Active Facebook use and mood: When digital interaction turns maladaptive

an article by Natalia Macrynikola and Regina Miranda (City University of New York, USA) published in Computers in Human Behavior Volume 97 (August 2019)

Highlights

• Active Facebook use (AFU) was related to positive, not negative, FB interactions.
• AFU was more strongly associated with better than with worse mood after FB use.
• Negative interpretation bias (NIB) and rumination predicted worse mood after AFU.
• NIB and thwarted belongingness interacted to predict worse mood after AFU.
• Individual differences, not just how FB is used, may influence FB experience.

Abstract

Despite the prevalence of Facebook use, its psychological impact remains unclear.

Recent evidence suggests that active Facebook use (i.e., peer interaction) is more adaptive than passive use (i.e., browsing content), predicting increases in affective well-being and social connectedness. However, how individual differences in cognition and belonging may influence these relationships has been largely unexamined, limiting conclusions on whether these findings extend to vulnerable individuals.

The present study sought to address this gap by investigating whether active Facebook use loses its benefits in the presence of social-cognitive vulnerabilities (i.e., rumination, interpretation bias, thwarted belongingness) that may be especially relevant to the digital context.

Although active Facebook use was associated with feeling better after Facebook use and with perceiving more positive Facebook interactions, cognitive biases and thwarted belongingness predicted feeling worse after active Facebook use and reporting less positive interactions. Additionally, interpretation bias and thwarted belongingness together predicted feeling worse after one style of active Facebook use, through perceptions of less positive interactions.

These findings suggest that beyond how one uses Facebook, the individual factors one brings to the Facebook experience may influence perceptions of interpersonal experiences in the digital space and contribute to low mood, rendering even active Facebook use maladaptive.

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Challenge and hindrance demands in relation to self‐reported job performance and the role of restoration, sleep quality, and affective rumination

an article by Michelle Van Laethem (University of Amsterdam, The Netherlands), Debby G. J. Beckers (Radboud University, Nijmegen, The Netherlands), Jessica de Bloom (University of Tampere, Finland; University of Groningen, The Netherlands) and Marjaana Sianoja and Ulla Kinnunen (University of Tampere, Finland) published in Journal of Occupational and Organizational Psychology Volume 92 Issue 2 (June 2019)

Abstract

Longitudinal research on the relationship between job demands and job performance and its underlying mechanisms is scarce.

The aims of this longitudinal three‐wave study among 920 Finnish employees were to ascertain whether

1. challenge job demands (i.e., workload, cognitive demands) and self‐reported job performance are positively related over time,
2. job insecurity (i.e., a hindrance demand) and job performance are negatively related over time,
3. restorative experiences during off‐job time and sleep quality are underlying mechanisms in these relations, and
4. affective rumination mediates the proposed relations of job demands and job insecurity with restoration and sleep quality.

Self‐report data were analysed with structural equation modelling. The results revealed a positive, temporal relationship between challenge job demands and job performance (task and contextual performance) across 1 year, but no temporal relationship between job insecurity and self‐reported job performance.

Moreover, high challenge job demands were positively related to the restorative value of off‐job activities, and favourable restoration was positively related to subsequent task performance.

Finally, affective rumination mediated the relationship of challenge job demands with both restoration and sleep quality. Job insecurity was not longitudinally related to restoration, sleep quality, or affective rumination. The implications of our findings for occupational health psychology are discussed.

Practitioner points

• Provide employees with sufficient job resources (e.g., high autonomy and social support) to adequately deal with high job demands.
• Allow employees sufficient time to recover from high job demands during off‐job time and provide training sessions in recovery, relaxation, meditation, and goal setting.
• Employees may attempt to counteract perseverative thoughts by actively pursuing distracting restoration activities (e.g., exercise, meditation).

Full text (PDF 30pp)

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