ORIGINAL PAPER

Engaging and disengaging work conditions, momentaryexperiences and cortisol response

James K. Harter • Arthur A. Stone

Published online: 17 June 2011

� Springer Science+Business Media, LLC 2011

Abstract There is a growing literature suggesting

important associations between the perceived work situa-

tion, individual health, and organizational outcomes. Less

research has investigated employee experiences in the

moment, which might help explain why the broader out-

comes emerge. We examined momentary affect and cor-

tisol from a within-day and between-day perspective,

comparing working time to nonworking time for employ-

ees in engaging and disengaging workplaces. Findings

indicate significantly lower momentary happiness and

interest and higher stress and sadness are associated with

work, and, in particular, with disengaging work environ-

ments. The connections between momentary affect and

cortisol confirmed prior research, but cortisol was higher

during non-work weekday moments. Employees with

engaging work conditions had lower cortisol during

weekday (working) mornings in comparison to employees

with disengaging work conditions. There was no difference

on Saturdays. These results provide evidence that work,

and especially the work situation, is associated with

affective and physiological momentary states.

Keywords Work � Affect � Physiology � Cortisol �Weekday-weekend differences

Introduction

In addition to work’s pure consumption of one quarter to

one-third of awake time for most working adults, the

quality of our work experience affects our general well-

being and daily moods (Judge and Illies 2004; Harter and

Arora 2009). An increasing stream of research suggests

important associations between work and health. Multiple

longitudinal studies have found meaningful relationships

between perception of the work situation (justice at work,

job strain, and perception of management) with important

physiologic outcomes such as coronary heart disease, after

controlling for prior medical history, medication use,

family history, and standard demographics (Nyberg et al.

2009; Aboa-Eboule et al. 2007; Kivimaki et al. 2005).

Large-scale meta-analyses have also shown that per-

ceptions of work correlate with performance at the indi-

vidual-level (Judge et al. 2001) and at the business-unit

level (Harter et al. 2002a, b, 2009). From these studies, we

now know a great deal about the importance of perceived

working conditions, as measured globally, in explaining

important organizational outcomes such as withdrawal

behaviors (employee turnover, accidents, absenteeism) and

proactive behaviors such as productivity, customer service,

and work quality. And these studies suggest managers can

play an important role in creating an environment that

facilitates the conditions that engage employees in discre-

tionary effort.

While there is increasing evidence that how people

perceive their work situation is associated with important

organizational and individual outcomes, little is known

about the momentary experiences and outcomes that might

explain these associations. What happens from moment to

moment in an engaging work environment, where

employees have role clarity, fit between abilities and

J. K. Harter (&) � A. A. Stone

Gallup, Inc., 1001 Gallup Drive, Omaha, NE 68102, USA

e-mail: jim_harter@gallup.com

A. A. Stone

Department of Psychiatry and Behavioral Science, Stony Brook

University, Putnam Hall, South Campus, Stony Brook,

NY 11974-8790, USA

123

Motiv Emot (2012) 36:104–113

DOI 10.1007/s11031-011-9231-z

requirements, receive feedback, and feel appreciated? And

what happens when these conditions are not in place? What

is the momentary experience of work like for workers who

work in engaging and disengaging overall workplace

conditions? In this study, we examined momentary affect

and a stress hormone (cortisol) for employees in both types

of environments (engaging and disengaging), for three

consecutive days (two work days and one weekend day) in

order to understand how general work climate impacts

individuals on a momentary basis.

There is evidence that work influences peoples’ affec-

tive states. Studies of large random samples of the U.S.

population illustrate substantially more positive moods on

weekends than weekdays (Harter and Arora 2008). The

weekday-weekend mood pattern is particularly distinct for

full-time workers. Research on time use (based on recon-

structing the daily events) suggests working time is much

less pleasant than most other daily activities, with reported

happiness during work time similar to housework and

commuting (Krueger et al. 2008). Further, experience

sampling of mood suggest peaks in positive affect-pleas-

antness on the weekend (Egloff et al. 1995). Experience

sampling of youth and adults indicates below average

happiness during school and work activities and above

average happiness during leisure (Csikszentmihalyi and

LeFevre 1989; Csikszentmihalyi and Hunter 2003), but

individuals motivated in ‘‘flow’’ have more positive expe-

riences at work. Recent evidence suggests the work-non-

work mood differential is mediated by feelings of

autonomy and closeness to others (Ryan et al. 2010). There

is evidence that the cortisol awakening response differs on

weekdays and weekends, depending on level of perceived

work overload and chronic stress (Schlotz et al. 2004).

