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APPLIED PSYCHOLOGY: HEALTH AND WELL-BEING, 2015, 7 (3), 293–315

doi:10.1111/aphw.12049

Effects of Distress and Eustress on Changes in

Fatigue from Waking to Working
Kelsey N. Parker* and Jennifer M. Ragsdale
The University of Tulsa, USA

Background: As a potential indicator of strain, fatigue is an important outcome in

occupational health research. The current study examined the influence of positive
(eustress) and negative (distress) work experiences on changes in fatigue from
morning to at-work. It was expected that within-person changes in fatigue from
waking to working would be moderated by employees’ experiences of stress, pain,
happiness, and meaningfulness at work. Methods: Data on 1,195 full-time work-
ing adults were collected through the Bureau of Labor Statistics’ 2010 American
Time Use Study (ATUS) using a day reconstruction method to assess fatigue at
two time points (morning and during work) and employees’ eustress and distress
experiences during work. Results: Multilevel modeling showed that the indicators
of distress, stress and pain, predicted higher morning fatigue and stronger increases
in fatigue during the workday. The indicators of eustress, happiness and meaning-
fulness, predicted lower fatigue at both time points but not temporal
changes. Conclusions: These results contribute to understanding changes in
employees’ fatigue and suggest that the differential effects of distress and eustress
experiences at work may be important to consider in fatigue management interven-
tions.

Keywords: fatigue, happiness, meaningfulness, pain, stress, well-being

INTRODUCTION
Employee fatigue, defined as feelings of weariness or lack of energy (“Fatigue”,
2013), is commonly examined within occupational health psychology, because it
is an important indicator of employee well-being and is the number one cause of
health-related productivity loss (Loeppke et al., 2007). Fatigue has been
described using terms such as “tired”, “exhausted”, and “[not] rested” (Gross

* Address for correspondence: Kelsey N. Parker, The University of Tulsa, Department of

Psychology, 800 South Tucker Drive, Tulsa, OK 74014, USA. Email: kelsey-parker@utulsa.edu

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294 PARKER AND RAGSDALE

et al., 2011; Zohar, Tzischinski, & Epstein, 2003). Research has primarily exam-
ined after-work fatigue as an indicator that the negative effects of work can spill
over into the non-work domain (Gross et al., 2011; Sonnentag, Niessen, & Neff,
2012). These studies suggest that persistent after-work fatigue without interven-
tion (i.e. recovery opportunities) will develop into long-term negative conse-
quences like burnout (Meijman & Mulder, 1998). One opportunity to reduce this
negative spillover is to slow or reverse the increase in fatigue during the work-
day. Identifying which factors enhance or attenuate changes in fatigue at work
will offer opportunities for intervention.
Limited research has examined factors affecting the development of fatigue at
work on specific employee populations such as Naval patrol members (Grech,
Neal, Yeo, Humphreys, & Smith, 2009) and hospital residents (Zohar et al.,
2003). These occupational groups may have very specific work experiences
which will not generalise to the broader working population. The present study
contributes to the literature by investigating changes in fatigue from the begin-
ning to the end of a workday in a nationally representative sample. Using a rep-
resentative sample provides the unique ability to further understand changes in
fatigue among employees across various occupations and demographic groups.
Moreover, we focus on how employees’ psychological reactions to work affect
the development of fatigue rather than examining the specific work events them-
selves (e.g. Gross et al., 2011; Zohar et al., 2003). We expect that psychological
reactions will generalise across jobs, unlike specific work events that may
depend on the job or work context.
Biologically speaking, it is expected that fatigue will increase throughout the
day. Sleep/wake homeostasis dictates that people will generally increase in fati-
gue the longer they have been awake (National Sleep Foundation, 2014). This is
combined with circadian rhythm which leads to particularly high levels of fati-
gue during the afternoon and overnight hours (National Sleep Foundation,
2014). Despite a general biological drive to increase fatigue during the day, peo-
ple differ in their perceived fatigue. The current study aims to understand what
causes these differences by assessing how work-related psychological reactions
affect fatigue beyond its normal development during a workday. To meet this
aim, we assessed fatigue from a within-day perspective which allowed us to
account for within-person changes in fatigue from waking to working and
between-person differences in perceived work experiences.
The current study is based on the holistic model of health developed by Nel-
son and Simmons (2011). This model contributes to occupational health theory
by incorporating factors related to both poor well-being (i.e. distress) and posi-
tive well-being (i.e. eustress) within a single model. This holistic model repre-
sents a shift in the psychological literature away from focusing solely on factors
related to ill-health and focuses on gaining a better understanding of how to pro-
mote and maintain positive well-being in the workplace (Huppert, 2009). This
positive emphasis provides insight into new areas of intervention that extend

© 2015 The International Association of Applied Psychology

 DISTRESS, EUSTRESS, AND FATIGUE 295
beyond distress prevention to include eustress generation (Nelson & Simmons,
2011). Therefore, the present study examines both positive (eustress) and nega-
tive (distress) psychological reactions to work as they affect changes in fatigue.

