The Moderating Role of Empathy in the Work–Family Crossover Process Between Chinese Dual-Earner Couples

Abstract

Crossover refers to the interpersonal process that occurs when stress or strain experienced by one person affects the level of strain of another person in the same social environment. This study examined the moderating role of empathy (empathic concern and perspective taking) in the relationship between one partner’s work–family interface (work–family conflict [WFC] and work–family enrichment [WFE]) and the other partner’s outcome variables (psychological strain and marital satisfaction) in a sample of 361 Chinese dual-earner couples. Moderated actor-partner interdependence model analyses showed that wives’ perspective taking buffered the impact of husbands’ WFC on wives’ psychological strain, as well as strengthened the relationship between husbands’ WFE and wives’ marital satisfaction. Wives’ empathic concern reinforced the relationship between husbands’ WFE and wives’ marital satisfaction. The findings add to the literature by providing insight into the mechanisms responsible for the direct crossover of work–family experiences.

Keywords

work–family crossover empathy Chinese dual-earner couples

Introduction

In dual-earner relationships, the potential for conflict and stress is heightened because the number of interface between work and family is increased (Parasuraman & Greenhaus, 2002). Each partner’s well-being is influenced by his or her own work and family variables, as well as those of the partner. In the literature, the term “crossover” has been utilized to describe the stress transmission between partners. Crossover is defined as the interpersonal process that occurs when stress or strain experienced by one person affects the level of strain of another person in the same social environment (Bolger, DeLongis, Kessler, & Wethington, 1989). By including interpersonal interactions in a dyad as an additional focus of research, the crossover model adds another level of analysis to the traditional spillover model.

Existing evidence showed that various kinds of strain may crossover from one person to the other, such as depression (Howe, Levy, & Caplan, 2004; Westman & Vinokur, 1998), burnout (Bakker & Schaufeli, 2000; Westman, Etzion, & Danon, 2001), anxiety (Westman, Etzion, & Horovitz, 2004), workplace aggression (Heines, Marchhand, & Harvey, 2006), and marital dissatisfaction (Westman, Vinokur, Hamilton, & Roziner, 2004). Though crossover is often referred to as a contagion of stress and strain, researchers suggested that the scope of its investigation could be broadened to incorporate the transmission of positive experiences as well (Westman, 2001; Westman et al., 2004). There are several studies that have detected crossover of positive experiences, such as flow at work (Bakker, 2005), work engagement (e.g., Bakker & Xanthopoulou, 2009), life satisfaction (Demerouti, Bakker, & Schaufeli, 2005), and work–family enrichment (WFE; Carlson, Ferguson, Kacmar, Grzywacz, & Whitten, 2011).

Westman and Vinokur (1998) posited three mechanisms of the crossover process, which may be due to (1) a direct transmission of stress or strain from one partner to the other through empathy; (2) an indirect transmission of stress or strain through the behavioral interactions/communication patterns between partners; (3) common stressors affecting the strain of both partners. Inspired by Westman and Vinokur’s conceptualization, several studies have been conducted to explain the mechanisms of crossover, and results have generally lent support to their propositions. Among these studies, some focused on the indirect transmission explanation (e.g., Bakker, Demerouti, & Burke, 2009; Bakker, Demerouti, & Dollard, 2008; Shimazu, Bakker, & Demerouti, 2009), involving social support and social undermining as the primary behavioral mediators of the indirect crossover process (Bakker & Demerouti, 2013). Other studies focused on the “direct-empathy” explanation (e.g., Bakker & Demerouti, 2009; Bakker, Shimazu, Demerouti, Shimada, & Kawakami, 2011), examining the moderating role of empathy in the direct crossover effects. This study will focus on empathy as the potential underlying mechanism causing direct crossover. Although existing studies have enhanced our understanding of the “direct-empathy” explanation, a few research gaps still exist.

First, past studies on the role of empathy in the direct crossover process mainly focus on the crossover of positive experiences (e.g., work engagement). Limited attention has been given to the role of empathy in the transmission of negative experiences (e.g., work–family conflict [WFC]), which represents a serious gap in the literature, given the undesirable consequences of negative crossover for the partner’s well-being.

