A diary study on the role of psychological detachment in the spillover of self-control demands to employees’ ego depletion and the crossover to their partner

ABSTRACT

This study examined whether daily self-control demands at work deplete one’s self-control resources (i.e., ego depletion) at work and whether these demands have prolonged effects by spilling over to the home domain via a lack of psychological detachment. Moreover, we investigated the daily crossover of ego depletion at home between partners and its influence on spousal interactions. Results of our dyadic diary study revealed that daily self-control demands at work are positively related to ego depletion experienced at work and at home, and negatively related to psychological detachment. Psychological detachment is directly negatively related to ego depletion experienced at home and mediates the positive relationship between self-control demands at work and ego depletion at home. With regard to crossover mechanisms, we found support for a direct positive crossover of ego depletion of the actor to the ego depletion of the actor’s partner. In addition, the ego depletion of the actor’s partner related directly negatively to providing spousal support and positively to spousal conflict and moreover mediated the relation between ego depletion of the actor and both spousal interactions. Implications for practice and suggestions for future research are discussed.

KEYWORDS:

• Self-control demands
• psychological detachment
• ego depletion
• spillover
• crossover

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Notes

1. The stressor-detachment model states that psychological detachment buffers the relationship between job stressors and well-being outcomes (e.g., exhaustion; see meta-analysis of Sonnentag & Fritz, 2015). This buffering role can be ascribed to the resource replenishing and gaining characteristics of psychologically detaching (e.g., self-control), which counteract the resource loss initiated by job stressors (e.g., self-control demands).

2. We thank an anonymous reviewer for this suggestion.

Additional information

Funding

This work was supported by grants from the Research Foundation Flanders, Belgium (FWO-Vlaanderen) awarded to L.G. [grant number 11Q6414N]. All authors are independent of their funders.