Personality and Individual Differences 35 (2003) 1669–1683

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Work–family conflict and its relations to well-being:

the role of personality as a moderating factor
Ulla Kinnunena,*, Ad Vermulstb, Jan Gerrisb, Anne Mäkikangasa
a
Family Research Unit, PO Box 35 (Agora), FIN-40014 University of Jyväskylä, Finland
b
Institute of Family and Child Care Studies, Catholic University of Nijmegen, The Netherlands

Received 8 April 2002; received in revised form 1 October 2002; accepted 2 December 2002

Abstract
The aim of the present study was to examine the role of the Big Five personality dimensions as possible
moderating factors between two types of work–family conflicts: work interference with family (WIF); and
family interference with work (FIW); and their relationship to well-being in the domains of work and
family generally as well. The participants were fathers (n=296) who took part in a national family research
project in the Netherlands in 1995. All fathers were employed full-time. The results showed that emotional
stability moderated the relationships between WIF and job exhaustion and between WIF and depression.
In addition, agreeableness moderated the relationship between FIW and marital satisfaction. Conse-
quently, emotionally stable fathers were protected from negative effects of WIF on well-being at work (job
exhaustion) and on general well-being (depression). In the same way, agreeable fathers were protected from
negative effects of FIW on marital satisfaction. Besides these moderating effects, both WIF and FIW and
emotional stability and agreeableness had main effects on well-being.
# 2003 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.
Keywords: Work–family conflicts; Job exhaustion; Depression; Marital satisfaction; Personality; Moderator

1. Introduction

Recently the topic of work–family conflict has been of particular interest due to the radical
changes of work and family responsibilities. Both American (Eagle, Miles, & Icenogle, 1997;
Frone, Russell, & Cooper, 1992a) and European, for example, Dutch (Geurts, Kompier, Rox-
burgh, & Houtman, in press) and Finnish (Kinnunen & Mauno, 1998) studies indicate that some
40% to even 78% of employed parents experience work–family conflict at least some of the time.

* Corresponding author. Tel.: +358-14-2602870; fax: +358-14-2602811.

E-mail address: ulla.kinnunen@psyka.jyu.fi (U. Kinnunen).

0191-8869/03/$ - see front matter # 2003 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.
doi:10.1016/S0191-8869(02)00389-6
1670 U. Kinnunen et al. / Personality and Individual Differences 35 (2003) 1669–1683

