Essay Example on Seafarers' Stressors: Effects of Long-Term Exposure

Introduction

Seafarers are often in a stressful situation on board the ship. While the body is programmed to respond to threats through different behavioural responses, the seafarers’ safety behaviour may be different in some contexts. However, Khalili (2012) objected that long-term exposure to stressors might significantly impact the seafarers as their mental, emotional and physical stressors are inherent in the work due to the job content, pressure, and lack of communication. For example, due to the demanding nature of their work, the seafarers are exposed to a stressful situation such as limited recreational activity, claustrophobia, fatigue, long-term loneliness, lack of sleep, separation from families and friends and other stressful events and mishaps (Kearney et al., 2015). They have to stay alert most of the time and are expected to make quick decisions in the event of unexpected circumstances. While the seafarers have adopted several strategies to deal with the stress, these strategies have a long-term negative impact on the lives of the people(Geurts & Sonnentag, 2006). Seafarers are sweaty, have difficulty concentrating, experience sleeping problems, and are anorexic. Most seafarers are often alcoholic, moody, or depressed. However, Kleidon (2010) reported that not all of the seafarers experience these problems because of their natural capacity to overcome the stress. Some use positive thinking to overcome the pressure, while some are said to be emotionally intelligent (EI).

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Emotional intelligence has been significantly associated with adaptive emotional traits and higher adaptive abilities. People with higher EI levels have more lifetime outcomes than people with low EI because they can adapt faster to a stressful situation than less emotionally intelligent counterparts. According to Kleidon (2010), EI is an emotional buffer in stressful situations because those with a higher level of EI have a faster adaptive response as compared to those with low EI (Watson, 2017; Lea et al., 2019).

While the highly emotionally intelligent people have low mood deterioration, they also exhibit faster post-stress recovery than their low emotionally intelligent counterpart. Additionally, Kearney et al. (2015) indicated that there is a significant positive relationship between intelligent emotional ability (EIA) and emotional intelligence trait (EIT). However, Lea, Davis, Mahoney, & Qualter, (2019) reported that emotional intelligence adaptive and emotional intelligence traits affected respondent to acute stress reactivity differently because emotional intelligence was adaptive in some situations only as the different stressors types requires different emotional intelligence responses. On the other hand, Geurts & Sonnentag (2006) showed that EI traits were significantly correlated with less mood deterioration and physical discomfort than other situations such as responding to disasters. The effects of emotional intelligence traits on physiologist stress responses were very low while there was a weak relationship between subjective and objective stress reactivity and emotional intelligence traits (Lea et al., 2019).

According to Kleidon (2010), emotional intelligence variables partially mediated the impact of negative safety climate on poor health, which means that emotional intelligence is correlated with safety behaviours of the seafarers (mediated effect=0.034, p=0.002). Because the seafarers are more likely to experience fatigue, they are also likely to demonstrate a negative safety climate. However, emotional intelligence has a mediating effect on the fatigue, which means that high emotional intelligence is passively correlated to the positive safety climate. Highly emotionally intelligent people will record very few or no safety policy violations and errors at work. Emotional intelligence provides effective regulation of emotion and enhanced adaptive coping skills (Kleidon, 2010). This was the same argument presented by Khalil (2012). People with higher emotional intelligence scores tend to be more self-aware because they monitor their emotions and develop an appropriate safety reaction to situations. People who monitor their emotions have better-coping ability, especially in stressful situations. Kleidon (2010) argued that EI is an effective safety mediator between safety climates. Apart from self-awareness, motivation, empathy, and social skills are important elements of emotional intelligence. Seafarers with higher emotional intelligence scores know how to perceive, assimilate, understand, and manage these elements of emotional intelligence.

While most seafarers are not trained on emotional intelligence, they are trained on safety bevors and supervisory behaviours. Safety climate is given primacy but not emotional intelligence. The main finding by Lu & Kuo (2016) is that there is a nexus between emotional intelligence and safety climate, risk perception, and leadership despite the literature gap on the impact of job stress or port worker safety. Even though positive thinking is associated with safety behaves, this is the only association and not causality. It is important to understand that positive outlook among the seafarers contributes significantly to their safety bears because they have higher IE and are more self-aware and more introspection.

