Too anxious to help? Off‐job affective rumination as a linking mechanism between work anxiety and helping

Abstract

This study explores the inter‐relationships of work anxiety, affective rumination, and helping behaviours. Drawing on the effort–recovery model and resource depletion perspectives to extra‐role behaviours, we hypothesized that employees with higher work anxiety would affectively ruminate about work during off‐job time, which in turn would diminish their helping behaviours at work. Results of a multisource, time‐lagged study with 167 full‐time employee‐co‐worker dyads supported this indirect effect model. The results of this study extend research on work anxiety to encompass extra‐role behaviours and indicate the value of exploring leisure time experiences as linking mechanisms in the work anxiety–job performance relationship. Practitioner points We identify affective rumination during off‐job time as a mechanism linking work anxiety to employee helping behaviours. Our findings suggest that efforts to reduce work anxiety and encourage effective employee recovery may yield more helping behaviours at work.

The influence of COVID-induced job search anxiety and conspiracy beliefs on job search effort: A within-person investigation.

“…Affect-focused rumination occurs when individuals spend time and energy reflecting on the negative affective states they are experiencing due to a stressor, which contributes to heightened psychophysiological arousal that is damaging (Cropley & Zijlstra, 2011;Querstret & Cropley, 2012;Wang et al, 2013). Thus, individuals who are feeling anxious likely spend increased time ruminating on the negative affective aspects of their job search (e.g., Calderwood et al, 2018). As such, COVID-induced job search anxiety is likely linked to both ruminative states weekly.…”

How does career future time perspective moderate in the relationship between infection anxiety with the COVID-19 and service behavior among hotel employees?

“…The construct of IAWC is aligned to Lazarus and Folkman's (1987) framework of emotion—that is, an emotional state is induced by threatening or stressful events (e.g., the global pandemic) and engenders higher levels of anxiety ( Afifi, Shahnazi, & Harrison, 2018 ; Trougakos et al, 2020 ). Previous studies have shown that the feeling of anxiety is negatively associated with service and helping behaviors ( Calderwood, Bennett, Gabriel, Trougakos, & Dahling, 2018 ; Clercq, Haq, & Azeem, 2018 ; Wang et al, 2020 ).…”

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“…• For example, work-related rumination (i.e. thinking about an element of one’s job during off-hours) is associated with reduced cognitive functioning [ 52 ] and co-worker related helping behaviors [ 53 ]. Theme #2: Blind spots or conflicts within scientific paradigm: “It seems that D&I scientists can experiment with a different wavelength of thinking that transcends the replicable methods, visible research process, and generalizable frameworks.…”

“…• For example, work-related rumination (i.e. thinking about an element of one’s job during off-hours) is associated with reduced cognitive functioning [ 52 ] and co-worker related helping behaviors [ 53 ].…”