Main and interaction effects of different self-control demands on indicators of job strain

More and more jobs require employees to behave in accordance with the companies' interests and to fulfil customer demands. That is, employees are expected to exert self-control to guide their activities in a goal-directed way. Recent studies have indicated that job-related self-control demands represent a novel stress factor. In the present study, effects of three facets of self-control at work were analyzed in a sample of 549 employees of an administration. The results show that overcoming inner obstacles, impulse-control, and resisting distractions correlate significantly with indicators of job strain. Furthermore, hierarchical moderated regression analyses revealed that effects of high demands on impulse-control were strengthened with increasing demands on overcoming inner obstacles. This result supports the assumptions of the ego-depletion theory, according to which different self-control demands draw on one and the same resource.