The Complex Interplay Between Emotion Regulation and Work Rumination on Exhaustion

Abstract

This study examined the interplay between emotion regulation strategies (reappraisal and suppression) and work-related rumination (affective work rumination and detachment from work) on exhaustion. In all, 1985 participants from three human service occupations (psychologists, teachers, and ministers) completed the web-based survey. The results showed that reappraisal and detachment from work had a negative relation to exhaustion, whereas the relation between suppression and affective work rumination to exhaustion were positively directed. Moreover, results of mediation analyses showed that the associations between emotion regulation strategies and exhaustion were mediated by work-ruminative tendencies. However, results of moderation analyses did not support that work-ruminative tendencies have a conditional effect (i.e., moderate) on the relationship between emotion regulation strategies and exhaustion. The results suggest that work-ruminative tendencies are best understood as a mediator of the emotion regulation strategies – exhaustion relationship. Thus, the study contribute to the understanding of the strategies (and combination of strategies) people use to reduce exhaustion by adding novel insights into the role of person characteristics in the recovery process. We discuss our results in relation to previous research, provide recommendations for future research, and note possible practical implications.

When forgetting what happened at work matters: The role of affective rumination, problem-solving pondering, and self-control in work–family conflict and enrichment.

“…Although self-control does not ward off the negative consequences of affective rumination, it may help preventively by decreasing destructive affective rumination as well as by increasing constructive problem-solving pondering in which a person engages. Initial cross-sectional research in which self-control was similarly negatively associated with affective rumination supports this assumption (Geisler, Buratti, & Allwood, 2019).…”

A dynamic causal model on self-regulation of aversive emotion

“…Emotions are generally recognized as responses generated by the human organism, which are essential for the adaptation to changing environmental demands [1][2][3]. Considering the significance, plenty of studies have been yielded in the recent years, focusing on emotional responses or experiences with the help of fMRI [4][5][6].…”

To help others or not: A moderated mediation model of emotional dissonance

“…The service industry has become the main industrial structure in countries around the world ( The World Bank, 2016 ; Indregard et al, 2018 ), so exploring emotion regulation mechanisms has become a major topic in the industry ( Geisler et al, 2019 ; Madrid et al, 2020 ). However, due to the current highly competitive service industry environment, employes often experience emotional dissonance because their emotional resources are insufficient to meet the needs of emotional work ( Park et al, 2019 ).…”