Journal of Occupational Health

Psychology
Looking Forward: How Anticipated Workload Change
Influences the Present Workload–Emotional Strain
Relationship
Michael J. DiStaso and Mindy K. Shoss
Online First Publication, September 3, 2020. http://dx.doi.org/10.1037/ocp0000261

CITATION
DiStaso, M. J., & Shoss, M. K. (2020, September 3). Looking Forward: How Anticipated Workload
Change Influences the Present Workload–Emotional Strain Relationship. Journal of Occupational
Health Psychology. Advance online publication. http://dx.doi.org/10.1037/ocp0000261
 Journal of Occupational Health Psychology
© 2020 American Psychological Association 2020, Vol. 2, No. 999, 000
ISSN: 1076-8998 http://dx.doi.org/10.1037/ocp0000261

Looking Forward: How Anticipated Workload Change Influences the

Present Workload–Emotional Strain Relationship

Michael J. DiStaso Mindy K. Shoss

University of Central Florida Saint Louis University

Many workers experience ebbs and flows of workload in concert with busy seasons, changing project
demands, and changes to the way tasks are completed. The present study examined how anticipating
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workload changes influences emotional strain resulting from current workload. We extend conservation
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of resources theory (Hobfoll, 1989) by hypothesizing that anticipated changes in workload may be
viewed as a future opportunity to recover from current workload (in the case of anticipated workload
decrease) or as a threat of loss of resources (in the case of anticipated workload increase), and that
anticipated changes in workload would moderate the current workload– emotional strain relationship.
Using a sample of employees engaged in project-based work, we found that anticipation of a workload
increase exacerbated the current workload– emotional strain relationship and anticipation of a workload
decrease buffered this relationship. The results suggest that stressor–strain relations may be influenced
by anticipated change in stressor conditions. In other words, employees are more likely to tolerate
stressful circumstances if they see the proverbial “light at the end of the tunnel.” Implications for
occupational stress research and practice are discussed.

Keywords: anticipated change, emotional strain, future-oriented cognition, workload

With few exceptions, jobs impose some level of workload on
employees at all times. Workload represents a demand placed on
employees that requires continual exertion of energy to meet
(Bowling & Kirkendall, 2012). For this reason, high levels of
workload have been found to relate to psychological strains, in-
cluding indicators of emotional strain (Alarcon, 2011; Podsakoff,
LePine, & LePine, 2007; Spector & Jex, 1998).
Workload has traditionally been studied as a static stressor that
varies as a function of the job. In other words, jobs were thought
to be characterized as having either a high or low workload
(Karasek, 1979; Mariani, 1999). In recent years, however, re-
searchers have begun to recognize the dynamic, changing nature of
workload. Workload can change gradually and permanently over
time, as evidenced in the study of work intensification (Green,
2001). Workload can also change rapidly and temporarily. In this
regard, studies have generally found that employees experience
X Michael J. DiStaso, Department of Psychology, University of Central
Florida; Mindy K. Shoss, Department of Psychology, Saint Louis Univer-
sity.
Mindy K. Shoss is now at Department of Psychology, University of
Central Florida.
A previous version of this article was presented at the 34th annual
conference of Society for Industrial and Organizational Psychology in
National Harbor, Maryland.
Correspondence concerning this article should be addressed to Michael J.
DiStaso, Department of Psychology, University of Central Florida, 4000
Central Florida Boulevard, Orlando, FL 32816. E-mail: michael.distaso@
ucf.edu
more fatigue (Grech, Neal, Yeo, Humphreys, & Smith, 2009),
negative affect (Ilies et al., 2007), and affective distress and blood
pressure (Ilies, Dimotakis, & De Pater, 2010) during high work-
load time periods than during low workload time periods.
Although researchers have made strides in examining these
dynamics, we argue that these studies maintain a somewhat static
perspective on workload from the employee’s point of view.
Specifically, the aforementioned studies capture reactions to the
workload that the employee has experienced, whether that be in
general, over a month time frame, or over a given day. By asking
participants about their previously or recently experienced work-
load, workload research has narrowly focused on the past and
present. In contrast, studies have not yet considered how employ-
ees’ stress reactions are shaped by what employees anticipate will
happen to their workload in the future.