Problems in balancing work–family interface have most often been studied among employed
women, because women are still primarily responsible for the home and children, and therefore
they have to balance the demands arising from family and work roles. However, in this study we
concentrated on studying the experiences of fathers, which can be considered as a partly neglected
issue. The new role demands have also been focused on men as they have become more involved
with their families. Thus, the result may be an increase in the conflict between the demands of
work and those of the family among both sexes.
Cross-sectional research provides consistent evidence that work–family conflict is associated
with various negative work-, family- and stress-related outcomes (see, Allen, Herts, Bruck, &
Sutton, 2000). Frone (2000) has shown that, depending on the type of work–family conflict and
type of disorder, employees often experiencing work–family conflict were about 2–30 times more
likely than were employees who reported no work–family conflict, to experience a clinically sig-
nificant mental health problem. Also, some longitudinal studies have indicated that work–family
conflicts predict adverse health outcomes (Frone, Russell, & Cooper, 1997) and stress as well as
intentions to leave the organization (Kelloway, Gottlieb, & Barham, 1999). Consequently, pre-
vious studies have thus far concentrated on demonstrating the main effects of work–family con-
flict on well-being and shown that work–family issues are important research targets from the
view points of well-being of individuals, families as well as organizations.
However, previous research has not paid attention to the question of how these negative out-
comes related to work–family conflict may be avoided, that is, to the factors which may buffer the
effects of work–family conflict on well-being. In a recent meta-analysis, Allen et al. (2000) called
for these kind of studies, e.g. where variables that may influence the relationship between work–
family conflict and its consequences can be studied. In addition, Allen and her colleagues
suggested that it would be valuable to include into future studies such possible moderators as
organizational and personal characteristics. The purpose of the present study was to address
these concerns. Specifically, our aim was to shed light on this issue by studying the role of per-
sonality as a possible moderating factor between work–family conflict and its consequences. Thus
far dispositional or personality factors have been only minimally considered in studies of work–
family conflict.
Work–family conflict has been defined as a form of inter-role conflict in which the role pres-
sures from the work and family domains are mutually incompatible (Greenhaus & Beutell, 1985).
This definition of work–family conflict implies a bidirectional relation between work and family
life. In other words conflicts may originate in either domain. Recently, researchers have begun to
take this distinction about the directionality of the work and family interference (i.e. between
work interfering with family and family interfering with work) into account. Although these two
forms of conflict—work interference with family (WIF) and family interference with work
(FIW)—are strongly correlated with each other (Frone, Russell, & Cooper, 1992a, 1992b; Gutek,
Searle, & Klepa, 1991; Kinnunen & Mauno, 1998), individuals typically report more WIF than
FIW. According to Gutek et al. (1991), this may be due to the fact that work demands are easier
to quantify, but it may also be so that employees’ evaluations are coloured by expectations con-
cerning the characteristics of a good employee: a good employee is not supposed to think about
family matters at work or let them disturb her or his working, but a good employee may think
about work matters at home and thus let them interfere with her or his family life. Thus, as Frone
et al. (1992b) have stated, work and family boundaries are asymmetrically permeable.
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Another distinction which has been made is a tripartite classification of the types of work and
family conflict (Greenhaus & Beutell, 1985). Time-based conflict is experienced when time pres-
sures associated with one role prevent one from fulfilling the expectations of the other role.
Strain-based conflict is experienced when strain or fatigue in one role affects performance in the
other. Behaviour-based conflict occurs when specific behaviours required in one role are incom-
patible with behaviour expectations within another role. The latter form of work–family conflict
has been difficult to operationalize, and according to Kelloway et al. (1999), as a result there is
little empirical evidence for the existence of behaviour-based work–family conflict. However, for
example, Carlson (1999) found that each of the forms of conflict could be reliably measured and
had a unique set of antecedents, although the three dimensions of conflict correlated strongly
with each other. In our study, we were only able to distinguish between conflicts that originate in
either work or family (WIF and FIW), and both these types of conflict were time-based.
In the meta-analysis of Allen et al. (2000), the consequences of work–family conflict (WIF) were
divided into three categories: work-, non-work- and stress-related outcomes. In our study, we
focussed on indicators of each category. Of the work variables, job burnout was studied. A
number of studies have found that increased work–family conflict is related to increased job
burnout (e.g. Aryee, 1993; Kinnunen & Mauno, 1998; Netemeyer, Boles, & McMurrian, 1996),
and in the meta-analysis (Allen et al., 2000) the weighted mean correlation calculated across
studies that examined job burnout was 0.42.
Of non-work variables, we studied marital (marital satisfaction) and family (family climate)
relations. Previous results concerning marital domain have been mixed. For example, Coverman
(1989) found that higher work–family conflict was related to lower marital satisfaction for men
but not for women, whereas two studies revealed significant relationships for women but not for
men (Kinnunen & Mauno, 1998; Matthews, Conger, & Wickrama, 1996). However, there are also
studies where work–family conflict was not related to marital satisfaction, for example, this was
the case among teachers in the study by Netemeyer and his colleagues (1996). The weighted mean
correlation of work–family conflict for marital satisfaction found across studies was 0.23 in the
meta-analysis of Allen et al. (2000).
In the domain of family, family satisfaction has been studied most often. According to the
majority of these studies (Aryee, Luk, Leung, & Lo, 1999; Frone, Barnes, & Farrell, 1994;
Kopelman, Greenhaus, & Connolly, 1983; Rice, Frone, & McFarlin, 1992), family satisfaction is
negatively related to work–family conflict. However, there are also studies where no relationship
has been found (Parasuraman, Greenhaus, & Granrose, 1992; Parasuraman, Purohit, Godshalk,
& Beutell, 1996). It seems that the quality of family climate, which was examined in our study,
has not been studied as an outcome of work–family conflict, although it is quite natural to expect
that work–family conflict may also be negatively reflected in the family climate.
