Sleeping with a broken promise: The moderating role of generativity concerns in the relationship between psychological contract breach and insomnia among older workers

Abstract

Summary This paper examines the relationship between psychological contract breach and insomnia among older workers (aged 40 years and up). Drawing upon the conservation of resources theory, we conceptualize breach as a stressful event characterized by a perceived threat, failure to gain, or actual loss of valued resources, which increases psychological distress and insomnia. Moreover, we hypothesized that older workers' generativity concerns would act as a personal resource that would buffer the negative impact of breach. We tested our proposed model in 2 studies (Study 1 = 123; Study 2 = 168) of employee–spouse dyads. Results revealed that psychological distress mediated the relationship between psychological contract breach and insomnia. These mediated relationships were significant for those with low, but not for those with high levels of generativity concerns. These effects remained significant even after controlling for perceived organizational support (i.e., a social exchange mechanism). Theoretical and practical implications are discussed.

I’ll Be a Caregiver-Employee: Aging of the Workforce and Family-to-Work Conflicts

“…Having children appeared then as a protective factor: life is certainly harder to manage when workers have to balance, for example, working hours and school timetables, especially when combined with caring for other adults, but psychological discomfort (emotional exhaustion or depression) is probably buffered by the generative parents' role and by the forward-thinking perspective that children enhance. Results are then in line with the literature on the topic of generativity (Erikson, 1963;Garcia et al, 2018; that is in some way guaranteed as long as there are children to raise), and consistent with COR theory: children can in fact represent a challenge and be more difficult to care for than the elderly.…”

“…From an individual point of view, another kind of intervention is related to support generativity (Garcia et al, 2018;Raymund et al, 2018): as we saw before when comparing childcare and eldercare, a higher load regarding children can be a better and proactive challenge, animated, as Erikson (1963) defined generativity, by a concern for guiding the next generation and representing the focal issue (i.e., generativity vs. stagnation) for individuals in the "seventh stage of human development." Older people cannot represent the same challenge, and more often represent a hindrance demand.…”

“…Older people cannot represent the same challenge, and more often represent a hindrance demand. As Garcia et al (2018) highlighted, generativity can then represent a relevant resource for older workers, being related not only to parenthood, but also to a variety of settings, including the workplace. Supporting generativity in the workplace by, for example, assigning mentoring and tutoring roles in the "mature" phase of the working life cycle, could represent, not only an asset for aging workers, but also a resource for those CEs whose family generativity cannot be expressed anymore.…”

Coping and laughing in the face of broken promises: implications for creative behavior

“…A psychological contract breach can become manifest in different ways, such as when employees sense that their employer has not fulfilled promises it made at the time of their recruitment or failed to accommodate needs that employees developed thereafter (Cassar & Buttigieg, 2015;Robinson & Morrison, 2000). The experience of broken organizational promises is deeply salient in terms of the hardship that it imposes on employees' psychological well-being, suggesting the need for further studies that detail potentially harmful behavioral responses by employees and tactics for reducing or mitigating these responses (Garcia, Bordia, Restubog, & Caines, 2018;Phuong, 2016;Restubog, Zagenczyk, Bordia, Bordia, & Chapman, 2015).…”

The Mediating Role of Subjective Well-Being in Job Burnout and Generativity Concern

“…It is the further development of individual self-identity and the creation and extension of self-value, and the goal is to promote the development of individuals [1]. With the development of China's aging population in recent years and the promotion of policies such as the birth of two children, research on generativity that is important for the development of society and individuals has received extensive attention from researchers [2][3][4].…”