Search

Ambivalence in social interactions has been linked to health-related outcomes in private relationships and recent research has started to expand this evidence to ambivalent leadership at the workplace by showing that ambivalent supervisor-employee relationships are related to higher stress levels in employees. However, the mental health consequences of ambivalent leadership have not been examined yet. Using a multilevel approach, this study estimated associations of ambivalent leadership with mental health indicators (depression, anxiety, vital exhaustion, fatigue) in 993 employees from 27 work groups. A total effect of ambivalent leadership was found for all four mental health measures, as well as within-group and between-group effects. The consistent relationships of ambivalent leadership with higher symptoms of mental ill-health at the individual- (i.e., within-group) and the group-level (i.e., between-group) support the existence of an un-confounded association, as well as group effects of collective ambivalence.

Burnout is associated with poor mental and physical functioning and high costs forsocieties. Personality attributes may critically increase the risk of personal burnout. We specificallyexamined whether narcissism associates with personal burnout in a working population. Westudied n=1,461 employees (mean age 41.3 ± 9.4 yr, 52% men) drawn from a random sample of apharmaceutical company in Germany. All participants completed the personal burnout subscale ofthe Copenhagen Burnout Inventory and the Narcissistic Personality Inventory to assess maladaptive(entitlement/exploitativeness) and adaptive (leadership/authority) narcissism. In linear regressionanalysis, when mutually adjusting for the maladaptive and adaptive narcissism scales, higheradaptive narcissism was associated with lower burnout scores (ß = −0.04, p < 0.05), whereas highermaladaptive narcissism was associated with higher burnout scores (ß = 0.04, p < 0.05). Additionally,younger age (ß = −0.07), female gender (ß = 0.11), depressive symptoms (ß = 0.42), sleep problems(ß = 0.30), stress at work (ß = 0.23) and at home (ß = 0.09) were all independently associated withincreased burnout scores (all p-values < 0.01). Narcissistic personality attributes may play an importantrole in personal burnout. While maladaptive narcissism was associated with increased levels ofburnout symptoms, adaptive narcissism was associated with fewer burnout symptoms.

The research presented in this thesis entitled "Organizational Justice and Health: Contextual Determinants and Psychobiological Consequences" aimed to investigate associations between organizational justice and employee health and biological functioning. Organizational justice is an occupational stressor that pertains to the perceived fairness at the workplace. It is a multidimensional concept that involves aspects like fairness of distribution of outcomes like salary, benefits and rewards, fairness of decision-making processes, and fairness experienced in interpersonal interactions. This thesis presents the development and validation of a German organizational justice scale and presents data showing that organizational justice is related to subjective health and well-being. Furthermore, the research in this thesis investigated the relation of organizational justice with other job stress conceptualizations, investigated biopsychosocial pathways that may link organizational justice to health, and presents data showing that organizational justice may affect occupational groups (i.e., blue- vs. white-collar workers) differently.