It is almost common sense that work stress leads to sleep impairment, but the question of how work-related stressors impair employee sleep remains open. This study focuses on the role of rumination as the underlying mechanism for sleep impairment. Specifically, the authors contribute to recent research differentiating affective rumination from problem-solving pondering and examine the impact of both forms of rumination on the stressor-sleep relationship. Following theories of rumination and the Zeigarnik effect, they focus on unfinished tasks as a key onset for rumination. Unfinished tasks have received much research attention in the memory context but have been neglected as a stressor that can impact recovery. Drawing on theory, differential indirect links between unfinished tasks and sleep through affective rumination versus problem-solving pondering are examined. Further, the number of unfinished tasks extending over a 3-month period may impair employee sleep more than unfinished tasks within the acute phase. In this study, intraindividual links in a diary study supplemented by depicting between-person effects of unfinished tasks over a period of 3 months are examined. The authors matched 357 Friday and Monday observations over a 12-week interval for 59 employees. The results of the multilevel analysis suggest that the within-person relationship between unfinished tasks and sleep is mediated by affective rumination. Although problem-solving pondering was negatively related to sleep impairment, the indirect effect was not significant. Finally, beyond the acute effect, the authors found higher levels of unfinished tasks over 3 months are related to increased sleep impairment on the weekend. (PsycINFO Database Record

In the literature on occupational stress and recovery from work, several facets of thinking about work during off-job time have been conceptualized. However, research on the focal concepts is currently rather diffuse. In this study we take a closer look at the five most well-established concepts: (1) psychological detachment, (2) affective rumination, (3) problem-solving pondering, (4) positive work reflection, and (5) negative work reflection. More specifically, we scrutinized (1) whether the five facets of work-related rumination are empirically distinct, (2) whether they yield differential associations with different facets of employee well-being (burnout, work engagement, thriving, satisfaction with life, and flourishing), and (3) to what extent the five facets can be distinguished from and relate to conceptually similar constructs, such as irritation, worry, and neuroticism. We applied structural equation modeling techniques to cross-sectional survey data from 474 employees. Our results provide evidence for (1) five correlated, yet empirically distinct facets of work-related rumination. (2) Each facet yields a unique pattern of association with the eight aspects of employee well-being. For instance, detachment is strongly linked to satisfaction with life and flourishing. Affective rumination is linked particularly to burnout. Problem-solving pondering and positive work reflection yield the strongest links to work engagement. (3) The five facets of work-related rumination are distinct from related concepts, although there is a high overlap between (lower levels of) psychological detachment and cognitive irritation. Our study contributes to clarifying the structure of work-related rumination and extends the nomological network around different types of thinking about work during off-job time and employee well-being.

In snowball sampling for multisource studies, researchers ask target participants to recruit informants. Despite its widespread use, especially for recruiting informants for multisource research, virtually no published research has addressed possible biases snowball sampling may cause in findings of this type of research. Such potential biases were tested empirically in a multisource study with a sample of 1,058 employed students asked to collect online ratings from their supervisors and coworkers. Informant ratings were obtained for 358 target participants. Objective indicators were employed to identify informant ratings suspicious of being fabricated. Results indicated that target participants who report (a) better relationship quality with informants, (b) fewer organizational constraints, and (c) more favorable self‐evaluations on behaviors to be rated by informants were more likely to be included in multisource data unsuspicious of being fabricated. Inclusion of informant ratings suspicious of being fabricated led to inflated estimates of self‐other consensus and of variance accounted for in criterion measures, to deflated informant rating means, but also to a target sample less restricted in terms of relevant organizational variables. In sum, the present findings suggest that potential biases should be identified in future uses of snowball sampling. Some practical recommendations toward that end are derived.

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