Second, previous research has used statistical methods commonly used for individual-level analysis, which are not ideally suited for analyzing dyadic data. As noted by several scholars (Matthews, Del Priore, Acitelli, & Barnes-Farrell, 2006; Westman & Vinokur, 1998), one important methodological issue that has not been adequately addressed in the work–family crossover literature is the treatment of relationship dyadic data. In a dyad, one partner’s experiences are linked not only to his or her own outcomes but also to his or her partner’s outcomes. Without taking this interdependence of dyadic data into consideration, problematic issues may arise in data analysis, such as bias in significance testing and loss of valuable information (Matthews et al., 2006). Fortunately, Kashy and Kenny (1999) suggested using the actor-partner interdependence model (APIM) for analyzing data that collected from relationship dyads. The strength of the APIM is that it assumes nonindependence of observations between members in a dyad, allowing for simultaneous assessment of the influence of individuals’ independent variable on their own dependent variable (i.e., actor effect) and on their partners’ dependent variable (i.e., partner effect; Cook & Kenny, 2005). The APIM is increasingly used in studies of families (Rayens & Svavardottir, 2003) and close relationships (Campbell & Kashy, 2002).

Third, the majority of crossover research to date has been conducted in Western countries that share a number of important characteristics (e.g., cultural values, economic development, social institutions, and family structures), with most samples being confined to a single country. The concentration of sampling in Western, industrialized countries is problematic because findings may not be necessarily generalized to other populations, particularly those with different cultural backgrounds. This Western centrism has been identified in several reviews of work–family studies (e.g., Casper, Eby, Bordeaux, Lockwood, & Lambert, 2007; Chang, McDonald, & Burton, 2010; Powell, Francesco, & Ling, 2009). As the challenge of managing the competing demands of work and family life is not limited to the West, a question arises as to how people from other cultures may perceive the processes of crossover. China’s unique political, socioeconomic, and cultural characteristics provide a favorable research ground for the examination of work–family issues (Ling & Powell, 2001). As China is the world’s most populous country that espouses eastern values, it would be valuable and informative to obtain data from Chinese employees for comparison with Western findings in work–family research (Tang, Siu, & Cheung, 2014).

To fill the above research gaps, this study aimed to examine the moderating role of empathy in the crossover from one partner’s work–family interface (WFC and WFE) to the other partners’ outcomes (psychological strain and marital satisfaction) in a sample of Chinese dual-earner couples using the APIM.

Work–Family Interface

Work–family interface is considered to comprise two components: WFC and WFE. WFC is defined as “a form of inter-role conflict in which role pressures from the work and family domains are mutually incompatible in some respect. That is, participation in the work (family) role is made more difficult by virtue of participation in the family (work) role” (Greenhaus & Beutell, 1985, p. 77). WFC is conceptualized as a bidirectional construct, where work interferes with family (work-to-family conflict) and family interferes with work (family-to-work conflict; Frone, 2003). A review by Allen, Herst, Bruck, and Sutton (2000) showed that WFC was negatively associated with job and life satisfaction, as well as positively associated with burnout, stress, and intention to turnover.

WFE is defined as “the extent to which experiences in one role improve the quality of life in the other role” (Greenhaus & Powell, 2006, p. 73), and is used interchangeably with positive spillover, enhancement, and facilitation. WFE is also characterized by two directions: work-to-family enrichment and family-to-work enrichment. WFE can produce a number of beneficial outcomes for employees as well as the organization. McNall, Nicklin, and Masuda (2010) conducted a meta-analytic review of the consequences associated with WFE and found that WFE was positively associated with job satisfaction, family satisfaction, affective commitment, as well as physical and mental health.

Integrating Work–Family Interface Literature With Crossover Theories

An emerging body of research has attempted to integrate work–family interface literature with crossover theories and demonstrated the transmission of work and family experiences between members of marital dyads (e.g., Hammer, Bauer, & Grandey, 2003; Hammer, Cullen, Neal, Sinclair, & Shafiro, 2005; Ho, Chen, Cheung, Liu, & Worthington, 2013). For example, Hammer, Bauer, and Grandey (2003) investigated the relationship between WFC and withdrawal behaviors at work (i.e., interruptions, lateness, and absence) in a sample of 359 dual-earner couples from both the individual and dyadic perspectives. Results showed that wives’ family-to-work conflict was positively associated with husbands’ family interruptions at work but negatively associated with husbands’ absences; husbands’ family-to-work conflict was positively associated with wives’ lateness. Importantly, spouse WFC added to the variance explained in withdrawal behaviors beyond one’s own WFC.