There is also evidence that burned-out and work-engaged

managers differ marginally in HPA-axis functioning

(Langelaan et al. 2006). However, none of this prior work

looks at both momentary affect and physiology during

weekdays and weekends for people in engaging and dis-

engaging work environments.

For the present study, we were interested in whether or

not momentary affect and physiological functioning were

impacted by the activity of work and by perceived work

engagement conditions measured at the outset of the study.

Specifically, we examined the possibility that experiences

at work are associated with activation of the hypothalamic–

pituitary–adrenal (HPA) axis and in particular the hormone

cortisol, which can be accurately assessed from saliva

samples. A review of laboratory studies has shown that

certain psychosocial characteristics are likely to evoke

increases in cortisol (Dickerson and Kemeny 2004), at least

in the short run. They are situations that are perceived by

individuals as being out of their control and that have a

social-evaluative component, which are qualities that are

often associated with the workplace (i.e., having role

clarity, adequate resources, feeling appreciated, regular

feedback on progress, etc.).

This study explicitly examines the role of the workplace

environment on affect levels and on cortisol production

from two different analytic perspectives: a within-day

analysis of times when individuals were at work versus

when not at work, and a between-day perspective exam-

ining days with considerable work (weekdays) versus days

with little work (a weekend day). The study also explores

the possibility that engaging or disengaging working con-

ditions moderate the stress and HPA-axis connection,

where high work engagement conditions are associated

with lower stress and hormone secretion. Our hypotheses

are as follows:

Within-day hypotheses:

1. Momentary affective experience is associated with

momentary cortisol.

2. Momentary outcomes (affect and cortisol) differ

during work and non-work settings.

3. Momentary outcomes (affect and cortisol) differ for

employees with positive and negative work engage-

ment conditions.

4. Differences in momentary outcomes (affect and cor-

tisol) between work and non-work times are moderated

by engagement conditions.

Between-day (Weekday-Saturday) hypotheses:

5. Momentary outcomes (affect and cortisol) differ

during working and non-working days (Thursday-

Friday vs. Saturday).

6. Momentary outcomes (affect and cortisol) differ for

employees with positive and negative work engage-

ment conditions.

7. Differences in momentary outcomes (affect and cor-

tisol) between work and non-work days are moderated

by engagement conditions.

Method

Participants

A total of 175 participants were recruited from within 15

miles of either Stony Brook University (n = 53) or Syra-

cuse University (n = 122). Recruitment was via flyer

posting at both sites and the random digit dial procedure

was used for a limited number of participants. Recruitment

included a brief description of the study and telephone

number to call if additional information was desired. Those

individuals who called were provided with a detailed

description of the study protocol and were paid from $100

Motiv Emot (2012) 36:104–113 105

123

to $120 for completing the study, depending on the com-

pleteness of data provided. Approval from each Univer-

sity’s Institutional Review Board (IRB) was obtained.

Materials

Measure of global perception of the work situation

(engagement conditions)

Administered prior to the momentary measurements as part

of the background questionnaires, the work situation

questionnaire (Gallup Q12) is an extensively validated

measure of employee perceptions of their work situation,

the composite or sum of which is highly convergent with

affective satisfaction, organizational commitment, and

state work engagement. The instrument includes 12 items,

asked on a 1–5 agreement scale (1 = strongly disagree to

5 = strongly agree), measuring work engagement condi-

tions such as role clarity, fit between abilities and

requirements, available resources, receiving feedback,

feeling appreciated, etc. The instrument is a summative

measure of working conditions rather than an explicit

measure of momentary affect or a direct measure of

motivational state. While the instrument measures multiple

facets, it has been shown in prior research to contain one

dominant factor, referred to as ‘‘engagement’’ (Harter et al.

2002a, b). The instrument has been administered in hun-

dreds of organizations around the world and to more than

20 million employees and has been found, through meta-

analysis, to correlate with organizational outcomes such as

employee retention, attendance, safety (accidents), cus-

tomer service, and productivity (Harter et al. 2002a, b,

2009). Recent meta-analytic research suggests the general

factor measured in the instrument is causally related to

employee retention, customer perceptions of loyalty and

financial performance (Harter et al. 2010). It is a practical

measure that elicits general opinions of the work situation.

