ABSTRACT
The literature contains ample evidence of the impact of job stress on workers' mental and physical well-being (Kahn and Byosiere, 1992). However, it is only recently that researchers have turned their attention to the phenomenon of stress contagion that has been labeled crossover, namely, the reaction of individuals to the job stress experienced by those with whom they interact regularly. In this chapter, the differentiation of Bolger et al. (1989) between two situations in which stress is contagious is followed: spillover — stress experienced in one domain of life results in stress in the other domain for the same individual; and crossover — stress experienced in the workplace by the individual leads to stress being experienced by the individual's spouse at home. Whereas spillover is an intra-individual, inter-domain contagion of stress (see Chapter 3), crossover is a dyadic, interindividual, inter-domain contagion, generating similar reactions in another individual. In other words, spillover occurs from home to work and from work to home, for the same individual, whereas crossover is conceptualized as a process occurring from one individual at the workplace to his/her spouse at home. This indicates that whereas spillover affects only the individual, crossover can affect the dyad and the group.
