Toon W. Taris

Utrecht University | UU · Department of Psychology

The present study aimed to examine whether day‐level engagement in non‐work activities can mitigate the adverse outcomes of job loss. Based on Jahoda’s latent deprivation model, we hypothesised that engaging in such activities (e.g., meeting others) can fulfil five basic needs (e.g., need for time structure) and that fulfilment of these needs mitig...

Workplace aggression (bullying, incivility, and similar forms of interpersonal mistreatment) has been established as a prevalent and detrimental issue in organizations. While numerous studies have documented the important role of leaders in inhibiting or accelerating workplace aggression, a systematic overview of the associations between different...

In a significant minority of people, involuntarily job loss can result in symptoms of job loss-related complicated grief (JLCG). The present cognitive-behavioural framework is introduced to explain the underlying processes that may lead to the development and maintenance of JLCG symptoms. Three core processes play a central role, namely (1) negativ...

The demanding work context of physicians challenges their employability (i.e., their ability and willingness to continue to work). This requires them to proactively manage their working life and employability, for instance, through job crafting behaviour. This randomized controlled intervention study aimed to examine the effects of a personalized f...

Creativity, or the generation of novel and useful ideas or products, is widely viewed as the cornerstone of organizational innovation and success. However, high pressure to be creative may have mixed implications for employee creativity. In this article, we first systematically conceptualize the nature of the concept of creative performance pressur...

The present study investigated the role of job/home resources in the relation between job/home demands and exhaustion, job satisfaction, work-home interference, and home-work interference during the COVID-19 pandemic. We explored the prevalence of job/home demands and resources during the COVID-19 pandemic, and examined whether working at different...

Researchers have long been interested in understanding how appraisals influence stressor–outcome relationships. Most studies in this area employ a variable‐centred approach, which ignores the possibility that there may be subpopulations of employees who differ in the combined use of challenge and hindrance appraisals. Building on transactional stre...

Beyond its function to protect worker psychological health, psychosocial safety climate (PSC) may be construed as a context factor that affects employee work motivation. This study explores the effect of PSC on various aspects of motivational functioning at work. We expected PSC to be positively related to wellbeing-related outcomes (work engagemen...

Objective The COVID-19 pandemic places an enormous demand on physicians around the world. The aim of this study was to examine the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on physicians’ work experiences and their ability and willingness to continue working in their profession until retirement (ie, their employability). Design A longitudinal comparative de...

Negative cognitions following job loss can contribute to emotional distress by motivating individuals to adopt coping styles that reduce stress in the short run, while obstructing adjustment in the long run. It is unclear which specific cognitions are related to symptoms of complicated grief, depression, and anxiety following job loss. To fill this...

Although the concept of employee sustainable performance has received considerable attention in the practitioner literature, academic research still lacks a clear conceptualization and empirical operationalization of this concept. Defining employee sustainable performance as a regulatory process in which an individual worker enduringly and efficien...

Previous research on the association between job characteristics and employee well-being has returned mixed results. In particular, the possible impact of individual appraisal of these job characteristics has not been well-acknowledged. To address this limitation, we drew on appraisal theory and examined: (a) how workers appraise particular job cha...

Samenvatting In deze studie onderzochten we de impact van COVID-19 gerelateerde veranderingen in het werk van Maag-Darm-Lever-artsen (MDL-artsen) op hun werkbeleving. Specifiek bestudeerden we hoe het werk van MDL-artsen is veranderd als gevolg van de COVID-19-crisis, en wat voor effect dit heeft op burn-outklachten, bevlogenheid, werktevredenheid,...

This intervention study examined the effects of a career crafting training on physicians' perceptions of their job crafting behaviors, career self-management, and employability. A total of 154 physicians working in two hospitals in a large Dutch city were randomly assigned to a waitlist control group or an intervention group. Physicians in the inte...

Although scholars have long been interested in distinguishing gift giving from bribery, the impact of the degree of guanxi between a giver and a recipient on this distinction remains unclear. Drawing on a bystander perspective, this paper investigates how people distinguish between two types of giving behavior: gift giving and bribing. In three stu...

