Rethinking Interpersonal stressors: Measurement development and implications for stress management in Chinese organizations

This study explores the concepts of interpersonal stressors in Chinese organizations and provides new evidence of reliability and validity. The first part of this study develops an indigenous measurement for interpersonal stressors. The second part uses exploratory factor analysis and reliability to determine four distinct dimensions-interpersonal isolation, interpersonal stability, interpersonal struggle, and interpersonal paranoia. The third part conducts confirmatory factor analyses to support the structure of the four factor measurement. Structural equation modeling also demonstrates the predictive validity of the interpersonal stressors on the criterion variables, as interpersonal stressors are the best predictor of job satisfaction, fatigue, and physiological illness. Moreover, this study finds that the relationship between interpersonal stressors and criterion variables is mediated by depressive symptoms, whereas the relationship between interpersonal conflict and criterion variables is mediated by anger. Finally, this study discusses these results in terms of their implications for interpersonal stressors under different cultural contexts.