Journal of Occupational Health Psychology

Engaging in behaviors that take advantage of one's personal strengths at work can promote employee flourishing in the workplace and mental health. Personal strengths use has thus gained increasing attention within occupational psychology and positive organizational scholarship. In this article, we first integrate work on personal strengths use with the latest developments in the job demands-resources theory (and its extensions) to develop a conceptual model explaining how and why personal strengths use on the job increases work engagement...

Research on the concept of existing unidimensional Perceived Work Ability scale (PWA) in organizational science has recently increased due to its prediction of important work, individual, and labor force outcomes. To date, PWA has been measured as a unidimensional construct. The present study outlines the need for the multidimensional conceptualization of PWA and its measurement. We describe the development and validation of the Multidimensional Perceived Work Ability Scale (M-PWAS), comprising four dimensions: physical, cognitive, interpersonal, and emotional...

We present the conceptualization and validation of the Needs-Based Job Crafting Scale (NJCS), a new assessment tool theoretically grounded in the Identity-Based Integrative Needs Model of Crafting and DRAMMA psychological needs (detachment, relaxation, autonomy, mastery, meaning, and affiliation). The article is composed of three studies. In Study 1, we develop the NJCS and test its factorial structure using a cross-sectional sample of Finnish employees (N = 578). In Study 2, we validate the factor structure and test the scale for measurement invariance across time with longitudinal samples from Finland (N = 578) and Japan (N = 228)...

Most studies on workplace bullying have adopted a between-person approach, neglecting the potential within-individual fluctuations in the experience of bullying behaviors. However, investigating such fluctuations may prove useful for uncovering processes and mechanisms associated with bullying and its antecedents and consequences as they unfold over time. In the present study, based on recent discoveries on traumatic experiences and posttraumatic stress (PTS), we hypothesized that even short-term exposure to bullying behaviors-such as the exposure that characterizes an individual when the time window considered is a working week-may already have a substantial psychological impact at the within-individual level, as indicated by the experience of PTS symptoms...

The dynamic development of employee health is increasingly addressed by occupational health scholarships. Based on the job demands-resources theory, this study examines reciprocal relationships among job resources, job demands, psychological capital (PsyCap), work engagement, and burnout over time. We hypothesize that PsyCap, job resources, and work engagement are part of a reciprocal gain cycle that is based on static levels and changes in these variables. Further, we assume that PsyCap has multiplicative buffering and boosting relationships with job demands and burnout...

Can adopting one's morning routines influence employees' experiences throughout the day? To answer this focal question, we examine the daily effects of a brief meditation in the morning on well-being throughout the day considering spillover effects from the home to the work domain and back. To identify the dominant underlying mechanisms of this daily spillover, we draw on the personality systems interactions theory that distinguishes between autonomous self-regulation and effortful self-control as two psychological processes that reflect the regulation of thoughts, emotions, and behaviors in alignment or contradiction with one's interests, values, and goals...

Negative cognitions and emotions about work during off-job time (e.g., worry about work tasks) can hinder the necessary recovery from work and lead to impaired occupational well-being. To better understand when this negative cognitive-affective involvement arises, we considered simultaneous and interactive effects of external and individual factors. Specifically, we investigated whether job demands (i.e., time pressure, cognitive demands, emotional demands) and maladaptive thinking patterns are independently and jointly related to negative cognitive-affective involvement and whether this is in turn associated with impaired occupational well-being (i...

Perspective taking is encouraged by organizations as a form of supporting coworkers. Yet, its impact on employees' and coworkers' well-being is not well understood. We, therefore, take a dyadic approach to understand the daily dynamics of employees' perspective taking, its benefits for coworkers, and its costs for employees themselves. Specifically, we draw from self-regulation theory to examine the double-edged sword of perspective taking for one's own and one's coworker's well-being (reflected by subjective vitality)...

In this study, we challenge the commonly held belief that virtual meeting fatigue manifests as exhaustion (i.e., active fatigue) resulting from overloading demands and instead suggest that participation in virtual meetings may lead to increased drowsiness (i.e., passive fatigue) due to underload of stimulation. Using subjective and cardiac measures (heart rate variability), we investigated the relationships between virtual versus face-to-face meetings and different types of fatigue (active and passive) among 44 knowledge workers during real-life meetings ( N = 382)...

Applying job demands-resources theory, this quasiexperimental, three-wave study investigated whether work engagement can be increased via an eLearning intervention aiming to increase job crafting behavior. Furthermore, proposing a refinement to job demands-resources theory, that is, adding "a health enhancement process," this study also investigated whether through improvements in work engagement, the intervention would yield health-related benefits, utilizing an objective indicator of physical health (i.e...

