Blue Monday, yellow Friday? Investigating work anticipation as an explanatory mechanism and boundary conditions of weekly affect trajectories.

Abstract

Affective well-being of employees is a key outcome in the occupational health literature. Yet, researchers of emotions and affect have long called for a better understanding of the dynamic nature of such experiences. Directly addressing this call, we have built on temporal schema theories and the notion of temporal depth to develop and test the anticipation of work account as a theoretical explanation of systematic weekly change patterns in positive and negative affect. Using a 7-day experience-sampling design and latent growth curve modeling, we hypothesized and found that anticipation of work linearly decreased over the course of the workweek, so did negative affect. Supporting our hypothesis that change patterns in work anticipation drive change patterns in evening affect, the linear change trajectory of anticipation was significantly related to change trajectories in positive and negative affect. Furthermore, we identified the structure of the workweek and chronic workload as boundary conditions that interact in shaping weekly change patterns in anticipation. Specifically, patterns of decreasing anticipation were most pronounced for employees with a regular Monday-Friday workweek and high chronic levels of workload, while they were weakest for employees with a regular workweek but low levels of chronic workload. Taken together, our results highlight the role of work itself and working conditions in dynamic aspects of affect. They yield theoretical and practical implications for the study of affect and its work-related experiential and behavioral consequences.

It is Monday again: Weekend sleep differentially relates to the workweek via reattachment on Monday

“…Because most employees experience a drop in energy and well-being on Monday, it is often referred to as "Blue Monday" (Hülsheger et al, 2022;Weigelt et al, 2021). However, little is known about how this transition from the weekend to the workweek can be successfully made.…”

“…Accordingly, the beginning of the workweek plays a unique role in many employees' weeks as Monday implies a transition from 2 days of engaging in mainly private roles to 5 days of mainly engaging in work roles. Because most employees experience a drop in energy and well‐being on Monday, it is often referred to as “Blue Monday” (Hülsheger et al, 2022; Weigelt et al, 2021). However, little is known about how this transition from the weekend to the workweek can be successfully made.…”

“…While the weekend offers 2 days of leisure and thereby constitutes a central opportunity for employee recovery (Fritz, Sonnentag, et al, 2010), returning to work on Monday implies refocusing on work with all its joys and sorrows. Not surprisingly, employees' mood hits bottom on Monday—the infamous Blue Monday effect (Hülsheger et al, 2022; Weigelt et al, 2021). From a psychological perspective, readjusting to work on Monday can be challenging because the transition from the weekend to the workweek constitutes a micro‐role transition (Ashforth et al, 2000).…”

Sweet dreams are made of this: A person-centered approach toward understanding the role of sleep in chronic fatigue.

“…That is, day-to-day variation in the duration, quality, bedtime, wake-up time, and fragmentation across 1 week are incorporated as variables. One week is an appropriate time frame for sleep profiles that incorporate day-to-day variation, as it represents the typical work cycle of working during weekdays and being off during weekends (Hülsheger et al, 2022; Rook & Zijlstra, 2006). As such, incorporating variability for the sleep dimensions as variables in estimating the sleep profiles make for a theoretically sound way of handing within-person variation over the meaningful time period of 1 week.…”

Sweet dreams are made of this: A person-centered approach toward understanding the role of sleep in chronic fatigue

“…Please do not copy or cite without authors' permission. The final article will be available, upon publication, via its DOI: 10.1037/ocp0000355 weekdays and being off during weekends (Hülsheger et al, 2022;Rook & Zijlstra, 2006). As such, incorporating variability for the sleep dimensions as variables in estimating the sleep profiles make for a theoretically sound way of handing within-person variation over the meaningful time period of one week.…”