Home=>Staff=>Victoria Blom

Victoria Blom

PhD, Researcher


Background

Research

My research concerns work- and organizational psychology in general. Specifically I focus on work related- and individual risk factors for burnout. My main focus is on Performance based self-esteem, which is a label for a low basic self-esteem in combination with a need to pursue success and competence in order to validate the self. Studies have shown that this can make individuals exceed their limits and push themselves so hard as they risk their own health when striving for compensating a lacking fundamental self-love. This is a particularly vulnerable structure, which has been shown to have an important impact on wellbeing in general and on burnout in particular.

My PhD thesis is called ”Striving for self-esteem, conceptualizations and role in burnout”. The main aim of the thesis was to develop a theoretically sound and valid concept and measure of contingent self-esteem dependent on competence and examine its vulnerable implications and role for burnout. In my first two studies I developed a scale to measure this kind of contingent self-esteem and validated it experimentally by comparing high and low scorers in the scale regarding different indicators of physiological reactivity in a performance situation. The results in the second study showed that people with high scores in contingent self-esteem exhibited significantly stronger physiological reactivity and strain/effort indicated by higher diastolic blood pressure and response force compared to low scorers. In addition they reported more perceived frustration, tense and anxiety than low scorers. In my third study I investigated the mediating role of performance based self-esteem in the relationship between the work situation and burnout. The analyses showed that contingent self-esteem was a strong predictor of burnout. In addition, women scored higher on both contingent self-esteem and burnout and reported higher general life stress as compared to men, whereas men showed stronger associations between work stressors and burnout. The results of the three studies suggest that contingent self-esteem, where outcomes of one's acts and performances serve to compensate an impoverished basic self-worth, is a promising tool that facilitates the understanding of the mechanisms behind stress related vulnerability and ill health.

Teaching

I have been enrolled as a lecturer at various courses on the undergraduate and master's level at the Department of Psychology, Stockholm University and at Chess international master's program, Center For Health and Equity Studies, Stockholm university/Karolinska Institutet as well as at undergraduate level at The Swedish school of Sport and Health Sciences. The topics are organizational psychology, human resource management, organization theory, stress and health. I have also supervised ten BA and MA theses. Above this, I am enrolled as lecturer organized by companies.

Publications

Scientific articles

  1. Blom, V. (2011). Striving for self-esteem, conceptualizations and role in burnout. Academic thesis for PhD, Department of Psychology, Stockholm University.
  2. Blom, V. (2011). Contingent self-esteem, stressors and burnout in working women and men. WORK: A Journal of Prevention, Assessment, & Rehabilitation, in press.
  3. Blom, V., Johnson, M., & Patching, G. (2011). Physiological and behavioral reactivity when one's self-worth is staked on competence. Individual Differences Research, in press.
  4. Blom, V., Bergström, G., Hallsten, L., Bodin, L., & Svedberg, P. (2010). Genetic susceptibility to burnout in a Swedish twin cohort. European Journal of Epidemiology. Submitted manuscript.
  5. Mellner, C., Blom, V., & Näswall, K. (2010). Journal of Occupational Health Research. Submitted manuscript.
  6. Aronsson, G., & Blom, V. (2010). Work conditions for workers with good longterm health. International journal of Workplace Health Management, 3, 160-172.
  7. Johnson, M., & Blom, V. (2007). Development and validation of two measures of contingent self-esteem. Individual Differences Research, 5, 300-328.

Conference presentations

  1. Blom, V. (2010). Self esteem strivings, stressors and burnout in working women and men. Paper presented at Stressforskningskongressen, 17-18 May 2010, Stockholm, Sweden.
  2. Blom, V. (2009). Self esteem strivings, stressors and burnout in working women and men. Paper presented at AOnet, 28-29 September 2009, Stockholm, Sweden.
  3. Blom, V., Johnson, M., & Patching, G. (2008). Prestationsbaserad självkänsla och anspänning i en prestationssituation. Paper presented at Stressforskningskongressen, 19-20 May 2008, Uppsala, Sweden.
  4. Blom, V., Johnson, M., & Patching, G. (2008). Pushing oneself to illhealth: Performance based self-esteem and physiological reactivity. Paper presented at the Work, stress and health conference, 6-9 March 2008, Washington, USA.
  5. Häsänen, L., Hellgren, J., & Blom, V. (2007). Goal setting, commitment and job performance: Employees’ commitment toward their work during a plant closure. Paper presented at the XIIIth European Congress of Work and Organizational Psychology, 9-12 May 2007, Stockholm, Sweden.
  6. Johnson, M., & Blom, V. (2006). Competence or relationships as a determinant of self-esteem: development and validity of two measures of contingent self-esteem. Journal of Psychosomatic Research, Special Issue on Neuropsychiatry, 61, 397. Abstract The 26th European Conference of Psychosomatic Research, October 2006, Budapest, Hungary.
  7. Blom, V., & Johnson, M. (2006). Är vi tvångspresterare? Paper presented at Psykologidagarna, 31 october 2006, Stockholm, Sweden.

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