Analysis by Jinane T.
Theoretical Overview
Stress can be defined as a feeling of anxiety, worry and tension perceived by an individual. While these feelings are the human means of identifying stress itself, they are technically the manifestation or byproduct of a stressful encounter. Stress is both a stimulus, and a response. The model of stressors, stress and outcomes employed in Organizations: Behaviour, Structures, Processes explains the concept of stress in the workplace using relationships between ‘stressors’ (the demanding situations that cause stress), ‘outcomes’ (the effects and consequences of encountering that stress), and ‘moderators’ (the personal set of characteristics, predispositions and conditions an individual processes stress with).
Background
Sydney Bristow, a vivacious, athletic grad student, discovers that her not-so-typical after-school job as an agent for SD-6, a top-secret division of the CIA, holds some deadly secrets that not only put her life in danger but also threaten the security of the free world... Recruited freshman year, the then shy and lonely Sydney jumped at the chance to add some meaning and excitement to her life. Little did she know how great she’d be at espionage or how much she’d love it. Today Sydney is no longer shy or alone. Boyfriend Danny has just proposed and her best friend Francie couldn’t be happier. Sydney now finds herself facing a moral dilemma: What does she want from the rest of her life, and what does she tell her friends and would-be fiancé?
Sydney’s SD-6 partner, Marcus Dixon, a devoted family man, warns her not to reveal her secret to Danny, and Sydney knows that SD-6 leader Sloane would not look kindly on any breach of security. If there’s one rule you don’t break, this is the one you don’t break. When Sydney breaks protocol and tells Danny about her secret life, her world is spun terrifyingly sideways: Danny’s life is placed in mortal danger, and Sydney is in a fight for her own life. She discovers that her long-estranged father, Jack Bristow, is also SD-6 and that the organization is covering up a nefarious plan — they are not a branch of the CIA, but are actually an enemy of the United States. With nowhere else to turn, Sydney seeks the aid of the real CIA to regain a sense of justice. She is enlisted as a double agent. Her mission is now to complete her cases at SD-6 while reporting her findings back to the CIA. Thus she begins the long and arduous task of destroying SD-6 from the inside. Towards the end of the pilot episode, Sydney learns that her father is also a double agent with the CIA, and she begins to question where his true allegiances really lie.
Relevant Video Segments:
* Sydney vents to Danny about her poor performance in an exam at school.
* Sydney tells her fiancé she is a secret agent.
* Sydney recalls her induction process into SD-6 during an awkward meeting with Danny. On a flight to their next assignment, Sydney discusses the pressures of keeping her identity a secret with colleague Marcus Dixon.
* Sydney returns home to find Danny murdered and confronts her boss, Sloane, at SD-6 headquarters.
*The foreign enemy tortures Sydney when she is captured on a Hong Kong assignment.
* Sydney makes a resolved return to SD-6 after her extended absence.
Analysis & Application
The first half of Alias’ pilot episode sees Sydney encountering stress on an individual level and on an organizational level. The fact that Sydney’s fiancé is unaware of her secret identity with the agency causes her a great deal of emotional difficulty. We see her lying to Danny about her job “with the bank” and making up locations for business trips to explain her absence during overseas work assignments. The toll this takes on Sydney is apparent in the scene where we see her relaxing at home with Danny. Even during an intimate moment with her fiancé, Sydney’s expression reveals that she is struggling with the idea of keeping her secret from him. Sydney is experiencing the cognitive outcomes of that stressor. Clearly, the strain of her secret wins out as Sydney decides to let Danny in on the truth in a behavioral outcome to that stress.
The unrelenting pace of action and change associated with working as a secret agent would ordinarily be an extremely pervasive individual stressor. This degree of change and action however, does not seem to cause serious health and/or psychological problems for Sydney – indicating that she probably differs in terms of personality from the majority of the population. We can say that Sydney possesses hardiness, a quality that is proven to offset, or buffer the stressful impacts of change an individual encounters. This would imply that Sydney fits the ‘three-characteristic theory of hardiness’. Hardy people:
Continue reading "Workplace Stress in Alias, S01E01" »