We consider this to be a serious gap in our knowledge. Psy-
chologists argue that the ability to prospect into the future is one of
the defining hallmarks of humanity (Atance & O’Neill, 2001,
2005). Future-oriented cognitions include hopes, expectations, and
predictions about future states and conditions that may or may not
occur. Much of human behavior is motivated by future-oriented
cognition, and people spend a great deal of time anticipating how
their conditions might change (Aspinwall, 2005; Atance &
O’Neill, 2001). In that vein, several conceptualizations of stress
feature elements of anticipation of an event (Hobfoll’s [1989]
notion of threat of resource loss; Lazarus and Folkman’s [1984]
notion of threat appraisal; Beehr and Bhagat’s [1985] discussion of
uncertainty; Aspinwall’s [2005] discussion of proactive coping).
Although there has been some research demonstrating that antic-
ipated workplace events in particular impact well-being outcomes
(see Caplan & Jones, 1975; Casper, Sonnentag, & Tremmel, 2017;

1
 2 DISTASO AND SHOSS
Eden, 1990; Shoss, 2017), this research has tended to not consider
anticipated change in a circumstance separately from the circum-
stance itself. Thus, the question of how anticipating a change in a
stressor (i.e., workload) impacts reactions to the current levels of
that stressor remains unresolved.
With regard to workload, we argue that workload changes are
one of the many changes in job conditions that employees are
aware of and anticipate. For example, accountants know that the
spring is a busy season. Retail workers know in advance that
weekends are particularly busy shopping days. Teachers learn over
time which classes are the most demanding and anticipate that
there is more to do at the beginning and end of the year than in the
middle. Technical support staff anticipate more difficult inquiries
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when new, unfamiliar software is issued. These examples highlight
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an important question: How are our reactions to our current work-
load changed when we anticipate increases or decreases in work-
load? Despite progress made in our understanding of workload as
a stressor, there is a lack of theoretical and empirical research on
how anticipating workload changes affects reactions to current
workload levels.
This article seeks to answer this question of whether expecta-
tions about the future influence reactions to present workload.
Drawing from and building on the conservation of resources
(COR) theory (Hobfoll, 1989), we hypothesize that anticipated
changes in workload will buffer or aggravate the relationship
between current workload and exhaustion depending on the tra-
jectory of the anticipated change (i.e., anticipated decrease or
increase). When workload is anticipated to decrease, we hypoth-
esize that employees view this as an opportunity for recovery and
react less negatively to their current workload. When workload is
anticipated to increase, we hypothesize that employees process this
as a lack of opportunity to recover spent resources and a threat to
future resources. As a result, they react more negatively to their
current workload. Thus, by assessing both current workload and
anticipated changes in workload, we explore how current experi-
ences interact with anticipated changes.
This study moves the workload and broader occupational health
psychology literature forward in several important ways. Specifi-
cally, we determine whether employees integrate expectations
about the future into their emotional reactions to their current work
conditions. This is important for both theory and practice, as both
have yet to take into account people’s perceptions of future
changes in understanding their reactions to current workplace
conditions. Indeed, our findings suggest that our understanding of
emotional strain would benefit from considering not only how
people perceive their current workload but also the extent to which
they anticipate their workload levels will change. We also further
COR theory by suggesting that perceptions of current resource
expenditure (i.e., workload) function in an interactive manner with
perceptions of opportunities for recovery (i.e., anticipated work-
load change) to impact current levels of emotional strain. In this
sense, we offer COR theory as an overarching metatheory that may
help future research consider how current conditions interact with
the anticipated change in those conditions to shape emotional
outcomes. In the sections that follow, we briefly review the liter-
ature on workload and emotional strain before turning our atten-
tion to how anticipated workload change should moderate this
relationship.
Workload and Emotional Strain
Workload refers to the amount or difficulty of job tasks that an
employee has at a given period of time (Spector & Jex, 1998).
High workload is characterized by an excessive level of job tasks
that cannot be managed within a time span. The relation between
workload and well-being is supported theoretically by resource-
based stress theories such as the COR theory (Hobfoll, 1989).
According to this theory, workload represents a stressor in the
work environment that consumes psychological, physical, or other
valued personal resources. The consumption of resources, in turn,
instigates the psychological stress process. This process produces
negative emotional, cognitive, and behavioral outcomes of stress
called strains. In this vein, researchers have consistently found that
an employee’s workload is associated negatively with well-being
outcomes (Alarcon, 2011; Lee & Ashforth, 1996; Podsakoff et al.,
2007; Spector & Jex, 1998).
