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About Us

We are the Work Stress in Context (WSC) Laboratory The WSC (pronounced ‘whisk’) Lab takes a psychological approach to study the relationships between work, well-being, and behavior.

The WSC Lab Mission

We promote an intellectually stimulating, supportive environment in which to produce high-quality research that explores timely and practically useful questions related to each of the elements in our name. Click below to understand how we “whisk” each element together to study the changing nature of work in context.

Logo with large "WSC" letters above the words "Work Stress in Context Lab," with overlapping blue mountain shapes in the background.

There are many elements in the workplace that affect the nature of work itself:

  • Work quality, conditions, and organizational structure

The nature of work is also subject to constant change sparked by many factors:

  • globalization, financialization, technologization

We seek to understand the challenges and impacts that the nature of work has on worker-wellbeing and organizational performance.

Like reporters, we ask questions to understand the “who”, “what”, “where”, and “when” behind what we study. Context is what allows us to examine these factors.

Examples of some contextual frameworks are:

  • Individual contexts
  • Interpersonal contexts
  • National contexts
  • Temporal Contexts

Context provides insights into work-related perceptions, wellbeing, reactions, and behaviors .

The WSC lab uses a rigorous multi-disciplinary scientific framework when examining work. Research in the lab occurs at the intersections of many fields:

I/O Psychology, Occupational Health Psychology, Human Resources (especially the Sustainable Human Resource movement), and Organizational Behavior.

We also draw from works in Economics, Sociology, and Political Science.

Four women stand in front of a research poster on job insecurity at a conference, smiling at the camera.
Four people wearing conference name tags stand together, smiling, in business casual attire against a dark wooden wall.
Four women stand indoors in front of large windows and a plant, smiling at the camera.

Our Philosophy

  • Work plays a critical role in people’s lives and thereby has relevance for well-being
  • Work (paid and unpaid) fulfills the societal goal of organizing human activity into the collective pursuit of shared goals
  • Thus, both well-being and productivity are valued outcomes, and society benefits when they are pursued simultaneously rather than achieved at the cost of one another.

This philosophy aligns with, and is inspired by, perspectives espoused by the International Labour Organization (ILO) and the United Nations (UN) that emphasize the importance of work for individual well-being and the importance of individuals well-being for productive and sustainable economic growth (see e.g., ILO, nd; OECD, 2013; UN Sustainable Development Goal 8).