The Role of Empathy in the Direct Crossover Process

According to the “direct empathy” explanation, intimate partners are well tuned to each other’s emotional state (“We feel their pain is our own”) because they care for each other and share a great part of their lives together. Therefore, the stress and strain experienced by one partner “produces in the other a sympathetic reaction which increases the level of stress in the latter” (Westman & Vinokur, 1998, p. 140). This view is supported by social learning theorists (e.g., Bandura, 2001) who have explained the transmission of emotion as a conscious processing of information during which individuals imagine how they would feel in the position of another and thus come to experience and share the others’ feelings. It follows that individuals with high levels of empathy are more likely to be affected by the stress or strain of their partners. For two partners in a marital dyad, when the receiver is characterized by high levels of empathy, he or she may be particularly capable of reading the emotional state or psychologically placing himself or herself in the circumstances of the sender and consequently affected by the sender’s psychological state.

Westman (2001) suggested that researchers add measures of empathy in crossover research to establish the “direct empathy” explanation for the crossover process. The conceptualization of empathy is generally considered to be multidimensional. Davis (1980) developed the interpersonal reactivity index that consists of four empathy components (i.e., perspective taking, fantasy, empathic concern, and personal distress). Two components are of particular interest in recent crossover studies (Bakker & Demerouti, 2009; Bakker et al., 2011). One component is empathic concern, which refers to “an individual’s tendency to experience feelings of warmth, compassion, and concern for others” (Davis, 1980, p. 169). Empathic concern is an emotional or affective type of empathy. The second component is perspective taking, defined as “the spontaneous tendency of a person to adopt the psychological perspective of other people-to entertain the point of view of others” (Davis, 1980, p. 169). This component refers to the nonemotional or cognitive type of empathy. For instance, Bakker and Demerouti (2009) investigated whether empathy (empathic concern and perspective taking) moderated the unidirectional transfer of work engagement from working women to their partners. Results showed that when men were high in perspective taking, they experienced the strongest crossover of work engagement from their wives. However, men’s empathic concern failed to moderate the positive crossover processes. Bakker, Shimazu, Demerouti, Shimada, and Kawakami (2011) further investigated whether perspective taking moderated the bidirectional crossover of work engagement between Japanese couples and found that the crossover of work engagement from men to women was more pronounced when women were high in perspective taking. Moreover, the crossover effect was strongest when both partners were high in perspective taking.

The Present Study

This study examined empathy as the potential mechanism that moderates the strength of the direct crossover. To our knowledge, no study has systematically examined the role of empathy in the direct crossover process in a Chinese population. This study extends the literature by examining whether empathy (empathic concern and perspective taking) moderates the direct transfer from one partner’s work–family interface (WFC and WFE) to the other partner’s outcomes (psychological strain and marital satisfaction) in a sample of Chinese dual-earner couples using the APIM, which appears to be appropriate for handling dyadic data and may address the statistical limitation caused by the utilization of inadequate analytic strategies in previous studies.

First, we will investigate the relationship between one partner’s work–family interface and the other partner’s psychological strain and marital satisfaction. Psychological strain and marital satisfaction were selected as the key outcome variables because past research has documented the impact of work–family experiences on the strain of the partner (e.g., Hammer et al., 2005), and crossover was found to occur in the domain of relationship satisfaction, as marital relationship constitutes a sphere that is commonly shared by both partners (Bakker et al., 2009). To note, both WFC and WFE were assessed in two directions (from work to family and from family to work) in this study because empirical evidence suggested that both directions of conflict and enrichment would crossover between partners (Hammer et al., 2003, 2005). Based on existing empirical evidence and relevant work–family theory and research, we hypothesize the following:

Hypothesis 1: One partner’s WFC is positively associated with the other partner’s psychological strain.

Hypothesis 2: One partner’s WFC is negatively associated with the other partner’s marital satisfaction.

Hypothesis 3: One partner’s WFE is negatively associated with the other partner’s psychological strain.

Hypothesis 4: One partner’s WFE is positively associated with the other partner’s marital satisfaction.

Second, we will investigate the moderating role of empathy (empathic concern and perspective taking) as the underlying mechanism causing direct crossover. Based on the prior reasoning, we predict the following:

Hypothesis 5: The receiver’s empathy (empathic concern and perspective taking) moderates the relationship between the sender’ WFC and the receiver’s psychological strain, such that the positive relationship will be stronger when the receiver is characterized by high levels of empathy.

Hypothesis 6: The receiver’s empathy moderates the relationship between the sender’ WFC and the receiver’s marital satisfaction, such that the negative relationship will be stronger when the receiver is characterized by high levels of empathy.