Emotional strain is a frequently studied strain resulting from
workload (Alarcon, 2011; Demerouti, Bakker, Nachreiner, &
Schaufeli, 2001; Sonnentag, Kuttler, & Fritz, 2010; Spector & Jex,
1998). For example, Spector and Jex’s (1998) early meta-analysis
found that workload is associated with affective strains (frustra-
tion, anxiety), and Alarcon’s (2011) more recent meta-analysis of
231 work stress studies found that workload predicted emotional
exhaustion and other facets of burnout. Because COR theory and
empirical evidence consistently indicate that workload is associ-
ated with emotional strains, we hypothesize that workload will
predict emotional strain in the current study. We offer this hypoth-
esis to replicate previous findings and to lay the groundwork for
the hypothesized moderating effect of anticipated changes in
workload.
Hypothesis 1: Workload is positively associated with emo-
tional strain.
The Changing Nature of Workload
The work environment is dynamic, and its conditions change
frequently. Within-person studies have shown that workload is a
dynamic stressor that varies within jobs (Ilies et al., 2010). More-
over, the study of work intensification shows that job demands
have increased alongside economic and societal changes (Green,
2001; Green & McIntosh, 2001). The assignment of new tasks,
changes to the way tasks are carried out, the introduction of a new
team member, and new technological advances all represent situ-
ations that affect the level of workload that an employee must
manage. Workload demands can change from day-to-day, week-
to-week, and month-to-month. Workload that is highly demanding
at one point in time may become less demanding or more demand-
ing in the future.
We argue that employees frequently anticipate changes in their
work environment as part of a human instinct to think about the
future. Workload ebbs and flows, and employees anticipate when
changes to their circumstances will affect their workload. Teachers
know in advance when the summer break begins. Emergency room
staff know that their work will be more demanding during flu
season than other times of the year. Hospitality employees know
which months are their busy season. An employee whose team
member announces a vacation knows that they will have to man-
age that team member’s workload until they return. Our study is
 LOOKING FORWARD
intended to address these cases where changes are foreseen, re-
gardless of whether the anticipated workload changes become
reality.
COR Theory and Anticipated Workload Change
The broad concept of anticipation has been addressed sporadi-
cally in stress research. Laboratory research has found that indi-
viduals experience a variety of stress-related responses when they
anticipate a stressful event. Outcomes of anticipating a stressful
experience include increased negative affect, heart rate, skin con-
ductance, and cortisol levels (Epstein & Roupenian, 1970; Gaab,
Rohleder, Nater, & Ehlert, 2005; Waugh, Panage, Mendes, &
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Gotlib, 2010). Research also suggests that those who anticipate
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positive outcomes in the future are more likely to use problem-
focused coping strategies (Scheier, Weintraub, & Carver, 1986),
appraise hypothetical future stressors as controllable (Peacock &
Wong, 1996), and have positive physical well-being (Scheier &
Carver, 1987). These findings suggest that our beliefs about the
future have a substantial impact on stress-related outcomes. Yet,
with few exceptions (e.g., the notion of uncertainty in the role
stressor literature; Harvey et al., 2017), people’s cognitions about
future have rarely been the focus on theory and research in occu-
pational stress literature.
Within occupational stress research specifically, Beehr (1998)
and Beehr and Bhagat (1985) theorized that perceptions of the
future (uncertainty, importance, and perceived duration of imag-
ined future stressors) are key predictors of experienced stress. The
importance of beliefs about the future is showcased in the study of
job insecurity, which is grounded primarily in resource-based
theories of stress. Job insecurity reflects anticipation of a potential
change in employment status (De Witte, 1999; Shoss, 2017), and
its relationship with emotional strain is well established (De
Cuyper, Bernhard-Oettel, Berntson, De Witte, & Alarco, 2008; De
Witte et al., 2010). Job insecurity researchers frame job insecurity
as a threat to future resources and frequently use COR theory to
explain job insecurity’s effects (Benson et al., 2017; Cheng,
Mauno, & Lee, 2014; De Cuyper, Mäkikangas, Kinnunen, Mauno,
& Witte, 2012; Jiang & Probst, 2014, 2017; Ünal-Karagüven,
2009). Particularly relevant to the current study, Shoss, Brummel,
Probst, and Jiang (2020) recently used COR to argue that job
insecurity and job satisfaction interact to shape a variety of out-
comes, suggesting that people’s anticipated change in job status
may shape how they respond to their current job conditions.