Of the stress-related outcomes, we studied depression. All the cross-sectional studies examining
work–family conflict and depression have indicated that increased work–family conflict is related to
increased depression (e.g. Frone, Russell, & Barnes, 1996; Frone et al., 1992a, 1992b; Netemeyer et al.,
1996). A weighted mean correlation across studies in the meta-analysis of Allen et al. (2000) turned out
to be 0.32. However, it should be noted that in a longitudinal study no relationship between work–
family conflict and depression was found over a 4-year time period (Frone et al., 1997).
Those results reported above concern the effects of WIF, which has been studied much more
often than FIW. Recently, however, researchers have also begun to investigate the outcomes of
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FIW. In the study by Frone et al. (1992a), FIW was related to both depressive symptomatology
and job stress, and in a 4-year longitudinal study by Frone et al. (1997), WIF predicted elevated
levels of depression and poor physical health. Also, Kelloway et al. (1999) have found that FIW
was a precursor to both stress and turnover intentions in a 6-month period. FIW has also been
shown to have relations to non-work outcomes. For example, Kinnunen and Mauno (1998)
found that FIW was related to marital and parental dissatisfaction. Consequently, it seems that
both types of conflict may have the same kind of effects, or at least their differential effects have
not yet been clearly shown.
As stated earlier, personality factors have not thus far been extensively studied in the context of
work–family conflict. This is partially surprising because stress researchers have recently given
special attention to the role of personality factors in stressor–strain relationships (e.g. Cooper &
Payne, 1991; Kahn & Byosiere, 1992), and the implicit hypothesis in many work–family studies
follows the stress paradigm: work and family conflict is considered as a potential stressor that
leads to various forms of stress reactions. There are only a couple of studies, in which personality
factors have been included. Carlson (1999) studied personality factors (type A behaviour and
negative affectivity) as antecedents of the three (time-, strain- and behavior-based) forms of
work–family conflict. He found that these dispositional variables explained significant additional
variance beyond the situation in all three forms of work–family conflict. Grandey and Cro-
panzano (1999), in turn, studied self-esteem as a moderating variable between four role stressors
and work, family and life distress, but did not find such effects. In addition, Noor (1997) did not
find any moderator role of negative affectivity when studying the relations between work and
family roles and well-being among women. In the study by Aryee et al. (1999), there existed no
moderating effects of emotion- and problem-focussed coping on the relationship between work–
family conflict and the well-being indicators of job, family and life satisfaction.
In our study, personality was approached in the framework of the Big Five, that is, emotional
stability, extraversion, conscientiousness, agreeableness, and openness to experience were con-
sidered (Goldberg, 1992). Due to the lack of previous studies, we did not pose any exact mod-
erator hypotheses. In fact, the hypothesis, to which previous studies refer, is that no moderating
effects of personality would exist between work–family conflict and its well-being outcomes.
However, main effects would be more probable; at least emotional stability could be hypothesized
to be linked to increased well-being in all three (work, non-work and stress-related) domains
examined; there is evidence that lack of emotional stability (i.e. neuroticism, negative affectivity)
is positively associated to job burnout (see Maslach, Schaufeli, & Leiter, 2001), marital dis-
satisfaction (see Karney & Bradbury, 1995) and depression (see Bagby, Joffe, Parker, Kalemba, &
Harkness, 1995; Bagby & Rector, 1998). In addition, there are findings referring to the possibility
that lack of emotional stability could also moderate the relationship between work–family con-
flict and well-being: the positive relationship between family stress and family–work conflict was
stronger for high negative affectivity individuals than for low negative affectivity individuals
(Stoeva, Chiu, & Greenhaus, 2002) and the effects of inter-role conflict on positive mood were
moderated by negative affectivity in women (Williams, Suls, Alliger, Learner, & Wan, 1991).
Of the other personality characteristics, extraversion and conscientiousness have been asso-
ciated with stress experience and coping. Extraversion especially predisposes one to experience
positive affects (Watson & Clark, 1992) and to engage in problem-focussed coping strategies and
as well to seek social support (Costa, Somerfield, & McCrae, 1995; Watson & Hubbard, 1996),
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but conscientiousness is also related to lower vulnerability to stress and to active problem solving
(Vollrath & Torgersen, 2000). It seems, thus, that both extraversion and conscientiousness can be
assumed to have positive effects on well-being. On the other hand, however, Kossek, Noe and
DeMarr (1999) have stated that conscientiousness may increase the experience of work–family
conflict, because conscientious individuals are likely to have high investment of energy and time
in both work and family roles; they have a commitment to ‘‘do their best’’ in whatever role they
are performing. As a result, their level of well-being might also decrease. The roles of openness to
experience and agreeableness are still less clear in this context, but persons with a high level of
openness to experience are imaginative, curious, and open-minded, which suggests they might be
creative in finding new ways to combine work and family lives, and consequently be pro-
tected from work–family conflicts and their negative effects (see Kossek et al., 1999). Agreeable
individuals view their experience in positive terms (Watson & Hubbard, 1996), and according
to McCrae and Costa (1991), agreeableness is related to global well-being. Consequently, it is
also possible that openness to experience as well as agreeableness may be positively related to
well-being.
In sum, we hypothesized, firstly, that the two types of work–family conflict would be related to
the examined well-being indicators. According to previous studies (see Allen et al., 2000), WIF
would have the strongest relationship to well-being in the domain of work (job burnout), the
second strongest to overall well-being (depression) and the least strongest to well-being in the
family domain (marital satisfaction and family climate). Correspondingly, our rationale for the
relationships between FIW and well-being was that they might be the strongest in the domain of
family and the least strongest in the domain of work (see Kinnunen & Mauno, 1998). Secondly,
we assumed that personality factors, and especially emotional stability, would have main effects
on well-being (e.g. Noor, 1997; Watson & Clark, 1992), and possibly also moderating effects on
the relationships between the two types of work–family conflict and well-being (e.g. Stoeva et al.,
2002; Williams et al., 1991).