FATIGUE AT WORK
Meta-analytic evidence demonstrates that fatigue is negatively related to job per-
formance (q =
.27; Ford, Cerasoli, Higgins, & Decesare, 2011). This relation-
ship may be due to the negative impacts of fatigue on information processing
and attention management. Fatigued employees have difficulty maintaining focus
on a single task or switching between multiple tasks, are less likely to identify
potential risks, and are more likely to overestimate their decision making capa-
bilities (Barnes, 2011). In addition to putting employees at risk for experiencing
injuries and even death, consequences of fatigue may also cost organisations in
the form of damages or lost work (Barnes, 2011). For example, approximately 8
per cent of Air Force Class-A mishaps (incidents resulting in fatality and/or more
than $1,000,000 in damage) are due to fatigue (Barnes, 2011). In light of the
consequences of at-work fatigue, understanding the antecedents of how fatigue
develops during the day should offer opportunities to intervene and prevent these
consequences.
Theories of occupational stress and health suggest that demands or events
result in negative outcomes like fatigue when they are appraised as threats (Kahn
& Byosiere, 1992), whereas positive appraisals of demands or events can lead to
improved well-being and positive outcomes (Nelson & Simmons, 2011). Rather
than the objective event itself, positive and negative psychological reactions (eu-
stress and distress, respectively) to an event are important mechanisms in the
development or prevention of strain. Building from the holistic model of health,
which helps organise positive and negative reactions to work in one model, con-
servation of resources theory (COR; Hobfoll, 1989) explains how these psycho-
logical reactions may attenuate or exacerbate changes in fatigue during the
workday. Resources can be anything someone believes will help them achieve
their goals (i.e. energy, which is especially relevant to fatigue; Halbesleben,
Neveu, Paustian-Underdahl, & Westman, 2014). COR theory suggests that some
experiences have the potential to deplete resources whereas others have the
potential to increase them. For example, people’s energy resources may be taxed
or used up by coping efforts directed at negative or distressing experiences. Con-
versely, positive experiences have the potential to generate energy resources
through positive emotions or building self-efficacy.

Indicators of Distress
Distress can be defined as a negative reaction to a stressor (job demands) which
is manifested through negative psychological states (e.g. anger, negative affect;

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296 PARKER AND RAGSDALE

Nelson & Simmons, 2011), which in turn can lead to other psychological strains,
such as fatigue (Zohar et al., 2003; Parrish, Zautra, & Davis, 2008). The current
study focused on the psychological states (or short-term stress reactions) of
stress and pain as predictors of fatigue because they capture non-overlapping
reactions (i.e. not highly correlated; van Katwyk, Fox, Spector, & Kelloway,
2000) that should draw on employees’ energy resources, and thus result in
greater fatigue.

Stress. The aforementioned theoretical frameworks explain why experienc-

ing stressors in the workplace can lead to stress reactions. Stress occurs when
resources are taxed by dealing with job demands (Hobfoll, 1989). Stress reac-
tions that result from resource imbalance or loss may eventually result in symp-
toms of strain, such as fatigue. Various stressors (e.g. organisational constraints,
role ambiguity, and high workload) are related to increased fatigue (Nixon, Maz-
zola, Bauer, Kruger, & Spector, 2011) because employees have to mobilise their
energy resources to deal with them (Zijlstra, Cropley, & Rydstedt, 2014).

Pain. Experiencing stressors can also lead to physical symptoms such as

nausea, headache, and loss of appetite (Spector & Jex, 1998). Subjective reports
of pain have been linked to a number of psychological workplace stressors such
as a combination of high job demands and low job resources like support and
control (Moen, Wieslander, Bakke, & Norb€ack, 2013; Waters, Dick, Davis-
Barkley, & Krieg, 2007). Pain may also be caused by physical demands of the
work tasks themselves. Heavy physical work, frequent bending/twisting, manual
handling of people and/or objects, and whole-body vibration on the job are all
associated with increased reports of back pain (Bernardes, Wanderck, & Moro,
2012). Regardless of the cause, increased levels of pain are related to increased
fatigue (e.g. Morin, Gibson, & Wade, 1998) because pain requires energy and
attention resources to cope with it.
Although both stress and pain have been found to have direct, positive rela-
tionships with fatigue, we expect that these indicators of distress will amplify
changes in fatigue during the workday. Both the holistic model of health and
COR theory explain how experiencing distress is associated with resource deple-
tion, especially with regard to energy resources. Thus, employees with higher
levels of distress at work will deplete their energy resources at a faster rate than
employees with lower levels of distress. As energy resources are depleted faster,
fatigue will also increase more quickly. Therefore, we expect that employees
who experience more distress (stress and pain) at work experience steeper
increases in fatigue at work compared to employees experiencing less distress.

Hypothesis 1: Indicators of distress moderate the effect of time on fatigue, such that
people who experience more (a) stress and (b) pain at work have steeper increases
in fatigue during the workday.