Little research has examined future-oriented cognition related to
workload. Casper et al. (Casper & Sonnentag, 2020; Casper et al.,
2017) have examined daily workload anticipation and its effects on
behavior and well-being. They found that individuals engage in
both productive (e.g., work-related planning) and counterproduc-
tive (e.g., worrying) coping in response to anticipating a high
workload and that these anticipatory coping strategies predict
exhaustion and vigor. However, they did not examine how antic-
ipated workload shapes reactions to current workload, nor did they
examine beliefs about how workload would change. Thus, our
focus is on anticipated change in workload and on the moderating
role of anticipated workload change on the current workload–
emotional strain relationship.
The COR theory posits that individuals are motivated to acquire,
maintain, and protect their resources and that psychological stress
3
is the result of both the actual or perceived threat of resource loss.
We argue that the COR theory can be framed as a metatheory that
unifies the aforementioned findings while guiding the hypotheses
of the present study. Hobfoll (1989, 2001) emphasized that both
actual and perceived resource loss instigate the psychological
stress process. Further, the COR theory makes propositions about
the importance of opportunities for resource gain. The anticipation
of circumstances that lead to the acquisition of more resources or
replacement of expended resources is theorized to reduce psycho-
logical stress (Hobfoll, 1989). The COR theory’s emphasis not
only on current resource loss but also on the importance of per-
ceived threats of loss and opportunities for gain makes it useful for
making predictions about the role of anticipated changes in work-
load.
According to the COR theory, current workload represents
current resource loss. As described earlier, workload requires the
expenditure of resources, such as time, energy, and effort. When
workload is high, the environment requires greater expenditure of
personal resources, which leads to emotional strain. We advance
the COR theory by applying its concepts of future resource threat
and resource gain to future-oriented cognition. First, we argue that
anticipation of a workload increase reflects a threat of future
resource loss and the denial of an opportunity for resource recov-
ery. Second, the anticipation of a workload decrease maps onto
Hobfoll’s (1989) concept of opportunity for future resource gain.
We hypothesize that current workload and anticipated workload
change operate in an interactive fashion. That is, the strength of the
relationship between workload and emotional strain will be influ-
enced by anticipated changes in workload. The nature of the
moderation effect will depend on whether workload is anticipated
to increase or decrease. We illustrate the expected pattern of
relationships for those anticipating workload increases and de-
creases in the sections in the following text.
Anticipated Workload Increase
When employees anticipate a workload increase, they are cued
that their future resources are threatened. This can occur, for
example, when an employee’s team member leaves the company,
and the employee becomes responsible for her own tasks and her
team member’s tasks for an indefinite period of time. An antici-
pated increase also signals that the employee may not have the
opportunity to replenish or replace resources that have already
been invested to address the current workload, suggesting that
current workload and anticipated changes in workload work in an
interactive fashion. As current workload increases, anticipation of
a further increased workload is viewed as more of a threat. These
conditions prompt employees to continue mobilizing psychologi-
cal resources, or even expend more resources, to address their
workload without the promise of recovery. Because both current
and future resources are threatened, and there is no perceived
opportunity to recover, we predict that the relationship between
current workload and emotional strain will be particularly strong
and positive when employees anticipate a workload increase.
Anticipated Workload Decrease
Anticipated workload decrease occurs when an employee be-
lieves that their task demands will become easier to manage. This
 4 DISTASO AND SHOSS
occurs, for example, when an employee is joined by a new team
member who will take on some of that employee’s workload. In
this case, the employee is not faced with the threat of future
resource loss but with the promise of resource recovery. The
anticipated workload decrease signals that the employee will have
an opportunity to cease investing personal resources on the current
workload and to replenish invested resources. This suggests an
interaction between current workload and the anticipated workload
change. Specifically, we expect the anticipation of a workload
decrease to buffer the harmful effects of current workload on
current emotional strain by changing employees’ outlook on their
current workload.
In sum, our second hypothesis states that anticipated workload
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change moderates the relationship between current workload and
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emotional strain by (a) promising the possibility of future resource
recovery and/or (b) threatening future resources.
Hypothesis 2: Anticipated changes in workload moderate
(buffer or aggravate) the positive relationship between current
workload and emotional strain such that workload and emo-
tional strain have a weaker relationship when the employee
anticipates a workload decrease and a stronger relationship
when the employee anticipates a workload increase.
Method
Procedure and Sample
This project received institutional review board approval from
the Saint Louis University institutional review board, Project Title
“Work and Well-Being Over Time,” Protocol Number 22852.