Given its performance relevance and measurement of tan-

gible elements of the work situation, its content corre-

sponded with the goals of this study, which were to study

how perceptions of the work situation explain weekday and

weekend experiences of employees. In the sample obtained

for this research study, the Cronbach’s alpha reliability of

the 12-item scale was .83.

Electronic diary

The electronic diary was comprised of 28 questions that

participants were to answer about the moment just before

the diary signaled them to respond. These questions were

administered on the screen of a Palm Zire 21 personal

digital assistant (PDA) programmed with the Experience

Sampling Program (ESP). Questions asked about where the

respondent was when beeped (e.g., home/yard, workplace,

store [12 checkbox options]); what they were doing (e.g.,

working, housework, eating/drinking, sports/exercise [19

checkbox options]); who they were with (e.g., spouse, child

[15 checkbox options]); duration of the activity in minutes;

emotions (happy, sad, tired, stressed, and interested; all

rated with 0–100 point horizontal Visual Analog Scales

presented on the electronic diary screen); questions about

stress, including recent minor events; a four-item

momentary version of the Perceived Stress Test (PSS;

Cohen et al. 1983; all questions referred to perceptions

prior to the prompting and were answered with 5-point

Verbal Rating Scales: Did you feel you could control

important things? Did you feel confident about ability to

handle problems? Did you feel things are going your way?

Did you feel difficulties piling up so you cannot overcome

them?), with Cronbach’s alpha = .71; a series of 11

questions about the workplace situation; questions about

recent cigarette smoking, alcohol and caffeine consump-

tion, and use of medications.

The ED was designed to be ‘‘user-friendly,’’ which is

important for a positive participant experience that is likely

related to excellent compliance. Instructions were pre-

sented in simple English. The ED ensures high data quality

by not allowing items to be skipped or left missing and by

not accepting logically inconsistent responses (e.g., out-of-

range responses). In order to avoid prompting during sleep

hours, the window of awake time sampling was set for each

individual, based on their self-reported typical awake and

sleep times.

Procedure

In addition to administering a series of background and

work engagement questions prior to the primary study

period, we sampled employees’ momentary affective states

and cortisol levels several times a day over the 3-day study

period by having them complete a mood adjective checklist

comprised of 5 affective words and take a small sample of

saliva. During weekdays, we were able to contrast affect

associated with periods of work and those not at work. We

were also able to contrast workdays with Saturday, a day

associated with infrequent work for participants in this

sample. Beyond these simple effects, we examined the

possibility that workplace engagement moderated the

impact of work such that those high in perceived engage-

ment conditions experienced better affect (more positive

and less negative mood) than those low in engagement

conditions.

Participants visited one of the two research office sites

and completed human subjects consent forms approved by

Stony Brook University and Syracuse University. They

also completed several background questions. Included in

106 Motiv Emot (2012) 36:104–113

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the screening of participants was the requirement that they

be over the age of 18 years, working during the day on

Thursday and Friday between the hours of 7 am and 6 pm

and do not typically work on Saturday, and that they could

come to the research site on a Wednesday and return on the

following Monday.

All participants had extensive training in the daily diary

procedure, including completing sample diaries during the

training session. They were also shown how to wear an

ambulatory heart rate monitor (Actiheart; for exploratory

purposes, but not central to our research questions) and

how to use test tube-like containers (Salivettes; Sarstedt,

Newton, NC) to store samples of their saliva. All training

sessions occurred on Wednesdays and participants were to

begin monitoring with the electronic diary for the follow-

ing 3 days. Data collection occurred during the Wednesday

through Saturday sequence for successive weeks over the

course of 6 months. Another aspect of the protocol that is

not included in this report were telephone interviews that

occurred on Friday, Saturday, and Sunday nights, with the

purpose of having participants recall the activities and

emotions of the previous day (overlapping with the elec-

tronic diary monitoring; some of these results are reported

in Krueger et al. 2009).

