The Psychological Impact of Unemployment

This text is an in-depth treatment of theories and research concerning the psychological impact of unemployment. It also contains an integrated report of the author's research into unemployment effects conducted since the late 1970s at Flinders University. This research programme is concerned with the effects of youth unemployment as well as the psychological impact of unemployment in older age groups. The theories reviewed are not restricted to those that are specifically concerned with work, and unemployment (e.g., Jahoda's latent functions approach, Warr's vitamin model) but extend more widely to encompass psychological theories concerned with the self, stress and coping, expectations and actions, causal attributions, self efficacy, learned helplessness, and life cycle development. The book is written for both undergraduate and graduate audiences in social psychology and organizational/industrial psychology, and is also relevant for industrial sociologists and health psychologists.