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 DISTRESS, EUSTRESS, AND FATIGUE 297

Indicators of Eustress
Eustress is more than just the absence of distress. Eustress is defined as “a
positive psychological response to a stressor, as indicated by the presence of
positive psychological states” (Nelson & Simmons, 2011, p. 59). These posi-
tive states include attitudes and emotions such as positive affect, meaningful-
ness, and satisfaction. It has been argued that eustress might help to replenish
energy (Zohar et al., 2003), increase self-efficacy, and improve cognitive pro-
cessing, which can also help rebuild other resources (Gross et al., 2011). Pre-
vious research has examined the influence of positive events on fatigue and
found mixed results. Whereas Parrish et al. (2008) found that positive events
predicted lower levels of fatigue, Zohar et al. (2003) found no relationship,
and Gross et al. (2011) found that positive events only influenced fatigue
among employees who also experienced a high number of negative events.
Gross et al. (2011) suggested that these non-supportive findings may be a
consequence of positive events requiring attention levels similar to negative
events, and therefore may also lead to resource depletion and have a neutral
effect on fatigue. However, we expect that the resulting positive psychological
experiences, rather than the workplace events themselves, will protect against
resource depletion and the development of fatigue by increasing or reinforcing
existing energy resources. The current study focuses specifically on experi-
ences of happiness and meaningfulness during the workday as indicators of
eustress. Because happiness is associated with energy and activation (Russell,
1980), it is particularly salient for fatigue. Meaningfulness, on the other hand,
helps employees harness and direct their energy (Glazer, Kozusznik, Meyers,
& Ganai, 2014), and thus use it more efficiently.

Happiness. At the state level, happiness has been defined as “an experien-
tial state that contains a globally positive affective tone” (Baumister, Vohs, Aa-
ker, & Garbinsky, 2013, p. 506). Happiness is expected to influence health by
helping people to better cope with stress and improve resilience to the negative
effects of stress (Pressman & Cohen, 2005), and thus eustress may help attenuate
the build-up of fatigue during the workday. Research has found that happiness is
negatively related to fatigue (Morgan, Jones, & Harris, 2013). Happiness also
moderates the relationships between off-work activities and feeling rested in the
evenings (Oerlemans, Bakker, & Demerouti, 2014).

Meaningfulness. In the context of work, meaningfulness refers to the extent

to which a person views their work as significant (Rosso, Dekas, & Wrzesniew-
ski, 2010). Having a sense of purpose in one’s work helps employees focus their
energy and achieve their goals (Glazer et al., 2014). Previous research has not
specifically examined the relationship between meaningfulness at work and fati-
gue. However, research has shown that sense of coherence (which includes

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298 PARKER AND RAGSDALE

meaningfulness, manageability, and comprehensibility) is positively related to

physical resources (e.g. energy; D aderman & De Colli, 2014) and negatively
related to fatigue (Takeuchi & Yamazaki, 2010).
These previous findings support a direct relationship between eustress and
fatigue. The current study expands on the current literature and examines
whether indicators of eustress also serve to moderate changes in fatigue while
working. In line with the holistic health model and COR theory, eustress experi-
ences such as happiness and meaningfulness function as resource-building expe-
riences (Glazer et al., 2014; Nelson & Simmons, 2011). Therefore, we expect
that experiencing eustress (happiness and meaningfulness) buffers against the
biological tendency towards increasing fatigue. That is, we expect that employ-
ees who experience more happiness and meaningfulness during the workday
demonstrate a weaker increase in fatigue.

Hypothesis 2: Indicators of eustress moderate the effect of time on fatigue, such

that people who experience more (a) happiness and (b) meaningfulness at work
have a weaker increase in fatigue during the workday.

METHODS

Procedure
The American Time Use Study (ATUS) is a large-scale continuous survey
conducted by the United States Census Bureau with the support of the Bureau
of Labor Statistics (BLS, 2010). The ATUS is aimed at gaining a better
understanding of how Americans spend their time. This survey is based on a
nationally representative sample of individuals from the United States. Partici-
pants are selected for the ATUS from the sample of households that have
completed the Current Population Survey (CPS) using stratified sampling
based on race and the number of children and adults in the household. All
individuals who were selected to participate were informed that participation
was voluntary, and they were provided with information about survey proce-
dures and data usage. All ATUS participants are interviewed using semi-struc-
tured, computer-assisted telephone interviews with trained interviewers. In
addition to gathering extensive demographic information, ATUS uses a day
reconstruction methodology that asks participants to sequentially detail the
activities they engaged in between 4:00 a.m. the previous day until 4:00 a.m.
the day of the interview. In 2010, an additional module was added in order to
assess individuals’ well-being during selected activities. Data from the 2010
ATUS survey and the associated well-being module were utilised for this
analysis.

