Managing inter-role conflict: Do avoidance strategies help or hurt?

Abstract

This research extends work-family conflict literature by considering the roles that psychological detachment, consistent with the work recovery literature, and avoidance-focused coping, consistent with the coping literature, play in the management of inter-role conflict. Inter-role conflict has consistently been found to be negatively related to life satisfaction. The work recovery and coping literatures suggest similar strategies to offset this negative relation, albeit with opposite effects. Drawing from the work recovery literature, psychologically detaching oneself from role demands is predicted to be an adaptive strategy. Drawing from the coping literature, avoidance-focused coping is predicted to be a maladaptive strategy. The primary goal of the present study was to examine the potential paradox across these two literatures by simultaneously examining these two strategies in 304 individuals who were faced with the challenge of balancing work, family, and school responsibilities. Participants completed questionnaires at two times, separated by one month. Confirmatory factor analysis provided support for the distinctiveness of the two constructs. Further, the result supported a moderating role for psychological detachment in the relation between inter-role conflict and life satisfaction, but not avoidance-focused coping. Implications for theory and practice are discussed.