Work-family spillover research focuses on how negative and positive moods in one life domain carry over to another. Domain-specific etiologies (e.g., family conflict) are often emphasized to explain spillover. Yet, strong correlations exist between spillover variables of the same emotional valence but originating from different domains, suggesting individual differences in the tendencies to prolong mood-states. The current study (N = 1143 individuals) examined whether these general tendencies are associated with neuroticism and extraversion and how genetic and environmental effects contribute to these associations. Findings revealed that neuroticism and extraversion are related to these tendencies through both genetic and environmental pathways.
Research suggests that the metaphor describing how one “kicks the dog” after a stressful day at work holds some truth. Both negative and positive moods arising at work can carry over to the home environment (Greenhaus & Beutell, 1985). For example, work strain can translate into irritability at home. Negative and positive moods can also spill over from home to work (Crouter, 1984). For example, a relaxing evening at home can foster positive moods that translate into a more satisfying day at work. These phenomena refer to work-family spillover and include: negative work-to-family (NWF), negative family-to-work (NFW), positive work-to-family (PWF), and positive family-to-work spillover (PFW).
Researchers have emphasized predictors unique to the work or home environment to describe spillover phenomena (Greenhaus & Beutell, 1985). For example, an inflexible work environment predicts NWF, whereas marital satisfaction predicts PFW (Crouter, 1984 and Greenhaus and Beutell, 1985). If domain-specific antecedents were entirely responsible for spillover, the strongest correlations would arise between constructs sharing an environmental origin (e.g., NFW and PFW). Yet, studies have shown that the strongest associations exist between spillover variables of similar emotional valence (e.g., NWF and NFW; e.g., Grzywacz & Marks, 2000), suggesting general tendencies to prolong these mood-states.
The current study assessed the extent to which neuroticism and extraversion, both related to emotional experiences, are associated with tendencies to prolong negative (measured as the correlation between NWF and NFW) or positive (correlation between PWF and PFW) mood-states across work and family domains. Furthermore, we examined how genetic and environmental effects account for these associations.
Two models describe reasons for these prolonged mood-states (Edwards & Rothbard, 2000). The indirect-spillover model contends that individuals’ emotional and cognitive reactions are mechanisms through which experiences from one domain impact experiences in another domain (Lambert, 1990). For example, marital conflict may evoke anxiety that could cause the individual to ruminate about this problem at work. To the extent that people have predictable responses across different environmental domains, this model suggests that trait-like qualities create similar reactivity and carryover tendencies regardless of the environmental source. The congruence model posits that similar mood-states at work and home arise from common causes with heritable individual differences such as personality traits (Edwards & Rothbard, 2000). These common causes are often attributed to neuroticism and extraversion because they are related to stable negative or positive moods across life domains (Frone, Russell, & Cooper, 1994).
Neuroticism and extraversion may be associated with prolonged emotional states at work and home because they involve predictable emotional experiences (Costa & McCrae, 1992). Neuroticism is related to negative reactivity to daily events, general emotional distress (Mroczek and Almeida, 2004 and Suls and Martin, 2005), negative work-family spillover (Grzywacz & Marks, 2000), and conflict or interference between work and family domains (Boyar and Mosley, 2007, Rantanen et al., 2005 and Wayne et al., 2004). In contrast, extraversion is associated with positive reactivity to daily experiences, positive emotions (Larsen & Ketelaar, 1991), positive work-family spillover (Grzywacz & Marks, 2000) and facilitation between work and family domains (Wayne et al., 2004). Furthermore, genetic and unique environmental (individual-specific experiences) variance components influence neuroticism and extraversion (e.g., Bouchard & McGue, 2003). It is possible that neuroticism and extraversion share these influences with prolonged mood-states.
The current study investigated reasons for the association between NWF and NFW and between PWF and PFW by examining whether neuroticism and extraversion are related to these tendencies. We hypothesized that higher neuroticism and lower extraversion are related to greater NWF and NFW and to lower PWF and PFW. Behavioral genetic analyses then modeled the degree to which genetic and environmental variance components explain the associations between spillover constructs of the same mood valence and these personality traits.