Participants were prompted 6 times per day to complete

the electronic diary and to take a sample of saliva. They

were to wear the Actiheart device as much as possible,

although it was to be removed during bathing. Saliva

samples were refrigerated by respondents at home and then

in the investigator’s office before assay. Cortisol assays

were analyzed in Germany by two laboratories using

DELFIA methods, which is a time-resolved fluorescence

immunoassay (Dressendorfer et al. 1992). Outlying cortisol

values were defined as being ±3 standard deviations from

the group mean. A total of 27 samples were eliminated by

this procedure. All analyses of cortisol must take into

account the well-known diurnal cycle of cortisol, which is

highest in the morning and declines throughout the day

(when the log of cortisol is taken, the slope is well-fit by a

straight line). A multilevel model was constructed to

determine the diurnal slope of logged cortisol over the day,

with time-of-day treated as a random factor (Schwartz and

Stone 1998). The regression coefficient for TOD was -

.052 (z = -39.0, P \ .0001) indicating a declining tra-

jectory of cortisol level over the day.

Results

A minimum of 12 (at least 2/3 s of the scheduled prompts)

completed EMA assessments were deemed adequate for

the analysis and 12 individuals did not meet that criterion.

An additional 5 individuals did not have any valid cortisol

readings yielding a final analytic sample of 162 people. For

this sample, 82% were female (n = 161), their average age

was 44 (20–65, n = 162), all individuals graduated high

school (n = 161) and 55% had a college degree (n = 161),

83% were White, 8% were Black, and 6% were Asian

(n = 159), 58% were married or in a domestic partnership,

22% were single, and 20% divorced, separated, or wid-

owed (n = 161). Respondents varied by job type, with

43% in administrative jobs, 33% professional/trade, 20%

managerial, and 4% services. There were no significant

differences in perceptions of engagement conditions by job

type in this sample, and no differences by gender, race, or

age. Participants completed an average of 17.3 prompts (of

18 scheduled or 96%) over the 3 days and had 14.4 (80%)

saliva samples.

We approached the question of the impact of work on

affect and cortisol in two ways. The first was based on

grouping moments at and away from the workplace using the

electronic diary assessment. The ED questions asked about

participants’ location, and we limited analyses to Thursdays

and Fridays so as not to confound the weekday—weekend

effect. The second method was based on contrasting affect

and cortisol on workdays versus weekends. These are related

views, but the first is based on within-day comparisons

whereas the second is based on between-day comparisons;

both are within-person analyses. Over all days, participants

reported that they were at their workplace 28.8% of the

moments (n = 2,683). For the workdays, this was 41.1%

(n = 1,831) and only 2.2% of Saturday (n = 852).

Within-day analyses

Turning to the first approach of examining working versus

non-working periods on Thursday and Friday, we first

examined the distribution of being at the workplace for the

weekdays from 7 am through 10 pm, which is shown in

Fig. 1. The distribution appears reasonable, with the

highest levels at 10 am to 12 pm, a dip for lunch, and a

trailing off from 4 pm onward.

Hypothesis 1: Momentary affective experience is

associated with momentary cortisol

A consistent finding in the literature is that momentary

positive affect is inversely related to momentary cortisol

and that momentary negative affect is directly related to

momentary cortisol (Smyth et al. 1998); Okenfels et al.

1995; vanEck et al. 1996). Significance testing was based

on multilevel modeling (XTMIXED in STATA) using

person and moment as random factors. In this way standard

errors are estimated based on the number of participants

(and not on moments, which would result in overly liberal

significance testing). Additionally, given the strong diurnal

Motiv Emot (2012) 36:104–113 107

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cycle of cortisol, analyses were performed on the logarithm

of cortisol values and the Mixed analyses including a

covariate term represent the hour of the day in order to

statistically remove the influence of linear, diurnal trends in

logged cortisol. A final transformation of the cortisol data

was to eliminate outlier values, which were defined as plus

or minus 3 standard deviations from the grand mean. Only

27 values or about 1% of the data was eliminated with this

procedure. Mixed analyses on each affective variable

individually showed that the momentary mood adjective

‘‘Happy’’ had a significant association with cortisol (z =

-2.28, p \ .05, n = 162) and that a summary score of

momentary stress based on the PSS had a positive associ-

ation (z = 2.92, p \ .01, n = 162), both of which are

consistent with prior findings. Additionally, we found that

the momentary mood adjective ‘‘interest’’ was inversely

related to momentary cortisol (z = -2.99; p \ .01,

n = 162), which has not been previously reported. All

other effects were not significant.

