Emotional Exhaustion Across the Workday: Person-Level and Day-Level Predictors of Workday Emotional Exhaustion Growth Curves

Despite empirical findings that have established the dynamic nature of emotional exhaustion (EE), the temporal processes underlying the development of EE over meaningful spans of time have largely been ignored in research. Drawing from theories that outline the roles of resources and demands at work (Demerouti et al., 2001; Halbesleben et al., 2014; Hobfoll, 1989; ten Brummelhuis & Bakker, 2012), the present study developed and tested hypotheses pertaining to the form and predictors of workday EE trajectories. Experience sampling methodology was utilized to assess the momentary EE of 114 employees three times per day over a total of 925 days and 2,808 event-level surveys. Within-day EE growth curves (i.e., intercepts and slopes) were then derived, and the variance of these growth curve terms was partitioned into within-person (i.e., variance in growth curve parameters across days for each person) and between-person (i.e., variance in average growth curve parameters across people) sources. Results supported an increasing pattern of EE across the workday and also demonstrated substantial between- and within-person variance in intercepts (i.e., start) and slopes (i.e., growth) over the workday. In addition, support was found for a set of resource-providing and resource-consuming predictors of EE growth curves, including customer mistreatment, social interactions with coworkers, prior evening psychological detachment, perceived supervisor support, and autonomous and controlled motivations for one's job.