Economic stress and fear of the financial crisis: Hot and cold reactions

Organizational and psychological literature from previous years have examined the effects of economic crisis on individuals. Literature shows that crisis and recession are accompanied by an increase in mortality and suicide rates (Chang et al. 2009). On one hand a rise in the use of mental health services has been noted, on the other hand there is a decrease in income (Jenkins et al. 2008). Further, economic crisis increases uncertainty regarding the consistency and continuity of one’s job, pay, benefits, tasks, and social environment and might stimulate the development of fear and panic (Shoss et al. 2012). Fear of the financial crisis is an under investigated construct in the psychological literature but it appears very threatening since it concerns different stressors of the economic life for employees, both subjective and objective (Probst, 2005). The present review highlights the importance of studying the effects of the crisis, in light of the research on '‘hot’' versus '‘cold’’ cognition (Abelson, 1963) we attempt to distinguish between hot and cold reactions to economic stress (Shoss et al. 2012) and specifically to fear of the crisis and discuss how these reactions might be related to each other. On one hand, employees may react to the fear of the crisis with negative feelings such as loss of confidence, frustration, and anxiety with higher risk of developing mental health problems (hot reaction). On the other hand, employees may react strategically, engaging in specific behaviors that might be desirable by the organization or that are perceived as increasing their job retention and stability (cold reaction). Particularly we will consider as a potential “cold” strategy the workplace bullying acceptability (Power et al., 2011), a new controversial argument in the organizational psychology field.