What is it about?
We studied how different kinds of job stress and support are linked in a large group of Navy personnel preparing for deployment. Using network analysis, we mapped how job demands, resources at work and at home, and personal strengths connect to one another and may build up or buffer each other over time.
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Why is it important?
Our findings show that resources such as social support, job control and feeling valued are strongly interconnected, forming “webs” of protection, whereas many job demands are more compartmentalized. This suggests that strengthening a few key resources can improve many others at the same time, boosting resilience and engagement. We also find that interpersonal conflict links stressors across work and home, highlighting social relationships as a central target for prevention and intervention in organisations.
Perspectives
As a work and organizational psychologist, I have long been interested in how job design shapes health and motivation. In this project, I was fascinated to see how a network perspective reveals patterns that traditional models easily miss: some resources, like job control and feeling valued, sit at the heart of many others. For me, this reinforces that improving work is not about isolated measures, but about nurturing resource-rich, socially supportive environments. I hope our results encourage organisations to view demands and resources as interconnected systems and to design work in ways that strengthen employees’ autonomy, relationships and resilience.
Prof. Dr. Thomas Rigotti
Leibniz Institute for Resilience Research (LIR) and Johannes Gutenberg University Mainz
Read the Original
This page is a summary of: Understanding job demands and resources through network analysis: insights into workplace interconnectivity, Anxiety Stress & Coping, October 2025, Taylor & Francis,
DOI: 10.1080/10615806.2025.2564323.
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