Hypothesis 7: The receiver’s empathy moderates the relationship between the sender’ WFE and the receiver’s psychological strain, such that the negative relationship will be stronger when the receiver is characterized by high levels of empathy.

Hypothesis 8: The receiver’s empathy moderates the relationship between the sender’ WFE and the receiver’s marital satisfaction, such that the positive relationship will be stronger when the receiver is characterized by high levels of empathy.

Method

Participants

Parents of children in a kindergarten located in the downtown area of Jingjiang City, Jiangsu Province, in China were invited to participate in this study. Of the 450 couples approached, 409 participated, yielding a response rate of 91%. The strong support of the school principal and teachers, as well as repeated reminders and the incentive of a report for participating in the study, may have all contributed to the high response rate. Selection criterion for this study was that of each couple, both partners should have paid jobs. Dual-earning couples were targeted to focus on the common issues in work–family interface. Based on this criterion, 43 couples were excluded from further analysis. After deleting five incomplete responses, the final sample consisted of 361 dual-earner couples (N = 722).

The male participants’ ages ranged from 26 to 57 years, with an average age of 33.13 (standard deviation [SD] = 4.24). The female participants’ ages ranged from 26 to 45, with an average age of 31.43 (SD = 3.56). Men were almost 2 years older than women, t(357) = 5.82, p < .05. With respect to education, 2.2% of men had a graduate degree or above, 77.6% had a bachelor’s degree, 15.2% had a high school diploma, and 3.6% had less than a high school diploma. For women, 0.8% had a graduate degree or above, 72.3% had a bachelor’s degree, 22.4% had a high school diploma, and 2.8% had less than a high school diploma. Approximately 79.5% of couples had one child, 19.1% had two children, and 0.3% had three children. The average age of the youngest child was 5 years (SD = .95).

Procedure

Upon the agreement of the school principal, participants were recruited on a voluntary basis through one kindergarten in mainland China when the parents bring their children to the kindergarten. Questionnaire packages were distributed by the teachers to the students in their classes. Each student was given two copies of the questionnaire packets, one for his or her father, and the other for his or her mother, in separate envelopes with matching codes for each member of the parents. The questionnaires took about 15 min to complete and included a battery of psychological measures, as well as the demographic information of each participant. Each parent was requested to fill out the questionnaire independently and put the completed survey in a sealed envelope. The students then returned two sealed envelopes to the teachers, from whom the investigator collected all the responses. Respondents were provided with a report as an incentive on completion of this study.

Measures

A set of measures written in Chinese was administered. The measures without validated Chinese versions were translated from English to Chinese using the conventional method of back translation (Brislin, 1980). The translation and back translation of the questionnaires was done by two bilingual researchers independently.

Work–family interface

The Chinese version of Grzywacz and Marks’ (2000) 16-item scale was used to assess work–family interface (WFC and WFE). WFC contains two dimensions: (1) work-to-family conflict (4 items, α = .75, e.g., “Your job reduces the effort you can give to activities at home”) and (2) family-to-work conflict (4 items, α = .78, e.g., “Responsibilities at home reduce the effort you can devote to your job”). WFE also contains two dimensions: (1) work-to-family enrichment (4 items, α = .69, e.g., “The things you do at work help you deal with personal and practical issues at home”) and (2) family-to-work enrichment (4 items, α = .74, e.g., “Talking with someone at home helps you deal with problems at work”). Respondents indicated the frequency with which they have experienced these items on Likert-type scales ranging from 1 (never) to 5 (all the time).

Empathy

Two subscales from the Interpersonal Reactivity Index (Davis, 1980) were used to measure individual differences in empathy. The two subscales are (1) empathic concern (7 items, α = .77, e.g., “I would describe myself as a pretty soft-hearted person”); (2) perspective taking (7 items, α = .74, e.g., “Before criticizing somebody, I try to imagine how I would feel if I were in their place”). All items were rated on a 5-piont scale ranging from 1 (totally disagree) to 5 (totally agree).

Psychological strain

A short version of the General Health Questionnaire (GHQ-12; Goldberg & Williams, 1988) was used to assess psychological distress. The GHQ-12 contains 12 items measuring minor psychological symptoms. According to the original scoring method, participants were asked to rate each item on a 4-point scale ranging from 0 (never) to 3 (always), with a higher score indicating a higher level of strain. The α coefficient was .83 in the present sample.

