred to as distributive, proce-
dural and interactional justice; Lind & Tyler, 1988). Research on
organizational justice as an individual’s perception of fairness in
an organization, has mainly focused on two things: (a) what
individuals perceive as being fair in organizations and (b) what the
consequences of such perceptions might be. It has been shown that
the perception of organizational justice is affected by a combina-
tion of rules and norms related to decision-making principles
(procedural justice component) and treatment practices (interac-
tional justice component) that people experience as being fair or
unfair. When people within an organization perceive that they get
what they deserve (their input and what they get back from the
organization are in balance), that the rules treat them fairly (the
This article is intended solely for the personal use of the individual user and is not to be disseminated broadly.
decisions made follow fair rules), and that other people, especially
This document is copyrighted by the American Psychological Association or one of its allied publishers.
their supervisors, treat them fairly (supervisors can be trusted and
are respectful), they quite often think that organizational justice is
high (for a review see Cropanzano et al., 2001). The justice
researchers have long been interested in the consequences arising
from organizational functioning, (Heponiemi et al., 2007; McFar-
lin & Sweeney, 1992; Moorman, 1991; Skarlicki & Folger, 1997),
but only during the last two decades has the scope of research on
organizational justice been expanded to employee wellbeing and
health outcomes (Elovainio et al., 2001; Elovainio et al., 2002;
Hausknecht et al., 2011; Schmitt & Dorfel, 1999; Tepper, 2001).
The imbalance between job demands and control and low per-
ceived justice are suggested to undermine wellbeing by generating
psychological stress. The appraisal process is a basic assumption
of classic and contemporary stress theories, suggesting that when
people evaluate their capacity to cope with environmental chal-
lenges to be insufficient, they experienced psychological stress
which leads to reduced wellbeing and health problems (Lazarus &
Folkman, 1984). Psychological stress may affect wellbeing and
health outcomes through direct activation of physiological neu-
roendocrine responses to stressors, or more indirectly through
unhealthy behaviors such as smoking, lack of exercise, or exces-
sive alcohol consumption performed to cope with perceived stres-
sors, which increase the risk of deleterious effect on wellbeing and
health (Hemingway & Marmot, 1999; Hemingway et al., 2003).
One of the main axes of neuroendocrine stress responses is the
autonomic nervous system (ANS). Stress may also affect dysregu-
lation of the hypothalamic–pituitary–adrenal axis, which is asso-
ciated with disturbances in the circadian rhythm of cortisol and the
development of the metabolic outcomes.
A large body of evidence suggests that the psychosocial work
characteristics defined by the job demand– control are associated
with wellbeing and health indicators, such as low heart rate vari-
ability (Chandola et al., 2008), progression of atherosclerosis
(Rosenström et al., 2011), sickness absences (Zapf et al., 1996),
poorer cognitive performance (Elovainio et al., 2012), metabolic
syndrome (Chandola et al., 2006), and incident obesity (Brunner,
Chandola, & Marmot, 2007). Similarly, it has been shown that
there is a link between low organizational justice and experienced
stress, psychological distress, depressive symptoms, sickness ab-
sence, lower cognitive performance, sleeping problems, and even
cardiovascular disease and death (Elovainio et al., 2009; Elovainio,
Kivimaki, & Helkama, 2001; Elovainio et al., 2002; Elovainio,
Leino-Arjas, Vahtera, & Kivimaki, 2006; Elovainio et al., 2012;
Ferrie et al., 2006; Kivimaki, Elovainio, Vahtera, & Ferrie, 2003;
Kivimaki et al., 2003, 2006; Ndjaboue, Brisson, & Vezina, 2012;
Vermunt & Steensma, 2005; Tepper, 2001; Ybema & van den Bos,
2010).
Multiple mechanisms linking psychosocial factors and wellbe-
ing have been proposed and supported. It has been shown that a
negative psychosocial work environment provokes negative emo-
tional reactions, low self-esteem, social exclusion, and loss of
physical resources, which in turn are closely related to problems in
psychological wellbeing (Lind & Tyler, 1988; Karasek & Theorell,
1990; Elovainio et al., 2013). Men who experienced a high level of
justice at work had a lower risk of incident metabolic syndrome
than employees with a low level of justice (Gimeno et al., 2010),
and low organizational justice was associated with increased cir-
culating inflammatory marker C-reactive protein during a 10-year
follow-up and increased interleukin-6 during a 5-year follow-up
(Elovainio, Ferrie, et al., 2010).
Although evidence supports the idea of psychosocial factors as
causal factors predicting deteriorating health and wellbeing, alter-
native explanations are also plausible. It may be that health and
wellbeing problems contribute to negative perceptions of the psy-
chosocial environment. This would be especially probable in jus-
tice perceptions that are dependent on interpretations of social and
relational factors, but may also affect perceptions of job demands
and even job control. Ybema and van den Bos (2010) tested the
reversed associations between depression, sickness absenteeism,
and organizational justice dimensions in a representative sample of
1519 employees. According to their results, stronger evidence
supported the role of justice dimensions as a predictor of depres-
sive symptoms and absenteeism than the reverse.
Jessica Lang and her coworkers (2011), however, found that
among military personnel, depressive symptoms led to subsequent
lower organizational justice perceptions. Furthermore, they found
no evidence supporting the hypothesis that organizational justice
perceptions would predict depressive symptoms. The authors con-
cluded, in accordance with the assumption of affective perception,
that depressed individuals perceive events more negatively. They
also suggested that depressed individuals are also treated differ-
ently in reaction to their depressed state.
Severe mental health problems, such as depression, inevitably
affect the way an individual perceives and experiences his or her
environment (Gotlib & Joormann, 2010). However, little is known
about the effects of less severe stress-induced psychological states,
such as psychological distress, sleeping problems, and dissatisfac-
tion. According to the equity theory (Adams, 1963), being stressed
should motivate people to select less stressful tasks and contexts
and in this way try to make their environment less demanding.
However, this option is not often possible in real life. It is reason-
able to assume that when feeling stressed, people are less able to
use adaptive coping, such as actively rearranging or prioritizing
tasks. Thus, stress may reduce the sense of or actual resources
people have to cope with the demands at work and they may
experience their environment as more strenuous and demanding
than it otherwise would be. This may be attributable to perception
or be the result of less capacity to undertake work tasks because of
reduced physical or cognitive capacity. For instance, sleeping
