Knock, knock, anybody home? Psychological availability as link between work and relationship

Abstract

This research investigated how negative and positive residuals of the workday spill over into the partner relationship. To unravel the mechanism of this spillover, this study introduces the concept of "psychological availability," which refers to the individual's ability and motivation to direct psychological resources at the partner. A survey was conducted among 313 Dutch dual-earner couples with children, using dyadic data analysis to analyze both partners simultaneously in 1 model. Psychological availability mediated the link between negative and positive work-related residuals (i.e., work-related negative mood, exhaustion, rumination and work-related positive mood and vigor, respectively) and marital behavior. The findings suggest that partners' workday residuals spill over into the marital relationship through being more or less psychologically available for each other.

The Psychological Availability of Dual‐Earner Parents for Their Children After Work

“…In other words, parents need to be psychologically available during interactions with their children. We define being psychologically available for the child as the ability and motivation to direct psychological resources toward the child (Danner‐Vlaardingerbroek et al, ). Psychological availability for the child can thus be seen as having the mental capacity to focus attention on the child, which the parent can use to consider the best way to initiate behavior toward the child and to respond sensitively to the child's behavior.…”

How work spills over into the relationship: Self‐control matters

“…In the previous literature, relationship behavior was predicted by work experiences like workload (Hughes & Galinsky, ) via workday residuals like mood (Story & Repetti, ). A recent study showed that psychological availability mediated the association between workday residuals and relationship behavior (Danner‐Vlaardingerbroek et al, ). This study showed that experiences during the workday (i.e., work demands) were related to residuals of the workday as assessed by the depletion of self‐regulatory resources of the individual (Study 1).…”

“…Similar to Study 1, respondents completed the questions on depletion of self‐regulatory resources (Cronbach's α = .84) and dispositional self‐control (Cronbach's α = .77) as well as accommodation (Cronbach's α = .71) about the preceding workday. In addition, participants completed the Daily Psychological Availability Scale (Danner‐Vlaardingerbroek et al, ). This scale consists of eight items measuring the accessibility of psychological resources to be used in the direction of the partner (1 = totally disagree , 7 = totally agree ).…”

“…It is well established that stress and strain from work can have detrimental effects on the marital relationship (e.g., Eby, Casper, Lockwood, Bordeaux, & Brinley, ; Hughes & Galinsky, ). Experiences during work can cause feelings of frustration or exhaustion that can spill over into the home domain and affect the way employees interact with their family members after work (e.g., Danner‐Vlaardingerbroek, Kluwer, van Steenbergen, & van der Lippe, ; Story & Repetti, ). This work–family spillover is defined as the within‐person transmission of feelings or behavior and subsequent strain from the work domain into the family domain (Bakker, Demerouti, & Burke, ).…”

“…Danner‐Vlaardingerbroek and colleagues () captured these psychological resources in a measurable concept called “psychological availability.” Psychological availability is defined as one's ability and motivation to direct psychological resources at the partner, that is, being interpersonally present for the partner and having the mental capacity to actively direct attention toward the partner. An individual who is psychologically available for the partner has enough cognitive space to rapidly weigh a sensitive response to the partner and has the capacity to sense the partner's needs.…”