Job Characteristics and Off-Job Activities as Predictors of Need for Recovery, Well-Being, and Fatigue

Sonnentag, Sabine
Zijlstra, Fred R. H.

¹Department of Psychology, University of Konstanz, Konstanz, Germany
²Department of Psychology and Surrey Sleep Research Centre, University of Surrey, Surrey, United Kingdom.

³Correspondence concerning this article should be addressed to Sabine Sonnentag, Department of Psychology, University of Konstanz, Postbox D42, D-78457, Konstanz, Germany. E-mail: [email protected]

⁴Correspondence concerning this article should be addressed to Fred R. H. Zijlstra, Faculty of Psychology, University of Maastricht, P.O. Box 616, NL - 6200, MD, Maastricht, The Netherlands. E-mail: [email protected]

The order of the authors is strictly alphabetical because both authors contributed equally to this article.

We are grateful to Sabine Pieh for collecting data for Study 1; to Merel van der Mast, Suzanne van Helvoirt, and Marieke Megens for their assistance with collecting the data for Study 2; and to Chris Fife-Schaw for his help with the structural equation modeling.

Received Date: April 1, 2003; Revised Date: March 1, 2004; Accepted Date: February 17, 2005

Journal of Applied Psychology 91(2):p 330-350, March 2006.

Two empirical studies examined need for recovery (i.e., a person's desire to be temporarily relieved from demands in order to restore his or her resources) as a mediator in the relationship between poor job characteristics (high job demands, low job control) and high off-job demands, on the one hand, and fatigue and poor individual well-being, on the other hand. Multilevel data from a daily survey study in the health service sector (Study 1) showed that high job demands, low job control, and unfavorable off-job activities predicted a high need for recovery. Need for recovery in turn was negatively related to individual well-being. A large-scale survey with a representative sample of the Dutch working population (Study 2) confirmed these findings for fatigue. In both studies, need for recovery mediated the effects of job characteristics and off-job activities on fatigue and poor well-being, respectively.