© 2015 The International Association of Applied Psychology

 DISTRESS, EUSTRESS, AND FATIGUE 299
Day Reconstruction Procedure. In the day reconstruction method (DRM),
participants were asked to report all the activities they engaged in during the pre-
vious day. Participants were also asked to specify when each activity started and
ended. This information was used to determine how people allocate their time. In
the ATUS study, three activities from each participant’s reconstruction were ran-
domly selected to receive additional questions about psychological experiences
during the activity (e.g. happiness, stress). These experiences were assessed using
single-item affect descriptors, as is typical of day reconstruction affect assess-
ments (Kahneman, Krueger, Schkade, Schwarz, & Stone, 2004). These additional
questions constitute the well-being module. This module provided more in-depth
information about how people spend their time on various activities.
The DRM was developed to capture psychological states and experiences simi-
lar to what would be captured using experience sampling methodology (Kahn-
eman et al., 2004). The DRM has the advantage of capturing time use
information which is typically not included in other methods such as experience
sampling which capture people’s psychological states and experiences “in the
moment”. Additionally, the DRM reduces participant burden and does not inter-
rupt normal activities (Kahneman et al., 2004). Although the DRM may be
affected by recall bias (Oerlemans & Bakker, 2013), previous research on fatigue
found similar results using both the DRM (recall of yesterday) and the experience
sampling method (right now) (e.g. Dockray et al., 2010; Kahneman et al., 2004).

Sample
To be included in the study, participants had to (1) be employed full-time, (2)
report working at least six hours on the previous day, (3) work a day shift,
rather than night shift, and (4) report their well-being during their working
time on the previous day. The final sample included 1,195 participants.
Eighty-two per cent of participants were white, 12 per cent were black, and 4
per cent were Asian. This is representative of the racial makeup of the United
States as a whole (US Census Bureau, 2014). Fifty-seven per cent of the sam-
ple was male, and the average age of participants was 43 (SD = 12.11). Par-
ticipants worked an average of 46 hours per week and 57 per cent were
married. Forty-three per cent of the sample worked in occupations that were
classified as involving primarily cognitive tasks (e.g. financial analyst). Thirty
per cent of the sample worked in occupations that were primarily social (e.g.
retail sales worker), and 26 per cent worked in primarily physical occupations
(e.g. truck driver).

Measures
Control Variables. Participant sex, age, overall health, occupation type,
average hours worked weekly, whether or not the participant had children,

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300 PARKER AND RAGSDALE

and the times at which participants started and stopped working for the
reported period were each controlled for in the analyses. Each of these vari-
ables was assessed with a single item. Participants were asked to directly
report their sex, age, occupation, and average weekly hours worked. They
were also asked to report whether or not they had children. This was coded
as either 0 (no children) or 1 (one or more children). Participants were asked
to report their health on a 5-point scale ranging from 1 (excellent) to 5
(poor). Responses to this item were reverse coded so that higher scores
would indicate better health. Occupations were categorised according to the
2010 census occupation classification system. These detailed categories were
then coded into broad categories that focused on whether the primary content
of the job was considered mental, social, or physical. Occupations were cate-
gorised in this manner because the primary emphasis of the occupation (e.g.
primarily mental vs. primarily physical work) may lead to different types of
experiences which influence fatigue. In order to code the occupations types,
two research assistants individually classified each of the occupations and
then compared their classifications. To resolve any discrepancies, three addi-
tional coders classified any occupations where there was disagreement. Only
occupations that were classified in the same category by three of the five rat-
ers were included in the analysis. Participants’ work start and stop times
were categorised as: early morning (4:00–6:59 a.m.), morning (7:00–11:59
a.m.), afternoon (12:00–5:00 p.m.), evening (5:01–8:59 p.m.), and night (9:00
p.m.–3:59 a.m.). The reports of morning and at-work fatigue may have been
non-equidistant. To lessen the impact of these non-equidistant measurements,
work start time and stop time were controlled in all analyses. In addition,
individuals who worked the night shift were excluded from analyses. This
sample selection strategy serves to minimise the variance in the timing of
fatigue assessments.

Time. Time denotes the two assessments of fatigue. Time 1 represents fati-
gue in the morning. Time 2 represents fatigue during work time.

Indicators of Distress and Eustress. Indicators of distress (stress and pain)

and indicators of eustress (happiness and meaningfulness) at work were each
measured with a single item. Participants rated how they felt during their
reported work time the previous day. Each of these items was assessed on a 7-
point scale ranging from 0 (not at all) to 6 (very). For example, the item measur-
ing stress read “how stressed did you feel during this [work] time?”

Fatigue. Fatigue was measured at two time points. For the first time
point, participants were asked to report how rested they felt when they woke
up the previous day. Responses were assessed on a 4-point scale ranging
from 1 (very rested) to 4 (not at all rested). For the second time point, par-

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 DISTRESS, EUSTRESS, AND FATIGUE 301
ticipants were asked to report how tired they felt while working. Responses
were assessed on a 7-point scale ranging from 0 (not at all tired) to 6 (very
tired). These items for restedness and tiredness overlap with fatigue items
included on various fatigue scales (e.g. Iowa Fatigue Scale; Hartz, Bentler,
& Watson, 2003; Multidimensional Fatigue Inventory; Smets, Garssen, Bon-
ke, & De Haes, 1995; Checklist Individual Strength; Vercoulen et al., 1994).
These responses were then truncated into a 4-point scale to match the Time
1 scale. “0” responses remained separate, “1”–“2”, “3”–“4”, and “5”–“6”
responses were each combined for the 4-point scale. Truncation was used
because the data on the full 7-point scale were significantly positively
skewed (Est = .27; SE = .05). After the transformation to a 4-point scale,
the data for at-work fatigue were normally distributed (Est = .07; SE = .05).
Morning fatigue was also positively skewed (Est = .62; SE = .07). This scale
was not transformed in order to remain consistent with at-work fatigue for
ease of interpretation.

