Need Satisfaction and Optimal Functioning at Leisure and Work: A Longitudinal Validation Study of the DRAMMA Model

Abstract

In recent years, there has been an increasing interest in psychological need satisfaction and its role in promoting optimal functioning. The DRAMMA model integrates existing need and recovery models to explain why leisure is connected to optimal functioning (i.e., high well-being and low ill-being). It encompasses six psychological needs: detachment, relaxation, autonomy, mastery, meaning, and affiliation (DRAMMA). While the individual needs of the DRAMMA model have been previously shown to relate to different aspects of optimal functioning, a longitudinal study examining the entire model has not been conducted before. In this longitudinal field study covering leisure and work episodes, we tested the within-person reliability and (construct and criterion) validity of the operationalization of the DRAMMA model in a sample of 279 German employees. Participants filled out measures of DRAMMA need satisfaction and optimal functioning at five measurement times before, during, and after vacation periods in 2016 and 2017. The six-factor model showed good fit to the data. In the multilevel models, relaxation, detachment, autonomy, and mastery had the most consistent within-person effects on optimal functioning, while the relationships between optimal functioning, meaning, and affiliation were considerably weaker. In conclusion, DRAMMA need satisfaction can aid and nurture employees' optimal functioning.

Always on, never done? How the mind recovers after a stressful workday?

“…While most of these recovery experiences relate to physiological deactivation, affect regulation, and needs satisfaction processes (e.g. Kujanpää et al, 2021), the concept of psychological detachment directly concerns work-related thoughts, on which we also focus in this special issue (Sonnentag and Fritz, 2007;Virtanen et al, 2020).…”

The Forgotten Ones: Crafting for Meaning and for Affiliation in the Context of Finnish and Japanese Employees' Off-Job Lives

“…For instance, strategies for finding a purpose in life turned out to be negatively related to well-being (e.g., search for meaning; Li et al, 2020; struggle with ultimate meaning; Wilt et al, 2018) or have shown both positive and negative relationships to different aspects of well-being (meaning-making; Park, 2010). In addition, research on the role of meaning and affiliation as enhancers of the recovery process beyond recovery experiences of the REQ has rendered both null and positive effects (Kujanpää et al, 2020;Virtanen et al, 2020). As meaning and affiliation at leisure time are highly culturallyand contextually-shaped experiences (Iwasaki, 2018), examining these two newer facets of recovery experiences in distinct cultural contexts is meaningful.…”

“…The DRAMMA (i.e., detachment, relaxation, autonomy, mastery, meaning, and affiliation) model addresses these objectives and integrates insights from the fields of recovery from work and leisure sciences (Newman et al, 2014;Kujanpää et al, 2020). Based on a literature review of 363 scientific articles, Newman et al (2014) proposed that six psychological experiences mediate the positive relationship between leisure and well-being.…”

Präsentismus in der Hochschule

“…Die Dramma-Skala [24] bildete die Basis zur Erfassung der Erholungsfähigkeit. Die 6 Bereiche Gedankenfreiheit ("detachment"), Entspannung ("relaxation"), Selbstbestimmung ("autonomy"), Herausforderung ("mastery"), Sinn ("meaning") und Verbundenheit ("affiliation") wurden durch jeweils ein Item abgefragt, welches die höchste Trennschärfe auf der jeweiligen Dimension aufwies [18]. Ein hier ins Deutsche übersetzte Beispielitem lautet "Während meiner letzten Feierabende habe ich richtig von der Arbeit abschalten können."…”