Work‐related rumination as a mediator between hindrance demands and sleep quality

Janurek, Janina; Junker, Nina M.; AbdelHadi, Sascha; Mojzisch, Andreas; Häusser, Jan A. Article — Published Version Work‐related rumination as a mediator between hindrance demands and sleep quality Journal of Occupational and Organizational Psychology Provided in Cooperation with: John Wiley & Sons Suggested Citation: Janurek, Janina; Junker, Nina M.; AbdelHadi, Sascha; Mojzisch, Andreas; Häusser, Jan A. (2024) : Work‐related rumination as a mediator between hindrance demands and sleep quality, Journal of Occupational and Organizational Psychology, ISSN 2044-8325, Wiley, Hoboken, NJ, Vol. 97, Iss. 3, pp. 783-790, https://doi.org/10.1111/joop.12501 This Version is available at: https://hdl.handle.net/10419/306257 Standard-Nutzungsbedingungen: Die Dokumente auf EconStor dürfen zu eigenen wissenschaftlichen Zwecken und zum Privatgebrauch gespeichert und kopiert werden. 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If the documents have been made available under an Open Content Licence (especially Creative Commons Licences), you may exercise further usage rights as specified in the indicated licence. http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/ J Occup Organ Psychol. 2024;97:783–790. | 783 wileyonlinelibrary.com/journal/joop Received: 9 October 2023 | Accepted: 21 February 2024 DOI: 10.1111/joop.12501 RESEARCH NOTE Workrelated rumination as a mediator between hindrance demands and sleep quality Janina Janurek1 | Nina M. Junker2 | Sascha Abdel Hadi1 | Andreas Mojzisch3 | Jan A. Häusser1 This is an open access article under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs License, which permits use and distribution in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited, the use is non-commercial and no modifications or adaptations are made. © 2024 The Authors. Journal of Occupational and Organizational Psycholog y published by John Wiley & Sons Ltd on behalf of The British Psychological Society. 1Department of Psychology, Justus Liebig University, Giessen, Germany 2Department of Psychology, University of Oslo, Oslo, Norway 3Department of Psychology, University of Hildesheim, Hildesheim, Germany Correspondence Jan A. Häusser, Department of Social Psychology, Justus Liebig University, OttoBehaghelStraße 10D, D35394 Giessen, Germany. Email: [email protected] Funding information Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft Abstract Job demands can negatively affect sleep. However, previous studies have provided inconclusive results regarding the mediating role of workrelated rumination in this relationship. Integrating prolonged activation theory with the challengehindrance framework, we hypothesized that – on a day level – hindrance demands, but not challenge demands, are negatively associated with sleep quality and sleep duration via workrelated rumination. We tested this assumption in a 14day ambulatory assessment study with a sample of employees (N = 175). As predicted, we found that only hindrance demands, but not challenge demands, are related to sleep quality via workrelated rumination. No relationships with sleep duration were found for any type of job demands. KEYWORDS challenge demands, hindrance demands, job demands, perseverative cognition, rumination, sleep Practitioner points • Job demands increase workrelated rumination before sleep which, in turn, negatively affects sleep quality. • This effect is evident only for hindrance demands, but not for challenge demands. • Organizations should aim to reduce hindrance demands to mitigate their employees' workrelated rumination before sleep. 784 | JANUREK et al. BACKGROUND Previous research in occupational health psychology has begun to examine when and why job demands compromise sleep. In particular, workrelated rumination (perseverative cognitions cycling around work) has been brought into focus as a potential mediator (van Laethem et al., 2019). According to this notion, high job demands carry over into nonwork time in the form of cognitive representations of workrelated stressors. Following prolonged activation theory (Brosschot et al., 2005), such perseverative cognitive representations can increase negative stress responses in the aftermath of the actual stressor. The authors argue that particularly sleep (or trying to sleep) is a major ‘opportunity’ for perseverative cognitions to occur. Therefore, the cognitive process of prolonging a representation of a stressor has the potential to disturb sleep and reduce sleep quality. Because job demands, rumination, sleep quality and sleep quantity show considerable variation on a daytoday basis, we propose that the relationships between these variables are most likely to unfold within a short time frame, especially on the day level (see Ohly et al., 2010, for a discussion of temporal dynamics in work and organizational psychology). Thus far, however, only a few daylevel studies have examined these associations, two of which did not find evidence for the proposed indirect