Bosses take note: employees exposed to difficult or unjust circumstances may not only become sullen and unproductive workers: they may get physically sick, as well.

A two-year survey of more than 7,000 workers at 10 Finnish hospitals rated "justice" in the workplace—evaluating factors such as workload, social support networks, and relations between supervisors and subordinates. The researchers, whose study appears in The Journal of Occupational and Environmental Medicine, then measured workers' health with the number of sick days they logged, as well as a self-evaluation. All sick days were doctor-certified and included days off for psychological illness.

Mika Kivimaki, Ph.D., a psychologist at the University of Helsinki, found that workplaces rated as having "low justice"—such as those where supervisors didn't consider workers' viewpoints or had poorly designed performance reviews—were correlated with a 41 percent higher risk of absence due to illness for men, and a 12 percent higher risk for women. Men in the study had higher incomes, and Kivimaki says that high level workers seemed more affected by workplace injustice, but the researchers don't know why this might be the case.

Although plenty of research has linked stress to poor health, there is no comparable study on workplace justice. However, studies about bullying and psychological violence in corporate culture prove that the phenomenon exists in the U.S., says Steve M. Jex, Ph.D., an associate professor of psychology at Bowling Green State University in Ohio. Such situations may be on the rise due to the stagnant economic climate.

"Organizations are getting more harsh, what with layoffs and people being escorted off the premises" after they've been let go, says Jex, noting that studies like Kivimaki's can be useful in a culture where most workers stifle complaints and put up with whatever the boss dishes out.