Hypothesis 2: Momentary outcomes (affect and cortisol)

differ during work and non-work settings

Analyses of work versus non-work moments are presented

in the top panel of Table 1. Moments away from work are

associated with higher levels of happiness and tiredness,

and with lower levels of stress and sadness. There was no

Fig. 1 Distribution of ‘‘Working’’ across the day for Thursday and

Friday

Table 1 Mean levels of affect and logged cortisol contrasted worki ng vs. non-working moments on Thursday and Friday (upper panel), and by

Thursday and Friday vs. Saturday (lower panel)

Happy Sad Stress Tired Interest Log Cortisol

Working vs. not working on Thursday/Friday (npersons = 162)

At work (n = 769) 4.09 .82 1.77 1.89 3.86 .42

Low Eng 3.75 1.09 2.15 1.95 3.65 .44

High Eng 4.43 .54 1.39 1.83 4.08 .41

Not at work (n = 1,071) 4.39 .78 1.31 2.46 3.77 .53

Low Eng 4.25 .92 1.42 2.56 3.61 .53

High Eng 4.54 .64 1.21 2.36 3.92 .53

Tests of effects (z-score)

Main effect: nonwork vs. work 6.45*** 2.31* 7.69*** 6.04*** 0.37 4.53***

Main effect: high vs. low Eng conditions 2.31* 2.04* 1.26 1.01 2.23* .15

Interaction 3.57*** 2.63** 4.07*** .61 .88 .71

Thursday/Friday vs. Saturday (npersons = 162)

Thursday/Friday (n = 1,904) 4.27 .79 1.50 2.22 3.81 .48

Low Eng 4.05 .99 1.72 2.31 3.63 .48

High Eng 4.49 .60 1.29 2.14 3.99 .46

Saturday (n = 892) 4.50 .65 1.12 2.15 3.98 .51

Low Eng 4.46 .73 1.12 2.18 3.99 .50

High Eng 4.53 .57 1.12 2.11 3.98 .51

Tests of effects (z-score)

Main effect: weekend vs. weekday 6.31*** 4.33*** 7.31*** 1.41 4.46*** 1.39

Main effect: high vs. low Eng 3.74*** 3.13*** 2.80** .94 2.73** .57

Interaction 4.06*** 2.76** 3.68*** .80 3.24*** 1.01

Cortisol analyses controlled for time-of-day and were based on the logarithm of cortisol values. Ns are number of samples, not respondents

Eng Engagement

*p \ .05, **p \ .01, ***p \ .001

108 Motiv Emot (2012) 36:104–113

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difference in the level of interest. Analysis of cortisol was

conducted in the same way, except that a term for time-of-

day was entered into the model as a covariate. As shown in

the table, cortisol values were significantly lower during

work compared to non-work moments, which was in the

direction opposite of our expectations.

Hypothesis 3: Momentary outcomes (affect and cortisol)

differ for employees with high and low work engagement

conditions

One of our primary questions concerned the possible dif-

ferential momentary experiences related to workplace

engagement conditions. A straightforward approach to

examining this question was to calculate overall levels of

affect and cortisol for those individuals with high and low

in engagement conditions. A dichotomous engagement

conditions variable was created with a median split yield-

ing low engagement conditions (n = 81, M = 3.33,

SD = .49) and high engagement conditions (n = 81,

M = 4.31, SD = .38) groups. Employees perceiving

higher engagement conditions expressed higher happiness

and interest in the moment, and significantly lower sadness.

Feeling stressed and tired in the moment were directionally

consistent with our expectations (those perceiving more

favorable engagement conditions had lower stress and

tiredness in the moment, but not significantly different).

Cortisol was not different when the main effect was

examined after first controlling for time of day.

Hypothesis 4: Differences in momentary outcomes (affect

and cortisol) between work and non-work times are

moderated by engagement conditions

Next, we considered the moderating effect of engagement

conditions on the relationship between working and

momentary experience (is the relationship between work-

ing and momentary experience different depending on the

nature of the work environment?). This analysis is provided

in the last row of the upper panel of Table 1, labeled

‘‘interaction’’. Compared with those with low engagement

conditions, respondents with high engagement conditions

reported more happiness at work and only slightly more

happiness away from work; in fact, those with high

engagement conditions had the same levels of happiness at

work and home (see Fig. 2, left panel). The opposite effect

was observed for stress, where compared to those low in

engagement conditions, individuals with high engagement

conditions had much lower levels of stress at work than at

home; again, there was little difference in the stress

reported at work and home for those with high in

engagement conditions (see Fig. 3). Sadness was highest

for those with low engagement conditions while at work,

whereas those with high engagement conditions had lowest

levels of sadness while at work. No interactions were

detected for tired, interest, or cortisol.