effect of job demands on sleep via rumination (Cropley et al., 2006; VahleHinz et al., 2014), whereas three provided support for such a mediation (Radstaak et al., 2014; Syrek et al., 2017; van Laethem et al., 2016). In this paper, we argue that a potential reason for this inconsistency might lie in the types of job demands examined. Unfortunately, however, prolonged activation theory (Brosschot et al., 2005) does not classify different types of stressors, such as job demands, in terms of their potential to produce prolonged cognitive representations. Thus, prolonged activation theory is a broader framework that describes how stressors (from all domains of life) can affect wellbeing through prolonged activation. However, it remains silent about which types of (job) demands are more likely to produce rumination than others. Here, we integrate prolonged activation theory (Brosschot et al., 2005) with the challengehindrance framework (Cavanaugh et al., 2000) to shed light on the effects of different types of job demands on rumination and sleep. Differentiating between subtypes of job demands should allow for more specific predictions and might also contribute to clarifying the inconsistencies in earlier research. Hindrance demands (e.g., bureaucracy) impede the achievement of workrelated goals due to constraints, whereas challenge demands (e.g., task complexity) provide opportunities to learn, develop and achieve workrelated goals (Cavanaugh et al., 2000). In line with this classification, we predict that hindrance demands produce stronger workrelated rumination compared to challenge demands, because hindrance demands impede goal attainment, resulting in frustration (Tuckey et al., 2015). Thus, hindrance demands are an obstacle to experience cognitive closure or the feeling that an issue has been resolved (cf. Kim et al., 2023): hindrances like bureaucracy persist even if successfully handled in one case. This lack of closure in turn, increases the likelihood of prolonged cognitive representations of these demands as a functional mechanism to cope with similar demands in the future. In contrast, challenge demands typically imply a finite timeframe of intense working which potentially implies less ‘spillover’ to the nonwork domain. In conclusion, hindrance demands should be more strongly related to workrelated rumination than challenge demands. Revisiting the inconsistent findings of earlier studies through the theoretical lens of the challengehindrance framework (Cavanaugh et al., 2000), it becomes evident that the studies that found the proposed indirect effect (i.e., rumination mediating the effect of job demands on sleep) used job demands that could be classified as hindrances (e.g., unfinished tasks). In contrast, the studies that did not (fully) support the indirect effect used demands that are typically classified as challenges (e.g., time pressure). However, in a threewave longitudinal study extending over 2 years, van Laethem et al. (2019) reported a mediation of affective rumination for the relationship between challenge demands, but not hindrance demands and sleep quality. These seemingly conflicting results can be reconciled with our theorizing when taking the temporal dynamics of the effects into account. According to our theorizing, hindrance demands should be particularly stressful the moment they occur, and, hence, increase workrelated rumination after work on the day they occur. However, they should be less important to the | 785 JOB DEMANDS, RUMINATION AND SLEEP individual the next day, week or year. In contrast, challenge demands, such as having responsibilities in larger projects, might be more ruminationprovoking in the long run. In conclusion, by integrating prolonged activation theory (Brosschot et al., 2005) with the challengehindrance framework (Cavanaugh et al., 2000), we hypothesize daily indirect effects of hindrance demands – but not challenge demands – on sleep (quality and quantity) via workrelated rumination. METHODS Participants and design Participants (N = 287 workers with diverse occupational backgrounds) were recruited via the panel provider Respondi and received financial compensation (max. 16 USD). One data set could not be matched and 30 participants did not meet predefined inclusion criteria: (a) working at least 19.5 hours on at least 4 days per week, (b) no diagnosed sleep disorders, (c) no regular intake of sleep medication, (d) no shift or night work and (e) working fully remotely. A further 81 participants were not included in the analyses because they completed less than 20% of the questionnaires.1 The final sample comprised 175 participants (52% female) with an average age of 43.95 years (SD = 12.01). Participants worked on average 39.82 hours per week (SD = 6.39). Regarding their occupational background, 146 participants were employed, 21 were selfemployed and 8 reported ‘other’. The proportion of sedentary work was 86.3%. Participants gave their informed consent. The study was approved by the local ethics committee (reference number: 