Marital satisfaction

Fowers and Olson’s (1993) ENRICH Marital Satisfaction Scale was used to assess marital satisfaction. It contains 10 items each representing one of the areas of marital relationship (e.g., communication or conflict resolution). For example, “I am very happy with how we handle role responsibilities in our marriage.” Response options range from 1 (strongly disagree) to 5 (strongly agree). The α coefficient was .87 in the present sample.

Demographic variables

The personal information of the participants was also collected, including gender, age, employment status, number of children, and age of the youngest child.

Statistical Analyses

This study utilizes a dyadic analytic framework (APIM; Cook & Kenny, 2005; Kashy & Kenny, 1999) to test the relationships between an individual’s work–family interface and his or her partner’s outcomes as well as whether the relationships are moderated by the partner’s level of empathy. Figure 1 presents the path diagram for the essential components of the APIM in the examination of the moderating role of empathic concern in the relationship between one partner’s WFC and the other partner’s psychological strain. The actor effects are represented by the two paths labeled “a.” The actor effect is a measure of the influence of respondents’ WFC on their own psychological strain. The partner effects are represented by two diagonal paths labeled “p.” The partner effect is a measure of interdependence, such that respondents’ WFC can affect their partners’ psychological strain. The partner effect is of particular interest in this study because it provides a test of direct crossover. The correlation between independent variables is indicated by a curved, double-headed arrow labeled “b,” which ensures that the actor effects are estimated while controlling for the partner effects, and the partner effects are estimated while controlling for the actor effects. Another feature of the model is the curved, double-headed arrow between the residual errors of the dependent variables labeled “c,” which controls for other sources of interdependence between partners. Moderation is tested by including the predictor variable (i.e., WFC), the moderator (i.e., empathic concern), and the product term of the two. Following Aiken and West’s (1991) recommendations, the predictor variable and the moderator were mean-centered before the interaction term was computed. The interaction effect is manifested if the path coefficient from the interaction term to the outcome variable is significant. Moderated APIM analyses were performed via structural equation modeling (SEM) using the AMOS 19.0 software package because SEM provides the most convenient and direct way to test APIM for distinguishable partners in a dyad (Kenny, Kashy, & Cook, 2006). Traditional model-fit statistics are not presented because the APIMs are recursive (Cook & Kenny, 2005).

Figure 1.

The path diagram for the APIM.

Results

Descriptive Statistics and Correlation Matrix Among Study Variable

The means, SDs, and correlations among the study variables are presented in Table 1.

Table 1.

Means, Standard Deviations, and Correlations of the Study Variables.

Variables	M	SD	1	2	3	4	5	6	7	8	9	10	11
Men (N = 361)
1. Work–family conflict	2.85	.79
2. Work–family enrichment	4.11	.54	−.06
3. Empathic concern	3.95	.58	−.08	.34
4. Perspective taking	3.83	.57	−.25	.37	.50
5. Psychological strain	.71	.38	.49	−.28	−.24	−.36
6. Marital satisfaction	4.09	.64	−.39	.45	.33	.40	−.55
Women (N = 361)
7. Work–family conflict	2.81	.79	.30	−.07	−.11	−.20	.21	−.17
8. Work–family enrichment	4.00	.62	−.14	.34	.22	.24	−.22	.24	−.17
9. Empathic concern	4.09	.55	.00	.21	.33	.21	−.09	.13	−.08	.24
10. Perspective taking	3.80	.52	−.06	.19	.24	.23	−.16	.22	−.24	.34	.41
11. Psychological strain	.81	.41	.15	−.17	−.11	−.14	.35	−.30	.41	−.39	−.21	−.43
12. Marital satisfaction	3.89	.72	−.25	.32	.28	.33	−.39	.50	−.38	.45	.21	.35	−.58

Note. Correlations with absolute value of .15 or above are significant at the p < .01 level. Correlations with absolute value of .09 or below are not significant. Correlations with absolute value between .09 and .15 are significant at the p < .05 level.

The correlation analysis provided a first indication of direct crossover. Specifically, husbands’ WFC was positively associated with wives’ psychological strain (r = .15, p < .01) and negatively associated with wives’ marital satisfaction (r = −.25, p < .01); husbands’ WFE was negatively associated with wives’ psychological strain (r = −.17, p < .01) and positively associated with wives’ marital satisfaction (r = .32, p < .01). Similarly, wives’ WFC was positively associated with husbands’ psychological strain (r = .21, p < .01) and negatively associated with husbands’ marital satisfaction (r = −.17, p < .01); wives’ WFE was negatively associated with husbands’ psychological strain (r = −.22, p < .01) and positively associated with husbands’ marital satisfaction (r = .24, p < .01).