Data were collected at a market research firm in the Midwestern
United States. Employees in this company work on a project basis
where their workload and work hours are based on the project
needs. Management described employees’ workload as having
peaks and valleys based on the different projects and stated that
employees were able to anticipate future projects coming down the
pipeline. Projects tended to last about a month, and therefore
workload tended to change on a monthly basis. Employees were
invited to complete a brief survey each month for 1 year to
investigate the ebb and flow of work stress. Participants could start
participating in the study at any time throughout the study’s
duration and were eligible for compensation for each month that
they completed a survey. In total, 61 unique participants completed
at least one survey, and a total of 154 observations were made. The
sample’s mean age was 40.89 years, and 80.33% of participants
were female. On average, participants had been working at the
company for 3.85 years. Participants were enrolled in raffles for
$10 Amazon gift cards as well as paid $2 for completion of each
survey.
Due to incomplete data, 141 observations from 56 participants
(M ⫽ 2.48; SD ⫽ 2.27) were included in the analyses. We
performed several analyses to investigate the nature of our missing
data (further details are available from the authors). As an over-
arching analysis, we predicted the number of survey responses per
person from the person-level average of the main study variables
and from demographics. There were no statistically significant
relationships between our study variables or demographics and
number of surveys completed. However, given that participants
could begin participation at any point, we performed several
follow-up analyses specifically looking at how workload, antici-
pated workload change, and emotional strain may have impacted
responses. These analyses indicated that none of the three study
variables predicted the length of time between first and second
surveys (e.g., participants who responded to surveys in Months 1
and 4 vs. in Months 1 and 2). Emotional strain, but not workload
nor anticipated workload change, at the respondent’s initial survey
predicted whether this respondent completed a second survey at
any point during the study. Finally, emotional strain, but not
workload nor anticipated workload change, during any survey
predicted whether a participant responded to the subsequent
month’s survey. Together, results from these four analyses suggest
that our missing data fall on the continuum between missing at
random and missing not at random, with some analyses suggesting
missing not at random whereas others suggesting missing at ran-
dom. The type of missingness in the present study is best catego-
rized as stochastic range restriction (Newman, 2014) because
participants with high emotional strain during their first survey
were slightly less likely to respond to future surveys. Newman
explained that this can make it less likely for analyses to detect true
effects. Newman (2009) advocated for the use of maximum like-
lihood estimation in the cases where data are missing completely
at random or at random to mitigate any potential bias. Following
this advice, we use maximum likelihood estimation, which heavily
reduces the chance of biased estimates.
Measures
Workload. Current workload was measured using six items
from Caplan, Cobb, French, Harrison, and Pinneau (1980) and
adapted slightly based on communication with the organization’s
leaders. Participants indicated their qualitative and quantitative
workload during the past month. As recommended by Caplan et al.
(1980), the items (a) “How often does your job require you to work
very fast?” and (b) “How often does your job require you to work
very hard?” were scored on a 5-point frequency Likert scale
ranging from 1 (rarely) to 5 (very often). The remaining four items
(“Over the past month, what quantity of work did others expect
you to do?”, “Over the past month, how much difficulty was
involved in the completion of your job duties?”, “Over the past
month, how many lulls between heavy workload periods do you
have?” [reverse coded], and “Over the past month, how many
projects, assignments, or tasks did you have?”) were scored on a
Likert scale ranging from 1 (hardly any) to 5 (a great deal).
Cronbach’s ␣ was .86. The workload was grand-mean centered for
the analyses.
Anticipated workload change. Anticipated workload change
was measured using three items adapted from Caplan et al. (1980).
The scale prompted the participants to reflect on what the changes
they expect to see in various aspects of their work over the course
of the next month. The three items were as follows: “The amount
of work you have to do,” “The difficulty of work you have to do,”
and “The amount of time pressure you have.” Responses were
scored on the Likert scale ranging from 1 (decrease a lot) to 5
(increase a lot). These items were then centered such that 0
represented an anticipation that workload would stay the same,
with lower scores representing an anticipated decrease in workload
and higher scores representing an anticipated increase in workload
 LOOKING FORWARD
to facilitate interpretation. Therefore, negative scores indicated
that participants expected a decrease in workload and positive
indicated that participants expected an increase in workload. Cron-
bach’s ␣ was .82.
