Stress as a badge of honour: relationships with performance, health, and well-being

ABSTRACT Our study examined construct validity evidence for a measure of perceptions of Stress as a Badge of Honour, consisting of four dimensions: stress as achievement, relaxation remorse, stress-related social comparison, and stress-related impression management. A pilot study among college students (Study 1; N = 120) informed the initial development of the measure, which was further tested in two worker samples recruited from Amazon’s Mechanical Turk (MTurk). The results of Study 2 (N = 248) supported a four-factor structure of the measure. Study 3 utilised data collected at two time points (Matched N = 752), assessing stress badge perceptions, convergent and discriminant validity measures (Time 1), and measures of health, well-being, and performance (Time 2). The four subscales were related to, but unique from, convergent validity measures (e.g. workaholism, perfectionism) and were not highly related to discriminant validity measures (i.e. social desirability, positive and negative affect). The stress badge perceptions demonstrated some positive relationships with job performance, but predominantly negative relationships with psychological and physical health, and work-family conflict. Our findings expand our understanding of the dark side of viewing high stress in a laudatory manner by introducing a novel measure and can inform interventions to promote optimal views of stress.