20190008). Participants received two emails with the survey link, one after waking up and one after finishing work, for 14 consecutive days.2 In the analyses, afterwork surveys were linked to morning surveys the following day. Compliance was good, with participants answering on average 76.64% of all daily morning and afterwork questionnaires. Measures3 Challenge and hindrance demands (afterwork survey) We assessed challenge and hindrance demands with eight items each, using the scale by Rodell and Judge (2009) (e.g., ‘Today, my job has required me to work very hard’, for challenge demands, and ‘Today, I have had to go through a lot of red tape to get my job done’, for hindrance demands) on a 5point Likert scale ranging from 1 (strongly disagree) to 5 (strongly agree). Workrelated rumination (morning survey) We assessed workrelated rumination experienced the previous evening before sleeping with eight items from Du et al. (2018). The items were adapted to the worktohome rumination context and the day level (e.g., ‘I thought about work issues that happened yesterday’) and presented together with a 7point Likert scale ranging from 1 (strongly disagree) to 7 (strongly agree). 1 When including these 81 participants in the analyses, the pattern of results remained the same. 2 There was a third survey before going to sleep that is not part of the present study. 3 This study was part of a larger research project including additional measures. 786 | JANUREK et al. TABLE 1 Means, standard deviations and correlations between study variables. Variable MSD ICC 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 1. Age 43.95 12.01 –−.28** .04 −.09** −.23** −.14** .11** .02 2. Gendera.53 .51 −.32** –−.20** .00 −.09** −.02 −.03 −.02 3. Dependants (e.g., children)b.33 .47 .04 −.20** –.05 .05 .02 −.08** −.04 4. Challenge Demands (1–5) 2.93 .95 −.11 −.05 .07 .89 .48** .33** −.04 −.11** 5. Hindrance Demands (1–5) 2.00 .74 −.29** −.08 .03 .52** .78 .45** −.11** −.03 6. Rumination (1–7) 1.75 1.17 −.21** .05 −.04 .36** .57** .95 −.29** −.12** 7. Subjective sleep quality (1–4) 3.03 .73 .344 .12 −.05 −.06 .06 −.16*−.34** –.29** 8. Selfreported sleep duration 432.48 75.05 .341 .07 .01 −.08 −.05 .01 −.07 .25** – Note: Values below the diagonal are correlations between personlevel variables (N = 175). Values above the diagonal are correlations between daylevel variables (N = 1259–1833). Significant correlations are highlighted in bold. In italics: Cronbach's alpha within. Sleep duration is indicated in minutes. a0 = male, 1 = female, 2 = nonbinary. b0 = no, 1 = yes. *p < .05. **p < .01. | 787 JOB DEMANDS, RUMINATION AND SLEEP TABLE 2 Multilevel estimates for mediation models predicting effects of demands on sleep parameters via rumination. Demands//sleep a (demands → rumination) b (rumination → sleep) Indirect effect a × bDirect effect c′ Estimate (SE) 95% CI Estimate (SE) 95% CI Estimate (SE) 95% CI Estimate (SE) 95% CI Within level Challenge//Quality .07 (.05) [−.01; .16] −.12*** (.03) [−.17; −.07] −.01 (.01) [−.02; .00] −.08* (.04) [−.15; −.01] Challenge//Duration .07 (.05) [−.01; .16] −4.30 (2.80) [−9.79; 1.19] −.32 (.31) [−1.07; .14] −3.77 (3.85) [−11.33; 3.78] H i n d r a n c e//Q u a l i t y .19*** (.05) [.08; .29] −.12*** (.03) [−.17; −.07] −.02** (.01) [−.04; −.01] .05 (.05) [−.03; .14] Hindrance//Duration .19*** (.05) [.08; .29] −4.30 (2.80) [−9.79; 1.19] −.80 (.59) [−2.13; .21] .76 (4.70) [−8.46; 9.97] Between level Challenge//Quality .15 (.10) [−.04; .34] −.19*** (.04) [−.28; −.10] −.03 (.02) [−.07; .01] .12* (.05) [.02; .22] Challenge//Duration .15 (.10) [−.04; .34] −4.98 (4.93) [−14.71; 4.75] −.75 (1.00) [−3.17; .77] −6.74 (5.81) [−18.22; 4.74] H i n d r a n c e//Q u a l i t y .84*** (.13) [.59; 1.09] −.19*** (.04) [−.28; −.10] −.16*** (.04) [−.25; −.08] −.03 (.08) [−.18; .12] Hindrance//Duration .84*** (.13) [.59; 1.09] −4.98 (4.93) [−14.71; 4.75] −4.18 (4.23) [−12.91; 3.93] 10.85 (8.66) [−6.25; 27.96] Abbreviation: CI, confidence interval. *p < .05. **p < .01. ***p < .001. 788 | JANUREK et al. Sleep quality and sleep duration (morning survey) We assessed subjective sleep quality with a single item (‘How would you rate your sleep quality during the past night overall’?) from the Pittsburgh Sleep Quality Index (Buysse et al., 1989) on a 4point Likert scale ranging from 1 (very bad) to 4 (very good). We assessed sleep duration by asking participants at what time they had fallen asleep the previous night and at what time they had woken up in the morning. RESULTS Descriptives can be found in Table 1. Supporting our withinperson approach, a high share of the total variance of sleep quality (66%) and sleep duration (66%) can be attributed to withinperson variation. A multilevel confirmatory factor analysis (MCFA) revealed that a threefactor model with challenge demands, hindrance demands and workrelated rumination showed a good fit, χ2 = 1825.711, df = 495, p < .001, RMSEA = .050, CFI = .882 (sleep parameters were measured with single items; hence, they were not included in the MCFA). The threefactor model was superior to a twofactor (combining challenge and hindrance demands) and a one factor model (also including rumination), minimum ∆χ2 = 485.76, p < .001. Table 2 presents the multilevel estimates for the mediation models, calculated using the SPSS macro MLmed, to predict the effects of challenge demands and hindrance demands on sleep parameters through workrelated rumination. Lower level predictor variables were withingroup centred. When examining challenge demands as a predictor, hindrance demands were considered as a covariate in the model and vice versa. Only daylevel effects are reported. As predicted, results showed a significant mediation of the relationship between hindrance demands and sleep quality by workrelated rumination (ab = −. 