Missing Data
Item non-response was corrected using data imputation methods including rela-
tional imputation and hot-deck allocation. Data imputation was conducted for
age, sex, general health, average weekly work hours, occupation code, and
morning fatigue. Item non-response was rare, and less than 1 per cent of the data
required imputation. See the BLS guide to the ATUS study for more information
on the data imputation procedure (BLS, 2012).

Analyses
Multilevel modeling utilising the IBM SPSS Statistics 22.0 mixed procedure was
used to analyze the data and test the hypotheses. Multilevel modeling was deter-
mined to be most appropriate because 35 per cent of the variance in fatigue was
due to differences within individuals. For the within-person control variable for
time, the first measurement occasion was coded as zero. The person-level predic-
tors of stress, pain, happiness, and meaningfulness and the person-level control
variables were grand mean centered for all analyses. Sex was coded as 0 for men
and 1 for women. Whether or not participants had children was not centered
because it contained a meaningful zero-point. In order to test the hypotheses,
several nested models were compared. Improvements of each model over the
previous one were tested by examining the difference between the corresponding
likelihoods using v2 difference tests. First, a null model was computed and
included only the intercept. Model 1 included the control variables in addition to
the predictor (time). Model 2 included the indicators of distress and eustress.

© 2015 The International Association of Applied Psychology

302 PARKER AND RAGSDALE

Model 3 included the cross-level interaction terms between each of the indicators
of distress and eustress and time (see the following equation1).

Level 1 : Yij ¼ b0j þ b1j Tij þ eij

b0j ¼ c00 þ c01 w1j þ c02 w2j þ c03 w3j þ c04 w4j þ u0j
Level 2 :
b1j ¼ c10 þ c11 w1j þ c12 w2j þ c13 w3j þ c14 w4j þ u1j

RESULTS
Means, standard deviations, and Pearson’s correlations are presented in Table 1.
The indicators of distress and eustress were all significantly related to fatigue.
Stress and pain were both positively related to fatigue; happiness and meaning-
fulness were negatively related to fatigue. Among the indicators of eustress and
distress, happiness was negatively correlated with stress (r =
.32, p < .01) and
pain (r =
.16, p < .01), whereas meaningfulness was only weakly correlated
with stress (r =
.07, p < .05) and was unrelated to pain.
Table 2 shows the results of the multilevel modeling analyses. The top set of
parameter estimates includes the fixed effects, which are the results for typical
people. The bottom set of parameter estimates includes the random effects,
which describe variability at two levels: Level 2 results reflect the extent to
which people vary from their group averages; level 1 reflects the extent to which
people vary from the values predicted by the respective model. In Model 1, time
(morning and at work) and work stop time were both significant positive predic-
tors of fatigue while age and general health were significant negative predictors
of fatigue. None of the occupation types were found to significantly predict fati-
gue. Model 2 included the person-level predictors of distress (stress and pain)
and eustress (happiness and meaningful). Stress and pain were found to posi-
tively predict fatigue. This model predicted 38 per cent of the variance in fatigue
(Pseudo R2 = .38). Happiness and meaningfulness were found to negatively pre-
dict fatigue. The final model, Model 3, included the interaction terms between
time and the indicators of distress and eustress. The inclusion of the interaction
terms predicted an additional 2 per cent of the variance in fatigue (ΔPseudo
R2 = .02). This final model predicted 40 per cent of the variance in fatigue
(Pseudo R2 = .40) and was used to test the hypotheses.
Hypothesis 1 stated that experiencing stress and pain while at work would
lead to steeper increases in at-work fatigue. This hypothesis was supported. The
interactions between time and stress and between time and pain were both found

1
Only main study variables were included in the equation. Control variables were excluded for
clarity.

© 2015 The International Association of Applied Psychology

 TABLE 1
Means, Standard Deviations, and Pearson’s Correlations between Study Variables (N = 1,195)

M SD 1. 2. 3. 4. 5. 6. 7. 8. 9. 10. 11. 12.

1. Age 42.93 12.11 –

2. Sex – – .03 –
3. Children – –
.28**
.03 –
4. Weekly hours 46.14 9.93 .09**
.15* .02 –
5. Health 3.76 0.95
.03
.03
.01
.02 –
6. Work start time 2.31 0.74 .00 .03 .03 .04 .00 –
7. Work stop time 3.08 0.60 .00
.03
.03 .12** .03 .48** –
8. Fatigue – Morning 2.00 0.89
.16** .05 .11** .07
.20**
.04 .03 –

© 2015 The International Association of Applied Psychology

9. Fatigue – At work 2.37 1.02
.08** .07* .02 .04
.16** .11** .14** .43** –
10. Happiness 3.93 1.55 .08**
.06* .01
.02 .16**
.07*
.05
.26**
.21** –
11. Meaningfulness 4.44 1.68 .16**
.01
.02 .02 .12**
.08**
.09**
.19**
.12** .38** –
12. Stress 2.41 1.86
.02
.09** .01 .11**
.14** .00 .07* .33** .41**
.32**
.07* –
13. Pain 0.81 1.46 .09** .01 .04 .04*
.26** .01 .04 .27** .38
.16**
.03 .29**

Note: *p < .05; **p < .01.