problems are often associated with tiredness that in turn may affect
actual abilities to cope with the cognitive or physical demands at
work (Kristof-Brown et al., 2005).
Thus, we formed three hypotheses: (a) negative work-related
psychosocial factors (low organizational justice, high demands and
 STRESSFUL WORK ENVIRONMENT
low control) predict decreasing wellbeing; (b) problems in well-
being (psychological distress, sleeping problems and job dissatis-
faction) predict increasingly negative perceptions of work-related
psychosocial factors; or (c) there are reciprocal associations be-
tween negative work-related factors and wellbeing. The current
study expands on previous evidence by testing the associations
with longer follow-up times (latency period) than previous studies.
Previous studies have also tested the reciprocal associations using
only depression or depressive symptoms as the wellbeing indicator
(Lang et al., 2011; Ybema & van den Bos, 2010). We tested the
direction of the association between less severe wellbeing prob-
lems, such as sleeping problems, psychological distress, and job
dissatisfaction, which have previously been suggested as outcomes
This article is intended solely for the personal use of the individual user and is not to be disseminated broadly.
of a strenuous work environment (Karasek & Theorell, 1990;
This document is copyrighted by the American Psychological Association or one of its allied publishers.
Robbins, Ford & Tetrick, 2012).
Both job strain and organizational justice have been associated
with sleeping problems (de Jonge et al., 2000; Elovainio et al.,
2011), psychological distress measured by the GHQ (Stansfeld,
North, White, & Marmot, 1995; Elovainio, Kivimäki, & Vahtera,
2002), and job satisfaction (de Jonge et al., 2000; Colquitt, 2001).
As for many other psychosocial factors at work, a plausible mech-
anism through which perceived job strain and organizational in-
justice may affect mental health, dissatisfaction, and sleeping
problems is prolonged stress. Both job strain and perceived injus-
tice has been shown to be associated with experienced stress
reactions/distress (Elovainio, Kivimäki, & Helkama, 2001; Stans-
feld et al., 1995). Disturbed sleep is another marker of prolonged
stress, which is considered a common indicator of prolonged
negative emotional states and related physiological changes (Es-
pie, 2002).
Method
The present study was part of the Finnish Health Care Pro-
fessionals Study, in which a random sample of 5000 physicians
in Finland (30% of the whole physician population) was drawn
from the 2006 database of physicians maintained by the Finnish
Medical Association. The register covers all licensed physicians
in Finland. Phase 1 data were gathered using postal question-
naires in 2006. Responses were received from 2841 physicians
(response rate 57%). The representativeness of the sample (in
the first data collection phase) compared with the eligible
population was tested and reported in a previous study
(Elovainio et al., 2007), suggesting that the sample was repre-
sentative in terms of age, gender, and employment sector. There
were no statistically significant differences between those who
participated to the follow-up study and those who participated to
the baseline study. In phase 2 (four years later in 2010), the data
were gathered by using either a web-based or a traditional postal
survey. In phase 1, the consent to receive follow-up surveys was
obtained from 2206 participants. Those who had died or who had
incorrect address information were excluded (n ⫽ 37); thus, at
phase 2 the survey was sent to 2169 physicians. The total number
of respondents was 1705 (response rate 79%). Of these, 181 had
incomplete data and were excluded and so the final study sample
includes 1524 physicians (61% women) aged 24 – 69 (M ⫽ 49.7)
years (2010).
291
Measures
Job demands were measured by 5 items (␣ ⫽ .85 in 2006 and
0.90 in 2010) derived from Harris’ (1989) stress index. The items
were I have to work very hard, My job involves an excessive
amount of work, I don’t have enough time to get my work done
properly, We do not have enough resources to do our job, and We
do not have enough personnel to do our job. All items used a
5-point Likert-type response format ranging from 1 (strongly dis-
agree) to 5 (strongly agree). These items were used because they
were very similar to those in the original Job Contents Question-
naire used by Karasek (1979) when the concept was first devel-
oped.
Job control was measured by 3 items (␣ ⫽ .77 in 2006 and 0.76
in 2010) derived from Karasek’s Job Content Questionnaire (JCQ)
(Karasek, 1979; Karasek, Baker, Marxer, Ahlbom, & Theorell,
1981), which measured the freedom to make independent deci-
sions and possibilities to choose how to perform work (e.g., I have
a lot of say about what happens in my job). The items were rated
on a 5-point Likert-scale, ranging from 1 (totally disagree) to 5
(totally agree).
Organizational justice was assessed using a short 8-item version
(Elovainio, Heponiemi, Kuusio, et al., 2010) of Colquitt’s organi-
zational justice measure (Colquitt, 2001). This shorter version has
shown satisfactory psychometric properties (internal consistency
and a good model fit to the data) and criterion validity (Elovainio,
Heponiemi, Kuusio, et al., 2010). The items were rated on a
5-point Likert-scale, ranging from 1 (totally disagree) to 5 (totally
agree). Examples of the items include: Have you been able to
express your views and feelings during procedures used to
arrive at your outcome?, Has the authority figure who enacted the
procedure treated you with dignity?, and Does your outcome
reflect the effort you have put into your work? With respect to the
internal consistency, the alpha coefficient for this sample was 0.84
in 2006 and 0.86 in 2010. The complete justice scale was divided
into three dimensions: procedural justice (three items, ␣ ⫽ .70 in
2006 and 0.74 in 2010), interpersonal justice (three items, ␣ ⫽ .79
in 2006 and 0.91 in 2010), and distributive justice (two items, ␣ ⫽
.94 in 2006 and 0.94 in 2010).
Psychological distress was measured with 4 items (␣ ⫽ .84 in
2006 and 0.79 in 2010) from the GHQ-12 (Goldberg, 1972), which
measured anxiety/depression, as suggested by Graetz (1991).
Graetz’s three-factor structure has been suggested as the most
preferable factor model for the GHQ-12 (Penninkilampi-Kerola,
Miettunen, & Ebeling, 2006). The respondents rated how much
they were affected by each of the 12 listed symptoms of psycho-
logical distress over the previous few weeks (1 ⫽ not at all, 2 ⫽
the same as usual, 3 ⫽ rather more than usual, or 4 ⫽ much more
than usual). GHQ score (range 1– 4) was the mean of all items. In
this study, the scale was used as a continuous variable.
Sleeping problems were measured with 4 items (␣ ⫽ .77 in 2006
and 0.77 in 2010) derived from the Jenkins scale (Jenkins, Stanton,
Niemcryk, & Rose, 1988). Respondents were asked how often
during the last four weeks they had: trouble falling asleep, woken
up several times per night, trouble staying asleep including waking
up too early, and felt tired after the usual amount of sleep. The
scale ranged from 1 (never) to 6 (every night).
Job satisfaction was assessed with the mean of 3 items (␣ ⫽ .66
in 2006 and 0.86 in 2010) derived from Hackman and Oldham’s
 292 ELOVAINIO ET AL.

