Work event experiences: Implications of an expanded taxonomy for understanding daily well-being.

Abstract

This article builds on earlier research on work events and uses a recently developed taxonomy of situation perceptions—the CAPTION taxonomy—to study daily work events. The authors specifically test the ideas that the specific affective event dimensions A (Adversity) and O (humOr), and cognitive and typicality dimensions—I (Importance), C (Complexity), and T (Typicality)—contribute to explaining daily well-being beyond P (Positive valence) and N (Negative valence). Study 1 included N = 242 employees who filled in a diary over five workdays, and Study 2 included a total of 295 employees in an experience sampling design. Results from multilevel confirmatory factor analyses with events nested in persons and days nested in persons suggested that a 7-dimension model—in line with the CAPTION taxonomy— improved model fit. Multilevel structural equation modeling further revealed that the additional dimensions contributed to explaining well-being after work (Study 1) and well-being at work (Study 2) at both the between- and the within-person level. These effects were in particular driven by the A (Adversity) and O (humOr) dimensions. The authors discuss to what degree a multidimensional perspective on situation perceptions can improve occupational health researchers’ understanding of work events as drivers of well-being at work.