A within-individual investigation on the relationship between day level workaholism and systolic blood pressure

ABSTRACT Most research on workaholism has been conducted at the between-person level and has considered mainly psychological outcomes of the phenomenon (e.g. burnout, job satisfaction). Building on the allostatic load model and on the idea that workaholic cognition and behaviour may show variation at the within-person level, we tested the hypothesis that fluctuations in daily workaholism would be related to parallel fluctuations in daily systolic blood pressure as reported at the end of the working day. Additionally, based on previous research and theoretical contributions in the field, we also tested the hypothesis that the daily workaholism-systolic blood pressure relationship would be particularly accentuated for women, when compared to men. Data have been collected from a sample of 61 participants who were followed for ten consecutive working days, for a total of 544 observations. In line with the hypotheses, workaholism revealed substantial variation at the day level and daily workaholism predicted daily systolic blood pressure. The workaholism-systolic blood pressure relationship was only partially mediated by the objective number of hours worked in the day and, as hypothesised, was more accentuated in women. The study contributes to advancing workaholism research by showing micro-processual (i.e. day-level) aspects of the health impairment path potentially activated by workaholism.