Time spent in housework and leisure: Links with parents' physiological recovery from work.

Spouses' balancing of housework and leisure activities at home may affect their recovery from work. This paper reports on a study of everyday family life in which 30 dual-earner couples were tracked around their homes by researchers who recorded their locations and activities every 10 min. For women, the most frequently pursued activities at home were housework, communication, and leisure; husbands spent the most time in leisure activities, followed by communication and housework. Spouses differed in their total time at home and their proportion of time devoted to leisure and housework activities, with wives observed more often in housework and husbands observed more often in leisure activities. Both wives and husbands who devoted more time to housework had higher levels of evening cortisol and weaker afternoon-to-evening recovery. For wives, husbands' increased housework time also predicted stronger evening cortisol recovery. When both spouses' activities were entered in the same model, leisure predicted husbands' evening cortisol, such that husbands who apportioned more time to leisure, and whose wives apportioned less time to leisure, showed stronger after-work recovery. These results suggest that the division of labor within couples may have implications for physical health. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2011 APA, all rights reserved)     

Happy, healthy, and productive: The role of detachment from work during nonwork time.

Mentally distancing oneself from work during nonwork time can help restore resources lost because of work demands. In this study, we examined possible outcomes of such psychological detachment from work, specifically well-being and job performance. Although employees may need to mentally detach from work to restore their well-being, high levels of detachment may require a longer time to get back into “working mode,” which may be negatively associated with job performance. Our results indicate that higher levels of self-reported detachment were associated with higher levels of significant other-reported life satisfaction as well as lower levels of emotional exhaustion. In addition, we found curvilinear relationships between psychological detachment and coworker reported job performance (task performance and proactive behavior). Thus, although high psychological detachment may enhance employee well-being, it seems that medium levels of detachment are most beneficial for job performance. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Staying well and engaged when demands are high: The role of psychological detachment.

The authors of this study examined the relation between job demands and psychological detachment from work during off-job time (i.e., mentally switching off) with psychological well-being and work engagement. They hypothesized that high job demands and low levels of psychological detachment predict poor well-being and low work engagement. They proposed that psychological detachment buffers the negative impact of high job demands on well-being and work engagement. A longitudinal study (12-month time lag) with 309 human service employees showed that high job demands predicted emotional exhaustion, psychosomatic complaints, and low work engagement over time. Psychological detachment from work during off-job time predicted emotional exhaustion and buffered the relation between job demands and an increase in psychosomatic complaints and between job demands and a decrease in work engagement. The findings of this study suggest that psychological detachment from work during off-job time is an important factor that helps to protect employee well-being and work engagement. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Volunteer recruitment: The role of organizational support and anticipated respect in non-volunteers' attraction to charitable volunteer organizations.

In 3 experiments the authors examined how specific characteristics of charitable volunteer organizations contribute to the recruitment of new volunteers. In line with predictions, Study 1 revealed that providing non-volunteers with information about organizational support induced anticipated feelings of respect, which subsequently enhanced their attraction to the volunteer organization. However, information about the current success of the volunteer organization did not affect anticipated pride (as among those who seek paid employment) and in fact caused potential volunteers to perceive the organization as being in less need for additional volunteers. Study 2 further showed that information about support from the volunteer organization is a more relevant source of anticipated respect and organizational attraction than support from co-volunteers. Study 3 finally showed that information about task and emotional support for volunteers contributes to anticipated respect and organizational attractiveness and that this increases the actual willingness of non-volunteers to participate in the volunteer organization. Interventions aimed at attracting volunteers and avenues for further research are discussed. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Recovery, work engagement, and proactive behavior: A new look at the interface between nonwork and work.

This study examined work-related outcomes of recovery during leisure time. A total of 147 employees completed a questionnaire and a daily survey over a period of 5 consecutive work days. Multilevel analyses showed that day-level recovery was positively related to day-level work engagement and day-level proactive behavior (personal initiative, pursuit of learning) during the subsequent work day. The data suggest considerable daily fluctuations in behavior and attitudes at work, with evidence that these are related to prior experience and opportunity for recovery in the nonwork domain. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Sharing the wealth: A model for brief mental health volunteer work in developing countries.

Much needed mental health services can be provided to developing countries using a model including brief, repeated consultation trips and the help of a translator. The authors describe their experiences in Central America, which led to the development of this model. Entry into the country, exit, and follow-up are addressed as well as mental health work in the context of language and cultural differences. Clinical methods that were found to be useful in the context of this model are noted. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Bringing work home: The emotional experiences of mothers and fathers.

Given the salience of work in our society, this study investigated how intrinsic work motivation, work hours, and taking time for self influenced the interplay between the emotional climates of work and home. The authors examined day-to-day emotional transmission between work and home (spillover) for 143 families using the experience sampling method and interview data from the Sloan Center's 500 Family Study (L. J. Waite & B. Schneider, 1997). Intrinsic work motivation, work hours, and taking time for self were used as predictors of spillover. There was evidence of emotional transmission from work to home for mothers' happiness, anger, and anxiety as well as for father's anxiety. Also, fathers scoring higher on intrinsic work motivation tended to report greater overall anxiety at home after the workday. Anxiety from work was less likely to spill over to the home when fathers reported working longer hours. These findings have practice implications for improving worker productivity and the well-being of two-working-parent families. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Work time, work interference with family, and psychological distress.

