In this study, we link cognitive processes of recovery to the social context in which employees experience job stressors. The aim was to examine how the social context in which employees experience work stressors is associated with individuals’ work-related thoughts in nonwork time and thus may prolong work-related mental efforts beyond working hours. We used aggregated individual ratings on social relations with colleagues and supervisors as a primer for social climate within workgroups, calculated the rate of permanent employment contracts per workgroup as a proxy for the stability of social relations within workgroups and used organizational affiliations to specify job settings in terms of routine versus creative tasks. Drawing on cross-sectional data from a psychosocial risk assessment and occupational health promotion survey of N = 1836 employees in 118 workgroups with different occupations at a German university, we tested multilevel random-coefficient models for affective rumination and problem-solving pondering. Results indicated a negative association of collegial climate with affective rumination but no association with problem-solving pondering. Supervisory climate was unrelated to both types of ruminative thinking. The stability of social relations within workgroups was negatively associated with affective rumination as well as with problem-solving pondering, whereas the job setting was only associated with problem-solving pondering. A cross-level interaction indicated a positive moderation effect of collegial climate on the relationship between job stressors and affective rumination. The findings indicate that a positive collegial climate can buffer the negative impact of low to average levels of job stressors on work-related thoughts and lead to the conclusion that the social context in which job stressors are experienced may alter individuals’ ability to mentally unwind from work.

在这项研究中，我们将认知的恢复过程与员工经历工作压力的社会环境联系起来。目的是研究员工在非工作时间内遇到工作压力源的社会背景与个人与工作相关的思想如何关联，从而可以将与工作相关的精神努力延长至工作时间以外。我们使用与同事和上司的社会关系汇总个人评分作为工作组内社会氛围的基础，计算每个工作组的永久性雇佣合同比率作为工作组内社会关系稳定性的代名词，并使用组织隶属关系来指定工作组中的工作环境。例行任务还是创造性任务。利用来自社会心理风险评估和职业健康促进调查的横断面数据ñ 我们在一所德国大学的118个不同职业的工作组中有1836名员工，我们测试了多级随机系数模型进行情感反思和解决问题的思考。结果表明大学气候与情感反省之间存在负相关关系，但与解决问题的思考无关。监督气氛与两种反刍思维无关。工作组中社会关系的稳定与情感反省以及解决问题的思考负相关，而工作环境仅与解决问题的思考相关。跨层次的互动表明，大学氛围对工作压力与情感反省之间的关系具有积极的调节作用。