DISTRESS, EUSTRESS, AND FATIGUE
303
 TABLE 2 304
Multilevel Regression Analyses Predicting Changes in Fatigue (N = 1,195)

Model 1 Model 2 Model 3

Fixed Effects Est. SE T Est. SE t Est. SE t

Constant 2.05 .06 31.70*** 2.03 .06 34.85*** 2.03 .06 34.88***
Time 0.39 .03 12.36*** 0.39 .03 12.27*** 0.39 .03 12.32***
Age
0.01 .00
4.97***
0.01 .00
5.23***
0.01 .00
5.23***
Sex (0 = male;
0.09 .05
1.87
0.04 .04
0.85
0.04 .04
0.85
1 = female)
Children (0 = none;
0.07 .05
1.54
0.05 .04
1.17
0.05 .04
1.17
1 = one or more)
PARKER AND RAGSDALE

Weekly hours 0.01 .00 2.48 0.00 .00 1.11 0.00 .00 1.11
Health
0.19 .02
7.66***
0.08 .02
3.49*
0.08 .02
3.49**
Work start time
0.01 .04
0.38
0.00 .03
0.13
0.00 .03
0.13
Work stop time 0.13 .04 3.79* 0.08 .04 2.00* 0.08 .04 2.00*
Cognitively oriented 0.08 .06 1.42 0.06 .05 1.18 0.06 .05 1.06
occupation type

© 2015 The International Association of Applied Psychology

(reference = socially oriented)
Physically oriented
0.02 .06
0.30
0.02 .06
0.13
0.02 .06
0.41
occupation type
Happy
0.05 .02
3.48***
0.06 .02
3.55***
Meaningful
0.04 .01
2.83**
0.05 .02
2.99**
Stress 0.11 .01 8.97*** 0.09 .01 6.01***
Pain 0.14 .02 9.01*** 0.11 .02 6.25***
Time*Happy 0.03 .02 1.15
Time*Meaningful 0.02 .02 1.12
Time*Stress 0.06 .02 3.03**
Time*Pain 0.06 .02 2.82**

2*log likelihood 5464.83 5115.08 5090.53
 TABLE 2 (Continued)

Model 1 Model 2 Model 3

Fixed Effects Est. SE T Est. SE t Est. SE t

Δ
2*log likelihood 349.75 (4)* 24.55 (4)*

Level 1 intercept .34 (.02) .37(.02) .36(.02)
variance (SE)
Level 2 intercept .37 (.03) .25(.03) .25(.03)
variance (SE)

Model 1 Model 2 Model 3

Random Effects Est. SE Est. SE Est. SE

Level 2 (between-person)

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Intercept .37*** .02 .25*** .03 .25*** .02
Time .37*** .03 .31*** .00 .31*** .02
Intercept
.05* .03
.07*** .02
.07*** .03
and Time
Level 1 (within-person)
Residual .34*** .02 .37*** .02 .36*** .02

Note: *p < .05; **p < .01; ***p < .001.

DISTRESS, EUSTRESS, AND FATIGUE
305
306 PARKER AND RAGSDALE

to significantly predict fatigue (Table 2). Simple slope analyses were conducted
using an online calculator provided by Preacher, Curran, and Bauer (2006). As
depicted in Figure 1, the analysis of the interaction between stress and time
revealed that, compared to employees with less work stress, employees who
reported a higher level of stress at work (one SD above the mean) were more
fatigued when they woke up in the morning and their fatigue increased more
steeply when they were at work (c = .49, SE = .04, z = 10.46, p < .001).
Employees who reported lower stress at work (one SD below the mean) also
increased in fatigue but to a lesser extent (c = .29, SE = .05, z = 5.96,
p < .001). Figure 2 depicts the interaction between pain and time and shows that
this interaction follows a similar pattern. Employees who reported being in more
pain at work (one SD above the mean) reported being more fatigued when they
woke up and had a steeper increase in fatigue while working (c = .48, SE = .04,
4.0

Low Stress (1SD below mean)

High Stress (1SD above mean)
3.5
3.0
Fatigue
2.5
2.0
1.5
1.0

Morning | At Work
Time

FIGURE 1. Interaction of time and stress at one SD above and one SD below
the mean in the prediction of within-day fatigue.