2. Method

2.1. Participants

The participants were fathers who took part in the second wave of a national research project
entitled ‘‘Child-Rearing and Family in the Netherlands’’(see Gerris, Houtmans, Kwaaitaal-Roo-
sen, Schippers, Vermulst, & Janssens, 1998). The first wave of data collection took place in 1990,
and the second wave in 1995. The original sample in 1990 consisted of 788 families having at least
one child aged between 9 and 16 years, and the follow-up study in 1995 consisted of 484 families
having at least one child now aged between 14 and 21 years. Of those original 788 families, 656
agreed to participate in the follow-up study, but only 627 could be finally traced. Of these traced
families 465 (405 fathers, 446 mothers and 465 target children) participated in the study. Thus,
the response rate at the second wave was 59%, calculated from the original families (465/788).
The sample in 1995 was educationally and economically representative of the Dutch population
in terms of region and degree of urbanization. Bias checks run on the sample that stayed in the
1995 follow-up revealed that families from urban areas, with older children, or with parents who
1674 U. Kinnunen et al. / Personality and Individual Differences 35 (2003) 1669–1683

were ever divorced were more likely to dropout. No biases were found for parental education,
income level or work status (for details, see Gerris et al., 1998).
The sample for this study was restricted to those fathers (n=319) who were employed in 1995
and filled in the questionnaires relevant to the study. Of the employed fathers 93% had a full-time
job on which group this study was based. This criterion resulted in a final sample of 296 fathers.
Of these fathers 99% were married or cohabiting, and their mean age was 46.9 years
(S.D.=4.5). The mean age of the target child in the fathers’ families was 17.5 years (S.D.=2.2),
and the average number of children per family was 1.7 (range 1–11). Of the target children 292
were fathers’ biological children, three were mothers’ biological children and one child was
adopted. The fathers’ mean educational level on a scale from 1 (more than elementary school)
to 8 (higher university degree) was 3.9 (S.D.=2.1). Thus, they had on average either a lower
general secondary education and a part of higher general secondary education (=3) or an
intermediate vocational education (=4). Of the fathers, 20% were employed in blue-collar
occupations, 30% in lower white-collar occupations, 30% in higher white-collar occupations
and 20% were high professionals.

2.2. Procedure

The data were collected by means of a structured interview during which questionnaires were
also filled in. The interviews were conducted by trained interviewers during August 1995 and
March 1996. Ideally, an interviewer visited each family as a whole (father, mother and target
adolescent were at home) and interviewed one family member at a time, while the others filled in
questionnaires. Also, some questionnaires were left with each family member separately, with the
request to complete and return it to the researchers in a separate stamped envelope. The whole
visit to the family lasted about one and a half hours. There was a lottery in which those partici-
pants who returned all questionnaires could win a prize valued between 25 and 1000 Dutch
guilders (i.e. 11–454 Euros).

2.3. Measures

All used variables were based on questionnaire responses. With the exception of the control
variables, all others had a 7-point response scale (1=not at all applicable, 2=not applicable,
3=more not than often applicable, 4=sometimes not applicable/sometimes applicable, 5=more
often than not applicable, 6=applicable, 7=completely applicable). The constructed scale scores
(see Gerris et al., 1998) were based on the mean item scores and thus vary from 1 (lowest score) to
7 (highest score). The variables were divided into four groups as follows.