The present study advances research on the negative consequences of precarious work experiences (PWE), which include perceptions of threats to one's job and financial security as well as a sense of powerlessness and inability to exercise rights in the workplace. Using the COVID-19 pandemic as a backdrop, we examine how PWE relate to sickness presenteeism and worry about work-related COVID-19 exposure. In a 12-week, four-wave study of workers working fully in-person, perceptions of powerlessness and job insecurity were associated with presenteeism (e...

Workaholism is a current issue in modern organizations with well-characterized implications for individual health and well-being. Yet, the affective experience of workaholics at work and their emotional reactivity to job stressors have been poorly investigated, with the few available studies being cross-sectional or based on retrospective reports obtained outside the working time. Here, we conducted an experience sampling study to characterize workaholics' affective experience during work and their emotional reactivity to workday accumulation and momentary workload...

Previous research examining differences in levels of well-being between leaders and nonleaders has yielded mixed results. To explain the inconsistencies, we compare levels of well-being among nonleaders, mid-level leaders, and high-level leaders. Drawing from the job demands-resources model (Bakker & Demerouti, 2007, 2017) and the expanded version proposed by Crawford et al. (2010), we anticipate mid-level leaders will have lower levels of well-being compared to senior leaders and nonleaders, and females will be more vulnerable than males in mid-level leadership...

This study examines the predictive value of conflict and conflict-related variations in negative emotion dynamics, with respect to three cortisol indicators (cortisol awakening responses; overall cortisol output; diurnal cortisol slopes). A total of 166 workers provided momentary reports on conflict(s) with colleagues and negative emotions 10 times a day for 2 workdays and salivary cortisol samples 5 times a day. The results of latent growth curve piecewise multilevel models revealed that the occurrence of a conflict and the number of conflicts introduced significant variations in specific cortisol parameters indicating greater cortisol levels throughout the day...

Focusing on the definition of recovery as a process, we examined how the four core recovery experiences (i.e., psychological detachment, relaxation, control, and mastery) develop during the evening. We tested whether the specific developments of recovery experiences are important for next-day favorable mood states-beyond the mean levels of recovery experiences. We collected data from 92 employees who completed daily morning and afternoon surveys over 10 workdays. In the morning surveys, we implemented the day-reconstruction method to assess detailed information about employees' recovery experiences during several episodes of the previous evening...

Previous research has typically conceptualized physical activity as a recovery activity after work that promotes well-being by allowing employees to detach from work and replenish their resources. Here, we aimed to go beyond this framework by proposing a new theoretical model of how physical activity in the morning before work affects employee well-being. Drawing upon the transactional theory of stress, we theorized that physical activity before work shapes employees' appraisal of their upcoming workday which, in turn, affects their well-being...

We tested the effects of a randomized controlled trial Total Worker Health intervention on workplace safety outcomes. The intervention targeted employee sleep at both the supervisor-level (e.g., sleep-specific support training) and employee-level (e.g., sleep tracking and individualized sleep feedback). The intervention components were developed using principles of the Total Worker Health approach and the theory of triadic influence for health behaviors. We hypothesized that employees in the treatment group would report greater safety compliance, safety participation, and safety motivation, and would be less likely to experience a work-related accident or injury following the intervention through improvements in sleep quantity and quality, as well as increased perceptions of supervisors' support for sleep...

As home working becomes more common, employers may struggle to provide health promotion interventions that can successfully bridge the gap between employees' intentions to engage in healthier behaviors and actual action. Based on past evidence that action planning can successfully encourage the adoption of healthier behaviors, this mixed-methods study of a web-based self-help intervention incorporated a randomized planning trial that included quantitative measures of engagement and follow-up qualitative interviews with a subsample of participants...

Although previous research suggests that off-job activities are generally important for recovery from work stress, a profound understanding of which aspects of recovery activities benefit the recovery process and why is still lacking. In the present work, we introduce a dimensional approach toward studying recovery activities and present a taxonomy of key recovery activity dimensions (physical, mental, social, spiritual, creative, virtual, and outdoor). Across four studies (total N = 908) using cross-sectional, time-lagged, and a diary design, we develop and validate the Recovery Activity Characteristics (RAC) questionnaire, a multidimensional measure of RAC...

Previous studies show that sleep is essential in preventing symptoms related to chronic levels of fatigue. In the present study, we move beyond the traditional variable-centered approach and adopt a person-centered approach by considering antecedents and outcomes of sleep profiles. Specifically, we consider job characteristics (i.e., workload, job control, and their interaction) as predictors of sleep profiles and indicators of chronic fatigue (i.e., prolonged fatigue and burnout) as outcomes. In establishing sleep profiles, we consider levels as well as the variability of the sleep dimensions across a week...