Given the importance of the diurnal cycle of cortisol

over the day, we conducted an additional analysis that took

this within-day question one step further by determining if

level of engagement conditions (low/high) was associated

with the diurnal cycle of cortisol over weekdays (Thursday

and Friday combined) using a continuous coding of hour-

of-the-day to detect linear effects over the day. This

resulted in a significant interaction (z = 2.46, p \ .02) and

a graphical presentation of the raw values is shown in

Fig. 4. No such interaction was found for Saturdays

(z = 0.14, p = ns), also shown in the lower portion of

Fig. 4. From Fig. 4, it is apparent that the interaction is

such that employees with low engagement conditions have

higher morning cortisol than those with high engagement

conditions, whereas there is no difference on Saturdays.

Fig. 2 Interaction of Work vs. Non-Work by Engagement Conditions

for Moments (Left) and Days (Right) for Happy

Fig. 3 Interaction of Work vs. Non-Work by Engagement Conditions

for Moments (Left) and Days (Right) for Stress

Motiv Emot (2012) 36:104–113 109

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Between-day (weekday-Saturday) analyses

Hypothesis 5: Momentary outcomes (affect and cortisol)

differ during working and non-working days (Thursday-

Friday vs. Saturday)

Turning to the second approach of comparing days with

work (Thursday and Friday) and without work (Saturday),

the lower panel of Table 1 shows that Saturdays were

associated with greater levels of happiness and interest, and

with lower levels of sadness and stress, all of which are

consistent with our view of weekends being affectively

more positive than weekdays. However, cortisol levels

were higher on Saturday than on Thursday and Friday

(although not significantly). Recall the within-day analysis

indicated higher cortisol during non-work times.

Hypothesis 6: Momentary outcomes (affect and cortisol)

differ for employees with low and high work engagement

conditions

Further to our primary research question, we examined

differences in momentary experiences for employees with

high and low engagement conditions. Consistent with the

within-day analyses, employees with high engagement

conditions experienced more happiness and less sadness

and stress in comparison to those with low engagement

conditions. They also experienced more interest in their

moments across weekdays and Saturday. Cortisol was

lower, in general, for those with high engagement condi-

tions, although not significantly.

Hypothesis 7: Differences in momentary outcomes (affect

and cortisol) between work and nonwork days are

moderated by engagement conditions

The strategy of comparing weekdays with weekends was

also examined for moderation by engagement conditions.

For momentary happiness and stress the same pattern of

results as in the previous set of within-day analyses was

observed (‘‘Interaction’’ row on lower panel in Table 1).

However, significant interactions were also observed for

sadness and interest and the patterns of means showed that

those with higher engagement conditions had much lower

levels of sadness at work than those who with lower

engagement conditions and they had higher levels of

interest at work than those with lower engagement condi-

tions. No interactions were found for tired or cortisol. As

indicated earlier, the within-day analyses demonstrated

differences between working days and Saturdays in the

diurnal cycle of cortisol for people with differing engage-

ment conditions. There was a significant interaction on

working days, but not on Saturdays.

Additional analysis of activities

To possibly increase our understanding of the differences

between work versus non-work moments and Thursdays/

Fridays versus Saturdays, we descriptively examined the

occurrence of selected activities associated with these

distinctions. For example, we expected that there would be

more socializing and relaxing during non-work moments

than work moments, and that there would be more

socializing and relaxing on Saturdays than Thursdays and

Fridays. Using the same format as Table 1, which included

marginal means for distinctions and further classified

means according to engagement status, the following five

variables (dichotomously scored) were examined: Socia-

lizing/Relaxing/Leisure; Housework; Sports/Exercise/

Recreation; Religious/Spiritual; and, Working. (Note that

the proportion of time working is not included in the top

portion of the table, because that variable defines the cells

of the table.) The means were consistent with expectations

for the major distinctions, but we had few expectations for

the classification by engagement level (see Table 2). Of

particular note in this regard is the higher level of

Weekdays

Saturday

Fig. 4 Diurnal cycle of cortisol by Engagement median-split groups

110 Motiv Emot (2012) 36:104–113

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socializing/relaxing/leisure at working moments (top sec-

tion of table) for those with low (3%) versus high

engagement conditions (6%), although we must have

considerable caution interpreting these post hoc analyses.