Background. Research on grief, depression, and anxiety reactions following job loss is sparse. More insight in this matter could be important for the development of preventive and curative interventions targeting different manifestations of emotional distress following job loss, including grief reactions. Objective. The aim of this study was to ex...

Leadership is frequently related to important organizational outcomes such as follower engagement. However, to date we have little insight into the degree to which this relation is contingent upon (a) types of leadership style and (b) national culture. These two issues are addressed in a meta-analysis of 209 independent (257 effect sizes), mainly c...

Previous research on the association between job characteristics and employee well-being has returned mixed results. In particular, the possible impact of individual appraisal of these job characteristics has not been well-acknowledged. To address this limitation, we drew on appraisal theory and examined (a) how workers appraise particular job char...

In modern jobs, performing well at work requires to an increasing degree that workers manage and motivate themselves for their tasks. Rather than to rely on a supervisor, they must set their own goals, decide how hard they work to achieve that goal, and decide when the task is completed. This manuscript describes the validation of an instrument tha...

Drawing on Ryan and Deci’s Self-Determination Theory, this study examines longitudinally how need satisfaction at work affects four forms of intrinsic and extrinsic work motivation and two types of heavy work investment (workaholism and work engagement). Using two-wave data from 314 Dutch employees, structural equation modeling supported our expect...

Interest in job crafting as a means to create more work meaning has led to the development of multi-perspective conceptualizations of job crafting. Although useful comprehensive portraits of complex job crafting activities have emerged, these synthetic conceptualizations tend to overlap, and even inconsistent with each other. This study aimed to cl...

Increasing evidence shows that job loss can lead to symptoms of complicated grief (CG). However, little is known about which factors relate to the development and maintenance of CG symptoms following job loss. This study aimed to examine risk factors for the development and maintenance of job loss-related CG symptoms. For this study 485 Dutch worke...

Objective: Involuntary job loss can lead to symptoms of complicated grief (CG), depression, and anxiety. Information about the temporal linkage between these symptoms is limited and may have implications for the treatment of those suffering from mental health complaints after dismissal. The aim of this study was to explore the possible reciprocal r...

This pilot study investigates the moderating role of passion for running in the relation between mental recovery from running and running-related injuries (RRIs). We predict that the relation between recovery and injuries is dependent on the level of passion. A cross-sectional survey study was conducted among 246 Dutch recreational runners. Multiva...

Procrastination at work has been examined relatively scarcely, partly due to the lack of a globally validated and context-specific workplace procrastination scale. This study investigates the psychometric characteristics of the Procrastination at Work Scale (PAWS) among 1,028 office employees from seven countries, namely, Croatia, the Czech Republi...

Background and objectives: Many job stress models assume that all workers experience a particular job demand in the same way – an assumption that may or may not be warranted and that has rarely been tested. Building on appraisal theory, we explore (a) how individuals appraise particular job demands (i.e., as a challenge or as a hindrance) and (b) h...

This study examines whether specific (matching) combinations of demands and resources exist in the prediction of both positive and negative outcomes (i.e., vitality and fatigue) in a university context. In addition, we test the Demand-Induced Strain Compensation (DISC) Model’s key principles in this context to study its relevance, validity, and gen...

Background: Research on complicated grief (CG) symptoms following job loss is surprisingly rare. Involuntary job loss can turn someone’s world upside down and can result in loss of identity, social contacts, and self-worth. In this study, we drew on the literature on major life events in conceptualizing involuntary job loss as a significant and pot...

This study aims to provide an integrated perspective on job crafting and its antecedents through the exploration of the joint effects of individual-level and team-level job crafting on employee work engagement. Drawing on conservation of resources (COR) theory, we propose that engaging in job crafting behaviors is promoted by the presence of job-re...

Background The present study aimed to investigate the effects of a stepwise, bottom-up participatory program with a tailor-made intervention process addressing the level of mental retirement in a sample of Dutch employees. Mental retirement refers to feelings of being disconnected from your work and your organization. Prevention of mental retiremen...

Researchers are becoming increasingly interested in how early experiences within the family are relevant to an individual’s behavior at work. Drawing on Bowlby’s attachment theory, the present study addresses this topic by examining the relationship between attachment in adulthood and job performance, and the mediating role of burnout in that relat...

