Psychological detachment and work-related rumination in teachers: A systematic review

Highlights

• Review on studies relating health indicators to mental distancing in teachers.

• Job stressor are related to low psychological detachment and high rumination in teachers.

• Low psychological detachment predicts burnout and depression symptoms in teachers.

• High work-related rumination predicts impaired sleep quality in teachers.

Abstract

This paper aims to provide an overview of research on predictors and outcomes of unwinding from work-related thoughts in nonwork time, known as psychological detachment, and of constantly thinking about work, known as work-related rumination, in teachers. The systematic literature search found 12 studies. The findings indicate that job-related variables such as high workload are associated with lower psychological detachment and that person-related variables such as recovery-related self-efficacy are related to higher psychological detachment. Furthermore, low psychological detachment or high work-related rumination predicted outcomes such as poor sleep quality. Interventions can lead to higher psychological detachment and lower work-related rumination. Teacher-relevant stress and health indicators are extensively investigated in the educational psychology literature. This review goes beyond by relating these indicators to teacher recovery in terms of psychological detachment, thus systematically bridging and integrating the educational psychology and the recovery research strands. Bridging these two strands is meaningful for teachers because working beyond the required hours is typical for teachers. By further examining the effect of inadequate separation of work–nonwork boundaries on psychological detachment and its effect on well-being, practical implications for teachers’ work-life can be elucidated.

Introduction

Teachers pursue their educational mission while managing different aspects of occupational demands such as expectations from parents, student misbehaviour, and interactions with colleagues (Beltman, Mansfield, & Price, 2011; Montgomery & Rupp, 2005). Handling these multiple demands can be stressful and create extra work-pressure, for example, when the effort to maintain discipline in the classroom results in insufficient time to teach the curriculum (Viac & Fraser, 2020). In meta-analytic findings, stress experience in teachers is associated with poor well-being and reduced psychological health operationalised, for example, by higher burnout and lower self-efficacy (Aloe, Amo, & Shanahan, 2014). Teacher stress is thus connected to the quality of teacher performance, students’ misbehaviour or achievements (Aloe, Amo et al., 2014; Klusmann, Richter, & Lüdtke, 2016), and a higher rate of teacher attrition (Sass, Seal, & Martin, 2011; Scheopner Torres, 2012). These findings emphasise that a functioning teacher should be psychologically healthy; therefore, teacher stress and its consequences are of worldwide importance (Viac & Fraser, 2020).

When examining the research trends for teachers’ psychological health, two research strands are highlighted: The first strand is research in educational psychology that focuses on the effects of external stressors, personal characteristics, school types, or teaching styles on mental health (Aloe, Shisler, Norris, Nickerson, & Rinker, 2014; Antoniou, Ploumpi, & Ntalla, 2013; Zee & Koomen, 2016). The second research strand stems from occupational health psychology and focuses on work-related recovery—the process of unwinding to reduce the strain experience triggered by stressors at work (Sonnentag, Venz, & Casper, 2017)—as a critical resource to maintain mental health (Geurts & Sonnentag, 2006; Sonnentag et al., 2017).

One core dimension of recovery is psychological detachment (Sonnentag & Fritz, 2015), namely, to mentally unwind and distance oneself from work. According to analyses in the literature, psychological detachment is related to many positive outcomes, such as higher well-being (e.g., more positive affect, lower fatigue, less exhaustion), greater life satisfaction, and better task performance (Bennett, Bakker, & Field, 2018; Sonnentag & Fritz, 2015; Wendsche & Lohmann-Haislah, 2017). Therefore, higher levels of mental distancing might be one core factor to reduce teacher stress. In turn, lower teacher stress might, for example, lead to lower levels of absenteeism (Darr & Johns, 2008), intention to leave the profession (Chambers Mack, Johnson, Jones-Rincon, Tsatenawa, & Howard, 2019), or exiting the teaching profession (Scheopner Torres, 2012; Struyven & Vanthournout, 2014).

Existing analyses on recovery have focused on multiple occupations (Sonnentag et al., 2017). However, Sonnentag et al. (2017) stressed that contextual factors must be further considered and that research should explore how different occupations manage recovery because the stressor-strain relationship might be different for single occupations. By bridging and integrating the educational psychology and recovery research strands, this implication is considered in this systematic review of the literature, and the focus is on teachers for several reasons:

First, the teaching profession is prototypical for an occupation where employees use their home as part of their workplace. According to the ‘Teaching and Learning International Survey’ (TALIS), the working time teachers spend on teaching in class is on average 19 h per week in a cross-country comparison (OECD, 2014). What usually goes unnoticed is the amount of time invested in work-related activities outside the classroom, raising the average working hours to 38 h per week (cross-country averages of working hours range from 29 h in Italy to 54 h in Japan (OECD, 2014)). These activities are, for example, preparing lessons, grading exams, or planning school events (OECD, 2014). Many teachers report that they accomplish those work-related tasks at home (cf. Cropley, Dijk, & Stanley, 2006; Krantz-Kent, 2008). This can make separating the work–nonwork boundary more challenging and psychological detachment difficult to achieve because work-related thoughts are still present or might be triggered, for example, when teachers see a stack of uncorrected tests on their desk (cf. Ebert et al., 2015; Sonnentag & Kruel, 2006). Therefore, the focus on a single and relatively homogeneous sample that usually uses their home as part of their workplace appears to be promising to analyse the role of psychological detachment.