We also examined the exploratory variable of ambula-

tory heart rate for the 15 min period surrounding each

EMA recording. Data cleaning was based on the formula

(220-age) 9 (% of max), where the maximum value was

set to 1.05, a widely used formula. If the recorded value

was above 1.05, the heart rate was set to missing. Heart

rates were slightly higher away from work and didn’t differ

substantially between those with high and low engagement

conditions.

Discussion

Examining data from both a within- and between-day

perspective, there are a number of consistencies. Momen-

tary affect (happiness, interest, stress, and sadness) is more

favorable when people are not working or when they are

working in jobs with conditions they perceive as engaging.

Affect is most favorable when people are working in

engaging conditions, even comparable to the affect expe-

rienced on Saturdays. However, working is much worse

than leisure time if disengaging conditions are perceived

(unclear roles, inadequate resources, feeling unappreciated,

inadequate development opportunities, poor coworker

relationships, etc.). With regard to momentary affect, the

nature of the overall work environment moderates the

relationship between working and momentary experience.

The engagement conditions studied here have also been

linked to work performance outcomes. Therefore, these

findings suggest conditions such as role clarity, having

adequate resources, feeling appreciated, and progress dis-

cussions have important momentary well-being impacts on

individuals, in addition to performance relevance for

organizations. These findings may shed light on functional

mechanisms within engaging work environments that help

explain recent findings from Ryan et al. (2010) that dif-

ferences between work and nonwork mood are significantly

explained by autonomy and connectedness. Engaging work

environments, as defined by the measurement used in this

study, are those where individuals are likely to have high

autonomy (feeling opinions count, opportunities to learn

and grow) and social connectedness (feeling cared about,

respect for coworkers, friends at work).

The cortisol findings were less obvious and more com-

plicated than were the affect findings, but nonetheless

interesting. First, some momentary moods (happiness and

stress) were related to momentary cortisol, consistent with

prior research. We also found that the adjective interest

was inversely related to momentary cortisol. Employees

with more favorable engagement conditions had lower

morning cortisol during working days, in comparison to

their peers with less favorable engagement conditions,

whereas the pattern for Saturdays was not different for

people in engaging vs. disengaging work environments.

Table 2 Mean levels of selected activities contrasted working vs. non-working moments on Thursday and Friday (upper panel), and by

Thursday and Friday vs. Saturday (lower panel)

Socializing, relaxing,

leisure

Housework Sports, exercise,

recreation

Religious,

spiritual

Working Heart rate

Working vs. not working on Thursday/Friday (npersons = 162)

At work (n = 744) .05 .01 .01 .00 – 84.8

Low Eng .03 .00 .00 .00 – 84.1

High Eng .06 .01 .01 .00 – 85.4

Not at work (n = 1,071) .35 .11 .05 .01 – 87.8

Low Eng .34 .11 .05 .01 – 87.8

High Eng .35 .10 .05 .02 – 87.7

Thursday/Friday vs. Saturday (npersons = 162)

Thursday/Friday (n = 1,911) .22 .07 .03 .01 .41 86.6

Low Eng .22 .07 .03 .01 .40 86.4

High Eng .23 .06 .03 .01 .42 86.8

Saturday (n = 772) .44 .17 .06 .03 .02 89.4

Low Eng .43 .16 .07 .02 .03 88.5

High Eng .45 .18 .05 .03 .02 90.3

Ns are number of samples, not respondents

The Working column is—for the Working vs. Not Working section of the table because working status defines the classification and so can not

serve as a dependent variable

Motiv Emot (2012) 36:104–113 111

123

One general limitation of this study is that we did not

sample all days of the week. Some research suggests dif-

ferences in affect between Saturdays and Sundays and even

weekday differences between Thursdays, Fridays, and

other weekdays (Larsen et al. 2009). Therefore, our find-

ings may not generalize to all work and non-work time and

may understate the differences between weekdays and

weekends. However, we have recently examined the day of

week differences in a large sample of 350,000 respondents

who were polled 350 days of 2008, and found substantial

differences in daily affect between weekdays and week-

ends, with no difference between Saturday and Sunday, and

no difference between Monday and Thursday, with a slight

uptick in mood on Friday (Stone et al. 2010a, b). These

results may mean the results from the present study gen-

eralize beyond the days of week sampled. Another limi-

tation concerns the assessment of affect, which was based

on single adjectives administered several times a day.