Emotional strain. Emotional strain was measured using six
items from Krischer, Penney, and Hunter (2010). Participants were
asked to indicate how frequently their job made them feel an
indicated emotion during the past month. These six items were as
follows: “My job made me feel frustrated,” “My job made me feel
discouraged,” “My job made me feel frustrated,” “My job made
me feel gloomy,” “My job made me feel fatigued,” and “My job
made me feel miserable.” Responses were scored on a Likert scale
ranging from 1 (never) to 5 (extremely often). Cronbach’s ␣ was
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.90.
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Results
Descriptive statistics and correlations among study variables are
displayed in Table 1. Current workload was positively associated
with emotional strain (r ⫽ .26). Anticipated workload change was
not significantly associated with emotional strain (r ⫽ .05), which
fits with our contention that anticipated workload change may
work in conjunction with current workload to impact emotional
strain.
We used multilevel modeling techniques using the STATA
software’s xtmixed command to assess our hypothesis because of
the nested nature of the data (e.g., individuals responding on
multiple occasions; Snijders & Bosker, 2012). This technique
corrects standard errors for nonindependence of observations and
uses maximum likelihood estimation for assessing regression ef-
fects. Before conducting our analyses, we grand-mean centered
workload and calculated the interaction of the grand-mean cen-
tered workload variable and the anticipated workload change scale
centered at its midpoint (with 0 representing an anticipation that
workload would stay the same). Then, we regressed emotional
strain on workload, anticipated workload change, and the interac-
tion of workload and anticipated workload change. Multilevel
regression results are in Table 2. As seen there and in line with
Hypothesis 1, workload predicted emotional strain (␥ ⫽ .21, SE ⫽
.09, p ⬍ .05). Hypothesis 2 predicted that anticipated workload
change would moderate the relationship between current workload
and emotional strain. As expected, this interaction was statistically
significant (␥ ⫽ .31, SE ⫽ 0.09, p ⬍ .001).
We examined the nature of the current workload-anticipated
changes in workload interaction by calculating the simple slopes of
the relationship between workload and emotional strain levels
corresponding to anticipated slight decrease, anticipated no
Table 1
Means, Standard Deviations, Reliabilities, and Correlations
Among Study 1 Variables
Variable M SD 1 2 3 stay the same or increase, with the latter exacerbating the harmful
1. Current workload 3.75 0.72 (.86)
2. Anticipated workload change 0.31 0.67 ⫺.17ⴱ (.82)
3. Emotional strain 2.44 0.79 .26ⴱ ⫺.05 (.90)
Note. All correlations marked with an asterisk (ⴱ) are significant at p ⬍
.05. Internal consistency reliabilities are provided on the diagonal.
5
Table 2
Multilevel Regression Results Predicting Emotional Strain
95% CI
Model parameter ␥ (SE) LL UL
Constant 2.59 (.10)ⴱ 2.38 2.79
Current workload 0.21 (.09)ⴱ 0.03 0.39
Anticipated workload change ⫺0.07 (.09) ⫺0.24 0.11
Workload ⫻ Ant. Change 0.31 (.09)ⴱ 0.13 0.50
Psuedo R2a .26
Note. CI ⫽ confidence interval; LL ⫽ lower limit; UL ⫽ upper limit;
Ant. ⫽ anticipated workload. All coefficients marked with an asterisk (ⴱ)
are significant at p ⬍ .05.
a
Psuedo R2 was calculated as the percentage decrease in residual variance
from a null, intercept-only model predicting emotional strain.
change, and anticipated slight increase, respectively (i.e., ⫹1, 0,
and ⫺1) of anticipated workload change (see Figure 1). When
participants anticipated that workload would stay the same, there
was a statistically significant relationship between workload and
emotional strain (␥ ⫽ .21; SE ⫽ .09, p ⬍ .05). When participants
anticipated an increase in workload, we predicted that the
workload– exhaustion relationship would be aggravated. This pre-
diction was supported, as the relationship between workload and
emotional strain was potentiated and remained statistically signif-
icant (␥ ⫽ .52, SE ⫽ .10, p ⬍ .001). On the other hand, we
predicted that the relationship is weaker when participants antici-
pate a decrease in their future workload. This prediction was
supported, as workload anticipation buffered the relationship be-
tween workload and emotional strain, and this relationship became
nonsignificant (␥ ⫽ ⫺.10, SE ⫽ .16, p ⫽ .52). Thus, Hypothesis
2 was supported.
