The Relationship Between Individual Stress Levels and Psychological Safety Among Employees in an Automotive Components Manufacturing Company in Cikarang
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.38035/ijphs.v3i4.1485Keywords:
Individual Stress Levels, Psychological Safety, Manufacturing IndustryAbstract
This study examined the relationship between individual stress levels and psychological safety among employees in an automotive components manufacturing company located in Cikarang, West Java. The manufacturing environment—marked by strict production targets, rotating shifts, and high precision demands—often generates psychological strain that may influence employees’ sense of interpersonal safety at work. A quantitative, cross-sectional design was employed, involving 238 permanent employees from a large-scale automotive components manufacturer. Individual stress levels were measured using the Stress subscale of the Depression Anxiety Stress Scales-21 (DASS-21), while psychological safety was assessed using the Team Psychological Safety Scale (TPSS). Results revealed a significant negative correlation between individual stress levels and psychological safety (r = –0.46, p < .001), indicating that higher stress is associated with lower perceptions of psychological safety. The strongest association emerged in the Leader Interaction dimension (r = –0.51), followed by Peer Relationship and Team Climate. These findings support the Job Demands–Resources (JD–R) Model, suggesting that when personal and social resources are insufficient to offset high demands, employees’ psychological well-being and openness to interpersonal risk decline. Overall, the study underscores the importance of supportive leadership, open communication, and a collaborative team culture in maintaining psychological safety in high-pressure manufacturing environments.
References
Antony, M. M., Bieling, P. J., Cox, B. J., Enns, M. W., & Swinson, R. P. (1998). Psychometric properties of the 42-item and 21-item versions of the Depression Anxiety Stress Scales in clinical groups and a community sample. Psychological Assessment, 10(2), 176–181. https://doi.org/10.1037/1040-3590.10.2.176
Bakker, A. B., & Demerouti, E. (2007). The Job Demands–Resources model: State of the art. Journal of Managerial Psychology, 22(3), 309–328. https://doi.org/10.1108/02683940710733115
Bakker, A. B., & Demerouti, E. (2017). Job demands–resources theory: Taking stock and looking forward. Journal of Occupational Health Psychology, 22(3), 273–285. https://doi.org/10.1037/ocp0000056
Cooper, C. L., & Quick, J. C. (Eds.). (2017). The handbook of stress and health: A guide to research and practice. Wiley-Blackwell. https://doi.org/10.1002/9781118993811
Crawford, E. R., LePine, J. A., & Rich, B. L. (2010). Linking job demands and resources to employee engagement and burnout: A theoretical extension and meta-analytic test. Journal of Applied Psychology, 95(5), 834–848. https://doi.org/10.1037/a0019364
Creswell, J. W., & Creswell, J. D. (2018). Research design: Qualitative, quantitative, and mixed methods approaches (5th ed.). SAGE Publications.
Deci, E. L., & Ryan, R. M. (2000). The “what” and “why” of goal pursuits: Human needs and the self-determination of behavior. Psychological Inquiry, 11(4), 227–268. https://doi.org/10.1207/S15327965PLI1104_01
Dong, Y., Bartol, K. M., Zhang, Z.-X., & Li, C. (2024). Team psychological safety and creativity: The moderating role of leader inclusiveness in manufacturing settings. Journal of Applied Psychology, 109(1), 112–126. https://doi.org/10.1037/apl0001132
Edmondson, A. (1999). Psychological safety and learning behavior in work teams. Administrative Science Quarterly, 44(2), 350–383. https://doi.org/10.2307/2666999
Etikan, I. (2016). Comparison of convenience sampling and purposive sampling. American Journal of Theoretical and Applied Statistics, 5(1), 1–4. https://doi.org/10.11648/j.ajtas.20160501.11
Field, A. (2018). Discovering statistics using IBM SPSS statistics (5th ed.). SAGE Publications.