Authenticity at work refers to the extent to which a worker feels in touch with their true self while at work. At first sight this concept seems to overlap with the concept of person-environment (P-E) fit, that is, the degree to which an individual experiences good fit with their work environment. Drawing on a sample of 867 Dutch gifted workers, st...

Occupational research often emphasizes the importance of workplace characteristics for understanding job stress and employee well-being, but the role of personal characteristics and having a good match with the job is mostly neglected. We explored how job crafting and feelings of being authentic at work were related to work engagement, work engagem...

Drawing on Self-Determination Theory (SDT; Deci et al., 2017), this study examines the associations between authenticity at work, motivation and well-being, assuming that motivation would at least partly mediate the association between authenticty and well-being. Since authentic behavior refers to the degree to which a person acts in agreement with...

Purpose The present study investigated the relations between work characteristics, depressive symptoms and duration until full return to work (RTW) among long-term sick-listed employees. This knowledge may add to the development of effective interventions and prevention, especially since work characteristics can be subjected to interventions more e...

Purpose The purpose of this study was to investigate the effects of a mandatory transition to New Ways of Working (NWW) on employees’ job demands (i.e., mental demands, workload, and task ambiguity), job resources (i.e., autonomy, supervisor support, coworker support, and possibilities for development), and their levels of burnout and work engageme...

The first part of this chapter discusses the Job Demands-Resources (JD-R) model in general terms. We address several variations of the model, including the JD-R model of burnout and the revised JD-R model. Moreover, we discuss several extensions of the model (engagement, performance and personal characteristics). The evidence for these models is pr...

Past research has frequently cast doubts on the theoretical and empirical distinction between the concepts of work engagement and burnout. Drawing on cross-sectional survey data from 1,535 Dutch police officers, the current study examined (a) the associations among the two core dimensions of burnout (i.e. exhaustion and cynicism) and work engagemen...

This study used a person-centered approach to examine the across-time relationships between job demands and job resources on the one hand and employee well-being (burnout and work engagement) on the other. On the basis of the job demands-resources model and conservation of resources (COR) theory, increases in demands and decreases in resources acro...

Purpose The purpose of this study was to investigate the relationship between work engagement and multiple dimensions of employee performance, as mediated by open-mindedness. Design/Methodology/Approach Survey data were obtained from 186 employees of a food processing plant and the findings were cross-validated in an independent convenience sample...

This study differentiates between task resources and social resources and extends the Job Demands-Resources (JD-R) model with guanxi exchange. This is a typical Chinese form of social exchange between the employee and his or her supervisor that is based on the give-and-take of favors. Hypotheses were tested in two Chinese samples of police officers...

Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to differentiate between two types of job resources (i.e. task resources and social resources) and extends the job demands-resources (JD-R) model with a typically Chinese form of social exchange – guanxi exchange – to increase its applicability in the Chinese context. Design/methodology/approach – Multigrou...

Purpose – Previous research has demonstrated strong relations between work characteristics (e.g. job demands and job resources) and work outcomes such as work performance and work engagement. So far, little attention has been given to the role of authenticity (i.e. employees’ ability to experience their true selves) in these relations. The purpose...

This chapter focuses on one of most influential frameworks, the Job Demands-Resources (JDR) model, which conceptualizes job demands and job resources within the work environment, and how these factors affect health and well-being over time. It reviews the research conducted in relation to the JDR framework, which links job demands and job resources...

Based on Deci and Ryan’s Self-Determination Theory, this study examined possi‐ ble antecedents of work engagement and workaholism. Furthermore, it examined how these two types of heavy work investment relate to different aspects of job performance (in-role and extra-role performance, counterproductive behavior, and turnover intention). In total 275...

Work engagement and workaholism. The role of psychological need satisfaction and consequences for performance Work engagement and workaholism. The role of psychological need satisfaction and consequences for performance Based on Deci and Ryan’s Self-Determination Theory, this study examined possible antecedents of work engagement and workaholism. F...

