wida,

) hh fresindiegrepreeside whetion

1. Introduction

becomrencesrole coutuale, straTwo mworkork (

g relev

2005; Ford, Heinen, & Langkamer, 2007).Despite the large amount of research works devoted to WFC in

the past 20 years (Eby, Casper, Lockwood, Bordeaux, & Brinley,2005), there has been a paucity of studies on the interplay of per-sonality dimensions, with a few notable exceptions. For instance,

understand the specic promoting and/or inhibiting patterns ofWIF and FIW (Edwards & Rothbard, 2000). For instance, Eby et al.(2005) considered the relative lack of studies on individual differ-ences as an important gap in WFC research. Furthermore, Bruckand Allen (2003) suggested studying the combination of disposi-tional and situational variables in the prediction of WFC. However,the previous studies involving interactions of situation and person-ality dimensions have analyzed WFC personality interactions inthe prediction of job satisfaction (Aryee et al., 1999), life satisfac-tion (Cunningham & De la Rosa, 2008), and well-being (Kinnunenet al., 2003). As far as we know, there are no studies addressing

* Corresponding author. Address: Department of Pedagogy and Psychology,Faculty of Education Science, University of Lleida, Avda de lEstudi General, 4 25001Lleida (Catalonia), Spain. Tel.: +34 973706529; fax: +34 973706505.

Personality and Individual Differences 46 (2009) 520524

Contents lists availab

Personality and Indi

.eE-mail address: ablanch@pip.udl.cat (A. Blanch).has probably been due to the fair body of evidence indicating thatboth WFC directions are signicantly associated with a number ofstress and health related consequences (Allen, Herst, Bruck, & Sut-ton, 2000; Jansen, Kant, Kristensen, & Nijhuis, 2003). Moreover, re-cent meta-analytic reviews have reported that antecedent workvariables such as job involvement, job stress, or work support weremore related to WIF, and antecedent family variables such as fam-ily stress, or family support were more related to FIW (Byron,

and Mkikangas (2003) found that emotional stability moderatedthe relationship between WIF and job exhaustion, and that agree-ableness moderated the association between FIW and marital sat-isfaction. In a more recent study, Cunningham and De la Rosa(2008) reported a signicant interaction of proactive personalitywith FIW in the prediction of life satisfaction.

The interplay of work and family with individual dispositionshas been considered as an important area of research to betterWorkfamily conict (WFC) hassion in the study of individual diffehas been dened as a form of inter-pressures from work and family are mfying at least three types of WFC: timconict (Greenhaus & Beutell, 1985).erally considered in WFC research:(WIF), and family interfering with wCooper, 1992). Part of the increasin0191-8869/$ - see front matter 2008 Elsevier Ltd. Adoi:10.1016/j.paid.2008.12.004e an important dimen-at work. This conceptnict in which the rolely incompatible, identi-in and behaviour basedain directions are gen-interfering with familyFIW) (Frone, Russell, &ance of WFC research,

negative affectivity and to a lesser extent Type A behaviour, havebeen consistently related with WFC (Carlson, 1999; Wayne, Musi-sca, & Fleeson, 2004). In regard to the big ve personality model,neuroticism has been shown to be consistently related to WFC,whereas signicant negative associations between agreeablenessand conscientiousness with WIF and FIW have also been recentlyreported (Bruck & Allen, 2003; Wayne et al., 2004). Furthermore,only a few research works have studied interaction effects betweenWFC and dispositions. Aryee, Luk, Leung, and Lo (1999) reportedthat emotion-focussed coping buffered the association betweenFIW and job satisfaction. Moreover, Kinnunen, Vermulst, Gerris, 2008 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.Work, family and personality: A study of

Angel Blanch *, Anton AlujaDepartment of Pedagogy and Psychology, Faculty of Education Science, University of LleInstitute of Biomedical Research (IRB Lleida), Spain

a r t i c l e i n f o

Article history:Received 29 July 2008Received in revised form 24 November 2008Accepted 3 December 2008Available online 13 January 2009

Keywords:Workfamily conictPersonality

a b s t r a c t

Workfamily conict (WFCwork, although the researcables has been scarce. The psituational variables, within the prediction of WFC. Rneuroticism were the mostference with work (FIW). Btion of children age at homto the results reported in tconsistent pattern of situa

journal homepage: wwwll rights reserved.orkfamily conict

Avda de lEstudi General, 4 25001 Lleida (Catalonia), Spain

as become an important construct in the study of individual differences atocusing on the interaction of situational with individual differences vari-ent study was devised to analyze the interaction between work and familyvidual dispositions measured by the alternative big ve personality modelssion analyses indicated that work demand, work and family support, anddictive variables of work interference with family (WIF) and family inter-es, it was found that impulsive sensation seeking moderated the associa-ith FIW. The overall outcomes in the present study are somehow analogousfew research works carried out to date in the eld, and might represent a person interactions.

