Reconceptualizing the work–family interface: An ecological perspective on the correlates of positive and negative spillover between work and family.

Ecological theory was used to develop a more expanded conceptualization of the work–family interface and to identify significant correlates of multiple dimensions of work–family spillover. Using data from employed adults participating in the National Survey of Midlife Development in the United States (N?=?1,986), negative spillover from work to family, positive spillover from work to family, negative spillover from family to work, and positive spillover from family to work were found to be distinct work–family experiences. Analyses indicated that work and family factors that facilitated development (e.g., decision latitude, family support) were associated with less negative and more positive spillover between work and family. By contrast, work and family barriers (e.g., job pressure, family disagreements) were associated with more negative spillover and less positive spillover between work and family. In some cases, results differ significantly by gender. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Gender and work setting differences in career-sustaining behaviors and burnout among professional psychologists.

What factors relate to levels of burnout experienced by male and female psychologists? Five hundred ninety-five psychologists responded to a survey about professional activities, work demands and resources, career-sustaining behaviors, and burnout. Respondents in solo or group independent practice reported a greater sense of personal accomplishment, more sources of satisfaction, fewer sources of stress, and more control at work than respondents in agency settings. In addition, women in independent practice reported less emotional exhaustion than women in agency settings. In general, women tended to give higher ratings to the importance of career-sustaining behaviors; however, 6 strategies emerged as highly important for all respondents: maintain sense of humor, maintain self-awareness/self-monitoring, maintain balance between personal and professional lives, maintain professional identity/values, engage in hobbies, and spend time with spouse, partner, or family. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

How do people with different attachment styles balance work and family? A personality perspective on work–family linkage.

This study explored whether different models of work–family relationship were possible for individuals with different attachment styles. A mail survey was conducted using employees (N?=?481) at a midwestern university in the United States. Results suggested that (a) individuals with a preoccupied attachment pattern were more likely to experience negative spillover from the family/home to the work domain than those with a secure or dismissing style, (b) securely attached individuals experienced positive spillover in both work and family domains more than those in the other groups, and (c) preoccupied individuals were much less likely to use a segmentation strategy than the other 3 attachment groups. However, when the conventional job satisfaction–life satisfaction relationship was examined, the data provided unique support for the spillover model. Implications of the findings for both attachment and work–family relationship literatures are discussed. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Structure and correlates of spillover from nonwork to work: An examination of nonwork activities, well-being, and work outcomes.

Employees today are involved in many different types of activities outside of work, including family, volunteering, leisure, and so on. The purpose of this study was to understand how participation in such nonwork activities can both enrich and interfere with well-being and behavior at work. Four dimensions of nonwork-to-work spillover were examined to better understand this process (i.e., positive emotional, negative emotional, positive behavioral, and negative behavioral). Survey data were collected in 2 waves from 293 staff and faculty members of a large Canadian university (N = 108 matched surveys from both waves). We found that volunteering is associated with increased well-being and work satisfaction, and that it creates positive emotional and behavioral, and negative behavioral spillovers. We also found that sports, recreation, and fitness are associated with improved well-being and positive emotional spillover. Negative spillover is associated with negative outcomes. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Distress and professional impairment among psychologists in clinical practice.

Distress and professional impairment among psychologists in clinical practice can adversely affect the process of psychotherapy. In this study, 522 practicing psychologists (52.2%) completed a mail survey on distress and impairment. Various life events and work factors were associated with different amounts of distress and impairment, with personal relationship problems and work with difficult clients being particularly troublesome. Respondents who experienced a greater number of life events/work factors also reported greater distress and impairment. Very high positive correlations emerged between distress and impairment for both life events and work factors. Non-work-related activities and periodic vacations were the most frequently reported preventive behaviors. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Dispositional empathy in scientists and practitioner psychologists: Group differences and relationship to self-reported professional effectiveness.

Dispositional empathy, job satisfaction, and perceived effectiveness at a variety of professional activities were assessed in a sample of 290 psychologists. The participants were randomly chosen from four divisions of the American Psychological Association. Analyses indicated that psychologists from divisions chosen to represent a "Practitioner" orientation (Clinical Psychology and Psychotherapy), compared to psychologists from divisions chosen to represent a "scientist" orientation (Evaluation, Measurement, and Statistics), scored lower on personal distress. For females only, practitioner status was also associated with higher scores on empathic concern and perspective taking. Also, regardless of sex, among participants who reported regularly engaging in therapy, higher scores on empathic concern and perspective-taking, and lower scores on personal distress, were associated with greater satisfaction with therapeutic work. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Predicting employee life satisfaction: A coherent model of personality, work, and nonwork experiences, and domain satisfactions.