Discussion
The current study extends our understanding of the workload–
emotional strain relationship by assessing employees’ anticipated
change in workload. We suggested that workload changes could be
anticipated and influence how current workload impacts emotional
strain before the change even takes place. In particular, applying
the concepts of resource threat and recovery from the COR theory
(Hobfoll, 1989), we predicted that anticipated workload increase
would exacerbate the relationship between current workload and
emotional strain, whereas anticipated workload decrease would
buffer the relationship between current workload and emotional
strain.
The results supported our hypotheses. When workload was
anticipated to stay the same, there was a positive relationship
between current workload and emotional strain. However, when
workload was anticipated to decrease, the workload– emotional
strain slope became nonsignificant. When workload was antici-
pated to increase, the positive workload– emotional strain slope
was strengthened. Thus, current workload is associated with emo-
tional strain under the conditions that workload is anticipated to
effects of current workload.
Theoretical Implications
This study has important theoretical implications for the study
of workload. Survey research on workload and other occupational
 6 DISTASO AND SHOSS
3.5
Emotional Strain
2.5
2
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1.5
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1
Low Workload (-1 SD)
Current Workload
Figure 1. The effect of current workload on emotional strain by levels of anticipated change in workload.
stressors primarily involve asking about participants’ experience
with a recent or present stressor over a given period of time.
However, participants have not been asked how they believe that
these conditions will change. This leaves a major gap in the
literature because workload levels change over time and employ-
ees are able to anticipate future changes using information avail-
able to them in the present. Our study finds that participants make
predictions about how stressors may change in the future and,
more importantly, that these predictions influence their emotional
strain in the present.
This study also supports and contributes to the broader psycho-
logical literature on future-oriented cognition. This literature has
found that people invest considerable time and energy into think-
ing about and trying to anticipate the future (Atance & O’Neill,
2001). The broadest implication of our findings is that future-
oriented cognitions interact with cognitions about present condi-
tions to impact employee strain.
Scattered research has examined future-oriented cognitions and
their associations with stress (Casper & Sonnentag, 2020; Waugh
et al., 2010) and the effect of workload changes on well-being
(Franke, 2015; Green, 2004). However, few studies have examined
how anticipated changes in stressors interact with current levels of
stressors to impact emotional well-being. One of the reasons for
this limited research may have been a lack of theoretical frame-
work in which to understand these types of effects. In the current
studies, we extend Hobfoll’s (1989) COR theory to address antic-
ipated change in stressors and the role anticipated change plays in
shaping reactions to current stressors. The COR theory specifies
three phenomena that induce stress: (a) actual resource loss, (b)
threat of future resource loss, and (c) lack of resource recovery
following resource investment. Building from the COR theory, we
framed threat of resource loss and perceived opportunity for re-
covery as future-oriented phenomena distinct from current re-
source loss. We advance the COR theory by hypothesizing and
identifying an interaction between constructs representing these
phenomena. This interaction effect was not explicitly theorized by
Hobfoll (1989). However, our study provides evidence that current
Decrease
Stay Same
Increase
High Workload (+1 SD)
resource loss and perceived threat of resource loss/perceived op-
portunity for resource recovery influence emotional strain in an
interactive fashion. We encourage future research to explore this
type of interaction in shaping employees’ reactions to different
types of work stressors.
Practical Implications
Our study also has practical takeaways. Our results suggest that
employees may be more willing to endure stressful circumstances
if they anticipate that will have a chance to recover. In many
occupations (e.g., teaching), there are clear beginning and end
points to busy periods, and employees can look forward to the
eventual break in workload. There is evidence of this in our data;
we found that current workload was negatively (but weakly)
associated with anticipated workload change (r ⫽ ⫺.17). This
finding seems to suggest that particularly high or low workload
periods were perceived as temporary. When high workload periods
do have ambiguous end points, leaders should take the initiative to
reduce employees’ emotional strain. Specifically, management
should both provide opportunities for recovery and also make sure
that employees are aware of when they will have recovery so that
they will look forward to it. They can do this by ensuring employ-
ees that the high workload period is temporary and communicating
to employees when and how they can expect a workload decrease
(e.g., by redistributing tasks) in the future. Of course, some work-
load changes may be more permanent and ongoing in nature, such
as those posed by organizational restructuring or downsizings
(Green, 2004). Our results support Green’s (2004) discussion that
continued intensification may have detrimental consequences for
well-being to the extent to which job intensification reflects both
high workload and high anticipated workload.