(1975) Job Diagnostic Survey on a 5-point scale, ranging from 1 Table 1

(totally disagree) to 5 (totally agree), with items such as I am Characteristics of the Study Sample (n ⫽ 1370 –1524)
generally satisfied with my work. (In 2006 job satisfaction was
measured using the original 7-point scale, and it was rescaled to be Characteristic n %
comparable with the 5-point scale by dividing the items by 7 and Gender
multiplying by 5.) Cronbach’s alpha coefficient for this study was Women 914 60.2
0.66 at phase 1 and 0.88 at phase 2. Men 605 39.8
Covariates included gender, age, and employment sector (hos- Employment sector
Hospital 696 45.7
pital, primary care, private, and the category ‘other’) and were Primary care 327 21.5
measured in 2010. Private 256 16.7
Other 245 16.1
Statistical Analyses
Mean SD
To estimate two-way antecedent– consequence relationships be-
This article is intended solely for the personal use of the individual user and is not to be disseminated broadly.

Age 2010 (24–67) 49.7 9.47

tween work-related psychosocial factors and wellbeing simultane-
This document is copyrighted by the American Psychological Association or one of its allied publishers.

Procedural justice T1 3.31 0.75

ously, we fitted cross-lagged structural equation models (SEM). Procedural justice T2 3.30 0.76
The goodness-of-fit of the models was assessed by (a) the ␹2 test Interactional justice T1 3.57 0.96
Interactional justice T2 3.51 1.00
where the higher the p value, the better the fit of the data, and (b) Distributive justice T1 2.93 1.02
the standardized root means square residual (SRMR). We also Distributive justice T2 3.06 1.05
used fit indexes less sensitive to number of observations/parame- Job control T1 3.92 0.80
ters, such as CFI and TLI (Byrne, 2011). In comparing alternative Job control T2 3.79 0.83
models, a statistically significant improvement in the ␹2 value Job demands T1 3.58 0.96
Job demands T2 3.01 0.95
indicated a better fit of the model. All models were tested sepa- Distress T1 (1–4) 1.91 0.61
rately for organizational justice, job demands, and job control. The Distress T2 (1–4) 1.83 0.66
contribution of the potential confounding factors at baseline to the Sleeping problems T1 (1–6) 2.30 1.00
relationships between work-related factors and wellbeing indica- Sleeping problems T2 (1–6) 2.35 1.05
Job satisfaction T1 (1–5) 3.49 0.52
tors was taken into account by using adjusted values (residual
Job satisfaction T2 (1–5) 3.04 0.53
values) for the work-related psychosocial factors and wellbeing
outcomes in the SEM models. The contribution of the potential
confounding factors at baseline to the relationships between work-
levels of distress, job demands, and job control slightly decreased
related factors and wellbeing indicators was taken into account by
during the study period, but other average changes were relatively
using adjusted values (residual values) for the work-related psy-
small. Table 2 shows the correlations between the study variables.
chosocial factors and wellbeing outcomes in the SEM models. The
All of the outcomes were at least modestly associated with all of
adjusted values were predicted using linear regression models
the work-related psychosocial factors.
performed separately for each work related factors and wellbeing
The cross-lagged structural equation modeling in organiza-
indicators including all potential confounders (gender, age, and
tional justice and wellbeing outcomes were fitted with justice as
employment sector). We controlled the models for gender and age,
a latent variable (see Figure 1). The model incorporating the
because it has been show that women and younger, less experi-
path from earlier justice to later distress, ␹2(15) ⫽ 100,35,
enced physicians report more problems in wellbeing and also
SRMR ⫽ 0.039, CFI ⫽ .96, TLI ⫽ 0.92, sleeping problems,
experience their work as more strenuous than males and more
␹2(15) ⫽ 53.05, SRMR ⫽ 0.026, CFI ⫽ .98, TLI ⫽ 0.97, and
experienced physicians (Elovainio, Heponiemi, Vänskä, et al.,
job satisfaction, ␹2(15) ⫽ 83.28, SRMR ⫽ 0.039, CFI ⫽ .96,
2007). Furthermore, GPs in Finland have reported more work-
TLI ⫽ 0.93, all showed a reasonably good fit. The association
related problems and wellbeing problems than other physicians,
between justice and distress (coefficients ⫺.11, z ⫽ ⫺3.75, p ⬍
and thus we adjusted models for employment sector (Heponiemi et
.001) and between justice and job satisfaction (coefficients .22,
al., 2013). The measurement invariance (Schmitt & Kuljanin,
z ⫽ 6.31, p ⬍ .001) were significant. None of the models that
2008) for the organizational justice latent variable over the study
tested the paths also from earlier wellbeing indicators produced
phases was tested using strict invariance (loadings, intercepts &
better fits (range of ⌬␹2(1) from 0.22 to 1.2; see Figure 1).
residuals are invariant) and the test showed a good fit for the
None of the associations from earlier wellbeing indicators to
measurement model, ␹2(12) ⫽ 39.04, SRMR ⫽ 0.022, CFI ⫽ .98,
later justice evaluations (coefficients 0.02, z ⫽ 0.71; 0.02, z ⫽
TLI ⫽ 0.98). Composite scores on the three justice measures
0.40; ⫺0.01, z ⫽ ⫺0.46) were significant.
served as indicators of the latent justice constructs whereas indi-
The model fit was reasonable for the model testing the
vidual items served as indicators for job demands and job control.
associations from earlier job demands with later distress,
The wellbeing indicators were added as composite scores in the
␹22(15) ⫽ 157.39, SRMR ⫽ 0.060, CFI ⫽ .97, TLI ⫽ 0.94, and
SEM models. The analyses were performed using STATA/SE
the association between demands and distress was significant
v.12.0® [StataCorp, 2005].
(coefficient 0.12, z ⫽ 4.21, p ⬍ .001). The model testing the
reciprocal effects was better, ␹2(14) ⫽ 152.03, SRMR ⫽ 0.054,
Results
CFI ⫽ .97, TLI ⫽ 0.94, and the effect of earlier distress on later
Table 1 shows the characteristics of the study sample. Most of job demands was significant (coefficient 0.07, z ⫽ 2.53. p ⫽
the participants were women and worked at hospitals. The mean .011). The model incorporating the path from earlier job de-
 STRESSFUL WORK ENVIRONMENT 293

Table 2
Correlations (Pearson R) Between Study Variables (n ⫽ 1369 –1524)

Variable 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16

1. Procedural justice T1 1
2. Procedural justice T2 .309 1
3. Interactional justice T1 .493 .257 1
4. Interactional justice T2 .233 .565 .309 1
5. Distributive justice T1 .357 .177 .220 .139 1
6. Distributive justice T2 .177 .299 .140 .321 .358 1
7. Job control T1 .413 .202 .223 .109 .263 .116 1
8. Job control T2 .191 .382 .119 .295 .125 .258 .363 1
9. Job demands T1 ⫺.203 ⫺.053 ⫺.097 ⫺.029 ⫺.209 ⫺.094 ⫺.117 ⫺.055 1
10. Job demands T2 ⫺.124 ⫺.123 ⫺.068 ⫺.135 ⫺.092 ⫺.233 ⫺.136 ⫺.246 .372 1
11. Distress T1 ⫺.211 ⫺.073 ⫺.134 ⫺.085 ⫺.154 ⫺.095 ⫺.190 ⫺.131 .298 .218 1
This article is intended solely for the personal use of the individual user and is not to be disseminated broadly.

12. Distress T2 ⫺.168 ⫺.194 ⫺.082 ⫺.205 ⫺.073 ⫺.172 ⫺.145 ⫺.196 .205 .37 .42 1
This document is copyrighted by the American Psychological Association or one of its allied publishers.

