Understanding employees' unused vacation days: A social cognitive approach.

Despite the benefits of vacations for health and well-being, many employees do not use all of their paid vacation days. In this article, we seek to understand why this occurs. Using a social cognitive perspective, we propose that employees use fewer vacation days when they do not believe they can successfully detach from work while on vacation (i.e., have low detachment self-efficacy), do not expect positive outcomes (e.g., feeling relaxed, connecting with loved ones) from their vacations, and expect negative outcomes (e.g., feeling stressed, facing negative financial consequences) from their vacations. We test this explanation across four studies in which we develop and validate measures for our social cognitive constructs (Studies 1-3) and test whether these constructs predict employees' unused vacation days (Study 4). Results revealed that employees had more unused vacation days if they lacked detachment self-efficacy, did not expect to feel relaxed on vacation, and expected negative financial consequences of vacations. Overall, our results highlight the usefulness of social cognitive theory for understanding employees' unused vacation days. We discuss implications for theory, future research, and practice. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2021 APA, all rights reserved).

Social Anxiety and the Quality of Everyday Social Interactions: The Moderating Influence of Alcohol Consumption.

Most research on the link between social anxiety and alcohol consumption has examined problematic outcomes without consideration of potential adaptive functions. Alcohol is an anxiolytic that has the short-term benefit of reducing anxiety; consumption may act as a social lubricant that facilitates higher quality social interactions. Using experience-sampling methodology, we examined how consuming alcohol attenuates the adverse effects of social anxiety in naturally occurring social interactions. Participants (N = 160) completed demographic and trait measures, then completed daily assessments for 14 consecutive days. Results from multilevel model analyses revealed that during face-to-face social interactions, state social anxiety was inversely related to 10 indicators of healthy social interactions (e.g., enjoyment, laughter, feelings of acceptance). Alcohol consumption moderated seven of these associations, such that when participants consumed alcohol in social situations, state social anxiety was no longer associated with social interaction quality. The quantity of alcoholic drinks consumed moderated two of these associations. Furthermore, we found evidence for directionality, such that social anxiety in a given social interaction predicted alcohol consumption in a subsequent social interaction, but not the reverse (i.e., alcohol consumption did not prospectively predict state social anxiety). In social situations that involved alcohol, experiences of social anxiety no longer thwarted one's ability to derive social benefits. These results should be interpreted in the context of a participant sample with relatively low levels of trait social anxiety and frequency of alcohol use. Nonetheless, obtaining social rewards may be a reinforcement mechanism that maintains the link between social anxiety and alcohol consumption.

Sexuality leads to boosts in mood and meaning in life with no evidence for the reverse direction: A daily diary investigation.

Sex is rarely discussed in theories of well-being and rarely empirically examined using methods other than cross-sectional surveys. In the present study, a daily diary approach was used (for 21 days with 152 adults) to explore the relationship between the presence and quality of sexual episodes and well-being (positive affect, negative affect, meaning in life). Time-lagged analyses demonstrated that sexual activity on 1 day was related to greater well-being the next. As for the quality of episodes, higher reported sexual pleasure and intimacy predicted greater positive affect and lower negative affect the following day. When the reverse direction was tested, well-being did not predict next-day sexual activity, pleasure, or intimacy. These results suggest a unidirectional relationship in which the presence and quality of sexual activity lead to gains in well-being the following day. Contextual moderators (gender, relationship status, relationship closeness, and relationship length) allowed for tests of conditions altering the link between sexuality and well-being. Relationship closeness was the most robust moderator in predicting greater levels of meaning in life and positive affect following sexual episodes. These data provide evidence to support the continual consideration of sex in empirical work and theoretical models of elements that comprise healthy relationships and a good life. (PsycINFO Database Record

Discomfort and avoidance of touch: new insights on the emotional deficits of social anxiety.

Physical touch is central to the emotional intimacy that separates romantic relationships from other social contexts. In this study of 256 adults (128 heterosexual couples, mean relationship length = 20.5 months), we examined whether individual differences in social anxiety influenced comfort with and avoidance of physical touch. Because of prior work on sex difference in touch use, touch comfort, and social anxiety symptoms and impairment, we explored sex-specific findings. We found evidence that women with greater social anxiety were less comfortable with touch and more avoidant of touch in same-sex friendships. Additionally, a woman's social anxiety had a bigger effect on a man's comfort with touch and avoidance of touch in the romantic relationship than a man's social anxiety had on the woman's endorsement of touch-related problems. These effects were uninfluenced by the length of romantic relationships. Touch is a neglected emotional experience that offers new insights into the difficulties of individuals suffering from social anxiety problems, and their romantic partners.