This study examined a theoretical model that linked neuroticism, extraversion, daily hassles and uplifts in both work and nonwork domains, job satisfaction, and nonwork satisfaction to overall life satisfaction. Structural equation analyses were conducted on 3 waves of data obtained from 479 police officers. It was found that job satisfaction and nonwork satisfaction made independent contributions to overall life satisfaction, but there was no significant relationship between work experiences and nonwork satisfaction, nor between nonwork experiences and job satisfaction. These findings support a segregation model rather than a spillover model of the links between the work and nonwork domains of employees' lives. Moreover, the total effects showed that life satisfaction was determined, in order of importance, by nonwork satisfaction, neuroticism, nonwork hassles, job satisfaction, nonwork uplifts, extraversion, work hassles, and work uplifts. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Career-Sustaining Behaviors, Satisfactions, and Stresses of Professional Psychologists.

A random sample of licensed psychologists from Illinois (N=286) responded to a survey about career-sustaining behaviors (CSBs) and about satisfactions and stresses they experience at work. The highest rated CSBs were spending time with partner/family, maintaining a balance between personal and professional lives, and maintaining a sense of humor. Overall, more satisfied respondents reported greater importance of CSBs. Female respondents reported significantly greater use of CSBs than male respondents and were more likely to endorse behaviors that were relational or educational in nature, such as participating in personal therapy, spending time with friends, discussing work frustrations with colleagues, seeking case consultation, maintaining regular contact with referral networks, participating in continuing-education programs, reflecting on positive experiences, and engaging in quiet leisure activities. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Understanding stress and burnout in shelter workers.

Crisis intervention workers and other front-line mental health workers often face excessive stress and seek psychotherapy or supervision and support from professional psychologists. The authors sought information on job-related stressors, coping mechanisms, and burnout levels and found that shelter workers who reported high job-related stress and low social support may be most vulnerable to experiencing burnout symptoms. Psychologists providing clinical or consultation services to domestic violence shelter staff should emphasize the importance of creating a supportive work environment, developing a sense of personal accomplishment related to one's work, and teaching and modeling helpful coping strategies. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Relationships among organizational family support, job autonomy, perceived control, and employee well-being.

The authors analyzed data from the 2002 National Study of the Changing Workforce (N = 3,504) to investigate relationships among availability of formal organizational family support (family benefits and alternative schedules), job autonomy, informal organizational support (work-family culture, supervisor support, and coworker support), perceived control, and employee attitudes and well-being. Using hierarchical regression, the authors found that the availability of family benefits was associated with stress, life satisfaction, and turnover intentions, and the availability of alternative schedules was not related to any of the outcomes. Job autonomy and informal organizational support were associated with almost all the outcomes, including positive spillover. Perceived control mediated most of the relationships. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

The interactive effects of proactive personality and work-family interference on well-being.

Proactive personality was expected to moderate the relationship between controllable work and nonwork stressors (e.g., time-based work-family interference) and job/life satisfaction. Moderated multiple regression analyses of survey data from a sample of professionals (N=133) revealed a significant interaction between time-based family interfering-with work and proactive personality predicting life satisfaction and several main effects offering partial support for the hypothesized relationships (α     

Dentistry, stress, and substance abuse

Dentists have to deal with many significant stressors in their personal and professional lives. It is important for dentists to learn to cope and deal with these stressors and their effects. This paper reviews the nature and causes of addictions, the relationship between addiction and stress, and methods to organize and reduce stress in work environments.     

Work flexibility or nonwork support? Theoretical and empirical distinctions for work–life initiatives.

Although scholars and practitioners tout the merits of various work–life initiatives, little research has been conducted to determine (a) whether broad categories of initiatives exist, and (b) whether these categories are predictive of work experiences or outcomes. We postulate 2 general types of work–life initiatives: work flexibility and nonwork support. Study 1 provides a systematic review of 385 research articles. Some research focused on specific work flexibility initiatives (e.g., flextime, telecommuting), but almost no research focused on specific nonwork support benefits (e.g., time off, dependent care). Most research confounded work flexibility and nonwork support by creating an aggregate index typically weighted toward nonwork support. This means that consulting psychologists and other practitioners may have difficulty applying research results to solve real organizational problems around work–life issues. Study 2 provides an exploratory assessment of our 2-factor model (N = 328). Results indicate initial internal validity for our 2-factor solution. Participation in work flexibility had direct associations with work-to-life conflict, work engagement, and life satisfaction, along with indirect associations with life satisfaction and psychological strain. Nonwork support possessed only a direct, negative association with life satisfaction. Implications for consulting psychologists, other practitioners, and future research are discussed. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Development and validation of a multidimensional scale of perceived work-family positive spillover.