Despite public concern about time pressures experienced by working parents, few scholars have explicitly examined the effects of work time on work-family conflict. The authors developed and tested a model of the predictors of work time and the relationships between time, work interference with family (WIF), and psychological distress. Survey data came from 513 employees in a Fortune 500 company. As predicted, several work and family characteristics were significantly related to work time. In addition, work time was significantly, positively related to WIF, which in turn was significantly, negatively related to distress. The results suggest that work time fully or partially mediates the effects of many work and family characteristics on WIF. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Work, recovery activities, and individual well-being: A diary study.

This study extends previous research on respite from work and addresses the question of how individuals use their leisure time to recover from work. It is hypothesized that time spent on work-related and household activities has a negative effect on well-being, whereas low-effort, social, and physical activities are assumed to have a positive effect. One hundred Dutch teachers completed a diary on leisure time activities and situational well-being for 5 days, and work situation variables were assessed with a questionnaire. Multilevel analyses in which preleisure well-being and work situation variables were entered as control variables supported 4 of the 5 hypotheses. Moreover, a lagged effect of high time pressure on poor situational well-being was found. The study showed that leisure time activities and a low-stress work situation contribute independently to an individual's well-being. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

The impact of psychological distress on absence from work.

The aims of this study were to examine the impact of psychological distress on absence from work; to compare psychological distress and job satisfaction as predictors of absence; and to compare the relative effects of 2 components of psychological distress, depression and anxiety, on absence. Organizational records of absence over a 3-year period were obtained for 323 health service staff in the United Kingdom, who also completed self-report measures of psychological distress and job satisfaction at the beginning of the study and 2 years later. Psychological distress, particularly depression, was found to predict absence, with higher levels of distress predicting a greater number of days and number of times absent. Job satisfaction and psychological distress independently predicted levels of absence. The psychological distress-absence relationship was not moderated by demographic variables. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Transformational leadership and psychological well-being: The mediating role of meaningful work.

Two studies investigated the relationship between transformational leadership, the meaning that individuals ascribe to their work, and their psychological well-being. In Study 1, the perceptions of meaningful work partially mediated the relationship between transformational leadership and positive affective well-being in a sample of Canadian health care workers (N=319). In Study 2, the meaning that a separate sample of service workers (N=146) ascribed to their work fully mediated the relationship between transformational leadership and psychological well-being, after controlling for humanistic work beliefs. Overall, these results support and add to the range of positive mental health effects associated with transformational leadership and are suggestive of interventions that organizations can make to improve well-being of workers. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Learning how to recover from job stress: Effects of a recovery training program on recovery, recovery-related self-efficacy, and well-being.

This quasi-experimental study evaluated the effects of a recovery training program on recovery experiences (psychological detachment from work, relaxation, mastery experiences, and control during off-job time), recovery-related self-efficacy, and well-being outcomes. The training comprised two sessions held one week apart. Recovery experiences, recovery-related self-efficacy, and well-being outcomes were measured before the training (T1) and one week (T2) and three weeks (T3) after the training. A training group consisting of 48 individuals and a waitlist control group of 47 individuals were compared (N = 95). Analyses of covariance revealed an increase in recovery experiences at T2 and T3 (for mastery only at T2). Recovery-related self-efficacy and sleep quality increased at T2 and T3, perceived stress and state negative affect decreased at T3. No training effects were found for emotional exhaustion. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2011 APA, all rights reserved)     

The reciprocal effects of leisure time activities and intellectual functioning in older people: A longitudinal analysis.

By using data from a representative longitudinal survey, the authors provide strong evidence that complex leisure time activities increase intellectual functioning for workers and nonworkers. Ss were 315 men and 320 women aged 41–88 yrs. Although the effects were relatively moderate, both the present article and its predecessor on the effects of paid work (C. Schooler, M. Mulatu, & G. Oates, 1999) showed that, even in old age, carrying out complex tasks has a positive effect on intellectual processes. In both cases, initially high levels of intellectual functioning led to high levels of environmental complexity, which in turn raised levels of intellectual functioning, thus providing a pathway contributing to the high correlation of intellectual functioning over a 20-year period in middle and late adulthood. The present findings indicate that even in old age carrying out substantively complex tasks builds the capacity to deal with the intellectual challenges such complex environments provide. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Remaining time and opportunities at work: Relationships between age, work characteristics, and occupational future time perspective.

