Shrugging it off: Does psychological detachment from work mediate the relationship between workplace aggression and work-family conflict?

The current study investigates workplace aggression and psychological detachment from work as possible antecedents of work-family conflict. We draw upon Conservation of Resources theory and the Effort-Recovery Model to argue that employees who fail to psychologically detach from stressful events in the workplace experience a relative lack of resources that is negatively associated with functioning in the nonwork domain. Further, we extend prior research on antecedents of work-family conflict by examining workplace aggression, a prevalent workplace stressor. Utilizing multisource data (i.e., employee, significant other, and coworker reports), our findings indicate that self-reported psychological detachment mediates the relationship between coworker-reported workplace aggression and both self- and significant other-reported work-family conflict. Findings from the current study speak to the value of combining perspectives from research on recovery from work stress and the work-family interface, and point toward implications for research and practice.