Date of Award

2011

Degree Type

Dissertation

Degree Name

Doctor of Philosophy (PhD)

Department

Psychology

Abstract

Two-wave, longitudinal data from a national, web-based survey of doctoral psychologists was used to examine work life, spillover, family, and personal lives. A measure of spillover, Stressors and Enhancers for Psychologists, was also evaluated. Confirmatory factor analysis indicated two negatively correlated dimensions of work spillover: positive spillover termed family enhancers and negative spillover termed family stressors. This measure was significantly related to a widely used, more general measure of positive and negative spillover and demonstrated high temporal stability. Respondents reported a significantly higher incidence of family enhancers than family stressors at both data collection points. Consistent with previous research, the low incidence of family stressors suggested that stresses associated with professional work of psychology do not routinely spillover into professionals' family lives. Control and emotional exhaustion from work emerged as salient predictors of spillover; specifically, greater control was associated with higher incidence of stressors and lower incidence of enhancers, and greater emotional exhaustion was associated with lower incidence of enhancers. Furthermore, an increase in family enhancers decreased family dysfunction, whereas an increase in family stressors increased family dysfunction and decreased life satisfaction. Contrary to expectations, stressors and enhancers did not mediate the relationship between predictors from work and outcomes in personal life.

Creative Commons License

Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 3.0 License
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 3.0 License.

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