Cohabiting dual-earner couples are increasingly common. However, previous recovery research mainly focused on employees independently of others, thereby overlooking an essential part of their life. ...Therefore, we take a closer look at dual-earner couples' recovery processes and link this research to a circadian perspective. We assumed that unfinished tasks impede engagement in time with the partner (absorption in joint activities, directing attention toward the partner) as well as recovery experiences (detachment, relaxation), whereas engagement in time with the partner should boost recovery experiences. Integrating a circadian perspective, we proposed that employees from couples with matching circadian preferences (chronotype) benefit more from engagement in time with their partner (i.e., stronger relationships with recovery experiences). Additionally, we explored whether a match between partners' chronotypes buffers the negative relationship between unfinished tasks and engagement in joint time. We conducted a daily diary study with 143 employees from 79 dual-earner couples, providing data on 1,052 days. A three-level path model showed that unfinished tasks were negatively related to absorption in joint activities and detachment, whereas absorption positively predicted recovery experiences. Furthermore, the couples' chronotype match mattered in the interplay with engagement in joint time: for couples with higher (vs. lower) chronotype match, experiencing detachment depended on absorption while for couples with lower (vs. higher) chronotype match, attention was even harmful for experiencing relaxation. Thus, it is crucial to consider employees' partners when investigating their recovery processes because employees cannot act independently if they also need to take their partner's circadian rhythms into account.
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CEKLJ, FFLJ, NUK, ODKLJ, PEFLJ, UPUK
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Circadian processes are important for employees and organizations yet have been relatively underexplored in recovery research. Thus, we embed the concept of circadian misalignment into the ...recovery literature by investigating the moderating role of employees' daily social sleep lag (i.e., a discrepancy between employees' actual and biologically preferred sleep–wake times) in their recovery processes. Building on the effort‐recovery model and a circadian perspective on recovery, we propose that low relaxation and mastery experiences explain the relationship between workplace interpersonal conflicts and low next‐morning vigor. Concerning circadian misalignment, we investigated whether daily social sleep lag impedes the occurrence and effectiveness of after‐work recovery experiences (i.e., moderates the relationships with interpersonal conflicts and vigor, respectively). Results of a daily diary study with 274 employees (1926 days) demonstrated that low mastery experiences, but not relaxation, explained the negative association between interpersonal conflicts and next‐morning vigor. Additionally, mastery experiences translated less to next‐morning vigor on days with high (vs. low) social sleep lag. Investigating circadian misalignment can thus help determine under which circumstances employees best recover from work, highlighting the need to take circadian processes into account in recovery research.
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BFBNIB, FZAB, GIS, IJS, KILJ, NLZOH, NUK, OILJ, SAZU, SBCE, SBMB, UL, UM, UPUK
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The weekend constitutes an important recovery period for employees. However, psychologically reattaching to work on Monday can be difficult because employees must transition from their ...private to their work role. Building on boundary theory and integrating a sleep and circadian perspective, we shed light on this transition by investigating antecedents and outcomes of Monday reattachment. We propose that three weekend sleep characteristics differentially relate to reattachment on Monday: weekend sleep quality, catch‐up sleep (extended sleep duration on the weekend), and social sleep lag (differences in sleep times workweek vs. weekend). Successful reattachment on Monday should, in turn, be related to lower levels of exhaustion and higher task performance during the workweek. We conducted a weekly diary study with 310 employees (933 weeks) over four workweeks. Two‐level path models demonstrated that higher weekend sleep quality was indirectly related to lower levels of workweek exhaustion via higher levels of Monday reattachment. In contrast, higher catch‐up sleep was related to higher levels of workweek exhaustion via lower levels of Monday reattachment. Accordingly, we demonstrate that Monday reattachment can set the tone for the entire workweek, but the capability to reattach can depend on weekend sleep as a core recovery process.
