The role of partners for employees' recovery during the weekend

Recovery from job stress: The stressor-detachment model as an integrative framework

“…Specifically, while psychological detachment was positively related to work engagement in some research (Kühnel et al, ; Siltaloppi et al, ), a study by Shimazu et al () reported a negative correlation in a Japanese sample. Some studies found positive relationships between psychological detachment and life satisfaction (Davidson et al, ; Fritz et al, 2010; Moreno‐Jiménez, Mayo, et al, ), while in Hahn et al's () weekend study, psychological detachment was unrelated to vigor, joviality, and serenity. One may speculate that psychological detachment is more important for an overall positive assessment of one's life than for specific momentary positive affective states.…”

“…Psychological detachment is also related to—albeit not identical to—engagement in leisure activities as well as to other recovery experiences. For instance, psychological detachment is predicted by engagement in exercise activities (Feuerhahn, Sonnentag, & Woll, ) or by absorption in joint activities with others (Hahn, Binnewies, & Haun, ). Importantly, while psychological detachment shows positive relationships with other recovery experiences such as relaxation, mastery, and control (Ragsdale, Beehr, Grebner, & Han, ; Siltaloppi, Kinnunen, & Feldt, ; Sonnentag & Fritz, ), it is a distinct construct and can be differentiated in confirmatory factor analyses (Shimazu, Sonnentag, Kubota, & Kawakami, ; Siltaloppi et al, ; Sonnentag, Binnewies, & Mojza, ; Sonnentag & Fritz, ).…”

“…Research using between‐person designs has examined a broad range of nonwork settings during which psychological detachment from work might occur, including nonwork time during evenings (ten Brummelhuis & Bakker, ; Sonnentag et al, ), weekends (Fritz, Sonnentag, et al, ; Hahn et al, ), vacations (de Bloom et al, ), sabbaticals (Davidson et al, ), and even military service (Etzion et al, ). While most of these studies assessed psychological detachment with the measure developed by Sonnentag and Fritz (), other measures were used as well (e.g., Querstret & Cropley, ; von Thiele Schwarz, ).…”

“…First, detachment seems to show differential patterns with various outcome variables. Whereas findings are relatively consistent for strain indicators (e.g., exhaustion), as well as for work engagement and life satisfaction, they are less uniform for positive affective states, particularly when measuring short‐term changes (Fritz, Sonnentag, et al, ; Hahn et al, ). It might be that these positive affective states are more strongly influenced by positive events that happened immediately before the assessment of the affective state, rather than by a lack of detachment several days ago.…”

“…Fourth, it is always imperative to examine if inconsistent findings might be caused by methodological factors. Research evidence so far, however, suggests that methodological factors play a minor role when explaining the overall pattern of results: psychological detachment was related to strain indicators not only when using relatively weak research designs (cross‐sectional designs and all variables assessed through self‐reports) but also when using stronger methodological approaches (longitudinal designs and reports by others; e.g., Fritz et al, 2010; Hahn, et al, ). One factor that might play a role is the time lag used in studies that examine detachment during a specific respite period.…”