13. Sleeping prob. T1 ⫺.146 ⫺.062 ⫺.088 ⫺.051 ⫺.125 ⫺.072 ⫺.166 ⫺.112 .203 .125 .526 .328 1
14. Sleeping prob. T2 ⫺.122 ⫺.127 ⫺.054 ⫺.093 ⫺.069 ⫺.107 ⫺.143 ⫺.156 .146 .191 .352 .544 .59 1
15. Job satisfaction T1 .288 .145 .209 .125 .165 .112 .223 .174 ⫺.235 ⫺.117 ⫺.210 ⫺.126 ⫺.162 ⫺.157 1
16. Job satisfaction T2 .173 .243 .130 .195 .107 .186 .157 .298 ⫺.092 ⫺.212 ⫺.148 ⫺.207 ⫺.143 ⫺.203 .217 1
Note. All correlations above 0.05 statistically significant.

mands to later sleeping problems showed a reasonable fit, Discussion

␹2(15) ⫽ 42.44 SRMR ⫽ 0.028, CFI ⫽ .99, TLI ⫽ 0.98, but the
association between demands and sleeping problems was not
statistically significant (coefficient 0.025, z ⫽ 1.07, p ⫽ .284).
The model testing the reciprocal effects was only slightly
better, ␹2(14) ⫽ 41.21, SRMR ⫽ 0.025, CFI ⫽ .99, TLI ⫽ 0.99,
and the effect of earlier sleeping problems on later job demands
was not significant (coefficients 0.029, z ⫽ 1.10, p ⫽ .272).
Earlier job demands predicted later job satisfaction (coeffi-
cient ⫺0.13, z ⫽ ⫺4.52. p ⬍ .001) and fit of the model was
good, ␹2(15) ⫽ 72.10, SRMR ⫽ 0.039, CFI ⫽ .99, TLI ⫽ 0.97,
and slightly worse than the model testing the reciprocal asso-
ciations, ⌬␹2(1) 0.74). The association between earlier job
satisfaction and later job demands was not significant (p ⫽
.494; see Figure 2).
The models including the path from earlier job control to
later psychological distress, ␹2(15) ⫽ 80.69, SRMR ⫽ 0.036,
CFI ⫽ .98, TLI ⫽ 0.96, and sleeping problems, ␹2(15) ⫽ 49.01,
SRMR ⫽ 0.027, CFI ⫽ .99, TLI ⫽ 0.98, showed a reasonable
fit and the association between job control and distress (coef-
ficients ⫺0.058, z ⫽ ⫺2.10, p ⫽ .036) was significant. The
models testing the reciprocal effects gave only slightly better
fits, ␹2(14) ⫽ 77.96, SRMR ⫽ 0.033, CFI ⫽ .98, TLI ⫽
0.96/␹2(14) ⫽ 46.78, SRMR ⫽ 0.025, CFI ⫽ .99, TLI ⫽ 0.98.
The association between earlier distress (coefficients ⫺.044,
z ⫽ ⫺1.65, p ⫽ .099) and later job control, or between earlier
sleeping problems and later job control (coefficients ⫺0.042,
z ⫽ 1.52, p ⫽ .056) were not significant. The model testing the
association between job control and later job satisfaction show
a reasonably good fit, ␹2(15) ⫽ 112.20, SRMR ⫽ 0.049, CFI ⫽
.97, TLI ⫽ 0.95, and testing the reciprocal associations did not
much improve the fit, ␹2(14) ⫽ 110.85, SRMR ⫽ 0.048, CFI ⫽
.97, TLI ⫽ 0.93. The association from earlier job control with
later job satisfaction was significant (coefficient 0.15, z ⫽ 5.10,
p ⬍ .001), whereas the association to opposite direction was not
(coefficient 0.036, z ⫽ 1.20, p ⫽ .230; see Figure 3).
This study addresses the following hypotheses: (a) negative
work-related psychosocial factors defined by the organizational
justice and job strain models (low organizational justice, high
demands and low control) predict decreasing wellbeing and (b)
problems in wellbeing (psychological distress, sleeping problems
and job dissatisfaction) predict increasingly negative perceptions
of psychosocial work environment. We found more evidence sup-
porting the former hypothesis than the latter. In organizational
justice the direction of the association was consistently from
justice perceptions to later wellbeing. In job demands the associ-
ations were less clear. Psychological distress seemed to predict
lower job demands in the future, although the association was
reciprocal. This may reflect, of course, real changes in job de-
mands or rather perceptions. Distress and subsequent reduced
psychological resources may increase the perception of increasing
demands or abilities to cope with the existing level of demands.
Our results contradict those of Lang and colleagues (2011),
which suggested a reversed causation (depressive symptoms pre-
dicted justice evaluations), and are more in line with those of
Ybema and van den Bos (2010), which offered support for the
causal role of justice in predicting later depressive symptoms. The
follow-up time in the Lang et al. study (2011) was considerably
shorter (less than a year) than the one in the current study (four
years), and that may explain some of the differences. It is possible
that perceived injustice affects wellbeing only when the exposure
is long-lasting and the reversed association masks the causal effect
of the perceived psychosocial environment. This reasoning is
supported by the fact that the follow-up time of the Ybema and van
den Bos study (2010) was also relatively long. The follow-up time
of our study was 4 years, which is relatively long, but there are
many studies showing effects of, for instance, organizational in-
justice and sleeping problems (Elovainio et al., 2010) and psycho-
logical distress (Ferrie et al., 2006) that have used longer follow-up
times. It is probable, in fact, that relatively long exposure is needed
for severe forms of distress and sleeping problems to develop.
 This document is copyrighted by the American Psychological Association or one of its allied publishers.
This article is intended solely for the personal use of the individual user and is not to be disseminated broadly.

294

Figure 1.
ELOVAINIO ET AL.

Cross-lagged models of the associations between organizational justice and wellbeing indicators.
 This document is copyrighted by the American Psychological Association or one of its allied publishers.
This article is intended solely for the personal use of the individual user and is not to be disseminated broadly.

Figure 2.
STRESSFUL WORK ENVIRONMENT

Cross-lagged models of the associations between job demands and wellbeing indicators.
295
 This document is copyrighted by the American Psychological Association or one of its allied publishers.
This article is intended solely for the personal use of the individual user and is not to be disseminated broadly.

296

Figure 3.
ELOVAINIO ET AL.