Whether structured safety behaviours, interactive safety belabour or personal safety behalf, self-awareness plays an important role in these safety behavers. Self-aware (emotionally intelligent)individuals demonstrate higher safety compliance behaviours score and safety participation behaviour (Lu & Kuo, 2016). Seafarers’ attitudes towards safety of life, property and the environment are defined by their perception towards personal risk, and self-awareness that is why seafarer’s safety training should be given primacy (Watson, 2017). These findings reinforce the findings by Lu & Kuo (2016) that emotional intelligence moderates the relationship between job stress and workers’ safety participation.

Emotional intelligence is supposed to be the best tool for handling in the best way for several reasons, as stated in the introduction. Having the four parts of emotional intelligence, that is, self-awareness, self-regulation, social skill, and empathy, an individual can ably manage stress. Self-awareness helps an individual much in a situation where they are becoming stressed. It assists much since the individual settles prior to the building of their reactions to a stage that cannot be managed. Empathy and social skill intervene much when making a person more effective in their mode of expression (Watson, 2017). The skills need to be learned and adopted when people are stressed. It is vital to have different approaches for analysis that explore the ability and the traits EI relates to giving a presentation when a person is stressed (Watson, 2017). That can only be done by differentiating subjective and objective performance when one is performing a task. Self-efficacy is also significant as a potential mediator of the trait EI-performance relationship.

Adaptive coping is another tool that can be used in dealing with stress as emotional intelligence in action. Adaptive coping is a vital aspect of emotional intelligence that gives room to a person to negotiate between external demands and pressures in an effective manner. It also assists in channeling negative emotions constructively (Kleidon, 2010). In a stressful condition or event, coping may be construed as a more straightforward way of adjusting to a stressful situation. Coping is being seen as an emotional intelligence manifestation. Coping is a manifestation of emotional intelligence via a search of mastering emotional development, emotions, and both emotional and cognitive differentiation. Coping allows people to evolve in an ever-shifting globe. Emotional intelligence is conceptualized within the domain of stress and will refer to the empirical facts (Kleidon, 2010). The study of the relationship between EI and safety behaviors will also be taken into consideration.

The relationship between EI and safety behaviors

The relationship of emotional intelligence has a great significance on safety behaviors. Emotional intelligence is very vital in a safety-oriented setting. Individuals who possess emotional intelligence have a high probability of being confident, indulgent, empathetic, and compassionate. People with emotional intelligence motivate greatly, posses the best interpersonal skills to control their lives in all walks of life. In turn, emotional intelligence perceptions and the limit of expression towards the behaviors that might be negative. For instance, it is hard to indulge themselves in aggressive, impulsive, quitting behaviors, among others. People who rate high in terms of emotional intelligence have a high probability of isolating their emotions to avoid indulging in the activities they are conducting. People have a high capability of facing challenging situations as they maintain their focus on the higher priorities in safety cases. A person with emotional intelligence takes into consideration the effects of the consequences of their behaviors in situations where they do not control their emotions. They consider the potential results and do not behave in an impulsive manner (Kearney et al., 2015). High emotional intelligence people are possible to practice self-control and show an ideological process prior to acting.

Psychometrics is one of the most reliable and valid approaches to gauging emotional intelligence. The utility of psychometrics in the process of making choices offers personal information regarding their characteristics in terms of EI, self-control, teamwork, among others. On top of that, identifying the levels of emotional intelligence aligns with an individual's high commitment to the culture of behavioral safety of every scenario. EI is very vital in observing someone's behavior. It can be used in any formal setting to compare the observations of behaviors in an institution with arrangements pre-planned, such as the safety-critical process, method statements, and the work permits. EI assists in behavior modification. It initiates a systematic approach to attain a change in at-risk behavior while facilitating safety positively through practices such as coaching, changes in the system, among other means. To monitor human error, safety culture, safety-critical procedure, and non-compliance, emotional intelligence concepts have to be highly considered (Kleidon, 2010). The reason behind it is that people have to adhere to rules and regulations and approve positive ways through emotional intelligence.

In all operations in all walks of life, safety is a key thing to achieve success and rests in various aspects such as support, quality safety procedures, effective safety training. To move to a behavioral-based safety requires a compact shift of ingrained behavioral patterns and perspectives in all situations. It is meant to be slightly away from guaranteeing compliance to particular set standards to a culture that is basically on different factors. The factors include transparency, integrity, transparency, trust, and mutual respect. To navigate the choppy water of change, an individual requires emotional intelligence and good communication skills to network with others in terms of connection, relations, and motivational grounds. Emotional intelligence revolves around a person's feelings, thinking, behavior, and the consequences that go sequentially, respectively.