Recent research on the communication of affection illuminates its implications for mental and physical health. In particular, affectionate communication has been shown to covary with healthy hormonal variation and accelerated recovery from stress. The present study focuses on the association between marital affection and hormonal markers of stress regulation, including cortisol, dehydroepiandrosterone-sulfate (DHEA-S), and their ratio. Twenty healthy adults and spouses provided independent reports of their propensity for verbal, nonverbal, and support-based expressions of affection prior to providing saliva samples that were assayed for cortisol and DHEA-S. As hypothesized, spouses’ reports of verbal, nonverbal, and supportive affection significantly predicted participants’ waking cortisol levels, cortisol change, and cortisol:DHEA-S ratio. Participants’ own reports of affection were predictive of cortisol:DHEA-S ratio for verbal affection behaviors only, and were not predictive of participants’ waking cortisol, cortisol change, or DHEA-S. In addition, spouses’ reports of verbal, nonverbal, and supportive affection predicted participants’ evening cortisol levels. Results illustrate that affectionate communication from one's spouse is related to hormonal stress regulation and suggest the possibility that interventions designed to increase affectionate behavior in romantic relationships may have stress-ameliorating physiological effects.

This study updates and extends current understandings of the organizational experiences likely to evoke positive emotions by examining 835 U.S. employees' responses of their best workplace experiences. Responses included 17 positive experiences (recognition, relationships, reward, autonomy, appreciation, success, supervisor/mentor, climate, opportunity, teamwork, resources, altruistic work, voice, social support, flexibility, challenge, and triumph) that typified five social discourses (power–empowerment, individualism–uniqueness, success–accomplishment, belonging–affiliation, and safety–security). Employee responses underscore the idea that the experiences at work evoking positive emotions are predominantly social (positive affective responses to others) and rooted in social, historical discourses or systems of meaning.

Emotional labor research largely focuses on client-facing occupations. However, employees across occupations engage in emotional labor when they perceive that specific types of emotional communication are required to align with organizational expectations. The current two-week daily survey study of 42 employees was conducted at a small website development company to examine relationships between employees’ emotional labor, physical health, and psychological well-being. Results indicated that daily emotional labor surface acting was significantly negatively related to daily psychological well-being and daily physical health. However, daily emotional labor deep acting was not significantly related to daily psychological well-being or daily physical health. After aggregating emotional labor across days, results revealed a significant positive relationship between emotional labor and burnout. This study enhances organizational awareness of the relationship between emotional communication expectations and employees’ psychological and physical health. Research-driven practices are detailed to ameliorate the negative side effects of emotional labor communication demands.

Drawing on a national survey of 447 U.S. workers who transitioned to remote work during COVID-19, this study examined how different types of communication technologies (CTs) used for work and private life were associated with work/life conflicts and perceptions of social support across different relationship types (coworker, family, and friends). Findings indicated that work/life conflicts became aggravated when the use of CTs violated relational norms (e.g., mobile texting with coworkers and emailing with family and friends). On the other hand, uses of CTs that were perceived to offer access to social support (e.g., instant messaging with coworkers and friends) were related to lower work/life conflict. Social media (e.g., Facebook) had a direct relationship to higher work/life conflict, but an indirect relationship to lower work/life conflict through social support. Overall, findings suggest that individuals attempt to create work/life boundaries by selecting specific CTs when physical work/life boundaries are collapsed.

This paper examines an increasingly popular yet underexplored form of organizational employment: internships. Drawing on interviews with 40 interns, this study explores the communicative tensions they faced and how two different groups of interns, satisfied versus dissatisfied, reported their responses to these tensions. Data revealed three key tensions that distinguished the two groups: identity work based on being an inexperienced student worker versus a competent employee, a focus on present versus future, and a preference for close versus distant supervision. The article discusses the implications of using different approaches to manage these tensions on identity work.

Nonprofit organizations are a context where workers’ passion and commitment to their work may make it more difficult to negotiate between professional work and private life demands. Challenges in navigating work and life are important issues for individual sustainability and influence organizational sustainability in terms of retention and organizational commitment. As new employees join an organization, they are socialized into the rhythm and norms of the workplace; therefore, early employment provides an important juncture to study how new employees come to understand work-life expectations. This qualitative study considers 55 interviews with new employees (employed six months or less) at a nonprofit social welfare organization which was concerned with high employee turnover. Participants described how they came to the organization, how they learned the expected behaviors for their positions and messages received from organizational members (e.g., supervisors and coworkers) and social groups outside of the organization (e.g., family and friends) pertaining to managing work and life responsibilities. Findings highlight the importance of communication, extend organizational assimilation concepts, and offer practical implications to enhance sustainability for organizations and employees.