Frazier, M. L., Fainshmidt, S., Klinger, R. L., Pezeshkan, A., & Vracheva, V. (2017). Psychological safety: A meta-analytic review and extension. Personnel Psychology, 70(1), 113–165. https://doi.org/10.1111/peps.12183
Hakanen, J. J., Schaufeli, W. B., & Ahola, K. (2008). The Job Demands–Resources model: A three-year cross-lagged study of burnout, depression, commitment, and work engagement. Work & Stress, 22(3), 224–241. https://doi.org/10.1080/02678370802379432
Kahn, W. A. (1990). Psychological conditions of personal engagement and disengagement at work. Academy of Management Journal, 33(4), 692–724. https://doi.org/10.5465/256287
Karasek, R. A. (1979). Job demands, job decision latitude, and mental strain: Implications for job redesign. Administrative Science Quarterly, 24(2), 285–308. https://doi.org/10.2307/2392498
Kim, M., & Kweon, S. (2020). The effect of job stress on team psychological safety and work engagement: The mediating role of emotional exhaustion. Journal of Organizational Behavior Studies, 35(4), 58–72.
Liu, X., Wang, L., & Zhao, J. (2024). Psychological safety and employee innovation: The mediating role of team learning behavior. Frontiers in Psychology, 15, 1324062. https://doi.org/10.3389/fpsyg.2024.1324062
Lovibond, S. H., & Lovibond, P. F. (1995). Manual for the Depression Anxiety Stress Scales (2nd ed.). Psychology Foundation of Australia.
Maslach, C., Schaufeli, W. B., & Leiter, M. P. (2001). Job burnout. Annual Review of Psychology, 52(1), 397–422. https://doi.org/10.1146/annurev.psych.52.1.397
Newman, A., Donohue, R., & Eva, N. (2017). Psychological safety: A systematic review of the literature. Human Resource Management Review, 27(3), 521–535. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.hrmr.2017.01.001
O’Donovan, R., Doody, O., & Lyons, R. (2020). Development and testing of the Team Psychological Safety Scale. Journal of Nursing Management, 28(7), 1404–1411. https://doi.org/10.1111/jonm.13088
Podsakoff, N. P., LePine, J. A., & LePine, M. A. (2007). Differential challenge stressor–hindrance stressor relationships with job attitudes, turnover intentions, and withdrawal behavior: A meta-analysis. Journal of Applied Psychology, 92(2), 438–454. https://doi.org/10.1037/0021-9010.92.2.438
Sasaki, M., Kuroda, S., & Takahashi, Y. (2022). Cross-cultural validation of the Team Psychological Safety Scale: Evidence from East Asian organizations. International Journal of Psychology, 57(5), 621–634. https://doi.org/10.1002/ijop.12863
Schaufeli, W. B., & Taris, T. W. (2014). A critical review of the Job Demands–Resources model: Implications for improving work and health. In G. F. Bauer & O. Hämmig (Eds.), Bridging occupational, organizational and public health (pp. 43–68). Springer. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-94-007-5640-3_4
Sonnentag, S., & Frese, M. (2013). Stress in organizations. In N. W. Schmitt & S. Highhouse (Eds.), Handbook of psychology: Industrial and organizational psychology (Vol. 12, 2nd ed., pp. 560–592). Wiley.
Downloads
Published
Issue
Section
License
Copyright (c) 2025 Rizky Purnomo Adji Churnawan
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License.
Authors who publish their manuscripts in this journal agree to the following conditions:
- The copyright on each article belongs to the author(s).
- The author acknowledges that the International Journal of Psycology and Healt Science (IJPHS) has the right to be the first to publish with a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International license (Attribution 4.0 International (CC BY 4.0).
- Authors can submit articles separately, arrange for the non-exclusive distribution of manuscripts that have been published in this journal into other versions (e.g., sent to the author's institutional repository, publication into books, etc.), by acknowledging that the manuscript has been published for the first time in the IJPHS.
