ISSN 1671-3710
CN 11-4766/R
主办:中国科学院心理研究所
出版:科学出版社

Advances in Psychological Science ›› 2017, Vol. 25 ›› Issue (1): 180-189.doi: 10.3724/SP.J.1042.2017.00180

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The effect of work hours on well-being: New exploration of work hours’ heterogeneity

WANG Xiaotian1; LI Aimei1; WU Weijiong2; SUN Hailong1; Xiong Guanxing1   

  1. (1 Management School, Jinan University, Guangzhou 510632, China) (2 Business School of Zhejiang University of Economic and Finance, Hangzhou 310018, China)
  • Received:2016-06-27 Online:2017-01-15 Published:2017-01-15
  • Contact: LI Aimei, E-mail: tliaim@jnu.edu.cn

Abstract:

Work hours is one of most important factors that can influence employees’ well-being. Researchers has considered work hours solely as depleting, and had negative impact on employees’ well-being. Some of the researches have contradictory results. Drawing on a heterogeneity perspective of work, I argue that there is unaccounted for variability in the nature of work hours such that some are actually restorative rather than depleting. I articulate the four type of work hours through simultaneous consideration of the extent to which a given work hours is (1) depleting of regulatory resources and (2) generative of three particular resources shown to compensate for the effects of ego depletion. Beyond the depleting work hours that have been the focus of research to date, the resulting typology reveals two restorative types (replenishing and breakthrough) that I theorize positively shape well-being in both the short and long term. The new perspectives of future studies based on these reasons were discussed.

Key words: work hours, well-being, heterogeneity, regulatory resources, personal resources