Cross-lagged models of the associations between job control and wellbeing indicators.
 STRESSFUL WORK ENVIRONMENT
There may be a problem when testing the direction of the associ-
ation between two factors if one factor is more stable than the
other. However, our cross-lagged models suggested a relatively
high test-retest stability for both justice/strain measures and sleep-
ing problems/GHQ. In job satisfaction, this may be a problem
because of temporal instability. One explanation for the differ-
ences could be that different occupational groups were studied. It
may be easier for a physician to change job than for someone
working in the military. The most obvious reason is, however, the
wellbeing indicator used. Depression changes the way the envi-
ronment is perceived almost by definition, but the effects of less
severe psychological problems are less evident. The previous
studies used solely depressive symptoms or depression as the
This article is intended solely for the personal use of the individual user and is not to be disseminated broadly.
wellbeing indicator, whereas we measured psychological distress,
This document is copyrighted by the American Psychological Association or one of its allied publishers.
sleeping problems, and job satisfaction. However, the version of
the distress measure used was the one that has been shown to
overlap with measures of depressive symptoms quite well (Aalto et
al., 2012). Thus, future studies should test the direction of the
association between psychosocial work environment and wellbe-
ing by using a wide range of wellbeing indicators, so as to offer a
more complete theoretical frame for understanding the dynamic
nature of the associations between psychosocial work environment
and employee wellbeing.
Our results can be interpreted as supporting the general stress
model, suggesting that environmental stimuli that are appraised as
a threat to oneself cause stress (Lazarus, 1993; Lazarus & Folk-
man, 1984) and that exposure to such threats may lead to health
problems and reduced wellbeing (McEwen, 1998, 2000). Most of
the leading occupational stress theories suggest that the fundamen-
tal stress factor, and in fact the most important effect modifier of
any other stress factors, is control over the things affecting one’s
work process and environment (Karasek & Theorell, 1990). Sim-
ilarly, the uncertainty management model of organizational justice
is based on the idea that a fundamental dilemma is caused by
giving up autonomy, in other words the ability to fully control the
environment and decisions concerning factors affecting oneself
(see, e.g., van den Bos, 2001; van den Bos & Lind, 2002) and the
self-threatening condition that that lack of control creates (see,
e.g., Miedema, van den Bos, & Vermunt, 2006).
Our findings are also in line with previous studies that have
suggested that psychological distress, problems with sleep, and
low job satisfaction are common after exposure to high job strain
or low justice (Elovainio et al., 2001; Elovainio et al., 2002;
Elovainio, Kivimaki, Vahtera, Keltikangas-Jarvinen, & Virtanen,
2003; Elovainio, Leino-Arjas, et al., 2006a; Ferrie et al., 2006;
Karasek & Theorell, 1990; Kivimäki et al., 2006; Kivimäki et al.,
2012). By characterizing exposure to job strain and organizational
justice and the wellbeing outcomes with measures obtained at two
time points, we were able to conduct a prospective study of the
long-term effects of psychosocial risks. The job strain model is
probably the most widely tested model of psychosocial risks in the
area of occupational health psychology (for reviews see Kivimäki
et al., 2012), and the evidence supporting the model is strong. All
previous organizational justice studies that have used a single
measure of exposure have shown an association between low
organizational justice and a greater number of sleeping problems
in two samples of women (Elovainio, Kivimaki, et al., 2003) and
between organizational justice and distress (Kivimaki, Elovainio,
Vahtera, & Ferrie, 2003; Ylipaavalniemi et al., 2005). Previous
297
studies have demonstrated cross-sectional associations between
organizational justice and prevalent depressive symptoms
(Elovainio et al., 2002), and longitudinal associations between low
justice at baseline and psychiatric morbidity two years later (Ki-
vimäki et al., 2003). Previous findings from the Whitehall II study
cohort showed that those who reported at baseline that they were
treated unfairly by their supervisors had a higher risk of incident
psychiatric morbidity three years and six years later (Ferrie et al.,
2006).
Our results suggest that the predictive effects of justice and job
control on wellbeing are apparent also even when accounting for
age, sex, and working sector. Especially sex but also age has been
associated with all the wellbeing outcomes used in this study
(Hemingway & Marmot, 1999). These adjustments are not, of
course, sufficient to rule out the possibility of residual confound-
ing. Although the GHQ scale used in this study has been shown to
have good predictive validity in previous studies (Goldberg, 1972),
use of clinical interviews or more established measures of mental
health problems, including distress, would have been preferable.
In interpreting the present results, it is important to note some
additional limitations. The main limitation of this study is that all
the participants were physicians and our findings may not apply to
wider populations. Thus, the results should be further tested using
other occupational groups. Physicians are, however, a good focal
occupation for several reasons. It is useful sometimes to test your
hypothesis in one relatively homogeneous occupational group to
avoid differences in health and wellbeing problems that are related
to socioeconomic differences (Elovainio et al., 2011). Physicians
are considered a high socioeconomic group with a strenuous work
environment. Physician work is cognitively and mentally demand-
ing, involving long work hours, on-call work, and high responsi-
bility and thus it is no surprise that physicians have been shown to
have more wellbeing problems than people working in other high
socioeconomic occupations (Virtanen et al., 2007).
It is also possible that personality traits, such as neuroticism or
trait anxiety, may act as predisposing factors for disturbed sleep
(Elovainio, Kivimäki, Vahtera, Virtanen, & Keltikangas-Jarvinen,
2003), distress, or job satisfaction. Such dispositions also affect the
way people experience their (psychosocial work) environment as a
source of negative emotions and the way they respond with mood
changes following stressors in their daily life. However, earlier
research has shown that incident mental disorders can be predicted
by organizational justice measured not just with individual self-
reports but also with work-unit mean scores (Kivimaki et al.,
2003). A further potential limitation is common method variance,
a potential source of inflated associations. Unfortunately, objective
measures of, for instance, sleep problems, such as actigraphy and
polysomnography, are very difficult to implement in large epide-
miological studies such as this.
Besides the two job stress models detailed above, there are
numerous other conceptualizations, including the effort–reward
imbalance (ERI) model, which suggests that people get stressed
when they are placed in demanding situations without being re-
warded adequately. ERI is widely tested and supported psychos-
ocial health risk (Siegrist, 1996) that has been shown to predict
emotional exhaustion (de Jonge et al., 2000) and cardiovascular
heart disease (Kuper et al., 2002). From the justice model perspec-
tive, ERI is basically one of the organizational justice dimensions
often called distributive justice. Thus, ERI is basically included
