Switch Off Totally or Switch Off Strategically? The Consequences of Thinking About Work on Job Performance
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Task Interruption and Resumption Paradigm for Testing the Activation and Pursuit of an Abstract Thinking Goal
Published on: April 18, 2017
Jing Zhang1,2, Weihe Li2, Hongyu Ma3,2
1School of Psychology, Central China Normal University, Wuhan, China; School of Psychology, Xin Xiang Medical University, Xinxiang, China.
Abstract:
As a universal workplace phenomenon, the impact of work-related rumination on job performance is attracting scholars' attention. In the current study, the relationship between two types of work-related rumination, counterproductive behavior, and creativity at work were examined, as well as the mechanism of this association. Participants were 1109 employees from a variety of jobs in mainland China. The results showed that affective rumination was negatively associated with employees' work creativity and positively associated with counterproductive behavior. On the contrary, problem-solving pondering was positively related to creativity and negatively related to counterproductive behavior. The loss of self-control resource partially mediated the link between affective rumination and counterproductive behavior. Problem-solving pondering had no significant impact on self-control resource. Results suggest the significant effects of problem-solving pondering may be positive in the workplace and clarify the self-control resource is the internal mechanism linking rumination and job performance.
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