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 DISTRESS, EUSTRESS, AND FATIGUE 307

4.0
Low Pain (1SD below mean)
High Pain (1SD above mean)
3.5
3.0
Fatigue
2.5
2.0
1.5
1.0

Morning | At Work
Time

FIGURE 2. Interaction of time and pain at one SD above and one SD below the
mean in the prediction of within-day fatigue.

z = 11.39, p < .001) compared to employees who reported less pain at work
(one SD below the mean; c = .30, SE = .04, z = 7.29, p < .001).
Hypothesis 2 stated that experiencing happiness and meaningfulness while at
work would buffer the effects of time such that people who experienced these
indicators of eustress would have less of an increase in at-work fatigue. This
hypothesis was not supported. Although happiness and meaningfulness had sig-
nificant main effects on fatigue, neither the interactions between time and happi-
ness nor between time and meaningfulness were significant (Table 2).
To ensure that our results were not due to the large sample size, we re-ran
Model 3 on two randomly selected subsamples. The first subsample included
approximately half of the total cases (n = 604); the second included 30 per cent
of the total cases (n = 364). The results for Model 3 were consistent across both
subsamples and the full sample. Specifically, the interaction effects for stress and

© 2015 The International Association of Applied Psychology

308 PARKER AND RAGSDALE

pain were significant. The interactions for happiness and eustress were not, but
the main effects for happiness and meaningfulness were significant and in the
expected direction.

DISCUSSION
The current study aimed to determine the effects of positive and negative psy-
chological reactions to work on changes in fatigue from waking to working. The
holistic model of health and COR theory provided the framework through which
we expected that distress reactions should facilitate decreases in energy resources
whereas eustress reactions should help employees increase or reinforce their
energy resources (Hobfoll, 1989; Halbesleben et al., 2014). We examined how
changes in fatigue differed between employees who were high and low on these
reactions at work. Both indicators of distress (stress and pain) while working pre-
dicted steeper increases in fatigue at work, and indicators of eustress (happiness
and meaningfulness) had main effects on fatigue, such that eustress predicted
reduced fatigue.
Although there were no specific hypotheses about our control variables, there
were some interesting findings of note. Our results suggest that fatigue increased
from waking in the morning throughout the workday, and ending work later dur-
ing the day was related to increases in fatigue. These results are in line with bio-
logical drives towards fatigue due to circadian rhythm and sleep/wake
homeostasis (Kahneman et al., 2004; National Sleep Foundation, 2014). Partici-
pants’ age and health were negatively related to fatigue, such that older and
healthier participants reported lower levels of fatigue. This is in line with previ-
ous research which has shown significant decreases in frequency of experiencing
fatigue among older adults (Schneider & Stone, 2014) and positive relationships
between fatigue and health complaints (Watt et al., 2000). Although these find-
ings are informative, future research should also examine additional individual
differences relevant to fatigue, such as chronotype (morningness and evening-
ness; Adan et al., 2012). Chronotype may be important because it is related to
differences in wake and sleep times as well as peak alertness periods (Adan
et al., 2012).
With respect to the main focus of this study, employees reported increasing
fatigue during the workday in general; however, employees with high perceived
stress and pain reported feeling especially fatigued. Based on the intercept differ-
ences seen in Figures 1 and 2, we speculate that employees with higher stress
and pain experiences at work may have started out with higher fatigue compared
to their low stress and pain counterparts. Without adequate recovery from work-
related demands, employees return to work still depleted (Meijman & Mulder,
1998). Research has shown that the effects of off-work recovery (indicated by
experiences of psychological detachment and relaxation) spill over into the work
domain, and when that recovery is inadequate, employees may return to work

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 DISTRESS, EUSTRESS, AND FATIGUE 309
the next day with persistent strains like fatigue (see Sonnentag et al., 2012, for
review).
In addition, employees with higher perceived stress and pain during the work-
day experienced increases in at-work fatigue at a higher rate than the low stress
and pain employees. COR theory suggests that our findings may be due to
employees with higher distress experiencing energy depletion faster than
employees with lower distress. That is, employees who lose energy resources
faster will experience corresponding increases in fatigue. Taken together,
employees who experience a high degree of negative work experiences seem to
have an energy disadvantage compared to co-workers who experience less dis-
tress (Fritz, Lam, & Spreitzer, 2011). Future research should examine the mecha-
nisms through which negative work experiences impact fatigue as well as
whether the influence of at-work distress continues to impact at-work fatigue the
following day. Although the effect sizes for the interactions are small, they can
still represent meaningful influences on fatigue. Because fatigue is associated
with many negative outcomes (e.g. decreased information processing, impaired
short-term memory, and increased risk for accidents), it is important to determine
any factors that can be used to reduce fatigue, especially those that may be more
easily dealt with by employees themselves (e.g. reframing negative work-related
reactions). Statistical effect sizes are not analogous with practical significance,
and even small reductions in fatigue may help to improve employee performance
and safety.
Contrary to our expectations, neither happiness nor meaningfulness at work
modified the change in fatigue during the workday; however, both indicators of
eustress at work were associated with less fatigue overall. It is unclear whether
employees already arrive at work with a sense of meaningfulness or happiness.
Future research should investigate the effects of pre-work experiences. Interest-
ingly, the effect of happiness was stronger than meaningfulness. Happiness is
commonly understood as a type of affect that is associated with positive feelings
and increased energy or activation (Russell, 1980). Happiness may provide a
unique energy advantage that is not present for meaningfulness. Baumeister
et al. (2013) found that meaningfulness, but not happiness, was related to
increased time spent worrying—a source of energy depletion. Therefore, the
potential energy expenditure that seems to accompany meaningfulness may
counteract its buffering effect on changes in fatigue. This may also explain why
fatigue is more weakly related to meaningfulness than happiness.

