Who Is (Not) Under Stress? A Comparison of Doctoral Students’ Effort–Reward Profiles

Abstract: The doctoral phase can be considered demanding and stressful, but also insightful and rewarding. To identify which doctoral students feel particularly stressed (vs. less stressed), the effort–reward imbalance model ( Siegrist, 1996 ) was applied to data from 1,275 doctoral students in an online survey. Latent profile analyses revealed three groups: a high-risk group (10 %), a medium-risk group (65 %), and a low-risk group (25 %). The high-risk group reported high effort, low reward, considerable exhaustion, and low social support. The medium-risk group showed a balanced relationship between effort and reward, while the low-risk group reported more rewards than efforts and the highest level of social support as well as the lowest level of exhaustion. These findings were validated in a follow-up survey after 6 weeks. Overall, the study shows that during doctoral studies, social support – especially from doctoral supervisors – protects against stress.