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BFBNIB, FZAB, GIS, IJS, KILJ, NLZOH, NUK, OILJ, SAZU, SBCE, SBMB, UL, UM, UPUK
Health behaviors (physical activity and healthy eating) can be an essential part of everyday work life and are relevant for employees' affective states. Many worksite interventions, including ...goal‐striving approaches, have been developed to promote health behavior at work. However, these approaches often neglect that making progress with respect to health‐behavior goals necessarily takes place during workday episodes, so that work tasks are accomplished simultaneously. In our study, we aim to advance the understanding of how health‐behavior goal progress is facilitated and how reflecting on it evokes affective states—taking into account simultaneous pursuit of work‐task progress. We collected daily diary data from 205 employees on 1399 days. Analyses showed that goal importance positively predicted health‐behavior goal progress, which in turn positively predicted pride and negatively predicted shame at the end of the workday. The negative relation between health‐behavior goal progress and shame was stronger on days with low work‐task progress, implying compensatory effects. Work‐task progress did not moderate the relation between health‐behavior goal progress and pride. We discuss the theoretical and practical relevance of integrating research on multiple goal striving when promoting health behavior in daily work life by means of goal‐striving techniques.
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BFBNIB, FZAB, GIS, IJS, KILJ, NLZOH, NUK, OILJ, SAZU, SBCE, SBMB, UL, UM, UPUK
While regular physical exercise as a recovery activity has an important role regarding employees’ well-being, employees seem to engage less in physical exercise after stressful workdays—pointing to a ...paradoxical pattern. Extending the recovery paradox (Sonnentag, 2018) applied to physical exercise and drawing from perspectives on energetic and self-regulatory resource loss and recovery, we integrate psychological detachment right after work as an explaining psychological mechanism in the paradoxical pattern between job stressors, physical exercise, and energetic well-being. We collected daily diary data from 93 employees on 514 days over two consecutive workweeks. Results of our two-level path model suggest that psychological detachment right after work explains the paradoxical pattern between job stressors (workload and self-control demands) and time spent on physical exercise. However, we did not find a serial indirect effect from job stressors to next-morning energetic well-being (vigor and fatigue) via psychological detachment and time spent on physical exercise. Our study suggests a new perspective on the role of psychological detachment, namely as a prerequisite instead of an outcome of physical exercise after stressful workdays. This new perspective has implications for future research and practical interventions. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2024 APA, all rights reserved) (Source: journal abstract)
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CEKLJ, FFLJ, NUK, ODKLJ, PEFLJ, UPUK
Eating healthily in terms of fruit and vegetable consumption has beneficial effects for employees and their organisations. Yet, we know little about how employees' eating behaviour develops over ...longer periods of time (trajectories) as well as about how subgroups of employees in these trajectories differ (trajectory classes). Gaining such insights is critical to understand how employees address healthy eating recommendations over time as well as to develop individualised interventions that also consider the development of healthy eating (i.e. improvement versus impairment beyond mean levels). We analysed panel data (Longitudinal Internet Studies for the Social Sciences) from 1054 employees by means of growth mixture modelling. Our analyses revealed three relevant classes of healthy‐eating trajectories: a favourable trajectory class, an unfavourable trajectory class and a strongly improving trajectory class. Furthermore, unfavourable healthy‐eating trajectories were especially critical with respect to impaired psychological well‐being. Specifically, we found robust results for impaired positive and negative affects, but not for self‐esteem, in the unfavourable trajectory class. We discuss limitations and implications of these findings, thereby encouraging research and practice to further consider such fine‐grained approaches (i.e. focusing on subgroups within a larger population) when addressing healthy‐eating promotion over time.
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FZAB, GIS, IJS, KILJ, NLZOH, NUK, OILJ, SAZU, SBCE, SBMB, UL, UM, UPUK
Studies suggest a mutual influence between work and health behaviors (physical exercise, healthy eating). To advance research on this phenomenon, we developed and validated short scales that capture ...enrichment and conflict experiences between work and health behaviors. Building on the work-family literature, we developed items assessing enrichment and conflict between (1) work and physical exercise and (2) work and healthy eating. In Study 1, we examined construct validity of the new scales, using confirmatory factor analysis. In Study 2, we refined the items, relying on expert ratings. In Study 3, we tested construct validity of the revised measures and examined their nomological net. We replicated the factor structure across Study 1 and Study 3. Analysis of the nomological net showed that enrichment experiences mainly correlate with job rewards, organizational health behavior climate, high exercise identity, high healthy-eater identity, physical exercise behavior, consumption of fruits and vegetables, and low body mass index (BMI). Conflict experiences mainly correlate with a high amount of effort invested into work, low exercise identity, low healthy-eater identity, no or limited physical exercise behavior, and the consumption of less fruits and vegetables.