2.3.1. Work–family interference

Both work interference with family (WIF) and family interference with work (FIW) were mea-
sured using two-item scales. The used items (e.g. ‘‘My job interferes with my responsibilities at
home, such as yard work, cooking, cleaning, repairs, shopping, paying the bills or childcare’’;
‘‘My home life keeps me from spending the amount of time I would like to spend on job- or
career-related activities) were based on the measure developed by Frone et al. (1992a). The
Cronbach alpha coefficients were 0.67 for WIF and 0.73 for FIW.
 U. Kinnunen et al. / Personality and Individual Differences 35 (2003) 1669–1683 1675

2.3.2. Well-being indicators

Job exhaustion represents well-being at work concerning feelings of fatigue that develop as
one’s emotional energies become drained at work. Five items were used, derived either from the
Maslach Burnout Inventory (Maslach & Jackson, 1986; three items, e.g. ‘‘I feel used up at the end
of the workday’’), or from Warr’s (1990) scale of negative job carry-over (two items, e.g. ‘‘My job
makes me feel quite exhausted by the end of a workday’’). The Cronbach alpha coefficient for job
exhaustion was 0.89. Marital satisfaction, which indicates the degree to which fathers report
experiencing their marital relationship as satisfying (seven items; e.g. ‘‘If I could choose again, I
would choose the same partner’’), was used to represent well-being in the marriage. The Cron-
bach alpha turned out to be 0.84. Well-being in the domain of family was measured by the quality
of family climate using five items (e.g. ‘‘We quarrel a lot in our family’’) which describes the
degree to which the fathers reported that there were many conflicts within the relationships
between family members. The alpha was 0.72. Overall or context-free well-being was measured by
depression which expresses the degree of personal inadequacy and feelings of depression (nine
items, e.g. ‘‘ I often don’t see a way out’’). The Cronbach alpha was 0.80.

2.3.3. Personality
The Dutch version of the Big Five measure of Goldberg (1992) was used to measure five per-
sonality characteristics. According to the original measure, each scale consisted of 20 adjectives.
Emotional stability describes the degree to which fathers experienced themselves as resistant
against several negative affects (e.g. anxious, irritable, nervous (reverse-coded);
=0.83); extra-
version expresses the extent to which fathers perceived themselves as having outgoing behaviour
(e.g. talkative, quiet (reverse-coded), reserved (reverse-coded);
=0.91); conscientiousness mea-
sures goal-directed behaviour and high impulse control (e.g. organized, thorough, careful;

=0.88), agreeableness measures prosocial behaviour (e.g. kind, helpful, agreeable;
=0.85),
and openness to experience describes the complexity of an individual’s mental life (e.g. creative,
imaginative, artististic;
=0.82).

2.3.4. Controls
Age, education, number of children and total working hours per week were employed as con-
trols in the analysis. Age and number of children and working hours were asked directly from the
fathers and used as continuous variables. Education was measured with a single, close-ended item
with responses ranging from (1) ‘‘more than elementary school’’ to (8) ‘‘higher university degree’’.

2.4. Statistical analyses

Moderated multiple regression analysis (see Baron & Kenny, 1986) was the principal data
analysis technique used to examine the hypothesis that personality characteristics would moder-
ate the relationship between work–family conflicts and well-being. We performed hierarchical
multiple regression analyses with each well-being indicator as a dependent variable using the fol-
lowing procedure: the demographic variables (age, education, number of children, number of
actual working hours per week) were entered on step 1 to control for their effects; the work–family
conflicts (WIF and FIW) were entered on step 2; and the personality characteristics on step 3 to
examine their main effects, and finally the interaction terms of each personality characteristic with
1676 U. Kinnunen et al. / Personality and Individual Differences 35 (2003) 1669–1683

WIF and FIW (together 10 interactions) were entered on the last step of the equation. From the
final models all variables which did not statistically significantly contribute to the equation were
excluded (removed and re-analysed).

