Mental Stress and Alcohol Consumption. Resources that may prevent alcohol consumption

Bachelor Thesis from the year 2019 in the subject Psychology - Industrial and organizational psychology, grade: 1,0, University of Salzburg (Department of Psychology), language: English, abstract: Based on the recent changes in the working world and the associated increase in psychological stress at work, this thesis examines whether high mental stress at workplace leads to an elevated alcohol consumption. Furthermore, it investigates whether job and personal resources like social support at work, organizational identification as well as an internal locus of control can buffer this relationship.

This was addressed by examining all variables with corresponding questionnaires in an online-survey (N = 290). The results indicated that there was no relationship between mental stress at workplace and alcohol consumption and thus no predictive power. Moreover, the moderation hypotheses could not be confirmed. Neither social support, nor organizational identification, nor an internal locus of control had a significant impact on the relationship between mental stress at workplace and alcohol consumption.

Nowadays, especially in western nations it can be observed that the term "stress" became an increasingly frequent topic that seems to be almost inevitable for everyone. In a survey conducted by the Techniker Krankenkasse (TK) in 2016, around 63% of women and 58% of men surveyed stated that they felt stressed in everyday life. Often this increasing stress is tried to be reduced by consuming alcohol, above all beer and wine.

Thus, for understanding this trend, it is important to first define the construct stress and give an explanation of how it arises. Furthermore, it will be focused on mental stress especially at work and its assumed effect of increased alcohol consumption. Finally, three possible buffer resources are described that may influence the relationship between mental stress at work and alcohol consumption.