Moderated APIM Analyses

Altogether, eight sets of moderated APIM analyses were performed. Table 2 presents a summary of these findings. For the main effects, we can see that wives’ WFE was negatively associated with husbands’ psychological strain (b = −.13, p < .01) and positively associated with husbands’ marital satisfaction (b = .14, p < .05). Husbands’ WFC and WFE were significantly related to wives’ marital satisfaction (b = −.17, p < .01; b = .32, p < .001, respectively). Thus, Hypothesis 2 was supported for husbands, Hypothesis 3 was supported for wives, and Hypothesis 4 was supported for both husbands and wives. Hypothesis 1 was not statistically supported.

Table 2.

APIM Results: Association Between Work−Family Interface (Work–Family Conflict and Work–Family Enrichment) and Partner Outcomes (Psychological Strain and Marital Satisfaction) in the Moderating Context of Empathy (Empathic Concern and Perspective Taking).

Parameters	Estimate	SE	Parameters	Estimate	SE
Main effects			Main effects
WFC_H → PS_W	.03	.04	WFC_H → MS_W	−.17**	.06
WFC_W → PS_H	.05	.04	WFC_W → MS_H	−.06	.05
WFE_H → PS_W	−.05	.06	WFE_H → MS_W	.32***	.08
WFE_W → PS_H	−.13**	.05	WFE_W → MS_H	.14*	.06
Interaction effects			Interaction effects
WFC_H × EC_W → PS_W	.00	.01	WFC_H × EC_W → MS_W	.01	.01
WFC_W × EC_H → PS_H	.00	.01	WFC_W × EC_H → MS_H	−.01	.01
WFE_H × EC_W → PS_W	−.02	.01	WFE_H × EC_W → MS_W	.04*	.02
WFE_W × EC_H → PS_H	−.01	.01	WFE_W × EC_H → MS_H	.01	.01
WFC_H × PT_W → PS_W	−.02*	.01	WFC_H × PT_W → MS_W	.02	.01
WFC_W × PT_H → PS_H	−.01	.01	WFC_W × PT_H → MS_H	.00	.01
WFE_H × PT_W → PS_W	−.01	.01	WFE_H × PT_W → MS_W	.04*	.02
WFE_W × PT_H → PS_H	−.01	.01	WFE_W × PT_H → MS_H	.01	.01

Note. N = 361 couples. H = husbands; W = wives; WFC = work–family conflict; WFE = work–family enrichment; EC = empathic concern; PT = perspective taking; PS = psychological strain; MS = marital satisfaction. The estimates are unstandardized regression coefficients. Main effects were estimated in models that did not include the moderators, but main effects were included in models estimating interaction effects.

*p < .05. **p < .01. ***p < .001.

Importantly, three of the interaction effects were significant: (1) wives’ perspective taking moderated the relationship between husbands’ WFC and wives’ psychological strain; (2) wives’ perspective taking moderated the relationship between husbands’ WFE and wives’ marital satisfaction; (3) wives’ empathic concern moderated the relationship between husbands’ WFE and wives’ marital satisfaction. To confirm the direction of the three significant interaction effects, we generated a graphical representation for each of them by converting the continuous predictors (husbands’ WFC and WFE) and moderators (wives’ perspective taking and empathic concern) into categorical variables (1 SD below the mean vs. 1 SD above the mean) following conventions in the literature (Preacher, Curran, & Bauer, 2006).

From Figure 2, we can see that the impact of husbands’ WFC on wives’ psychological strain actually decreased for wives with high levels of perspective taking. Slope difference tests revealed that the relationship between husbands’ WFC and wives’ psychological strain was not significantly stronger when wives were characterized by high levels of perspective taking, F(1, 15) = 1.55, p > .05, versus low levels of perspective taking, F(1, 24) = 1.85, p > .05. We conducted supplementary analyses, in which we predicted the values of wives’ psychological strain in those who scored 0.5 SD above and below the mean score of the moderator (wives’ perspective taking). In this condition, the slope difference tests showed that the effect of husbands’ WFC on wives’ psychological strain was significantly stronger for wives with low levels of perspective taking, F(1, 33) = 3.81, p < .05, versus high levels of perspective taking, F(1, 33) = .37, p > .05, which was somehow in the opposite direction to that hypothesized (Hypothesis 5).

Figure 2.