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EMUNI, FIS, FZAB, GEOZS, GIS, IJS, IMTLJ, KILJ, KISLJ, MFDPS, NLZOH, NUK, OILJ, PNG, SAZU, SBCE, SBJE, SBMB, SBNM, UKNU, UL, UM, UPUK, VKSCE, ZAGLJ
This three-week longitudinal field study with an experimental intervention examines the association between daily events and employee stress and health, with a specific focus on positive events. ...Results suggest that both naturally occurring positive work events and a positive reflection intervention are associated with reduced stress and improved health, though effects vary across momentary, lagged, daily, and day-toevening spillover analyses. Findings are consistent with theory-based predictions: positive events, negative events, and family-to-work conflict independently contribute to perceived stress, blood pressure, physical symptoms, mental health, and work detachment, suggesting that organizations should focus not only on reducing negative events, but also on increasing positive events. These findings show that a brief, end-of-workday positive reflection led to decreased stress and improved health in the evening.
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BFBNIB, IZUM, KILJ, NMLJ, NUK, PILJ, PNG, SAZU, UL, UM, UPUK
Bacteria grow and transform elements at different rates, and as yet, quantifying this variation in the environment is difficult. Determining isotope enrichment with fine taxonomic resolution after ...exposure to isotope tracers could help, but there are few suitable techniques. We propose a modification to stable isotope probing (SIP) that enables the isotopic composition of DNA from individual bacterial taxa after exposure to isotope tracers to be determined. In our modification, after isopycnic centrifugation, DNA is collected in multiple density fractions, and each fraction is sequenced separately. Taxon-specific density curves are produced for labeled and nonlabeled treatments, from which the shift in density for each individual taxon in response to isotope labeling is calculated. Expressing each taxon's density shift relative to that taxon's density measured without isotope enrichment accounts for the influence of nucleic acid composition on density and isolates the influence of isotope tracer assimilation. The shift in density translates quantitatively to isotopic enrichment. Because this revision to SIP allows quantitative measurements of isotope enrichment, we propose to call it quantitative stable isotope probing (qSIP). We demonstrated qSIP using soil incubations, in which soil bacteria exhibited strong taxonomic variations in (18)O and (13)C composition after exposure to (18)Owater or (13)Cglucose. The addition of glucose increased the assimilation of (18)O into DNA from (18)Owater. However, the increase in (18)O assimilation was greater than expected based on utilization of glucose-derived carbon alone, because the addition of glucose indirectly stimulated bacteria to utilize other substrates for growth. This example illustrates the benefit of a quantitative approach to stable isotope probing.
Microorganisms perform most decomposition on Earth, mediating carbon (C) loss from ecosystems, and thereby influencing climate. Yet, how variation in the identity and composition of microbial ...communities influences ecosystem C balance is far from clear. Using quantitative stable isotope probing of DNA, we show how individual bacterial taxa influence soil C cycling following the addition of labile C (glucose). Specifically, we show that increased decomposition of soil C in response to added glucose (positive priming) occurs as a phylogenetically diverse group of taxa, accounting for a large proportion of the bacterial community, shift toward additional soil C use for growth. Our findings suggest that many microbial taxa exhibit C use plasticity, as most taxa altered their use of glucose and soil organic matter depending upon environmental conditions. In contrast, bacteria that exhibit other responses to glucose (reduced growth or reliance on glucose for additional growth) clustered strongly by phylogeny. These results suggest that positive priming is likely the prototypical response of bacteria to sustained labile C addition, consistent with the widespread occurrence of the positive priming effect in nature.
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