 298 ELOVAINIO ET AL.
theoretically in the organizational justice model even in the narrow
definitions (Greenberg & Colquitt, 2005).
This study has the benefit of using longitudinal data. All the
analyses were conducted using participants with complete data on
the measured variables. This meant that 30% of the original
population was lost to follow-up because of missing data. How-
ever, any differences in baseline characteristics between those
included and excluded were small, suggesting that a major bias is
unlikely and thus the results probably were not attributable to
selection effect. We do not have information on whether some of
the participants had changed their jobs during the follow up. It may
be that those who changed jobs and still perceived similar levels of
injustice would be more negatively affected compared with those
This article is intended solely for the personal use of the individual user and is not to be disseminated broadly.
who stayed where they were and experienced similar conditions,
This document is copyrighted by the American Psychological Association or one of its allied publishers.
but it is difficult to evaluate whether this has any effect on the
detected cross-lagged associations. We tested the associations be-
tween job characteristics and wellbeing indicators using cross-
lagged structural equation modeling, which is basically the only
method that tests both directions of the associations simultane-
ously. We were thereby able to model the reciprocal associations
between the job characteristics and wellbeing indicators. We had a
fixed follow-up time for each participant and thus there was no
need for exact discrete modeling, which is capable of taking into
account the various follow-up times between longitudinal mea-
sures. Over repeated follow-ups, autoregressive effects can only
decline and the cross-lagged effects would exhibit a peak at a
certain time window and thus using different time frames in
discrete modeling may show arbitrarily different associations. The
availability of long-term repeated data from only two occasions
prevented us from using other, more complicated models, such as
latent growth curve models. More follow-up measurement points
would have helped to eliminate the possibility that differences in
temporal stability between job characteristics and wellbeing would
have biased the observed direction of the associations between the
two (if in the long run job characteristics would be more stable
than wellbeing over time).
Although the present study suggests that the direction of the
association between adverse psychosocial environments and em-
ployee wellbeing is rather in the direction from adverse psychos-
ocial environments toward wellbeing outcomes than the reverse,
some evidence supporting strain-to-stressor effects was also found.
Thus, the idea best supported by current evidence is that where a
stressful environment causes reduced wellbeing, these two may
start to reinforce each other in a vicious circle. Our finding
suggests, however, that the fundamental perceptions of work re-
lated negative factors in our environment may not be understood as
an outcome of the psychological states of employees. These find-
ings suggest that the work related psychosocial factors even when
measured using self-reported indicators rather precede wellbeing
than are outcomes of psychological states. It has been suggested
that especially organizational justice perception would be affected
by psychological factors, such as depressive symptoms (Lang et
al., 2011). This reversed causality may be attributable to more
negative perception of environmental factors, such as organiza-
tional decision-making procedures among depressed people, or
actual differences in treatment of depressed people in organiza-
tions. Our results do not support the reversed causality of justice
perception and either of these explanations. Reduced wellbeing
seems not to affect justice perception, and this means that justice
perception may be a strong candidate for being a work-related
psychosocial factor that may have causal effects on employee
wellbeing, although there is a subjective component in justice
perception that seems not to account for the real wellbeing effects.
Our results supported similar conclusions concerning job control.
However, perception of job demands may be more vulnerable to
subjective bias and thus the association between job demands and
wellbeing may be partly explained by reversed causality. It may be
that reduced wellbeing (sleeping problems and distress) in fact
means that people do not have cognitive or physical resources
needed to cope with the demands at work and thus they perceive
their job demands higher. It is less probable that people with
reduced wellbeing would be systematically selected to more de-
manding jobs. These results basically suggest that interventions
should be targeted to fair managerial and decision making proce-
dures, increasing job control and reducing job demands. In addi-
tion, if the aim is specifically to reduce job demands only then it
may be useful to find risk groups already experiencing wellbeing
problems, such as poor sleep of psychological distress.
References
Aalto, A. M., Elovainio, M., Kivimäki, M., Uutela, A., & Pirkola, S.
(2012). The Beck Depression Inventory and General Health Question-
naire as measures of depression in the general population: A validation
study using the Composite International Diagnostic Interview as the gold
standard. Psychiatry Research, 197, 163–171. http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/
j.psychres.2011.09.008
Adams, J. S. (1963). Towards an understanding of inequity. The Journal of
Abnormal and Social Psychology, 67, 422– 436. http://dx.doi.org/
10.1037/h0040968
Brunner, E. J., Chandola, T., & Marmot, M. G. (2007). Prospective effect
of job strain on general and central obesity in the Whitehall II Study.
American Journal of Epidemiology, 165, 828 – 837. http://dx.doi.org/
10.1093/aje/kwk058
Byrne, B. M. (2011). Structural equation modeling with Mplus: Basic
concepts, applications, and programming. London, UK: Routledge.
Chandola, T., Britton, A., Brunner, E., Hemingway, H., Malik, M., Ku-
mari, M., . . . Marmot, M. (2008). Work stress and coronary heart
disease: What are the mechanisms? European Heart Journal, 29, 640 –
648. http://dx.doi.org/10.1093/eurheartj/ehm584
Chandola, T., Brunner, E., & Marmot, M. (2006). Chronic stress at work
and the metabolic syndrome: Prospective study. BMJ: British Medical
Journal (Clinical Research Ed.), 332, 521–525. http://dx.doi.org/
10.1136/bmj.38693.435301.80
Colquitt, J. A. (2001). On the dimensionality of organizational justice: A
construct validation of a measure. Journal of Applied Psychology, 86,
386 – 400. http://dx.doi.org/10.1037/0021-9010.86.3.386
Colquitt, J. A., Greenberg, J., & Zapata-Phelan, C. P. (2005). What is
organizational justice? A historical overview. In J. Greenberg & J. A.
Colquitt (Eds.), Handbook of organizational justice (pp. 3–56). Mah-
wah, NJ: Erlbaum.
Cropanzano, R., Byrne, Z. S., Bobocel, D. R., & Rupp, D. R. (2001). Moral
virtues, fairness heuristics, social entities, and other denizens of organi-
zational justice. Journal of Vocational Behavior, 58, 164 –209. http://dx
.doi.org/10.1006/jvbe.2001.1791
de Jonge, J., Bosma, H., Peter, R., & Siegrist, J. (2000). Job strain,
effort-reward imbalance and employee well-being: A large-scale cross-
sectional study. Social Science & Medicine, 50, 1317–1327. http://dx
.doi.org/10.1016/S0277-9536(99)00388-3
Elovainio, M., Ferrie, J. E., Singh-Manoux, A., Gimeno, D., De Vogli, R.,
Shipley, M. J., . . . Kivimäki, M. (2009). Cumulative exposure to
high-strain and active jobs as predictors of cognitive function: The
 STRESSFUL WORK ENVIRONMENT