le at ScienceDirect

vidual Differences

lsevier .com/locate /paid

ity depicts an antagonistic attitude towards others, with a higherlevel of adaptation and affection at lower levels of the trait. Activity

divireects high levels of energy and liveliness, and an inability to re-lax. Finally, sociability describes a will to be with others, andinvolvement in collective activities (Zuckerman, 2005). On theother hand, work and family situation variables such as stress(i.e. job demand and control, children at home) and support (i.e.supervisor, co-worker, family) have been considered as the mostconsistent antecedents of WIF and FIW (Byron, 2005; Ford et al.,2007), therefore, a tentative link could be hypothesized betweenthese situational variables with the alternative big ve model dis-positions. Due to the intrinsic nature of these individual disposi-tions in regard to interpersonal situations, it is hypothesized thatneuroticismanxiety, aggressionhostility, and sociability willshow signicant interactions with support variables in either WIFor FIW, whereas there will be no interactions with more environ-mental-like variables such as job demand and/or control. The po-tential interactions of impulsive sensation-seeking and activitywere also explored.

2. Method

2.1. Participants and procedure

Participants completed self-report questionnaires that had beendistributed by trained interviewers at administration, manage-ment, technical and education services job posts in private andpublic companies. After a couple of weeks, questionnaires werecollected at each individuals job place. For this research, onlyquestionnaires from married or co-habiting individuals were con-sidered, with available data from 412 female, and 282 male full-time workers (N = 694). Over 85% of participants had at least twoschool children at home, and worked approximately 40 h per week.The study complied with the approval of the ethical commission ofour University.

2.2. Measures

2.2.1. Demographic factorsAge, gender, occupation experience and education were in-

cluded as control variables. Age and experience were measuredthe interaction of situation and person considering WFC as the out-come variable. From our viewpoint, this constitutes an importantneglected eld to advance in WFC research.

This study was designed to analyze interaction effects betweenwork and family situational variables with individual personalitydimensions in the prediction of WFC. The alternative big ve per-sonality model was explored, instead of focussing on already stud-ied personality traits in WFC research. This personality model wasdrawn from the research about the psychobiological basis of tem-perament and personality, and encompasses ve dimensions:Impulsive sensation seeking, neuroticismanxiety, aggressionhostility, activity and sociability, derived from factor analyses ofseveral personality questionnaires (Aluja, Garca, & Garca, 2003;Zuckerman, Kuhlman, Joireman, Teta, & Kraft, 1993). Impulsivesensation seeking is characterized by the need of seeking newexperiences, with low levels in this trait indicating a higher degreeof adaptation, and the unlikelihood of becoming bored at work orat home. Neuroticismanxiety portrays low emotional stabilityand distress, whereas lower levels in this trait would be relatedwith a lower vulnerability to frustration, and a stronger resistanceto changes in behaviour due to emotional shifts. Aggressionhostil-

A. Blanch, A. Aluja / Personality and Inin years. Gender was coded 0 for female and 1 for male. Educationwas measured with one item asking the top education level at-tained ranging from 1 (elementary school) to 6 (doctoral studies).2.2.2. Work variablesThree job characteristics were evaluated with the Job Content

Questionnaire (Karasek, 1985; Karasek et al., 1998): (a) job de-mand (9 items, a = .72): measures the degree of psychologicalwork-load (I have sufcient time to nish the work.); (b) job control(9 items, a = .83): assesses the degree of skill utilization and avail-able decision making (My job requires me to learn new things); and(c) work support (11 items, a = .87): taps useful social interactionat the job place (The people I work with are friendly). Items were an-swered on a four-point Likert type scale, from 1 (strongly disagree)to 4 (strongly agree).

2.2.3. Family variablesNumber of children at home, mean age of children living at

home, and family support were considered as family contextualvariables. Family support was measured with the 18 item FamilySupport Inventory for Workers (King, Mattimore, King, & Adams,1995; Martnez-Prez & Osca Segovia, 2002). It reects the familyssupport to the employees work, willingness to listen, talk, andgeneral indications of care and concern (When Im having a difcultweek at my job, my family members try to do more of the work aroundthe house). Questions were answered on a 5-point scale from 1(strongly disagree) to 5 (strongly agree), with higher scores indicat-ing higher levels of emotional family support (a = .86).