Strengths and Limitations

One strength of this study is that it examined fatigue using multilevel analyses
including a within-person, within-day variable as well as between-person vari-
ables. This type of analysis goes beyond exploring the direct impact of distress
and eustress by accounting for within-person differences in fatigue by examining

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310 PARKER AND RAGSDALE

changes in fatigue from waking to working time. Another strength of this study
is that using the ATUS data allowed us to analyze these relationships using a
nationally representative sample with employees from a variety of industries and
occupations. Including and controlling for these different occupations as well as
other demographic variables helps to make these results more generalisable.
Despite these strengths, the study also has some limitations. First, single-item
measures were used to assess the variables of interest. However, this was neces-
sary for two reasons: (1) the size and burden of the ATUS study, and (2) the
interest in conceptually distinct predictors. First, the ATUS project is a large-
scale study with over 2,000 households surveyed each month on numerous vari-
ables related to how Americans spend their time. The variables used in this study
are a small sample of the variables assessed in the overall ATUS project. With
DRMs in general, and the ATUS study in particular, asking participants to
reconstruct their entire previous day in chronological order and then indicate
their affective experiences is labor intensive (Oerlemans & Bakker, 2013).
Because of these participant demands, the use of single-item measures is com-
mon in studies using the DRM (Kahneman et al., 2004; Oerlemans et al., 2014).
Second, it was most appropriate to use single items rather than create two-item
scales of distress/eustress because the indicators were only moderately correlated
(r = .29 and r = .37 for distress and eustress indicators, respectively) which did
not preclude the possibility that they might have unique relationships with fati-
gue. Although single-item measures should be used with caution, several studies
have found that single-item measures have comparable validity to multi-item
measures for a variety of different constructs (e.g. Wanous, Reichers, & Hudy,
1997; West, Dyrbye, Satele, Sloan, & Shanafelt, 2012). Future studies may try
to replicate these results with longer, more reliable measures.
Another limitation is that data were self-reported. This may result in inflated
relationships among the variables. However, using the DRM whereby partici-
pants have to reconstruct the events and experiences of the previous day in the
order that they occurred should lessen this effect. In addition, different response
scales were used for fatigue in the morning and after work, eustress, and distress
items. Taken together, these features are suggested to minimise the effects of
common method variance (e.g. Podsakoff, MacKenzie, & Podsakoff, 2012).
A further limitation is the number of observations using the DRM. Participants
were only interviewed for one day, and thus we cannot make strong causal infer-
ences or be sure whether the reactions are indicative of chronic experiences or
conditions. In addition, fatigue was assessed at two time points in this study
whereas eustress and distress were only assessed once. It is possible that eustress
and distress may fluctuate in response to events that occur in the morning before
work. Future research is needed to assess this possibility. It is also possible that
the number of fatigue assessments did not capture nonlinear changes in fatigue
or capture the possibility that fatigue may fluctuate differently across days.
These limitations are a function of an intensive design (i.e. conducting phone

© 2015 The International Association of Applied Psychology

 DISTRESS, EUSTRESS, AND FATIGUE 311
interviews, using stratified sampling), and future research may need to use
email-based DRMs on a smaller sample in order to increase the number of obser-
vations.

Implications
Because the present study focused on the psychological reactions to work events
rather than the events themselves, our implications focus on changing these reac-
tions. The results of the current study suggest that organisations should target
high-stress and high-pain employees. Interventions to prevent or reduce distress
reactions typically focus on individual-level changes. Training employees to
reappraise work events or use relaxation techniques when experiencing stress or
pain should help reduce the impact on changes in fatigue by changing responses
to the work events (Quillian-Wolever & Wolever, 2003). Organisations could
provide employees with control over their lunch breaks (Trougakos, Hideg,
Cheng, & Beal, 2014) or encourage employees to engage in recovery activities
(e.g. reading, spending time with friends, engaging in hobbies) during their off-
work time to help them replenish their resources (Sonnentag et al., 2012).
Because well-being is more than just the absence of distress, and the results of
this study suggest that eustress does have a main effect on fatigue, organisations
will benefit from fostering positive experiences and emotions (especially happi-
ness) in order to further benefit employees (Nelson & Simmons, 2011).

CONCLUSION
Given the growing understanding of the negative impact fatigue can have on
both employees and organisations, it is important to identify what factors are
related to fatigue in the workplace. Using multilevel analyses, the current study
provided evidence that experiencing more stress and pain at work is related to
steeper increases in fatigue during the workday. In contrast, experiencing happi-
ness and meaningfulness is related to decreased fatigue at work. Overall, these
results indicate that negative reactions in the workplace are especially important
to understanding fatigue and suggest that these reactions may be especially
important to consider in fatigue management interventions.

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