There are positive implications of study for both workers of the study for both workers and for businesses. In this mill moving to a fixed salary structure that is not dependent on productivity, rotating jobs to introduce a variety and by improving job stress would be decreased and productivity of the factory would increase.
The study is a natural experiment which means we cannot infer cause and effect. It may not be the job itself that leads to illness but another factor. In addition the study does not indentify which of the work stressors may be the most stressful.
Marmot et al (1997) carried out a study which supported Johansen’s experiment, he questioned 7,372 London dwelling civil servants and checked them for signs of cardiovascular disease. 5 years later the participants were reassessed. The questionnaire used measured sense of job control and social support. Employment grade was recorded as a measure of job demand. Lifestyle factors such as smoking were also taken into account. Lower paid civil servants expressed a weaker sense of job control and also found the heart disease could be partly explained in terms of risk factors such as smoking. It was concluded that low job control is linked to higher stress and CVD but high demand is not linked to stress and illness. Thus the study only partially supported the job strain model as it did find evidence for the role of low control but not for high demand.
The results of the study may be explained in terms of socio-economic status (SES). People with lower SES are more likely to smoke, live in more stressful environments and have poorer diets, all of which are factors that contribute to CVD.
The sample used is very biased. Civil servants are not typical of the wider population as they are urban dwellers who most probably quite job-orientated and ambitious. One study found that individuals are more affected by workplace stressors. Therefore, it is possible that not everyone will be affected by low control in the way civil servants were.
Researchers often need to use techniques such as deception and uninformed consent in order to obtain ecologically valid results. How ethically acceptable these methods are depend on any long-term effects of the research, and exactly what the research has discovered. The British Psychological Society (BPS) has ethical guidelines which include deception, informed consent, protection from harm and right to withdraw, all of which must be adhered to in a piece of research. Milgram's experiment on obedience to authority used staged electric shocks in order to test how far participants would follow orders.
