Can Mindfulness Buffer Against Negative Effects of Job Demands for Military and Police Personnel?

OBJECTIVE: We examined buffering effects of mindfulness on the relationship between job demands and health (ie, strain, complaints, affect, general health) in high-risk professions with high levels of unavoidable stressors. METHODS: We analyzed cross-sectional and longitudinal data from military ( n = 362) and police personnel ( n = 359). RESULTS: Study 1 showed that mindfulness buffered the effect of job demands at time 1 on strain and negative affect at time 2. Study 2 showed that mindfulness mitigates the relationship between job demands and strain and health complaints. With higher mindfulness, negative effects of job demands were reduced. Additional analyses reveal which facets of mindfulness are mostly important. CONCLUSIONS: Findings provide evidence for the buffering effects of mindfulness and showed that mindfulness buffers against job demands in work contexts with high levels of stress and risk and a male-oriented culture.

Does Self-Care Make You a Better Leader? A Multisource Study Linking Leader Self-Care to Health-Oriented Leadership, Employee Self-Care, and Health.

Leadership plays an important role in employee well-being. In light of a growing research interest in leaders' resources as determinants of healthy leadership, it is not yet clear how leaders' behavior regarding their own health (self-care) may trickle down to employees. Drawing on Conservation of Resources Theory and the model of Health-Oriented Leadership, this study tests two mechanisms through which employees may benefit from self-caring leaders: (a) through staff care, that is, concern for their employees' health (improved leadership hypothesis); and (b) through a direct relationship between leaders' and employees' self-care (role-modeling hypothesis). In turn, both staff care and employee self-care would relate positively to employee health. Multilevel path models based on a sample of N = 46 supervisors and 437 employees revealed that leader self-care was positively related to leader-rated staff care at Level 2, which was positively related to employee-rated staff care at Level 1. In turn, employee-rated staff care was positively related to employee health. The findings support the improved leadership hypothesis and underline the importance of leader self-care as a determinant of healthy leadership.

High-Performance Work Practices and Employee Wellbeing-Does Health-Oriented Leadership Make a Difference?

This paper sheds further light on the contextual boundaries in the relationship between high-performance work practices (HPWPs) and employee wellbeing. In particular, we analyze whether this relationship is moderated by health-oriented leadership behavior (i.e., staff care) which describes the extent to which leaders value, are aware of, and protect their followers' health at work. Our analyses are based on employee data (N = 1,345) from Germany, covering two points in time. Findings show positive associations between HPWPs and happiness-related (i.e., engagement, commitment) and health-related (i.e., general health, physical health complaints, mental health complaints, strain) wellbeing outcomes. The positive relationship between HPWPs and employee wellbeing is weaker the more employees experience leadership behavior in terms of staff care. Thus, our results provide further evidence for a substitutive or compensatory effect between HRM and leadership.

Who benefits from mindfulness? The moderating role of personality and social norms for the effectiveness on psychological and physiological outcomes among police officers.

There is a growing interest to use mindfulness-based interventions (MBIs) for occupational health promotion. As most evidence for the beneficial effects comes from convenience samples in the social/education/health sector, it is still an open question if MBIs are effective in other contexts, or for whom MBIs are more effective. In addition, self-selection and sample characteristics may have biased previous findings. Theoretically and practically, it is important to know whether MBIs are also effective for nonselective samples outside the social and health sector, especially in agentic and male-oriented cultures. Therefore, this study investigates the effects of a MBI on physiological and psychological criteria in a nonselective sample of police officers. Moreover, this study examines whether effectiveness depends on participants' personality (neuroticism, openness, and conscientiousness) and on perceived social norms toward MBIs. Using a pre-post intervention design, N = 267 police officers were randomly assigned to an intervention group receiving a 6-week intervention and to a control group. Repeated-measures analysis of variance showed a positive effect on heart rate variability and a stronger reduction of psychological strain, health complaints, and negative affect, as well as more improvement of mindfulness and self-care in the intervention group in comparison with the control group. Additionally, participants higher in neuroticism and openness benefitted more, and the effectiveness was stronger for those who perceived a favorable social norm toward MBIs. Our findings provide evidence that participants with male-oriented occupations may also benefit from a MBI. The importance of individual differences and the social context is discussed. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2020 APA, all rights reserved).

