Employee age moderates within-person associations of daily negative work events with emotion regulation, attention, and well-being

Abstract

Does advanced age give employees an advantage in face of negative work experiences through their higher emotion-regulation competence? Across days, the occurrence of negative work events is associated with fluctuations in attention, motivation, and well-being. This study examined whether these within-person associations are reduced at advanced employee age, indicating higher resilience. The study further investigated the role of emotion-regulation goal activation and strategy use in these associations. Across two work weeks, 123 employees aged 22 to 63 years provided 1,092 daily reports on affective work events, emotion regulation, attentional focus, persistence, and end-of-day affect. On days with negative-events, participants reported higher activation of emotion-regulation goals, lower attentional focus, and higher negative affect at the end of the workday. Effects were intensified on days with highly negative events. Yet, within-person associations of high-intensity events with emotion-regulation goals, attention, and end-of-day negative affect were reduced at higher age. Further analyses that accounted for age differences in emotion-regulation goals suggested that these play a role in age-related reductions in the event-related disturbance of attentional focus and well-being. There was no evidence of age-differential strategy use on eventful days. Findings are in line with proposed mechanisms underlying older employees’ resilience to daily stress.