Whitehall II study. Occupational and Environmental Medicine, 66,
32–37. http://dx.doi.org/10.1136/oem.2008.039305
Elovainio, M., Ferrie, J. E., Singh-Manoux, A., Gimeno, D., De Vogli, R.,
Shipley, M., . . . Kivimäki, M. (2010). Organisational justice and
markers of inflammation: The Whitehall II study. Occupational and
Environmental Medicine, 67, 78 – 83. http://dx.doi.org/10.1136/oem
.2008.044917
Elovainio, M., Ferrie, J. E., Singh-Manoux, A., Shipley, M., Batty, G. D.,
Head, J., . . . Kivimäki, M. (2011). Socioeconomic differences in
cardiometabolic factors: Social causation or health-related selection?
Evidence from the Whitehall II Cohort Study, 1991–2004. American
Journal of Epidemiology, 174, 779 –789. http://dx.doi.org/10.1093/aje/
kwr149
Elovainio, M., Heponiemi, T., Kuusio, H., Sinervo, T., Hintsa, T., & Aalto,
This article is intended solely for the personal use of the individual user and is not to be disseminated broadly.
A. M. (2010). Developing a short measure of organizational justice: A
This document is copyrighted by the American Psychological Association or one of its allied publishers.
multisample health professionals study. Journal of Occupational and
Environmental Medicine, 52, 1068 –1074. http://dx.doi.org/10.1097/
JOM.0b013e3181f8447c00043764-201011000-00003
Elovainio, M., Heponiemi, T., Vänskä, J., Sinervo, T., Kujala, S., Laakso,
E., . . . Halila, H. (2007). [How well are Finnish physicians in the 21st
century?] Kuinka suomalainen lääkäri voi 2000-luvulla? Suomen Laa-
karilehti. Finlands Lakartidning, 20 –21, 2071–2076.
Elovainio, M., Kivimäki, M., & Helkama, K. (2001). Organization justice
evaluations, job control, and occupational strain. Journal of Applied
Psychology, 86, 418 – 424. http://dx.doi.org/10.1037/0021-9010.86.3
.418
Elovainio, M., Kivimäki, M., & Vahtera, J. (2002). Organizational justice:
Evidence of a new psychosocial predictor of health. American Journal of
Public Health, 92, 105–108. http://dx.doi.org/10.2105/AJPH.92.1.105
Elovainio, M., Kivimäki, M., Vahtera, J., Keltikangas-Järvinen, L., &
Virtanen, M. (2003). Sleeping problems and health behaviors as medi-
ators between organizational justice and health. Health Psychology, 22,
287–293. http://dx.doi.org/10.1037/0278-6133.22.3.287
Elovainio, M., Kivimäki, M., Vahtera, J., Virtanen, M., & Keltikangas-
Jarvinen, L. (2003). Personality as a moderator in the relations between
perceptions of organizational justice and sickness absence. Journal of
Vocational Behavior, 63, 379 –395. http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/S0001-
8791(02)00058-1
Elovainio, M., Leino-Arjas, P., Vahtera, J., & Kivimäki, M. (2006). Justice
at work and cardiovascular mortality: A prospective cohort study. Jour-
nal of Psychosomatic Research, 61, 271–274. http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/
j.jpsychores.2006.02.018
Elovainio, M., Linna, A., Virtanen, M., Oksanen, T., Kivimäki, M., Pentti,
J., & Vahtera, J. (2013). Perceived organizational justice as a predictor
of long-term sickness absence due to diagnosed mental disorders: Re-
sults from the prospective longitudinal Finnish Public Sector Study.
Social Science & Medicine, 91, 39 – 47. http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j
.socscimed.2013.05.008
Elovainio, M., Singh-Manoux, A., Ferrie, J. E., Shipley, M., Gimeno, D.,
De Vogli, R., . . . Kivimäki, M. (2012). Organisational justice and
cognitive function in middle-aged employees: The Whitehall II study.
Journal of Epidemiology and Community Health, 66, 552–556. http://
dx.doi.org/10.1136/jech.2010.113407
Espie, C. A. (2002). Insomnia: Conceptual issues in the development,
persistence, and treatment of sleep disorder in adults. Annual Review of
Psychology, 53, 215–243. http://dx.doi.org/10.1146/annurev.psych.53
.100901.135243
Ferrie, J. E., Head, J., Shipley, M. J., Vahtera, J., Marmot, M. G., &
Kivimaki, M. (2006). Injustice at work and incidence of psychiatric
morbidity: The Whitehall II study. Occupational and Environmental
Medicine, 63, 443– 450. http://dx.doi.org/10.1136/oem.2005.022269
Gimeno, D., Tabák, A. G., Ferrie, J. E., Shipley, M. J., De Vogli, R.,
Elovainio, M., . . . Kivimäki, M. (2010). Justice at work and metabolic
299
syndrome: The Whitehall II study. Occupational and Environmental
Medicine, 67, 256 –262. http://dx.doi.org/10.1136/oem.2009.047324
Goldberg, D. P. (1972). The detection of psychiatric illness by question-
naire: A technique for the identification and assessment of non-psychotic
psychiatric illness. Oxford, UK: Oxford University Press.
Gotlib, I. H., & Joormann, J. (2010). Cognition and depression: Current
status and future directions. Annual Review of Clinical Psychology, 6,
285–312. http://dx.doi.org/10.1146/annurev.clinpsy.121208.131305
Graetz, B. (1991). Multidimensional properties of the General Health
Questionnaire. Social Psychiatry and Psychiatric Epidemiology, 26,
132–138. http://dx.doi.org/10.1007/BF00782952
Greenberg, J., & Colquitt, J. A. (2005). Handbook of organizational
justice. Mahwah, NJ: Erlbaum.
Hackman, J. R., & Oldham, G. R. (1975). Development of the Job Diag-
nostic Survey. Journal of Applied Psychology, 60, 159 –170. http://dx
.doi.org/10.1037/h0076546
Harris, P. E. (1989). The nurse stress index. Work & Stress, 3, 335–346.
http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/02678378908256952
Hausknecht, J. P., Sturman, M. C., & Roberson, Q. M. (2011). Justice as
a dynamic construct: Effects of individual trajectories on distal work
outcomes. Journal of Applied Psychology, 96, 872– 880. http://dx.doi
.org/10.1037/a0022991
Hemingway, H., & Marmot, M. (1999). Evidence based cardiology: Psy-
chosocial factors in the aetiology and prognosis of coronary heart
disease. Systematic review of prospective cohort studies. British Medi-
cal Journal, 318, 1460 –1467. http://dx.doi.org/10.1136/bmj.318.7196
.1460
Hemingway, H., Shipley, M., Mullen, M. J., Kumari, M., Brunner, E.,
Taylor, M., . . . Marmot, M. (2003). Social and psychosocial influences
on inflammatory markers and vascular function in civil servants (the
Whitehall II study). The American Journal of Cardiology, 92, 984 –987.
http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/S0002-9149(03)00985-8
Heponiemi, T., Elovainio, M., Laine, J., Pekkarinen, L., Eccles, M., Noro,
A., . . . Sinervo, T. (2007). Productivity and employees’ organizational
justice perceptions in long-term care for the elderly. Research in Nursing
& Health, 30, 498 –507. http://dx.doi.org/10.1002/nur.20205
Heponiemi, T., Kouvonen, A., Aalto, A.-M., & Elovainio, M. (2013).
Psychosocial factors in GP work: The effects of taking a GP position or
leaving GP work. European Journal of Public Health, 23, 361–366.
http://dx.doi.org/10.1093/eurpub/cks112
Jenkins, C. D., Stanton, B. A., Niemcryk, S. J., & Rose, R. M. (1988). A
scale for the estimation of sleep problems in clinical research. Journal of
Clinical Epidemiology, 41, 313–321. http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/0895-
4356(88)90138-2
Karasek, R. A. (1979). Job demands, job decision latitude and mental
strain: Implications for job redesign. Administrative Science Quarterly,
24, 285–295. http://dx.doi.org/10.2307/2392498
Karasek, R., Baker, D., Marxer, F., Ahlbom, A., & Theorell, T. (1981). Job
decision latitude, job demands, and cardiovascular disease: A prospec-
tive study of Swedish men. American Journal of Public Health, 71,
694 –705. http://dx.doi.org/10.2105/AJPH.71.7.694
Karasek, R. A., & Theorell, T. (1990). Healthy work: Stress, productivity
and the reconstruction of working life. New York, NY: Basic Books.
Kivimaki, M., Elovainio, M., Vahtera, J., & Ferrie, J. E. (2003). Organi-
sational justice and health of employees: Prospective cohort study.
Occupational and Environmental Medicine, 60, 27–33; discussion 33–
34.
