Examining the Effects of Sleep Deprivation on Workplace Deviance: A Self-Regulatory Perspective
Summary (4 min read)
Introduction
- The causes of workplace deviance are of increasing interest to organizations.
- Sleep deprivation costs approximately US$150 billion annually in terms of accidents and lost productivity for the U.S. economy (National Center on Sleep Disorders Research, 2003).
Workplace Deviance and Self-Regulation
- Workplace deviance refers to behaviors that are (1) voluntary, (2) violate organizational norms, and (3) threaten the well-being of an organization and/or its members (Bennett & Robinson, 2000; Robinson & Bennett, 1995).
- Deviance behaviors can be classified along two dimensions based on whether the behaviors’ target is organizational or interpersonal.
- When self-regulatory efforts fail, nonoptimal motivational tendencies exert a greater influence on behavior (Baumeister, Gailliot, DeWall, & Oaten, 2006; Baumeister & Vohs, 2007).
- Self-regulatory resource models (Baumeister et al., 1994; Muraven & Baumeister, 2000; Muraven, Tice, & Baumeister, 1998) suggest that thoughts, behaviors, and emotions are governed by finite and consumable resources that resemble energy1 (Baumeister & Vohs, 2003; Muraven & Baumeister, 2000).
- As the authors argue next, sleep deprivation has the potential to deplete self-regulatory resources, and depletion can lead to deviance.
The Effect of Sleep Deprivation
- Sleep is a homeostatic process that has a restorative effect on the brain and determines individual alertness (Saper, Scammell, & Lu, 2005; Weinger & Ancoli-Israel, 2002).
- Total and partial sleep deprivation also occur across a variety of occupations owing to shift work, high workloads, sleep-related disorders, certain medications, and life style factors such as a new baby (Harrison & Horne, 2000; Weinger & AncoliIsrael, 2002).
- (Weinger & Ancoli-Israel, 2002), military professionals, and executives working internationally and thus forced to adjust to time zone changes.
- From a neuroscientific perspective, the effects of sleep deprivation on human behavior result from decreased brain functioning, particularly in the prefrontal cortex (Durmer & Dinges, 2005).
- Thus, selfregulatory control of behavior is reduced when the prefrontal cortex region is impaired—a phenomenon otherwise understood as self-regulatory resource depletion.
The Role of Self-Control and State Hostility
- The operation of self-regulatory resources is a broad concept that applies to all forms of self-regulation, including the regulation of behavior and emotions (Muraven & Baumeister, 2000).
- When self-regulatory resources are depleted, self-control is reduced (DeWall et al., 2007; Gailliot, Schmeichel, & Baumeister, 2006).
- In sum, drawing on self-regulatory resource theories, the authors argue that sleep deprivation decreases selfcontrol and increases the incidence of workplace deviance.
- Because resource depletion undermines emotion regulation, negative emotions experienced following sleep deprivation are more likely to be expressed and experienced (Scott & Judge, 2006).
- If employees expend resources to regulate negative emotions, it becomes more difficult for them to control deviant tendencies and impulses (Marlatt, 1985; Zillmann, 1993).
Sample Description
- Sample 1 consisted of 171 nurses from a major medical center in the southwestern United States.
- Eighty-two percent of the sample members were female, and 75 percent were white.
- Eighteen percent reported having children under the age of four at home.
Procedures
- No caffeine or high-sugar foods were served.
- 00 a.m., participants completed the self-control task (described below) and a questionnaire assessing their current level of hostility, also known as At 9.
- Participants also completed the manipulation check at this point.
- First, participants drafted e-mail responses to fictitious undergraduate students who were interested in applying to the business college.
- Second, participants completed an 11-item measure of mathematical reasoning and grammatical ability.
Measures
- The authors used the method described by Vohs and colleagues (Vohs, Baumeister, Schmeichel, Twenge, Nelson, & Tice, 2008; Vohs & Heatherton, 2000) for behaviorally measuring state self-control.
- Participants were told that their role as mentor would be to represent the business school by answering questions from potential applicants.