Second, teaching can be a highly stressful and demanding profession. Teachers’ stress experience depends on different aspects of demands within the class, such as challenges with the discipline in the classroom, and beyond the class, such as collaborating with other teachers or administrative tasks (Montgomery & Rupp, 2005; Viac & Fraser, 2020). Overall, the daily demands of the teaching profession can result in poor physical health and psychological well-being (Cropley, Rydstedt, Devereux, & Middleton, 2015; Cropley, Steptoe, & Joekes, 1999; Johnson et al., 2005). Research on other occupations has already shown that these daily stressful demands can spill over into nonwork time, resulting in poor psychological detachment (e.g. Sonnentag & Fritz, 2015).

Notably, the latest review of psychological detachment outlined the literature across occupations until 2015 (Bennett et al., 2018). A distinction between occupations has not been considered. As recommended by Sonnentag et al. (2017), this review goes beyond prior research by focusing on an occupation in which working beyond the required hours – oftentimes at home – is typical. This review further contributes to the literature by complementing the existing reviews with a focus on teachers. In doing so, (1) the basis for further research in teacher recovery is prepared, (2) the role of psychological detachment for teachers' stressor-strain processes can be explored, and (3) theoretical and practical implications in teacher retention and teachers’ stress reduction strategies can be drawn that might be of interest for teachers, school principals, scientists, and policymakers.

The term ‘detachment’ was first described by Etzion, Eden, and Lapidot (1998) as an ‘individual's sense of being away from the work situation’ (p. 579). Some researchers have attempted to specify the definition by considering the psychological aspect and stressed that detachment is more than being physically away from a workspace and job-related activities, that is, it also refers to mentally distancing and disengaging from work during nonwork time (Sonnentag & Fritz, 2015; Sonnentag & Kruel, 2006). Therefore, detachment is also described as ‘switching off mentally or cognitively’ (Cropley & Millward Purvis, 2003; Sonnentag & Bayer, 2005). Sonnentag and Bayer (2005) introduced the term ‘psychological detachment’ for this concept, to emphasise the psychological component of disengaging from work during nonwork time. Although psychological detachment is mainly conceptualised as the absence of work-related thoughts during nonwork time, it can also be framed as the presence of thoughts from any other content area (e.g., sport or family) during nonwork time (Sonnentag & Fritz, 2015).

When discussing the presence of work-related thoughts during nonwork time, a lower level of psychological detachment is provided. On a continuum of mental distancing, in which psychological detachment is at one end, the state of being intensively involved with work-related thoughts can be considered the opposite end (Wendsche & Lohmann-Haislah, 2017). More precisely, repetitive thoughts of work are described as ‘work-related rumination’ or ‘worry’ (cf. Cropley et al., 2015; Ebert et al., 2015; Querstret & Cropley, 2012; Sonnentag & Fritz, 2015). Worry is a negative, affect-laden process of repetitive thoughts and images that is relatively uncontrollable and mostly expresses concern for the future (Borkovec, Robinson, Pruzinsky, & DePree, 1983). Worry is an attempt to solve a problem, whose outcome is uncertain and might be negative. Rumination was originally derived from the clinical context and is defined as ‘a class of conscious thoughts that revolve around a common instrumental theme and that recur in the absence of immediate environmental demands requiring the thoughts’ (Martin & Tesser, 1996, p. 7). Rumination is often referred to as including negative content or a negative emotional state (Nolen-Hoeksema, McBride, & Larson, 1997) and is associated with numerous psychological disorders (Querstret & Cropley, 2012). However, the content of ruminative thoughts can also be neutral and not harmful (cf. Martin & Tesser, 1996).

Researchers within the occupational health context go further by differentiating rumination according to the benefits and connotations of rumination (Cropley & Zijlstra, 2011). Work-related rumination is conceptualised as work-related thoughts that are repetitive, and comprises two components: affective rumination and problem-solving pondering (Cropley & Zijlstra, 2011). Affective rumination is defined as recurrent, intrusive, and pervasive work-related thoughts that are negatively valenced (Cropley & Zijlstra, 2011). Problem-solving pondering is characterised by goal-directed thinking about work-related problems, evaluating the work to improve their performance, or enjoying thinking about work (Cropley & Zijlstra, 2011). In problem-solving pondering, an emotional component might not be included. These two components of work-related rumination are associated with different consequences (Vahle-Hinz, Mauno, Bloom, & Kinnunen, 2017). For example, Querstret and Cropley (2012) showed that problem-solving is associated with lower levels of chronic and acute fatigue in working adults, whereas affective rumination is associated with increased chronic and acute fatigue.

Whereas psychological detachment is framed as the absence of work-related thoughts in nonwork time, work-related rumination and worry describe the presence of work-related thoughts and can therefore be equated with the lack of psychological detachment (Sonnentag & Fritz, 2015; Wendsche & Lohmann-Haislah, 2017). Thus, these concepts are also considered in this review.