Interaction effect of husbands’ work–family conflict and wives’ perspective taking on wives’ psychological strain.

From Figure 3, we can see that the positive impact of husbands’ WFE on wives’ marital satisfaction became stronger for wives with high levels of perspective taking. Slope difference tests indicated that the relationship between husbands’ WFE and wives’ marital satisfaction was significantly stronger when wives were characterized by high levels of perspective taking, F(1, 13) = 25.74, p < .001, versus low levels of perspective taking, F(1, 11) = .10, p > .05.

Figure 3.

Interaction effect of husbands’ work–family enrichment and wives’ perspective taking on wives’ marital satisfaction.

From Figure 4, we can see that the positive impact of husbands’ WFE on wives’ marital satisfaction became stronger for wives with high levels of empathic concern. Slope difference tests indicated that the relationship between husbands’ WFE and wives’ marital satisfaction was significantly stronger when wives were characterized by high levels of empathic concern, F(1, 15) = 22.62, p < .001, versus low levels of empathic concern, F(1, 18) = 3.63, p > .05.

Figure 4.

Interaction effect of husbands’ work–family enrichment and wives’ empathic concern on wives’ marital satisfaction.

Thus, Hypotheses 5–7 were not supported. Hypothesis 8 was supported only for wives.

Discussion

The Moderating Role of Empathy

This study tested the proposition that direct crossover would be moderated by empathic reactions between intimate partners. The findings from the moderated APIM analyses partially supported the “empathy” explanation of the direct crossover process.

First, wives’ perspective taking buffered the impact of husbands’ WFC on wives’ psychological strain. This result was somehow in the opposite direction to our hypothesis, which postulated that wives’ perspective taking would exacerbate the relationship between husbands’ WFC and wives’ psychological strain. Although contrary to the hypothesis, one plausible explanation is that perspective taking underscores the social ability to recognize and understand the standpoints of others, therefore increasing the possibility that negative attitudes and emotions are mitigated, which fosters smoother and more rewarding interpersonal relationships. Indeed, it has been shown that higher perspective taking scores are associated with better social functioning (Davis, 1983). Thus, wives’ perspective taking plays a stress-buffering role in the negative crossover process, as it may serve the goal of perceiving and understanding the situations of their husbands, which is highly valuable in marital communications and reduces stress and strain experienced on the part of wives. Bakker and Demerouti (2009) suggested that perspective taking might be a potential risk factor when the nature of communication is negative. They argued that too much understanding with respect to conflict issues or relationship-threatening topics might have detrimental effects on couples’ relationship quality. However, this study showed that wives’ perspective taking played a stress-buffering role even when the transmission of experiences is negative, suggesting that adopting the psychological perspectives of others might benefit individuals as a general rule.

Second, wives’ perspective taking strengthened the relationship between husbands’ WFE and wives’ marital satisfaction, such that the relationship was stronger for wives with high levels of perspective taking. Thus, wives who were inclined to adopt the perspectives of other people in daily life were more likely to catch the enriching experiences of their husbands, which further led to increased marital satisfaction. This finding corroborates the results from Bakker et al.’s (2011) study, which showed that among Japanese couples, the crossover from men’s work engagement to women’s work engagement was more pronounced when women were characterized by high levels of perspective taking.

Third, results also showed that wives’ empathic concern reinforced the relationship between husbands’ WFE and wives’ marital satisfaction, such that the relationship became stronger for wives with high levels of empathic concern. To our best knowledge, this is the first study that demonstrates that an emotional type of empathy–empathic concern also functions as an active mechanism of direct crossover. Empathic concern, an indicator of emotional responsivity, taps the tendency to “experience feelings of warmth, compassion, and concern for others” (Davis, 1980, p. 169). Wives who were high in empathic concern were more likely to be emotionally sensitive and opening to their husbands and accordingly benefit from their husbands’ enthusiasm and vigor. In the literature, Bakker and Demerouti (2009) examined the unidirectional transfer of work engagement from wives to husbands and found that husbands’ empathic concern failed to moderate the positive crossover pathway. They further speculated that empathic concern might be a moderator in the crossover of negative states. This study expanded prior research by putting the speculations directly to the test. We incorporated both husbands and wives’ empathic concern into the negative as well as positive crossover framework and demonstrated that wives’ empathic concern acted as an active mechanism when the nature of crossover is positive. This study offered a more robust test of the moderating role of empathic concern in the crossover process between dual-earner couples.