ABSTRACT Previous research on authenticity has mainly focused on trait conceptualizations of authenticity (e.g., Wood et al., 2008), whereas in specific environments (e.g., at work) state conceptualizations of authenticity (cf. Van den Bosch & Taris, 2013) are at least as relevant. For example, working conditions are subject to change, and this cou...

Op basis van Deci en Ryan’s Zelf-Determinatie Theorie zijn in het huidige onder‐ zoek de mogelijke antecedenten van bevlogenheid en werkverslavin g onderzocht. Daarnaast zijn van deze twee typen hard werken de relaties met diverse indicato‐ ren van werkprestatie onderzocht (in-rol en extra-rol gedrag, contraproductief gedrag en verloopintent ie). I...

Traditional machine-paced work shows adverse effects on worker health and learning. It is hardly known whether technological pacing shows the same effects in computer work. Hypotheses on work stress and learning were formulated regarding the effects of technological pacing, in the context of computer work performed during at least half of the worki...

Over the last three decades, a large body of research has addressed the associations between the psychosocial work environment and work stress on the one hand, and worker health and well-being on the other (1–5). Although the evidence for associations between work characteristics (ie, stressors) and worker health and well-being (ie, strain) is cons...

Purpose: Many workers have been dismissed in the past few years, either becoming unemployed or finding re-employment. The current study examined whether dismissal and its follow-up for the employee (re-employment versus unemployment) could be predicted from workers' employment contract and age, and their health status, work ability, work performan...

Building on the work by Barrett-Lennard (Carl Rogers’ helping system: Journey & substance. Sage, London 1998) and Wood et al. (J Couns Psychol 55:385–399 2008), this study describes the development and validation of a theory-based measure of state authenticity at work, the Individual Authenticity Measure at Work (IAM Work). Even though this constru...

This study examines the relationship between efficacy beliefs and task engagement in and over time, at both the individual and collective levels. We conducted latent growth curve analyses using data from 372 university students (individual level) who were assigned to one of 79 e-work groups (collective level). The participants carried out three col...

"East is East and West is West and Never The Twain Shall Meet:" work engagement and workaholism across eastern and western cultures this article compared the mean levels of work engagement and workaholism across two cultures (East Asia and Western Europe) using a latent variable approach. Data were collected in Western Europe in the Netherlands (N...

Purpose – The present study aims to investigate the motivational correlates of two types of heavy work investment: workaholism and work engagement. Building on Higgins's regulatory focus theory, the paper examines which work goals workaholic and engaged employees pursue and which strategies they use to achieve these goals. Furthermore, the paper ex...

The Job Demands-Resources model (JD-R model) became highly popular among researchers. The current version of the model proposes that high job demands lead to strain and health impairment (the health impairment process), and that high resources lead to increased motivation and higher productivity (the motivational process). This chapter reviews the...

Incidence rates of third party workplace violence in Europe have increased, but little is known about the causes thereof. It has been suggested that the growth of the service sector and the intensification of work could be responsible for the increase. This study aimed to identify trends in the prevalence of physical workplace violence across Europ...

This study examines whether mental and physical health relate differently to work ability and whether these associations vary with coping style. A 1-year longitudinal study was conducted among 8842 employees aged 45 to 64 years from the Study on Transitions in Employment, Ability and Motivation. On-line questionnaires measured self-perceived mental...

Building on Gray's original Reinforcement Sensitivity Theory, we examined how individual differences in students' activation of the behavioral inhibition (BIS) and the behavioral approach (BAS) systems relate to overcommitment to one's studies and study engagement, and how these two forms of heavy study investment relate to three academically relev...

Burnout: the state of the art Burnout: the state of the art This manuscript presents an overview of the state-of-the-art in burnout research. Burnout is a work-related syndrome of extreme fatigue (exhaustion), distancing from work (cynicism), and low levels of professional efficacy, that is rooted in either the characteristics of one’s job or on in...

Purpose This study aims to investigate the relation between job demands and job resources on the one hand and employee well‐being (burnout and work engagement) on the other. It was assumed that this relation is mediated by an equity‐based cognitive evaluation process. Design/methodology/approach This mediation hypothesis was tested using the Job‐D...