0 2 , p = .009, 95% CI [−.04; −.01]): Hindrance demands were positively related to workrelated rumination before sleep (apath = .19, p < .001), and workrelated rumination was negatively related to sleep quality (bpat h = −.12 , p < .001). In contrast, we did not find a mediation by workrelated rumination for the relationship between challenge demands and sleep quality (ab = −.01, p = .133, 95% CI [−.02; .00]). However, we found a significant negative remaining direct effect of challenge demands on sleep quality (c′ = −. 0 8 , p = .035, 95% CI [−.15; −.01]). With respect to sleep duration, we did not find any indirect effects via workrelated rumination (challenge demands: ab = −.32 , p = .305, 95% CI [−1.07; .14]; hindrance demands: ab = −.80, p = .176, 95% CI [−2.13; .21]). We also found no direct effects. DISCUSSION In line with our theorizing, we found that hindrance demands but not challenge demands were associated with sleep quality through workrelated rumination. This finding contrasts van Laethem et al. (2019), who reported a mediation by affective rumination for the relationship between challenge, but not hindrance demands and sleep quality in a 2year longitudinal study. There are two potential reasons for these diverging findings: First, as argued above, the relationship between hindrance and challenge demands with rumination might unfold with different temporal dynamics. Second, van Laethem et al. (2019) operationalized hindrance demands in terms of job insecurity, which was very low in their sample. Moreover, job insecurity might vary less over time compared to other hindrance demands (e.g., role conflict). Future research should systematically investigate the temporal dynamics of the relationships between challenge and hindrance demands with rumination (and their downstream consequences for sleep). In particular, it would be interesting to further examine which specific demands are likely to produce immediate (daylevel) rumination versus more chronic (longterm) rumination. A critical events approach (i.e., identifying specific work events that trigger rumination) might also be fruitful. | 789 JOB DEMANDS, RUMINATION AND SLEEP Our results also show an unpredicted negative remaining direct association between challenge demands and sleep quality. Albeit speculatively, this finding might be due to an association of challenge demands with presleep arousal, which, in turn, is associated with more sleep disturbances (cf. Mulder et al., 2000). Finally, both types of demands were unrelated to sleep duration. Because demands as well as rumination are related to psychological and physical exhaustion, this might increase the need for sleep. Speculatively, this association might even trump the potential of ruminative thoughts to keep one awake. From a practical perspective, our results highlight the merits of differentiating between challenge and hindrance demands, when keeping an eye on employees' sleep. Even though hindrance demands can be problematic for organizational outcomes per se (when employees' goal attainment is prevented), hindrance demands' potential to disturb sleep can even further impair employees' performance. Organizations should therefore be aware of these negative consequences and should aim to reduce hindrance demands (e.g., by reducing bureaucracy) whenever possible. AUTHOR CONTRIBUTIONS Janina Janurek: Conceptualization; data curation; formal analysis; investigation; methodology; project administration; visualization; writing – original draft; writing – review and editing. Nina M. Junker: Conceptualization; writing – review and editing. Sascha Abdel Hadi: Conceptualization; data curation; investigation; methodology; project administration; writing – review and editing. Andreas Mojzisch: Conceptualization; funding acquisition; resources; writing – review and editing. Jan A. Häusser: Conceptualization; funding acquisition; methodology; resources; supervision; writing – review and editing. ACKNOWLEDGEMENT Open Access funding enabled and organized by Projekt DEAL. CONFLICT OF INTEREST STATEMENT The authors declare no conflicts of interest. DATA AVAILABILITY STATEMENT The data are available on the Open Science Framework (https://osf.io/38vyf/?view_only=675fb660ee 40424fa3e2dc8660f60301). 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