The authors adapted the concept of future time perspective (FTP) to the work context and examined its relationships with age and work characteristics (job complexity and control). Structural equation modeling of data from 176 employees of various occupations showed that age is negatively related to 2 distinct dimensions of occupational FTP: remaining time and remaining opportunities. Work characteristics (job complexity and control) were positively related to remaining opportunities and moderated the relationship between age and remaining opportunities, such that the relationship became weaker with increasing levels of job complexity and control. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

The work experiences of transgender individuals: Negotiating the transition and career decision-making processes.

This study explored the work experiences of individuals who have started transitioning from their biological sex to a different gender expression through 18 interviews of transgender-identified individuals. Thirteen of the participants identified as male-to-female transsexuals, 2 participants identified as female-to-male transsexuals, 2 participants identified as female-bodied gender queer individuals, and 1 participant identified as a biological male cross-dresser. Using a grounded theory (K. Charmaz, 2006) approach, 2 separate work experience models emerged: (a) the process of gender transitioning at work and (b) the career decision-making process. The 3 phases of the first model included a pretransition phase, during the transition phase, and posttransition phase. Within these 3 phases, the following 5 major themes emerged: preparation for the work transition, coming out at work, presentation and appearance at work, others' reactions at work, and affective/coping experiences related to work. The second model resulted in 6 major themes related to career decision making: occupational barriers, occupational prospects, occupational aspirations, taking action, occupational gratification, and contextual influences. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

The role of mothers' control in children's mastery orientation: A time frame analysis.

Important to understanding the process by which parents' control shapes children's motivation is identifying the time frame in which it does so. To this end, mothers and their 4-year-old children were observed interacting for 15 min while working on a challenging task twice over 6 months. Mothers' control and children's mastery orientation were coded in 1-min intervals at both times. Analyses over the 6 months indicated that mothers' heightened control foreshadowed children's dampened mastery because mothers' control was stable over time. Analyses over the 15-min interactions revealed that the more controlling mothers were one minute, the less mastery oriented children were the next minute, adjusting for their earlier mastery. Moreover, when mothers began these interactions highly controlling, children's mastery was particularly likely to decrease over the 15 min. Taken together, the results suggest the effect of mothers' control on children's mastery is immediate and maintained through mothers' continued controlling practices. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

The influence of psychological flexibility on work redesign: Mediated moderation of a work reorganization intervention.

This quasi-experiment tested the extent to which an individual characteristic, psychological flexibility, moderated the effects of a control-enhancing work reorganization intervention in a call center. Results indicated that, compared with a control group, this intervention produced improvements in mental health and absence rates, particularly for individuals with higher levels of psychological flexibility. Findings also showed that these moderated intervention effects were mediated by job control. Specifically, the intervention enhanced perceptions of job control, and hence its outcomes, for the people who received it, especially for those who had greater psychological flexibility. Discussion highlights the benefits of understanding the processes (e.g., mediators, moderators, and mediated moderators) involved in work reorganization interventions. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

The role of work in psychological health and well-being: A conceptual, historical, and public policy perspective.

The primary theme of this article, which serves as the introductory contribution of a special section of the American Psychologist, is that work plays a central role in the development, expression, and maintenance of psychological health. The argument underlying this assumption is articulated at the outset of the article in conjunction with a historical review of vocational psychology and industrial/organizational psychology. The article follows with an overview of contemporary vocational psychology and a presentation of the psychology-of-working perspective, which has emerged from critiques of vocational psychology and from multicultural, feminist, and expanded epistemological analyses of psychological explorations of working. Three illustrative lines of inquiry in which research has affected the potential for informing public policy are presented. These three lines of scholarship (role of work in recovery from mental illness; occupational health psychology; and working, racism, and psychological health) are reviewed briefly to furnish exemplars of how the psychological study of working can inform public policy. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

The work of psychologists in the U.S. Intelligence community.

This reviews articles in a special issue (Civiello, 2009) of the Consulting Psychology Journal: Practice and Research on applications of psychology in the U.S. intelligence and military contexts. It identifies some common themes of the articles, as well as provides individual critiques of them. In general, the reviewer notes that the articles focus more on the current and desired state conditions than on the strategies, process, and mechanisms that might have been employed to obtain those desired states. This suggests that embedded psychologists might adopt a socio-technical-structural systems perspective and attempt to expand their specialized roles to include consulting on organizational change. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Cardiovascular reactivity to and recovery from psychological challenge as predictors of 3-year change in blood pressure.

The authors examined whether cardiovascular reactivity to and recovery from psychological challenge predict 3-year change in blood pressure (BP) among 216 initially normotensive, community-dwelling adults. Clinic BP assessments were conducted at baseline and follow-up. BP and heart rate (HR) readings were obtained before, during, and after 5 psychological tasks at baseline. Following adjustment for traditional predictors of BP and lifestyle factors, poorer systolic BP recovery across the tasks was associated with greater 3-year increases in clinic systolic and diastolic BP. Both diastolic BP recovery and HR recovery were also related to 3-year change in clinic BP, though cardiovascular reactivity measures were not. These findings suggest that the duration of stress-related cardiovascular responses may be important for predicting longitudinal changes in BP. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)