3. Results

3.1. Descriptive results

The means, standard deviations, and zero-order correlations among the study variables are
presented in Table 1. WIF was reported more than FIW [t (289)=17.12, P <0.001], as was
expected.
The intercorrelations showed, firstly, that the variables of work–family conflict were related to
the hypothesized consequences. The relations between personality and the experience of work–
family conflict were rather weak; the highest correlation (r= 0.18) was between FIW and
extraversion. The two types of conflict correlated moderately with each other (r=0.25).
Secondly, the personality characteristics correlated with the outcomes, especially with depres-
sion. The highest correlation was between emotional stability and depression (r= 0.59). Per-
sonality characteristics correlated significantly with each other as well as did the outcome
variables. Among the personality variables, the highest correlation (r=0.54) was between agree-
ableness and extraversion. Of the outcome variables, negative family climate and depression
correlated highest (r=0.40).
Thirdly, the control variables showed only minor connections to the main study variables.
However, the higher the educational level, the higher the level of openness to experience (r=0.26).
In addition, high education significantly correlated with high number of total working hours
(r=0.26). Also, the level of WIF increased along with the number of total working hours (r=0.36).
In summary, although some of the correlations between the study variables, which were used
as independent variables in the regression analyses, were reasonably high, they were below the
criterion (r=0.80) indicative of multicollinearity given by Gunst and Mason (1980).

3.2. Results of regression analyses

The statistically significant results of multiple regression analyses are presented in Table 2.
Job exhaustion was explained by a high level of WIF and low emotional stability. In addition, a
high level of FIW contributed to the explanation, and the interaction term between WIF and
emotional stability made a significant contribution to the explained variance. Thus, emotional
stability moderated the effect of WIF on job exhaustion. Graphical representation of the sig-
nificant two-way interaction (see Fig. 1a) was derived using the standardized regression coeffi-
cients ( values) of the regression lines for employees high (1 SD above the mean) and low (1 SD
below the mean) on the moderator variable. Fig. 1a reveals that the negative effects of WIF on
levels of job exhaustion were more marked for employees who had low emotional stability.
Although emotionally stable fathers also reported slightly increased job exhaustion under condi-
tions of high WIF, the increase in job exhaustion was clearly higher among emotionally unstable
fathers.
Table 1
Means, standard deviations, and correlations of study variables for fathers

U. Kinnunen et al. / Personality and Individual Differences 35 (2003) 1669–1683

Variable Fathers 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15

M S.D.

1. Age 46.9 4.5

2. Education 3.9 2.1 0.12*
3. N of 1.7 1.1 0.08 0.10
children
4. Working 46.0 8.4 0.00 0.26*** 0.01
hours/week
5. WIF 3.6 1.6 0.10 0.20** 0.09 0.36***
6. FIW 2.0 0.9 0.08 0.07 0.16** 0.04 0.25***
7. Emotional 4.9 0.6 0.01 0.09 0.02 0.13* 0.08 0.10
stability
8. Extraversion 5.0 0.8 0.04 0.02 0.00 0.18** 0.11 0.18** 0.49***
9. Conscien- 5.4 0.6 0.14* 0.07 0.02 0.05 0.10 0.14* 0.38*** 0.39***
tiousness
10. Agreeable- 5.4 0.5 0.11 0.03 0.00 0.04 0.14* 0.09 0.44** 0.54*** 0.44***
ness
11. Openness 5.0 0.6 0.11 0.26*** 0.01 0.25*** 0.08 0.13* 0.27*** 0.48*** 0.43*** 0.44***
to experience
12. Job 2.7 1.2 0.06 0.08 0.00 0.03 0.31*** 0.30*** 0.25*** 0.16** 0.13* 0.11 0.03
exhaustion
13. Marital 6.1 0.9 0.01 0.05 0.02 0.06 0.21*** 0.24*** 0.14* 0.12* 0.16** 0.28*** 0.08 0.15*
satisfaction
14. Negative 2.2 0.8 0.06 0.04 0.21*** 0.05 0.19** 0.27*** 0.27*** 0.22*** 0.18** 0.19** 0.10 0.17** 0.27***
family climate
15. Depression 2.3 0.8 0.06 0.08 0.10 0.13* 0.20** 0.22*** 0.59*** 0.39*** 0.26*** 0.41*** 0.25*** 0.39*** 0.35*** 0.40***

* P < 0.05. ** P < 0.01. *** P < 0.001.