Caring for Oneself or for Others? How Consistent and Inconsistent Profiles of Health-Oriented Leadership Are Related to Follower Strain and Health.

Health-oriented leadership consists of three dimensions that contribute to employee health: staff care, i.e., health-specific follower-directed leadership, as well as both leaders' and followers' self care, i.e., health-specific self-leadership. This study explores profiles of follower self care, leader self care and staff care, and investigates the relationships with follower health in two samples. We identified four patterns of health-oriented leadership: A consistently positive profile (high care), a consistently negative profile (low care), and two profiles showing inconsistencies between follower self care, leader self care, and staff care (leader sacrifice and follower sacrifice). The high care profile reported the best health compared to both the low care profile and the inconsistent profiles. The follower sacrifice profile reported more strain than the leader sacrifice profile, while strain and health levels were the least favorable in the low care profile. Findings reveal that (in-)consistency between follower-directed leadership and self-leadership contributes to follower strain and health.

Turning Intention Into Participation in Occupational Health Promotion Courses? The Moderating Role of Organizational, Intrapersonal, and Interpersonal Factors.

OBJECTIVE: Investigate organizational, intrapersonal (expectations, risk, strain, self-care), and interpersonal (health-oriented leadership) factors as predictors for employees' participation in occupational health promotion (OHP) and the mediating effect of intention. Identifying moderators that strengthen the relationship between intention and participation. METHODS: Two cross-sectional studies using moderated mediation and moderator analyses analyzed data from N = 269 to N = 503 employees. RESULTS: Study 1 showed that favorable expectations and a supportive context predict participation via intention and strengthen the effect of intention on participation. The relationship between intention and participation was also stronger if leaders' staff-care was higher. Study 2 showed that the relationship between intention and participation was stronger, if employees' self-care was higher, and strain, neuroticism, and agreeableness was lower. CONCLUSIONS: Findings provide suggestions how organizations may increase participation by supporting employees in building intention and turning their intention into participation.

Social cognitive aspects of the participation in workplace health promotion as revealed by the theory of planned behavior.

Health-promoting efforts strongly depend on individual cognitions such as attitudes as well as social cognitive aspects of the work environment such as leadership and support. Using the theory of planned behavior (TPB) as a theoretical frame, participation behavior of employees in courses offered by the workplace health promotion (WHP) program of the German Armed Forces was investigated. Social cognitive aspects of the work environment, such as leadership behaviors by setting an example or optimizing organization of work, were included in the TPB components of subjective norm and perceived behavioral control, which allowed for an investigation of the specific effects of leadership on WHP participation. A survey study with N=1385 members of the German Armed Forces was conducted in 2015 in Germany. Results showed that perceived behavioral control and attitudes towards WHP were the strongest predictors for WHP participation. While subjective norm was positively related to attitudes, it had a slightly negative effect on intention to participate in WHP activities. These findings suggest that the most effective way for leadership to increase WHP participation is to enhance perceived behavioral control. Quite contrary, creating a positive subjective norm regarding WHP participation may even result in psychological reactance.

Keep your eyes open: dispositional vigilance moderates the relationship between operational police stress and stress symptoms.

BACKGROUND: Vigilant coping is characterized by a deep processing of threat-related information. In many cases, vigilant coping increases stress symptoms, whereas avoidant coping decreases negative affect. However, vigilance may be beneficial when stress-eliciting situations involve a risk of injury or escalation as is usually the case in police operations. DESIGN: We investigated the roles of vigilance and cognitive avoidance in police operations in a cross-sectional survey. METHODS: The participants were 137 students (104 men, Mage = 28.54, SD = 8.04) from the Federal University of Applied Administrative Sciences; 76 of them were already police officers (work experience: M = 12.59 years), and 61 were police officer candidates who had completed a 3- to 6-month police internship. Participants completed a paper-and-pencil survey and reported their operational stress, dispositional vigilance and cognitive avoidance in police operations, and stress symptoms. RESULTS: We found that vigilance was negatively associated with stress symptoms and moderated the relationship between operational stress and stress symptoms. Cognitive avoidance, on the other hand, just missed the level of statistical significance in our test of whether it was positively associated with stress symptoms. CONCLUSIONS: Our findings demonstrate that vigilance may protect against the negative consequences of stress in police operations.