Health determined to a large extent by social relationships at work read more at here www.spinonews.com/index.php/item/1132-health-determined-to-a-large-extent-by-social-relationships-at-work

Whether an engineer, a nurse, or a call center worker, is likely to spend an average of one third of day on the job.

In a new meta-analysis covering 58 studies and more than 19,000 people across the globe, psychologists have shown that how strongly we identify with the people or organization where we work is associated with better health and lower burnout.

Many people assume finding the right job that fits the personality and skills is the key to a healthy work life, this meta-analysis shows that health at work is determined to a large extent by our social relationships in the workplace and, more particularly, the social groups we form there.

Researcher Dr. Niklas Steffens, University of Queensland, Australia, says, this study is the first large-scale analysis showing that organizational identification is related to better health. These results show that both performance and health are enhanced to the extent that workplaces provide people with a sense of 'ourselves' and 'us.'

While the type of job was not a significant factor in the link between social identification and health benefits, as several factors influenced the relationship.

Social identification contributes to both psychological and physiological health, but the health benefits are stronger for psychological health.

The positive psychological benefit may stem from the support provided by the work group, but also the meaning and purpose that people derive from membership in social groups.

Researchers found that the health benefits of identifying with the workplace are strongest when there are similar levels of identification within a group that is, when the identification is shared. So if you identify strongly with your organization, then you get more health benefits if everyone else identifies strongly with the organization too.

Researchers surprised to find that the more women there were in a sample, the weaker the identification-health relationship.

However, one of the reasons relates to the fact that there are still many workplaces that have somewhat 'masculine' cultures. This could mean that even when female employees identify with their team or organization, they still feel somewhat more marginal within their team or organization.