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U. Kinnunen et al. / Personality and Individual Differences 35 (2003) 1669–1683
Table 2
Results of multiple regression analyses among fathers
Variables Job exhaustion Marital satisfaction Negative family Depression
(n=282) (n=278) climate (n=277) (n=281)

B 
R2 R2 B 
R2 R2 B 
R2 R2 B 
R2 R2

Step 1: Background – – – – 0.05*** 0.05*** – –

factors
Age in years – – – – 0.02 0.11* – –
Number of children – – 0.14 0.17** – –
Step 2: Work–family 0.20*** 0.20*** 0.08*** 0.08*** 0.07*** 0.12*** 0.07*** 0.07***
conflicts
WIF 0.25 0.38*** 0.09 0.15** – – 0.06 0.13**
FIW 0.15 0.14** 0.20 0.19*** 0.20 0.24*** 0.10 0.12*
Step 3: Personality 0.08*** 0.28*** 0.05*** 0.13*** 0.06*** 0.18*** 0.34*** 0.41***
Emotional stability 0.46 0.27*** – – 0.30 0.25*** 0.61 0.49***
Agreeableness – – 0.43 0.25*** – – 0.23 0.17***
Step 4: Interactions 0.02** 0.30*** 0.05*** 0.18*** – 0.18*** 0.01* 0.42***
WIF  emotional 0.15 0.14** – – – – 0.09 0.11*
stability
FIW  agreeableness – – 0.20 0.22*** – – –

B=unstandardized and =standardized coefficients derived from the final step; R2=explanation rate,
R2=change in explanation rate in each step. * P <0.05,
** P <0.01, *** P <0.001.
 U. Kinnunen et al. / Personality and Individual Differences 35 (2003) 1669–1683 1679

Fig. 1. Significant interaction effects between work–family conflicts and well-being among fathers. (a) Interaction
between work interference with family (WIF) and emotional stability on job exhaustion; (b) interaction between family
interference with work (FIW) and agreeableness on marital satisfaction; (c) interaction between work interference with
family (WIF) and emotional stability on depression.

Marital satisfaction. Both work–family conflicts and personality had main effects on marital
satisfaction: low levels of WIF and FIW and high agreeableness were related to high marital
satisfaction. In addition, the interaction term between FIW and agreeableness made a significant
contribution to the explained variance in marital satisfaction. Fig. 1b indicates that fathers
experienced less marital satisfaction under conditions of high FIW and low agreeableness,
whereas fathers who were agreeable were protected from negative effects of FIW on marital
satisfaction.
Family climate was explained by FIW and emotional stability. Consequently, the more FIW
and the lower the level of emotional stability, the more conflicts in the family climate. In addition,
background factors made a significant contribution to the explanation: fathers’ young age and a
high number of children in the family were related to negative family climate reported by fathers.
Depression was best explained due to the fact that lack of emotional stability made a very sig-
nificant contribution to the explanation. Besides this, also work–family conflicts as well as
agreeableness accounted for a significant proportion of additional variance: the more WIF and
FIW as well as the less agreeableness, the higher the level of depression. Furthermore, the inter-
action between WIF and emotional stability on depression proved to be significant. Fig. 1c
reveals that fathers experienced more depression under conditions of high WIF and low emo-
tional stability, whereas fathers who had high emotional stability were protected from negative
effects of WIF on this outcome variable.
1680 U. Kinnunen et al. / Personality and Individual Differences 35 (2003) 1669–1683