Kivimäki, M., Elovainio, M., Vahtera, J., Virtanen, M., & Stansfeld, S. A.
(2003). Association between organizational inequity and incidence of
psychiatric disorders in female employees. Psychological Medicine, 33,
319 –326. http://dx.doi.org/10.1017/S0033291702006591
Kivimäki, M., Nyberg, S. T., Batty, G. D., Fransson, E. I., Heikkilä, K.,
Alfredsson, L., . . . Theorell, T., & the IPD-Work Consortium. (2012).
Job strain as a risk factor for coronary heart disease: A collaborative
 300 ELOVAINIO ET AL.
meta-analysis of individual participant data. The Lancet, 380, 1491–
1497. http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/S0140-6736(12)60994-5
Kivimäki, M., Virtanen, M., Elovainio, M., Kouvonen, A., Väänänen, A.,
& Vahtera, J. (2006). Work stress in the etiology of coronary heart
disease—A meta-analysis. Scandinavian Journal of Work, Environment
& Health, 32, 431– 442. http://dx.doi.org/10.5271/sjweh.1049
Kristof-Brown, A. L., Zimmerman, R. D., & Johnson, E. C. (2005).
Consequences of individuals’ fit at work: Meta-analysis of person-job,
person-organization, person-group, and person-supervisor fit. Personnel
Psychology, 58, 281–342. http://dx.doi.org/10.1111/j.1744-6570.2005
.00672.x
Kuper, H., Marmot, M., & Hemingway, H. (2002). Systematic review of
prospective cohort studies of psychosocial factors in the etiology and
prognosis of coronary heart disease. Seminars in Vascular Medicine, 2,
This article is intended solely for the personal use of the individual user and is not to be disseminated broadly.
267–314. http://dx.doi.org/10.1055/s-2002-35401
Lang, J., Bliese, P. D., Lang, J. W. B., & Adler, A. B. (2011). Work gets
This document is copyrighted by the American Psychological Association or one of its allied publishers.
unfair for the depressed: Cross-lagged relations between organizational
justice perceptions and depressive symptoms. Journal of Applied Psy-
chology, 96, 602– 618. http://dx.doi.org/10.1037/a0022463
Lazarus, R. S. (1993). From psychological stress to the emotions: A history
of changing outlooks. Annual Review of Psychology, 44, 1–22. http://dx
.doi.org/10.1146/annurev.ps.44.020193.000245
Lazarus, R. S., & Folkman, S. (1984). Stress, appraisal and coping. New
York, NY: Springer.
Lind, E. A., & Tyler, T. R. (1988). The social psychology of procedural
justice. New York, NY: Plenum Press. http://dx.doi.org/10.1007/978-1-
4899-2115-4
McEwen, B. S. (1998). Protective and damaging effects of stress media-
tors. The New England Journal of Medicine, 338, 171–179. http://dx.doi
.org/10.1056/NEJM199801153380307
McEwen, B. S. (2000). Allostasis, allostatic load, and the aging nervous
system: Role of excitatory amino acids and excitotoxicity. Neurochem-
ical Research, 25, 1219 –1231. http://dx.doi.org/10.1023/A:
1007687911139
McFarlin, D., & Sweeney, P. (1992). Distributive and procedural justice as
predictors of satisfaction with personal and organizational outcomes.
Academy of Management Journal, 35, 626 – 637. http://dx.doi.org/
10.2307/256489
Miedema, J., van den Bos, K., & Vermunt, R. (2006). The influence of
self-threats on fairness judgments and affective measures. Social Justice
Research, 19, 228 –253. http://dx.doi.org/10.1007/s11211-006-0007-7
Moorman, R. H. (1991). Relationship between organizational justice and
organizational citizenship behaviors: Do fairness perceptions influence
employee citizenship? Journal of Applied Psychology, 76, 845– 855.
http://dx.doi.org/10.1037/0021-9010.76.6.845
Ndjaboué, R., Brisson, C., & Vézina, M. (2012). Organisational justice and
mental health: A systematic review of prospective studies. Occupational
and Environmental Medicine, 69, 694 –700. http://dx.doi.org/10.1136/
oemed-2011-100595
Penninkilampi-Kerola, V., Miettunen, J., & Ebeling, H. (2006). A com-
parative assessment of the factor structures and psychometric properties
of the GHQ-12 and the GHQ-20 based on data from a Finnish
population-based sample. Scandinavian Journal of Psychology, 47, 431–
440.
Robbins, J. M., Ford, M. T., & Tetrick, L. E. (2012). Perceived unfairness
and employee health: A meta-analytic integration. Journal of Applied
Psychology, 97, 235–272. http://dx.doi.org/10.1037/a0025408
Rosenström, T., Hintsanen, M., Kivimäki, M., Jokela, M., Juonala, M.,
Viikari, J. S., . . . Keltikangas-Järvinen, L. (2011). Change in job strain
and progression of atherosclerosis: The Cardiovascular Risk in Young
Finns study. Journal of Occupational Health Psychology, 16, 139 –150.
http://dx.doi.org/10.1037/a0021752
Schmitt, M., & Dörfel, M. (1999). Procedural injustice at work, justice
sensitivity, job satisfaction and psychosomatic well-being. European
Journal of Social Psychology, 29, 443– 453. http://dx.doi.org/10.1002/
(SICI)1099-0992(199906)29:4⬍443::AID-EJSP935⬎3.0.CO;2-C
Schmitt, N., & Kuljanin, G. (2008). Measurement invariance: Review of
practice and implications. Human Resource Management Review, 18,
210 –222. http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.hrmr.2008.03.003
Siegrist, J. (1996). Adverse health effects of high-effort/low-reward con-
ditions. Journal of Occupational Health Psychology, 1, 27– 41. http://
dx.doi.org/10.1037/1076-8998.1.1.27
Skarlicki, D. P., & Folger, R. (1997). Retaliation in the workplace: The
roles of distributive, procedural, and interactional justice. Journal of
Applied Psychology, 82, 434 – 443. http://dx.doi.org/10.1037/0021-9010
.82.3.434
Stansfeld, S. A., North, F. M., White, I., & Marmot, M. G. (1995). Work
characteristics and psychiatric disorder in civil servants in London.
Journal of Epidemiology and Community Health, 49, 48 –53. http://dx
.doi.org/10.1136/jech.49.1.48
Tepper, B. J. (2001). Health consequences of organizational justice: Tests
of main and interactive effects. Organizational Behavior and Human
Decision Processes, 86, 197–215. http://dx.doi.org/10.1006/obhd.2001
.2951
van den Bos, K. (2001). Uncertainty management: The influence of un-
certainty salience on reactions to perceived procedural fairness. Journal
of Personality and Social Psychology, 80, 931–941. http://dx.doi.org/
10.1037/0022-3514.80.6.931
van den Bos, K., & Lind, E. A. (2002). Uncertainty management by means
of fairness judgements. In Z. M. P. In (Ed.), Advances in experimental
social psychology (Vol. 34, pp. 1– 60). Boston, MA: Elsevier. http://dx
.doi.org/10.1016/S0065-2601(02)80003-X
Vermunt, R., & Steensma, H. (2005). How can justice be used to manage
stress in organizations? In J. Greenberg & J. A. Colquitt (Eds.), Hand-
book of organizational justice (pp. 383– 410). Mahwah, NJ: Erlbaum.
Virtanen, M., Vahtera, J., Pentti, J., Honkonen, T., Elovainio, M., &
Kivimäki, M. (2007). Job strain and psychologic distress influence on
sickness absence among Finnish employees. American Journal of Pre-
ventive Medicine, 33, 182–187. http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.amepre.2007
.05.003
Ybema, J. F., & van den Bos, K. (2010). Effects of organizational justice
on depressive symptoms and sickness absence: A longitudinal perspec-
tive. Social Science & Medicine, 70, 1609 –1617. http://dx.doi.org/
10.1016/j.socscimed.2010.01.027
Ylipaavalniemi, J., Kivimäki, M., Elovainio, M., Virtanen, M.,
Keltikangas-Järvinen, L., & Vahtera, J. (2005). Psychosocial work char-
acteristics and incidence of newly diagnosed depression: A prospective
cohort study of three different models. Social Science & Medicine, 61,
111–122. http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.socscimed.2004.11.038
Zapf, D., Dormann, C., & Frese, M. (1996). Longitudinal studies in
organizational stress research: A review of the literature with reference
to methodological issues. Journal of Occupational Health Psychology,
1, 145–169. http://dx.doi.org/10.1037/1076-8998.1.2.145
Received October 16, 2013
Revision received October 10, 2014
Accepted November 3, 2014 䡲