In this longitudinal study, the authors tested a single-mediator model in which neuroticism forms a risk factor predisposing individuals to experience work-family conflict, which, in turn, was hypothesized as influencing their levels of parental, marital and personal well-being. The authors focused on men and women at a particular phase in the life cycle: employed, married (or cohabiting), and undergoing the transition to parenthood. Data were collected during the third trimester of pregnancy and at 9 months postpartum. The participants for this longitudinal study were part of an initial sample of 185 Canadian couples expecting their first child. Of this number, 172 men and 50 women were working at 9 months postpartum and were included in the current study. As predicted, for men, after controlling for demographic variables, the mediated effects were significant for the residualized change scores of union quality and of psychological distress. The link between neuroticism and parenting satisfaction was also mediated by work-family conflict for men. For women, no mediated effects were significant.
In today’s society, individuals are trying to “do it all”: that is, find well-being through a combination of roles (worker, spouse, parent). Although employment, marriage, and parenting are important psychologically (Noor, 2004), the roles they confer tend to overlap and people’s experiences in one affect their behavior and satisfaction in others.
Little research has examined the long-term impact of dispositional variables on the incidence of conflict between these multiple roles (Michel and Clark, 2009 and Rantanen et al., 2005). The present study aimed to illuminate this insufficiently considered issue. More precisely, the literature led us to investigate a single-mediator model in which the personality trait of neuroticism forms a risk factor predisposing individuals to experience conflict between multiple roles, which in turn, should influence their levels of well-being (see Boyar & Mosley (2007) for a similar hypothesis). This study follows Lahey (2009) latest recommendation suggesting that achieving a full understanding of the mechanisms through which neuroticism is linked to well-being should be a top priority.
In the current study, we focused on men and women at a particular phase in the life cycle: employed, married (or cohabiting), and experiencing the arrival of their first child. Although an extensive literature exists on the transition to parenthood, few researchers have studied new parents’ return to paid employment early in the baby’s first year of life (Perry-Jenkins, Goldberg, Pierce, & Sayer, 2007). This is a demanding time in adults’ lives that requires articulating multiple roles (Costigan, Cox, & Cauce, 2003) and leads to conflicts between work and family life (Rantanen et al., 2005). The choice of this specific population is in accordance with a recent comment by Ellenbogen, Ostiguy, and Hodgins (2010), who emphasized that, from a public-health standpoint, researchers should be particularly concerned with high neuroticism in parents because of the evidences showing its negative effect on following generations. The same reasoning also applies to low levels of well-being among parents (Gable, Belsky, & Crnic, 1992).
The personality trait of neuroticism refers to a relatively stable tendency to respond with negative emotions to threat, frustration, or loss (Lahey, 2009). Its relationship with individuals’ subjective well-being is largely recognized (Wismeijer & van Assen, 2008). In effect, recent studies showed that neuroticism is one of the personality traits the most strongly associated with individuals’ well-being (Romero, Villar, Luengo, & Gómez-Fraguela, 2009). Neuroticism is also supposed to have a negative impact on well-being within the couple and the family (Schneewind & Kupsch, 2007).
In the current study, neuroticism was hypothesized to form a risk factor in the experience of work-family conflict because of the tendency of people high in neuroticism to experience negative affects in response to challenges and to view themselves and the surrounding world negatively (see Bruck & Allen (2003) and Rantanen et al. (2005), for a similar hypothesis). Defined as the extent to which a person is overwhelmed by his or her responsibilities and feels that the pressures from work and family are mutually incompatible (Blanch and Aluja, 2009 and Perry-Jenkins et al., 2007), the work-family conflict (or the similar concept of role overload) is currently the most popular lens through which the experience of multiples roles is being examined (Glynn, Maclean, Forte, & Cohen, 2009). Another popular approach focuses on positive aspects of multiple roles (see, for instance, Andreassi & Thompson (2007), for their work on “positive spillover”). Recent work by Michel and Clark (2009), based on a sample of 187 employees, revealed that dispositional negative affect, a concept that is usually associated with neuroticism, is an important predictor of work-family conflict (see also Blanch & Aluja (2009), for similar results).