4. Discussion

The results of this study indicated that personality moderates the relationship between the
experience of work–family conflicts and well-being outcomes. Emotional stability moderated the
relationships between WIF and job exhaustion and between WIF and depression. In addition,
agreeableness moderated the relationship between FIW and marital satisfaction. Consequently,
emotionally stable fathers were protected from negative effects of WIF on well-being at work (job
exhaustion) and on general well-being (depression). In the same way, agreeable fathers were
protected from negative effects of FIW on marital satisfaction.
Altogether, emotional stability and agreeableness of the Big Five characteristics (Goldberg,
1992) turned out to be the most significant factors from the viewpoint of work–family interference.
Besides their moderating effects, the main effect findings suggest that, especially emotional stabi-
lity, is important in this context. Emotional stability was related to low job exhaustion, positive
family climate and low depression. These findings concerning the main and moderating role of
emotional stability were consistent with our hypotheses (e.g. Noor, 1997; Stoeva et al., 2002;
Watson & Clark, 1992; Williams et al., 1991). Thus, being emotionally stable seems to be a resource
in all circumstances, including work and family. Agreeableness (i.e. prosocial behaviour) instead
seems to be important in the family domain: it was related to marital satisfaction.
Emotional stability (i.e. low neuroticism) has positive effects on an individual’s psychological well-
being at least in two ways. First, it determines how individuals handle their emotions and, second, it
helps to upkeep affirmative emotions and levels of feeling (see, for example, Judge & Bono, 2001).
Consequently, one main explanation why emotional stability buffered the detrimental effects of WIF
could be that people with high neuroticism tend to use more ineffective coping strategies (e.g. use of
hostile reaction, withdrawal and wishful thinking) than people with low neuroticism (McCrae &
Costa, 1986). This has also been shown in some recent studies where neuroticism was associated with
using passive and emotion-focussed coping strategies (Brebner, 2001; Sørlie & Sexton, 2001), and
particularly with avoidance coping (Kardum & Krapic, 2001). People with high emotional stability
may also perceive environmental situations more favourably and actually be less exposed to negative
effects (Magnus, Diener, Fujita, & Pavot, 1993; Watson & Hubbard, 1996). Among the five person-
ality dimensions, the role of agreeableness is least understood. However, it is associated to maintain
positive interpersonal relations and dealing with conflict in constructive tactics (Jensen-Campbell &
Graziano, 2001). In this light, it seems fairly reasonable that agreeableness is related to high marital
satisfaction and functions as a moderator between FIW and marital satisfaction.
WIF and FIW had main effects on well-being as shown in many previous studies; they both
correlated significantly with each outcome variable and contributed to their explanation in the
regression analyses. In line with these previous studies (e.g. Allen et al., 2000), the strongest
relationship was between WIF and job exhaustion. In our study the correlation between WIF and
job exhaustion was 0.31, compared to the weighted mean correlation 0.42 calculated across
studies in the review by Allen and her colleagues. However, in the other domains FIW had a
more significant role than WIF. For example, FIW correlated more significantly with negative
family climate and marital dissatisfaction than WIF. These findings are consistent, for example,
with Kinnunen and Mauno’s (1998) results, according to which family-work conflict was related
to marital and parental satisfaction. In addition, our findings revealed consistently with previous
research (e.g. Aryee et al., 1999; Frone et al., 1997; Kinnunen & Mauno, 1998; Parasuraman et al.,
 U. Kinnunen et al. / Personality and Individual Differences 35 (2003) 1669–1683 1681

1996) that fathers perceived higher levels of WIF relative to FIW. It appears that employed parents
are more willing to allow work responsibilities to interfere with family responsibilities, reflecting
the asymmetrical permeability of the work and family domains (see Frone et al., 1992b).
In the interpretation of our findings we have to be cautious because of the cross-sectional nat-
ure of our study. Thus, alternative interpretations are also possible. For example, the well-being
variables studied as consequences of work–family conflicts may serve as antecedents of conflicts
as well. Another limitation of our study was that the variance explained by the variables exam-
ined remained rather low in part of the regression models. This suggests that it would be useful to
broaden the domain of examined variables. However, because our study was targeted to espe-
cially study the roles of work–family conflicts and personality in relation to well-being, it would
be appropriate to broaden the variables only in this regard. We concentrated on time-based
conflicts, so the strain- and behaviour-based conflicts should be taken into account in future
studies. In addition, we should incorporate other dispositional personality factors in the models.
Before that we should thoroughly analyse which kind of personality resources would be impor-
tant in the work–family context. One possibility is that those connected to control (e.g. locus of
control, coherence, self-efficacy) would be such ones because they have proved to be important in
stress literature (see e.g. Cooper & Payne, 1991).
The opposite of emotional stability, that is, emotional instability is a personality variable whose
role is much debated in the stress literature. The negative affectivity construct has been developed
to describe the tendency to experience negative emotions (Watson & Clark, 1984). On the one
hand, there are researchers who have said that this tendency produces a bias, which inflates
correlations between the measurement of stressors and stress reactions (here WIF and FIW and
their outcomes), and therefore it should be controlled for (e.g. McCrae, 1990). On the other hand,
there are also those who claim that negative affectivity plays a substantive role in the stress pro-
cess and therefore should not be controlled for (e.g. Spector, Zapf, Chen, & Frese, 2000). In our
study, we were able to demonstrate that emotional stability moderated the stressor-outcome
relationship, and thus it played a substantive role (see also Stoeva et al., 2002). In addition, from
the bias perspective, many other personality factors should also be controlled for, because they
affect individual perceptions of the environment.
In general, our findings suggest that individuals cannot leave their dispositions behind when
they work or they fulfill their duties at home. Therefore, purely situational approaches to work–
family issues are not recommended. We need to continue studying the effects of dispositional
factors, situational factors and their interactions, instead of concentrating on only one or the
other type of variable. In addition, we need more longitudinal studies in order to be in a better
position to differentiate antecedents from consequences. However, from the practical point of
view, especially the situational factors are still more important, because they can be more easily
changed than personality factors.

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