The benefits of job demands for employees low in self-esteem and high in trait procrastination

Abstract

We integrate self-efficacy theories of motivation and distraction theories of emotion regulation to propose that job demands boost the self-evaluation and performance of employees characterized by low self-esteem and high trait procrastination. We reason that job demands minimize these individuals’ negative self-directed affect. We find support for these predictions in three experiments that manipulated the physical (Study 1) and cognitive (Studies 2 & 3) demands of a task. These task demands boosted the self-evaluation (Studies 1 & 2) and performance (Study 3) of participants high in trait procrastination and participants’ low in self-esteem, but exerted no or a negative effect on these outcomes for participants low in trait procrastination or high in self-esteem. Moreover, whereas trait procrastination and low self-esteem were associated with greater negative self-evaluation and lower performance in low job demand contexts, they showed no relationship with these negative outcomes in high job demand cont...