Limitations and Future Research Opportunities
As with any study, this study has several limitations that should
be acknowledged and addressed in future research. A limitation of
 LOOKING FORWARD
this study is the lack of clarity regarding how well the study’s
findings would generalize to other occupations because the sample
comes from a single company in a specific field. Employees in the
present study were in market research, a field in which workload
changes are common and expected. Because employees in this
field are commonly engaged in project-based work, it is possible
that they are better equipped to cope with workload changes than
employees in occupations in which workload changes are less
frequent (Schneider, 1987). Future research might examine these
hypotheses in other occupations and across various timeframes.
These job-level contextual factors may influence expectations re-
garding workload change, and these employees with different
expectations may react differently whenever workload changes do
This article is intended solely for the personal use of the individual user and is not to be disseminated broadly.
occur. The COR theory does not make specific propositions about
This document is copyrighted by the American Psychological Association or one of its allied publishers.
how these contextual factors may influence perceptions of future
resource loss or opportunities for recovery, so more theoretical and
empirical development is needed in this area.
Some limitations relate to the nature of the data. In particular,
missingness presents a potential challenge to our data. Although
missingness did not appear to be driven by workload or anticipated
change in workload, there was some evidence that emotional strain
influenced whether individuals responded to surveys. Newman
(2014) discussed several challenges associated with missing data,
including potential restriction in range, Type II errors (false neg-
atives) due to lower power, and concerns about generalizability. In
our case, the type of missingness in the present study is best
categorized as stochastic range restriction (Newman, 2014) be-
cause participants with high emotional strain during their first
survey were slightly less likely to respond to subsequent surveys,
although emotional strain did not predict the total number of
surveys an individual completed. The challenge with stochastic
range restriction is that it may make it more difficult to uncover
effects predicting the dependent variable, especially when pairwise
or listwise deletion occurs. However, following Newman (2014),
we used maximum likelihood estimation to mitigate any potential
bias. Still, we encourage future research to replicate this work in
both field and laboratory settings and to examine the extent to
which our findings generalize to other industries and types of jobs.
These results are based on self-reports, and the relationships
among the key variables could be inflated slightly due to common-
method bias (Podsakoff, MacKenzie, Lee, & Podsakoff, 2003).
However, self-report correlations may be closer to true-score cor-
relations (Conway & Lance, 2010), and common-method variance
cannot create spurious interactions (Siemsen, Roth, & Oliveira,
2010). As recommended by Podsakoff et al. (2003), we took steps
to minimizing common-method bias by separating measures used
in the present study into different survey subsections and leaving
the primary purpose of the study ambiguous. Still, other studies
should try to replicate these findings using objective measures of
constructs when appropriate (e.g., measuring hours worked as a
proxy for current workload). Future studies could also extend our
findings by exploring the effects of workload and anticipated
workload change on physiological indicators of stress-related out-
come variables in place of self-reported emotional strain. These
objective indicators also have weaknesses (Spector, 2006) but will
be able to complement our understanding of the phenomena ex-
amined in the present study.
Finally, longitudinal work may be useful to uncover the effects
of other aspects of predictions about future workload. It is impor-
7
tant to note that the present study did not examine the perceived
duration of anticipated changes, and the participants in the present
study expected frequent workload changes. Although frequent and
abrupt changes may be the norm for many jobs, some macrolevel
research (Green & McIntosh, 2001) has also suggested that work-
load in certain jobs and industries has increased gradually over
time. These changes are presumed to be permanent rather than
temporary. Some occupational stress theory suggests that the per-
ceived duration of negative changes is an important determinant of
stress (Beehr, 1998; Beehr & Bhagat, 1985). Longitudinal research
would also be useful to examine the impact of anticipated duration
of workload changes as well as the consequences of mispredictions
(e.g., anticipated increase but workload decreased; anticipated
decrease but workload increased) on strain.
Concluding Remarks
Our study highlights the importance of considering future-
oriented cognition in occupational stress research. Although re-
searchers have applied the COR theory to occupational stress
research in the past, we advanced the COR theory by mapping
some of its key propositions onto the concept of anticipated
workload change. Our study is unique in that it assessed both
current perceptions of workload and anticipated changes in work-
load. When employees anticipated a workload increase, the rela-
tion between workload and emotional strain was strengthened.
When employees anticipated a workload decrease, however, the
relation between workload and emotional strain was buffered. Our
results provide support for idea that employees are more likely to
tolerate stressful circumstances if they see the proverbial “light at
the end of the tunnel.”
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Received August 1, 2019
Revision received June 19, 2020
Accepted July 14, 2020 䡲