Chronotype and organizational citizenship behavior during the COVID-19 restriction phase in Germany

Abstract

Here, we researched the effects of the COVID-19 restriction measures on learning/work-related characteristics (working hours, creativity in problem-solving approaches/organizational citizenship behavior (OCB)) depending on chronotype of N = 681 German residents (mean age: 28.63 years, SD: 10.49 years). The data were collected with an online questionnaire from 18 May to 17 June 2020, during the most restrictive phase in Germany. We analyzed participants studying/working in home offices only. Morningness showed positive, while eveningness showed negative correlations to OCB. Morning types worked their usual working times, while evening types took more and longer breaks. In remote work, morning types felt more creative developing problem-solving approaches, while evening types reported the opposite. Our results suggest that remote working is not beneficial for evening types when performance components are concerned, even though they can choose their working time freely which benefits their biological rhythm. This study should be repeated with workers on a large scale to confirm these results.