- Both coders were trained to rate interpersonal deviance using a behaviorally anchored rating scale (BARS) ranging from 1 (low deviance) to 5 (high deviance).
- Each coder then rated a separate set of 20 e-mails individually so that the authors could calculate interrater reliability.
- The authors administered one of the forms first, as a pretest to establish a baseline for actual performance, and then administered the second form, to assess theft.
Tests of Hypotheses
- Table 4 provides the results of the hierarchical regression analyses used to test their hypotheses.
- The authors again followed Baron and Kenny’s steps for testing mediation.
- For interpersonal deviance, the indirect effect of sleep deprivation was significant through hostility (coefficient .21, 95% CI .05, .41).
- In sum, Hypothesis 2 was partially supported, and Hypothesis 3 was fully supported.
Overview
- The authors collected a second set of data from a laboratory sample for several reasons.
- First, the design enabled us to manipulate sleep deprivation.
- Third, a lab study allowed for more appropriate causal inference via the use of random assignment and the manipulation of the independent variable.
- Thus, replication in the lab allowed us to strengthen the internal validity of their model by reducing the possibility of common method effects, the influence of spurious variables, and so on.
- Fifth, although the base rate for more extreme behaviors (e.g., theft) might have been lower in their field sample, the lab study allowed us to better assess more severe components of workplace deviance.
Sample
- During the initial recruitment process, potential participants were not informed of the purpose of the study.
- The screening survey also assessed any physical and psychological problems that might increase risk (e.g., sleep disorders, heart problems, anemia, epilepsy, brain damage, clinically diagnosed psychological disorders).
- Thirty-seven participants were placed in the sleep deprivation condition, and 38 were placed in the control group.
- All participants received course credit for their participation.
Manipulation
- The authors adapted their manipulation from Harrison and Horne (1999), using a between-subjects design.
- The SD participants entered the lab at 10:00 p.m. on day 1 and began the experimental measures and tasks at 9:00 a.m. on day 2, following a full night of sleep deprivation during the night of day 1.
- During sleep deprivation, participants were confined to a lounge with board games, TV, books, magazines, and snacks available.
- Two research assistants were paid to monitor participants in shifts to ensure that no participants slept.
- The authors describe the experimental tasks and procedures in more detail below.
Manipulation Check
- First, all participants in the SD group were monitored throughout the night to ensure that they did not sleep.
- Second, participants completed a brief questionnaire assessing the number of hours of sleep they had obtained each of the previous three nights.
DISCUSSION
- The purpose of this two-part study was to merge evidence drawn from social and organizational psychology, sleep research, and neuroscience to develop and test a theoretically and empirically driven model of the effects of sleep deprivation on workplace deviance.
- Results from their field and lab samples largely converged to show that the effects of sleep deprivation can lead to decreased selfcontrol and increased hostility, which increase the likelihood that individuals will engage in workplace deviance.
- The authors findings suggest that deviance is motivated by failures in self-regulation that can be induced by depletion.
- A number of suggestions for managers interested in reducing workplace deviance emerge from their results.
- Managers can limit sleep deprivation using preventive tactics such as sleep awareness training (e.g., insomnia reduction strategies, sleep hygiene counseling) or by attempting to design jobs in a way that reduces long hours and stressful conditions (e.g., scheduling, restricting overtime, reducing shift rotation).
Limitations
- The authors would like to note that, despite the significance of their results in both studies, both have limitations.
- This is a potentially important limitation present in most experimental studies of sleep deprivation, given that sleep-deprived participants are awake while control group members are not (Durmer & Dinges, 2005).
- It is possible that deviance was underreported in the field study because of social desirability bias, which can occur when self-report measures are used.
- Finally, the design of their field study does introduce the possibility of common method bias, and the authors attempted to deal with the issue following the recommendations of Podsakoff and colleagues (2003).
Directions for Future Research
- The authors were not interested in the potential antecedents of sleep deprivation.
- The reason or reasons for an employee’s sleep deprivation may influence his or her mood at work.
