Clearly, a need exists for a generic questionnaire instrument with a valid and reliable core set of scales that can be applied across occupational situations. Tailor-made scales could be added to this generic instrument as the need arises to capture the idiosyncratic factors which make any particular occupation difficult. Indeed, there is increasing pressure in the United States for such an instrument, owing in part to the mounting numbers of stress-related worker compensation lawsuits and the concurrent and growing necessity for organizations to document the effectiveness of stress reduction and stressor abatement interventions (I). The remainder of this paper describes efforts of the National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health (NIOSH) to develop such an instrument and briefly demonstrates the utility of this new instrument in identifying psychosocial stressors in the work environment. (author abstract)