The Job Demands-Resources Model: A critical review The Job Demands-Resources Model: A critical review The Job Demands-Resources model (JD-R model) has become popular among both researchers and practitioners. The current version of the model proposes that high job demands lead to strain and ill-health (the health impairment process), whereas high re...

Het dossier werkdruk is geschreven voor de arboprofessional. Beschreven is wat werkdruk inhoudt en hoe het aangepakt kan worden. Het aanpakken van werkdruk is echter werk voor de specialist. In het dossier wordt daarom verwezen naar de specialist die het best ingezet kan worden.

The motivation and performance of workaholic, engaged and burned-out workers The motivation and performance of workaholic, engaged and burned-out workers Based on Deci and Ryan’s Self-Determination Theory, the present study investigated the work motivation of workaholic, work engaged, and burned-out employees. Furthermore, it investigated how these...

The motivation and performance of workaholic, engaged, and burned-out workers Nahymja Nijhuis, Ilona van Beek, Toon Taris & Wilmar Schaufeli, Gedrag & Organisatie, volume 25, November 2012, nr. 4, pp. 325-346. Based on Deci and Ryan's Self-Determination Theory, the present study investigated the work motivation of workaholic, work engaged, and burn...

Objectives: Changes in employment contracts may impact the quality of working life, job insecurity, health and work-related attitudes. We examined the validity of two partly competing theoretical approaches. Based upon a segmentation approach, we expected no change in scores among stable trajectories, whereas upward trajectories were expected to b...

: The healthy worker effect implies that healthy workers go "up" in employment status whereas less healthy workers go "down" into precarious temporary employment or unemployment. These hypotheses were tested during an economic recession, by predicting various upward and downward contract trajectories, based on workers' health status, work-related w...

Drawing on a convenience sample of 9,160 Dutch employees, the present study examined whether commonly held ideas about the associations between demographic, professional, and occupational characteristics and workaholism would be observed. For example, it is sometimes assumed that managers are more likely to display workaholic tendencies than others...

Current theorizing holds that organizations may be less motivated to offer good work circumstances to temporary workers because the latter do not constitute the core of the organization. This implies that their quality of working life and work satisfaction could be lower than that of permanent workers. Therefore, it is potentially important to exam...

The present study aimed to gain insight in the predictors of full return to work (RTW) among employees on long-term sick leave due to three different self-reported reasons for sick leave: physical, mental or co-morbid physical and mental problems. This knowledge can be used to develop diagnosis-specific interventions that promote earlier RTW. This...

This study examined why various levels of task autonomy differ in their learning outcomes. We conducted an experimental study in which 119 undergraduate students learned a computer task. During the learning phase, (no versus moderate versus full) autonomy and (cognitively undemanding versus cognitively demanding interruptions) demands were manipula...

This study of a large and heterogeneous sample of 5210 daytime employees was designed to shed more light on the work effort-recovery mechanism by examining the cross-sectional relations between subjective sleep quality and (i) psychosocial work characteristics, (ii) work-related rumination, (iii) fatigue after work, and (iv) affective well-being at...

The self-determination theory (SDT) assumes that healthy motivation needs to be intrinsic in nature and that the basic psychological needs competence, autonomy and relatedness are prerequisites for intrinsically motivated behaviour. Intrinsically motivated students in turn show more persistence and understanding of classroom material. However, in s...

It has often been suggested that high levels of overtime lead to adverse health outcomes. One mechanism that may account for this association is that working overtime leads to elevated levels of stress, which could affect worker's behavioral decisions or habits (such as smoking and lack of physical activity). In turn, this could lead to adverse hea...

We hypothesise that due to a lower quality of working life and higher job insecurity, the health and work-related attitudes of temporary workers may be less positive compared to permanent workers. Therefore, we aimed to (1) examine differences between contract groups (i.e. permanent contract, temporary contract with prospect of permanent work, fixe...

The present study investigated the additive, synergistic, and moderating effects of job demands and job resources on well-being (burnout and work engagement) and organizational outcomes, as specified by the Job Demands–Resources (JD-R) model. A survey was conducted among two Chinese samples: 625 blue collar workers and 761 health professionals. A s...