The COVID-19 pandemic has increased negative emotions and decreased positive emotions globally. Left unchecked, these emotional changes might have a wide array of adverse impacts. To reduce negative emotions and increase positive emotions, we tested the effectiveness of reappraisal, an emotion-regulation strategy that modifies how one thinks about a situation. Participants from 87 countries and regions (n = 21,644) were randomly assigned to one of two brief reappraisal interventions (reconstrual or repurposing) or one of two control conditions (active or passive). Results revealed that both reappraisal interventions (vesus both control conditions) consistently reduced negative emotions and increased positive emotions across different measures. Reconstrual and repurposing interventions had similar effects. Importantly, planned exploratory analyses indicated that reappraisal interventions did not reduce intentions to practice preventive health behaviours. The findings demonstrate the viability of creating scalable, low-cost interventions for use around the world.

Although job crafting has been linked repeatedly to positive employee and organizational outcomes, its detrimental side has not been well explored. To understand the way dark personality traits affect the type of crafting in which employees engage, this research focuses on two frameworks: the PEN (psychopathy, extraversion, and neuroticism) framework and the Dark Triad (narcissism, psychopathy, and Machiavellianism). In Study 1, we collected data on the PEN traits and job crafting from 155 individuals in various occupations. We found that neuroticism was negatively related to seeking structural job resources, whereas psychoticism was negatively related to seeking social job resources. We also found that extraversion was positively related to seeking structural and social job resources and to seeking challenging job demands. In Study 2, we examined how the Dark Triad traits predicted job crafting among police officers (N = 135). The results showed that narcissism was positively related to seeking social job resources and challenges, whereas psychopathy was negatively related to seeking social resources. Age and narcissism were positive predictors of reducing job demands. We conclude that personality plays an important role when choosing how to craft one's job. We discuss the practical implications of these findings.

Aim The objective was to test how nurse burnout impairs day‐to‐day adaptive self‐regulation strategies that link levels of regulatory resources with employee job performance. Background Regulatory resources help employees manage their thoughts, feelings, and behaviours on a daily basis. On days when these resources are low, employees may engage in maladaptive self‐regulation: more self‐undermining (i.e. creating additional obstacles) and less job crafting (i.e. optimizing job demands and resources), which debilitates their work performance. We expected that self‐regulation is impaired especially when individuals exhibit low motivation and low ability to regulate their behaviour, that is, when they experience elevated burnout. Design This research used a daily diary design. Nurses responded to a general survey and then completed daily diary surveys in three different moments: before, during and after work for 10 consecutive workdays (total reports N = 732). Method A sample of 81 nurses from Polish hospitals and primary healthcare centres completed self‐reported questionnaires between January and March 2018. Hypotheses were tested using multilevel modelling in Mplus. Results Momentary self‐regulatory capacity before work was negatively related to self‐undermining and positively related to job crafting, and it indirectly predicted daily job performance. As hypothesized, these indirect relationships were moderated by general, chronic burnout. We found that only for employees with low levels of burnout, daily self‐regulation was linked with better functioning via increased job crafting and decreased self‐undermining. Conclusion Chronic burnout disturbs day‐to‐day behaviour regulation. Individuals with elevated burnout symptoms have difficulty to translate momentary boosts in regulatory resources into adaptive strategies that are linked with higher performance. Impact Our findings call for better recovery programmes, strategic Human Resource Management practices aimed at reducing factors that deplete daily self‐regulatory resources, and finally top‐down interventions preventing burnout among employees in the healthcare system.