While this is the norm in real-time data capture studies that

require extremely brief assessments, we acknowledge that

multiple items representing an affective construct might

yield somewhat different or stronger results. Finally, we

were not able to implement procedures to confirm the

accurate collection of saliva samples, such as the use of

MEMS caps to electronically record a participant selecting

a cotton swab for the Salivette.

The general pattern of work-nonwork cortisol during

working days was not consistent with expectations. Corti-

sol levels were lower during work times during working

days. The direction, although not significant, was the same

when examined for working days versus Saturdays. This

led us to examine in a posteriori analyses other events that

might be associated with work periods and with higher

cortisol. We examined the distributions of reporting

smoking, alcohol use, and caffeine consumption during

assessments and found more caffeine at work (29% vs.

18%, z = -5.68, p \ .000), less alcohol consumption (0%

vs. 9%, z = -8.17, p \ .000), and less cigarette smoking

(3% vs. 6%, z = -3.70, p \ .01), all considering only

Thursdays and Fridays. For the Thursday/Friday versus

Saturday comparisons, we found more caffeine on Thurs-

day/Friday (22% versus 19%, z = -2.18, p \ .05), less

alcohol consumption (5% vs. 8%, z = -2.90, p \ .01),

and less cigarette smoking (5% vs. 5%, z = -3.05,

p \ .01). We also examined the possibility that rates of

exercise and of eating/drinking differed at work or on

weekends. There was less exercise at work (.6% vs. 4.8%,

z = -5.12, p \ .001) and less eating/drinking at work

(6.3% vs. 17.7%, z = -7.29, p \ .001). There was less

exercise (3.0% vs. 5.8%, z = 3.56, p \ .001) and slightly

less eating/drinking (13% vs. 16%, z = 2.09, p \ .05) on

Thursday/Friday than on Saturday. Controlling for these

three variables had almost no impact on the impact of work

on cortisol; in fact, the work associations were slightly

strengthened (results not shown).

One line of evidence about work and cortisol is based on

the cortisol awakening response (CAR), a measure of

cortisol increase in response to rising in the morning that is

thought to indicate the HPA-axis level of reactivity (Fries

et al. 2009). Two studies have shown that CARs are lower

on weekends than on weekdays, suggesting that overall

cortisol production is lower on weekends (Maina et al.

2009). However, no evidence of level differences between

weekdays and weekends was found in another study that

measured salivary cortisol throughout the day (Fries et al.

2009). Furthermore, the study by Hanson and colleagues

showed no evidence that trait and momentary indices

derived from the Karasek model of work stress affected

cortisol levels throughout the day. Thus, there is only

indirect evidence from CAR studies that cortisol produc-

tion is lower on weekends—indicating an effect of work—

but studies measuring cortisol throughout the day have not

confirmed this.

Recent research (Mikolajczak et al. in press) suggests

‘‘flexible’’ CAR between weekdays and weekends (lower

CAR during weekends compared to workdays) for people

high in protective factors (high happiness & low stress) and

‘‘stiff’’ CAR for people high in vulnerability factors (low

happiness & high stress). Although we examined cortisol

throughout the day, and didn’t target measurement of CAR

for this study, our findings are directionally consistent with

this recent research (Fig. 4). The diurnal cycle of cortisol

was significantly different for employees in engaging and

disengaging environments during weekdays, but not on

weekends. It is clear from this investigation that engaging

conditions elicit protective momentary factors (more hap-

piness, less stress) and disengaging conditions elicit vul-

nerability factors (less happiness, more stress).

Overall, these findings demonstrate the impact of work

on momentary affect and physiology. Individuals with

favorable conditions (conditions that prior research has

shown relate to performance outcomes) had much better

affect at work and had similar affect during working and

nonworking days. Since the work conditions studied are

changeable aspects, these findings provide evidence that

the well documented negative well-being impacts associ-

ated with work can be partially buffered by an engaging

workplace.

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