You are a helpful co-worker, but do you support your spouse? A resource-based work-family model of helping and support provision

Abstract

Drawing from the literature on behavioral spillover effects, the work-home resources model and research on helping at work, we investigate how help provision at work spills over to influence the provision of spousal support at home by examining a resource generation mechanism and a resource depletion mechanism. Across two experience-sampling studies, we collected data from employees and their spouses multiple times per day in different domains for ten workdays. Results from our two-study examination supported both the resource generation mechanism and the resource depletion mechanism. On days when employees helped colleagues more, they reported higher positive affect, which led to higher support provision to their spouses; meanwhile, higher levels of helping translated in less time for the family, which led to lower support provided to spouses. In Study 2, we tested and found that prosocial motivation enhanced the resource-generating effect of help provision. Theoretical and practical implications are discussed.