Examining the Effects of Sleep Deprivation on Workplace Deviance: A Self-Regulatory Perspective

Abstract

The causes of workplace deviance are of increasing interest to organizations. We integrate psychological and neurocognitive perspectives to examine the effects of sleep deprivation on workplace deviance. Utilizing self-regulatory resource theories, we argue that sleep deprivation decreases individuals' self-control while increasing hostility, resulting in increased workplace deviance. We test our hypotheses using two samples: one comprised of nurses from a large medical center and another comprised of undergraduate students participating in a lab study. Results from both samples largely converge in supporting our hypotheses.

Sleep Deprivation and workplace deviance: a mediation approach

“…State hostility fully mediates the relationship between sleep deprivation and workplace deviance therefore Hypothesis 3 is also rejected. These results are different from that of Christian and Ellis [68], in which they have used Baron and Kenny approach to mediation, and Preacher and Hayes approach to bootstrapping multimediators. The hypothesis in their study has been accepted in which both self-control and hostility partially mediates the relationship between sleep deprivation and workplace deviance.…”

“…6 hours was chosen as the cut-off point because sleeping less than 6 hours will damage the cognitive capacity, while sleeping 7 or more will not [55], [68]. Bonnet and Arand (1995) and Weinger and Ancoli Israel [52] found that 5 to 6 hours of sleep has a detrimental effect on mood, performance, and alertness.…”

“…Workplace deviance was measured using 17 items from Christian & Ellis [68], one item was omitted because of the cultural context -used an illegal drug or consumed alcohol on the job‖. Originally 19 items were used in Bennett and Robinson's [1].…”

“…Trait positive and negative affect (PANAS-X; [23], gender, chronic insomnia or chronic sleep issues [69], sleep debt or the accumulated number of hours slept in past two nights [68], sleep requirement was measured as the number of hours respondent felt he/she needed to sleep in order to feel relaxed [56], hours awake or the number of hours respondents had been awake before filling the questionnaire [30] are the controlled variables in this study similar to that of Christian & Ellis, 2011, [68]. Negative and positive affect was controlled because of their association with other variables present in the study [27].…”

Strengthened to forgive workplace transgressions: priming new money increases interpersonal forgiveness

“…Managing employee stress is increasingly important due to trends such as long work hours, tight deadlines, and increased pressure to achieve organizational goals (e.g., Perlow, 1998Perlow, , 2012. Such work settings may easily lead employees to feel depleted, and promote workplace deviance associated with self-regulation failure (e.g., Christian & Ellis, 2011). The effect of reminders of new money on reducing workplace deviance or promoting organizational citizenship behavior is worth exploring.…”