- More specifically, hostility may be more strongly linked with incivility (i.e., interpersonal deviance), and self-control may have a stronger effect on more deliberate behaviors (i.e., organizational deviance); their data partially support this argument.
- To further test this idea, the authors went back to the field data and looked at organizational and interpersonal deviance separately.
Conclusion
- Studies regarding the effects of sleep loss have largely been ignored in the organizational literature.
- The authors hope that their efforts to merge evidence drawn from social and organizational psychology, sleep research, and neuroscience highlight the potential effects of sleep deprivation on organizationally relevant criteria such as deviance.
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Frequently Asked Questions (13)
Q2. Why did the authors choose to limit the potential for common method effects?
Because their sample completed a survey with all self-reported variables, which is typical in deviance research (Berry et al., 2007), the authors attempted to limit the potential for common method effects by following the recommendations of Podsakoff, MacKenzie, Lee, and Podsakoff (2003), who suggested temporally spacing the predictor and criterion variables.
Q3. What is the role of sleep in reducing accidents?
Although several studies have linked safety with sleep, the effects of sleep loss on accidents and injuries are typically considered to be caused by problems associated with motor coordination, alertness, and attention (e.g., Barnes & Wagner, 2009; Horne & Reyner, 1999; Marcus & Loughlin, 1996), rather than self-regulation.
Q4. What are the main reasons for the negative emotions in workplaces?
Negative emotions have also been shown to be related to workplace deviance (Fox et al., 2001; Judge et al., 2006; Lee & Allen, 2002; Spector & Fox, 2002), and “approach-oriented” emotions such as hostility and anger are particularly problematic considering that they are associated with aggressive reactions (Buss & Perry, 1992; Harmon-Jones & Sigelman, 2001).
Q5. What did the researchers do to achieve a reasonable level of external validity?
To attain a reasonable level of external validity, the authors took steps to ensure that the student participants (1) were members of the business school in which the study was conducted, (2) were instructed that the e-mail task that they performed was for the benefit of the organization (i.e., helping to recruit new students), and (3) were instructed that the organization was funding the GRE simulation task—our measure of theft.
Q6. What is the main issue with the study?
Another issue with the lab study involves the fact that, during the night, participants may have become bored, irritated, or more cohesive as a group, in addition to becoming sleep deprived.
Q7. What are the main reasons why people who are sleep-deprived are often impulsive?
Sleep-deprived individuals often act impulsively, engage in interpersonally inappropriate behaviors, and do not adhere to social norms (Harrison & Horne, 2000; Horne, 1993; Reynolds & Schiffbauer, 2004).
Q8. What is the link between sleep deprivation and deviance?
Below the authors explain how sleep deprivation can be conceptually and empirically linked to self-control and state hostility, which can then be linked to deviant behavior, establishing both as potential mediators of the relationship between sleep deprivation and deviance.
Q9. What could be the reason for the low variance in the field sample compared to the lab sample?
it is possible that the low percentage of variance explained in the field sample compared to the lab sample (where variance explained rose to around 7–8 percent) could have been due to methodological differences between the two studies.
Q10. What can managers do to prevent deviance?
Managers can also attempt to keep depleted employees out of situations in which they may be tempted to steal or engage in malfeasance.
Q11. How did Preacher and Hayes (2008) estimate the indirect effects of sleep depriv?
As Preacher and Hayes (2008) and others (e.g.,2008) have recommended, the authors estimated the indirect effects using unstandardized coefficients from the full model (i.e., the third step in the regression model) and utilized bootstrapping procedures with 1,000 resamples to place 95% confidence intervals (CIs) around the estimates of the indirect effects.
Q12. What is the relationship between sleep deprivation and workplace deviance?
In sum, drawing on self-regulatory resource theories, the authors argue that sleep deprivation decreases selfcontrol and increases the incidence of workplace deviance.
Q13. What is the effect of sleep deprivation on interpersonal deviance?
Although sleep deprivation has increased in the workplace, studies regarding the effects of sleep loss have largely been ignored in the organizational literature.