Although the benefits of participating in both work and family have been recognized for more than 30 years (Sieber, 1974), limited empirical research exists. One reason for this oversight is the absence of a well-established scale to measure these benefits. We present a new multidimensional scale of perceived work-family positive spillover. We conducted two studies that aided the development and validation of this scale. Our scale measures three types of work-family positive spillover: behavior-based instrumental positive spillover, value-based instrumental positive spillover, and affective positive spillover. Each of these three types of positive spillover occurs in two directions: from work to family and from family to work. We further evaluate the scale's construct validity in relation to role satisfaction and self-reported mental health. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Affect and Job Satisfaction: A Study of Their Relationship at Work and at Home.

The authors investigated 2 broad issues: (a) across- and within-individual relationships between mood and job satisfaction and (b) spillover in moods experienced at work and at home. Using an experience-sampling methodology, they collected multisource data from a sample of 74 working individuals. Multilevel results revealed that job satisfaction affected positive mood after work and that the spillover of job satisfaction onto positive and negative mood was stronger for employees high in trait-positive and trait-negative affectivity, respectively. Results also revealed that the effect of mood at work on job satisfaction weakened as the time interval between the measurements increased. Finally, positive (negative) moods at work affected positive (negative) moods experienced later at home. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Disentangling the indirect links between socioeconomic status and health: The dynamic roles of work stressors and personal control.

Prior research has documented an indirect link between socioeconomic status (SES) and health, and the goal in this study was to help unravel this phenomenon from a dynamic perspective. The authors hypothesized that SES would be positively related to feelings of personal control and negatively related to perceived work stressors. Drawing on dynamic conceptualizations of these psychosocial factors, they suggest that these psychosocial factors relate to one another over time. Individuals who have higher levels of personal control experience increasingly fewer work stressors over time than do those with lower levels of personal control, and those who experience greater work stressors increasingly perceive less personal control over time than do those with fewer work stressors. Finally, the authors argue that trajectories of personal control and work stressors are associated with the accumulation of health problems over the same period. Their model was tested with 3-wave data (over 4 years) from a nationally representative sample of Canadian employees (N = 3,419). Latent curve modeling provides support for the proposed dynamic model. Conceptual and practical implications are drawn, and suggestions for future research are outlined. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Cultural variation in the use of current life satisfaction to predict the future.

Three studies examined cultural and situational influences on the tendency for people to use their current life satisfaction to predict future life events. On the basis of the self-enhancement literature, it was predicted that either writing about a positive personal experience or reading about another's negative experience would lead European Americans to focus their attention on internal attributes and thus would lead them to use their current life satisfaction in predicting the future. Conversely, on the basis of the self-criticism literature, it was predicted that these same conditions would lead Asian Americans to focus their attention on external factors and, therefore, would decrease their likelihood of using their current life satisfaction to predict the future. Studies 1 and 2 supported these hypotheses. Study 3 showed that these patterns could be obtained by subliminally priming concepts associated with individualism and collectivism. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2011 APA, all rights reserved)     

Well-functioning in professional psychologists.

Experienced professional psychologists identified factors that contributed to their ability to function well in Study 1, through interviews with 6 well-functioning psychologists, and in Study 2, through questionnaire responses from 339 randomly selected licensed psychologists. Collectively they highlighted self-awareness and monitoring; support from peers, spouses, friends, mentors, therapists, and supervisors; values; and a balanced life, including vacations and other stress-reducers. Discussion focuses on stress-management enhancers to maintain well-functioning, especially at times of deep and pervasive change, like the present and the foreseeable future. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Siblings of military servicemembers: A qualitative exploration of individual and family systems reactions.

How does having a sibling in the military affect young adults? Despite increasing attention to the challenges faced by spouses and children of servicemembers, the siblings of servicemembers have been largely ignored in the existing literature. This qualitative investigation uses unstructured narratives to explore siblings' perceptions of changes in their lives and changes in the family of origin associated with having a family member enlist in the United States military. Thematic analyses revealed an acute period of conflict followed by reorganization, awareness of the parents' distress, changes in the emotional climate of the family, shifts in family roles, admiration for the military sibling, and increased meaning and purpose for the family following the servicemember's enlistment. Computer-assisted text analyses revealed both positive and negative emotional expressions associated with the siblings' military service. For professional psychologists who come into contact with siblings of servicemembers, it is important to recognize that military enlistment can have ripple effects and complicate other common individual and family stresses. More generally, it is important to provide siblings and the family of origin with information about what to expect during and after the servicemember's enlistment, especially since these families may lack support from and contact with others going through similar transitions. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2011 APA, all rights reserved)     

Violence in the lives of women having abortions: Implications for practice and public policy.

What do professional psychologists need to know to treat women who once had an abortion? Analyses of responses from 2,525 women revealed that women who reported an abortion were more likely than others to report symptoms of depression and lower life satisfaction. However, they were also more likely to experience rape, childhood physical and sexual abuse, and a violent partner. When history of abuse, partner characteristics, and background variables were controlled, abortion was not related to poorer mental health. This underscores the need to explore the effects of violence in women's lives to avoid misattributing psychological distress to abortion experiences. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)