Testing the role of midpoint sleep and social jetlag in the context of work psychology: an exploratory study

A substantial gap exists in the literature regarding the associations between chronotype, social jetlag and well-established constructs from work and organizational psychology area, such as burnout, work engagement or organizational citizenship behaviour (OCB). Therefore, the aim of the present paper was to investigate the associations between aforementioned constructs. A total of 247 employees took part in the present exploratory study. Burnout was measured with Copenhagen Burnout Inventory, work-engagement with Utrecht Work Engagement Scale and OCB with Organizational Citizenship Behaviour Questionnaire, whereas midpoint sleep and social jetlag were measured with Munich Chronotype Questionnaire. Conducted regression analyses, controlling for age and gender, showed adverse associations between later midpoint sleep and OCB, as well as one of the subscales of work engagement, namely: dedication. In addition, later midpoint sleep predicted greater burnout, particularly in its work-related subdomain. The magnitude of social jetlag predicted lower OCB, however the effect was no longer significant when midpoint sleep was introduced into the model. The present results provide initial evidence that chronotype may be a vital construct in the field of work and organizational psychology.