Work and family roles in relation to women's well-being: The role of negative affectivity

Negative affectivity (NA), a trait that emphasizes negative aspects of the environment, has been shown to have both direct and confound effects on the stressor-strain relationship. Lately, this confound role of NA has attracted much attention, and calls have been made for self-report studies to incorporate NA as a control. As previous studies of women's roles and well-being have not considered the influence of NA in their models, the present study aims to examine (i) the extent to which NA acts as a confound, and (ii) other possible roles of NA in the relationship between women's roles and well-being (e.g. NA having a direct effect, NA as a moderator or mediator). In a sample of 145 employed and nonemployed women, results from regression analyses showed that NA had direct effects on well-being, and also acted as a partial confound for symptoms of both distress and happiness. NA inflated the relationship between certain role variables and distress symptoms, but was found to underestimate the influence of certain role variables in predicting happiness. Neither the moderator role nor the mediator role of NA was observed. These findings are discussed with respect to recent work in the stress literature. (C) 1997 Elsevier Science Ltd.