Human Adaptation in the Workplace - Fundamentals and Assessment Tools for Occupational Ergonomics - page 471

the occupational environment also contributes to those expectations through its physical, social, and cul-
tural subsystems. The person and environment contributions to the role expectations are reflected by the
arrows leading to the expectations. The arrows returning to the person indicate that the individual has a
perception of the interactive internal and external expectations, which may be fairly accurate or faulty. It
is this mix of expectations that prompts the person to create an occupational response, perform it, assess
its efficacy, and integrate the information surrounding this occupational event into the person for sub-
sequent use. The creation, assessment, and integration occur through the adaptive response generation
subprocess, the relative response evaluation subprocess and the adaptive response integration subprocess,
respectively.

21.3.1 Adaptive Response Generation Subprocess
Once the person has a perception of the interacting internal and external expectations, the two major
components for the adaptive response generation subprocess come into play. First, the adaptive response
mechanism produces a form of adaptation energy for use (primary response creation occurs at a high
awareness level with high usage of the finite supply of adaptation energy; secondary response creation
is processed at the subawareness level with a lower energy expenditure), and selects an adaptive response
mode for the pattern of interaction (existing response pattern in adaptive repertoire from a previous suc-
cessful one; modified changes in existing mode when existing mode fails to achieve success; new uniquely
different mode developed as existing and modified mode failed to achieve), and selects an adaptive
response behavior (primitive-hyperstabilized with behavior not leading to adaptation; transitional-
hypermobile with behavior leading to adaptation more likely to produce response; mature-blended
mobility and stability, most likely producing adaptive and masterful response to challenge).

21.3.2 Adaptive Response Evaluation Subprocess
After the occupational response occurs, the person begins to assess how adaptive and masterful was the
response. Repetitive mastery, with properties of efficiency (how much of personal time, energy and avail-
able resources were used?), effectiveness (to what extent were the performance expectations met?) and
satisfaction to self and society (to what extent did the experience gratification and to what extent did
society regard the response as adaptive and masterful?) is the primary tool for this assessment activity.
The person reaches a conclusion about the success of the overall occupational event in meeting the occu-
pational challenge with its expectations. The decision reached is along the continuum, which ranges from
dysadaptive (negative range) to adaptive (positive range), with homeostatis as midpoint (neutral).

21.3.3 Adaptive Response Integration Subprocess
Action of the adaptive response integration subprocess provides the reflective conduit through which the
feedback loop to the person moves. This subprocess does the work that culminates information about the
occupational event resulting in long-lasting impact on the person's adaptive capacity.
The minimal form of adaptive response integration is simply a memory of the experience. If the sub-
process functions well, this memory becomes the basis for an adaptive reflection. Although less obvious,
it is assumed that a negative relative mastery experience also leads to an increase in adaptive capacity.

21.4 Work Variables Impacting Individual Adaptation

Genaidy and Karwowski (2003, 2005), Abdallah et al. (2004), Salem et al. (2005) have classified the
complex web of work variables into 12 categories: (1) organizational, (2) technological, (3) physical
environment, (4) social communication, (5) economic, (6) individual growth, (7) mental task content,

(8) physical task content, (9) effort, (10) perceived risk

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benefit, (11) performance, and (12) psychological
impact. Each work variable consists of a multitude of work elements and is evaluated in terms of

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