A Meta-Analysis on Antecedents and Outcomes of Detachment from Work
verifiedrich profile · Frontiers in Psychology · 2017
Wendsche, Johannes; Lohmann-Haislah, Andrea
How this was studied
A meta-analytic synthesis — it pools many primary studies rather than running a single design, so there is no single-study diagram.
What this article reports
The findings we extracted from this work, normalized into Principia’s relationship form (X → Y). Each feeds the synthesized models below.
psychological detachment → burnout
psychological detachment → creativity
job demands → psychological detachment
job resources → psychological detachment
psychological detachment → task performance
psychological detachment → contextual performance
psychological detachment → job satisfaction
Models this article informs
The meta-analytic priors this article contributes evidence to — its place in the broader synthesis.
job demands correlates psychological detachment
job resources correlates psychological detachment
psychological detachment correlates contextual performance
psychological detachment correlates creativity
psychological detachment correlates job satisfaction
psychological detachment correlates task performance
psychological detachment predicts burnout
psychological detachment from work predicts emotional exhaustion
In the authors’ words
The article’s own abstract.
= 38,124 employees) examined core antecedents and outcomes of detachment in employee samples. With regard to outcomes, results indicated average positive correlations between detachment and self-reported mental (i.e., less exhaustion, higher life satisfaction, more well-being, better sleep) and physical (i.e., lower physical discomfort) health, state well-being (i.e., less fatigue, higher positive affect, more intensive state of recovery), and task performance (small to medium sized effects). However, average relationships between detachment and physiological stress indicators and work motivation were not significant while associations with contextual performance and creativity were significant, but negative. Concerning work characteristics, as expected, job demands were negatively related and job resources were positively related to detachment (small sized effects). Further, analyses revealed that person characteristics such as negative affectivity/neuroticism (small sized effect) and heavy work investment (medium sized effect) were negatively related to detachment whereas detachment and demographic variables (i.e., age and gender) were not related. Moreover, we found a medium sized average negative relationship between engagement in work-related activities during non-work time and detachment. For most of the examined relationships heterogeneity of effect sizes was moderate to high. We identified study design, samples' gender distribution, and affective valence of work-related thoughts as moderators for some of these aforementioned relationships. The results of this meta-analysis point to detachment as a non-work (recovery) experience that is influenced by work-related and personal characteristics which in turn is relevant for a range of employee outcomes.
What the literature says about it
Attributed, open-access quotes from other works that cite this article, plus the citation-graph verdict tally. Corroborations and disputes, in one place — the honest-broker view.
supports “This can again be a reason for employees to report more daily exhaustion when experiencing competence need frustration, as psychological detachment tends to be connected to reduced exhaustion (Wendsche & Lohmann-Haislah, 2017).”
supports “While Bennett et al. (2018) yielded a positive but nonsignificant relationship, Wendsche and Lohmann-Haislah (2017a) showed that resources such as social support have significant positive associations with psychological detachment.”
supports “Such recovery activities, according to a meta-analysis, enable psychological detachment from work-related stress, and has been related to better mental and physical health, state well-being, and task performance [27].”
supports “Since the negative relationship between psychological detachment and exhaustion is well established, these findings are in line with the present study (Wendsche and Lohmann-Haislah 2017b).”
disputes “…reflection is more beneficial for increasing positive energetic states and creativity compared to psychological detachment (Weigelt et al., 2019; Wendsche & Lohmann-Haislah, 2017), negative work reflection or affective rumination (Weigelt et al., 2019), which underlines the resource generating…”
supports “In contrast to the other recovery experiences, psychological detachment has consistently been shown to be meaningfully related to indicators of energetic resources, such as exhaustion and fatigue (Sonnentag & Fritz, 2007; Wendsche & Lohmann-Haislah, 2017).”
supports “Meta-analytic evidence suggests that psychological detachment will yield a negative association with exhaustion [6].”
supports “Evidence suggests that increased levels of psychological detachment decrease the risk of fatigue and burnout and increase physical and mental well-being [17, 21, 22].”
supports “In addition to demands, the meta-analyses by Wendsche and Lohmann-Haislah (2017a) and by Bennett et al. (2018) also highlights the role of resources in psychological detachment.”
supports “Although findings suggest that job resources correlate positively with detachment [8,10], to the best of our knowledge, the empirical evidence on the moderating effect of job resources between job stressors and psychological detachment is limited.”
supports “In addition to demands, the meta-analyses by Wendsche and Lohmann-Haislah (2017a) and by Bennett et al. (2018) also highlights the role of resources in psychological detachment.”
supports “Meta-analytic evidence confirms that psychological detachment from work is a crucial recovery experience that predicts well-being and reduces burnout (Bennett et al., 2018; Wendsche & Lohmann-Haislah, 2017).”
Ancillary research
Neighbouring works in the citation graph around this article.
- 10.1111/sjop.13067
- 10.1007/s41449-024-00445-2
- 10.3390/su13179945
- 10.1007/s11031-025-10122-4
- 10.1080/1612197x.2021.1993960
- 10.1111/joop.12206
- 10.1111/joop.12200
- 10.3390/ijerph16162987
- 10.1371/journal.pone.0281556
- 10.3390/ijerph182212228
- 10.1080/02678373.2017.1330835
- 10.3390/bs16050824
Assembled from Principia’s registry — bibliographic record, extracted effect sizes, the models they inform, and open-access citing literature.