2.2.4. Personality variablesFive personality dimensions were assessed with a 50-item short

version of the ZuckermanKuhlman Personality Questionnaire(Aluja et al., 2006): (1) Impulsive Sensation Seeking (ImpSS): de-scribes lack of planning and seeking of new experiences, changeand novelty (a = .77); (2) NeuroticismAnxiety (NAnx): describeslack of emotional stability, distress, and lack of self-condence(a = .77); (3) AggressionHostility (AggHost): reects a predispo-sition to express verbal aggression, coarse or even antisocialbehaviour (a = .70); (4) Activity (Act): describes a high level of indi-vidual energy, and a preference for an active life with challengingactivities (a = .76); (5) Sociability (Sy): this scale describes a prefer-ence for being with others, as opposed to solitary activities(a = .70). All scales were composed of 10 items and were answeredon a truefalse format.

2.2.5. Workfamily conictWorkfamily conict (WFC) was measured with the two ve-

item scales used in the studies by Gutek, Searle, and Klepa(1991), Frone et al. (1992), and Carlson and Perrew (1999). Therst scale taps the interference of work with family (WIF, a = .80)(After work, I come home too tired to do some of the things I wouldlike to do), whereas FIW (a = .71) measured the degree of interfer-ence of family with work (My family life often interferes with myresponsibilities at work). The scale was answered on a seven-pointscale from 1 (strongly disagree) to 7 (strongly agree), with higherscores indicating high levels of WFC in either direction.

2.3. Data analyses

Data were analyzed with hierarchical moderated regressionwith WIF and FIW as dependent variables. Independent variableswere centred before introducing them into the regression models(Aiken & West, 1991). For each dependent variable, ve steps ofexplanatory variables were progressively entered into a regressionmodel: (1) demographic; (2) work; (3) family; (4) personality vari-ables; and (5) interaction of work and/or family variable with eachpersonality dimension. Demographic factors were entered rst to

dual Differences 46 (2009) 520524 521control for their effects. Work, family and personality variableswere entered to assess main effects. Finally, one interaction termwas entered at a time in step 5: situational variable (work or

Table 1 shows means, standard deviations, correlation coef-

The ndings in this study contribute to an unexplored area in

Table1

Descriptive

statistics

andcorrelationcoefcien

tsof

stud

yvariab

les(Alpha

relia

bilitiesareshow

nin

themaindiagon

al).

Variable

MSD

12

34

56

78

910

1112

1314

1516

17

1.Age

39.06

9.46

2.

Gen

dera

.19*

**

3.

Expe

rien

ce12

.01

8.96

.68*

**

.17*

**

4.

Education

3.46

1.29

.23

***

.09

*.21

***

5.

WD

8.04

3.63

.04

.06

06

.23*

**

.72

6.WC

37.78

5.97

02

.08*

.01

.05

.11*

*.83

7.WS

20.98

5.70

.08

*.17

***

.10

**

.21*

**

.06

.02

.87

8.Children

1.08

1.07

.63*

**

.05

.44*

**

.17

***

.10

**

.01

.01

9.

Children

Age

8.10

5.71

.79*

**

.08*

.54*

**

.25

***

.07

.03

.05

.74*

**

10

.FS

44.15

7.40

.16

***

.10*

*1

0**

.05

.00

.13*

**

.15*

**

.15

***

.16

***

.86

11.Imp-SS

4.48

2.73

.20

***

.05

.15

***

.02

.11*

*.08*

.10

**

15*

**

.15

***

02

.77

12.N

Anx

3.09

2.48

.03

.10

*0

1.06

.11*

*.13

***

.13

***

.08

*.06

.12

**

.06

.77

13.A

ggH

ost

4.14

2.51

.01

.05

.04

02

.09*

04

14*

**

04

02

.12

***

.25*

**

.36*

**

.70

14.A

ct4.95

2.68

.09*

.08*

.10*

.09

*.10*

*.15*

**

09*

.03

.11*

*0

2.24*

**

.08*

.09*

.76

15.Sy

5.04

2.42

.23

***

.18

***

18*

**

.06

10*

*.12*

**

.15*

**

13*

**

15*

**

.15*

**

.18*

**

.17

***

.05

.02

.70

16.W

IF17

.07

6.97

.04

.02

.03

.08

*.26*

**

.07

.22

***

.04

.05

.11

**

.09*

.22*

**

.10*

*.13*

**

.11

**

.80

17.FIW

8.83

4.21

.00

.02

.02

.02

.08*

09*

.10

*.05

.01

.27

***

.03

.12*

**

.06

02

02

.28*

**

.71

aCod

ed0=female,

1=male;

WD=work

deman

d;WC=work

control;WS=work

supp

ort;

FS=family

supp

ort;

Imp-SS

=im

pulsive

sensation

-seeking;

NA

nx=neu

roticism

anxiety;

AggH

ost=aggression

hostility;

Act=activity;Sy

=sociab

ility;

WIF=workinterferen

cewithfamily;

FIW

=familyinterferen

cewithwork.

Alphareliab

ilitiesareshow

nin

themaindiagon

al.

*p