Person/Role Conflict: Holland's Model Extended to Role-Stress Research, Stress Management, and Career Development

Abstract

Within the considerable volume of research on role-stress antecedents and consequences, the construct of person/role conflict has rarely been studied separately from other forms of role conflict (intersender, intrasender, role overload). An extension of Holland's person/environment congruence-model (from vocational psychology) to research on person/role conflict can help clarify this construct. I propose three types of research to develop better understanding of this type of employee stress: development of a scale to measure perceptions of person/role conflict separately from other types of role conflict; application of the Holland model as a conceptual base as well as an objective measure of one aspect of person/role conflict — namely, person/role incongruence; and empirical tests of the propositions suggested by the Holland model.