Interestingly, only wives’ empathy (empathic concern and perspective taking) was shown to moderate the crossover from husbands’ work–family interface to wives’ outcome variables, which is consistent with empirical evidence from Japanese samples (Bakker et al., 2011). There are several possible explanations for this finding. The prominent role of women’s empathy in the crossover process may be attributed to traditional gender beliefs among couples in Eastern Asian societies (e.g., China and Japan). The traditional gender role view highlights gender asymmetry in work and family domains for men and women (Barnett & Hyde, 2001), such that work has been considered as more central for men, whereas home has been deemed as more central for women. Therefore, women in Eastern countries are still the ones who assume the primary responsibility for child care and household matters, which means that they typically might pay less attention to or invest less effort in other issues, such as their husbands’ situations. However, if they endeavor to take the perspectives of their husbands’ standpoints or express warmth and concern for their husbands, reciprocal rewarding communications will be facilitated, which help them to cope with the undesirable consequences of negative crossover as well as reap the benefits of positive crossover from their husbands. An alternative explanation is that wives with less strain and more relationship satisfaction are perhaps better equipped to gain psychological resources required (e.g., empathy) in response to their husbands’ experiences. Wives’ ability to provide empathy assures the husbands that they are being heard and understood and allows themselves to increase understanding of the husbands’ situation, which ultimately mitigates the impact of negative crossover and facilities the process of positive crossover. Nevertheless, future research is encouraged to probe into these explanations to examine the asymmetrical role of empathy between spouses in the crossover process.

Limitations and Future Directions

This study has several limitations that should be noted.

First, the cross-sectional nature of this study precludes causal inferences and may even invite rival hypotheses concerning the direction of causation. For example, in the present design, we assume that one’s WFC would lead to a decrease in his or her partner’s marital satisfaction. However, it is possible that a reverse causal order of what originally predicted would occur. That is, one’s low marital satisfaction would lead to an increase in his or her partner’s WFC. An individual with low levels of marital satisfaction might use overwork as an “escape” coping strategy in response to poor relationship quality, thereby increasing the likelihood that the partner experiences high levels of WFC due to a lack of helping hands. Future longitudinal designs are required to investigate the delineated crossover pathways.

Second, as all variables were assessed with self-report data, common method variance may confound the interpretation of the present results. To address this limitation, we conducted Harman’s single-factor test (Podsakoff, MacKenzie, Lee, & Podsakoff, 2003) to assess whether a substantial amount of common method variance is present. We loaded all the study variables into an exploratory factor analysis and examined the unrotated factor solution. Results showed that three factors emerged with Eigenvalues greater than 1. The three factors accounted for 57.69% of the total variance, and the first factor only accounted for 33.81% of the variance in the data. Thus, common method variance would not be of great concern in our study. Nevertheless, the present results need to be replicated with objective measures in future studies.

Third, generalization of the current findings to other life-cycle stages should be cautioned because this study focused on parents of preschool children (age 3–6 years). Future studies are encouraged to studying parents at other life-cycle stages (e.g., parents of school-aged or older children) to further our understanding of how dual-earner couples balance the conflicting demands of work and family as an integrated system.

Fourth, the present design does not allow us to compare similarities and differences in crossover phenomenon between nationally or culturally representative samples, which represents a serious gap in the literature. It is speculated that members of collectivistic cultures (e.g., China) may experience stronger crossover than members of individualistic cultures (e.g., the United States) because collectivists tend to construe themselves as interrelated to others rather than as independent and unique (Triandis, 1995). This greater sense of interdependent self-construal may motivate collectivists to pay close attention to others in social interactions, thereby increasing the chance that they experience higher levels of crossover. Future cross-cultural comparisons of crossover effects are recommended to directly put this proposition into test.

Contributions and Implications

Despite the above limitations, the current study contributes to the empirical investigation of the crossover phenomenon in several ways. Most existing work–family research has been conducted in Western samples; there is a growing call for studying work–family issues among different populations (Kossek, Baltes, & Matthews, 2011). To our knowledge, this is the first study to investigate the moderating role of empathy (empathic concern and perspective taking) in the direct crossover process between Chinese dual-earner couples. First, we examined the bidirectional transmission of work–family experiences between members in a marital dyad and extended Bakker and Demerouti’s (2009) study, which focused on the unidirectional transfer of work engagement from women to men. Second, we incorporated both the emotional and cognitive types of empathy into the research design, therefore providing a depth of understanding about how different types of empathy might play a role in the crossover process. Furthermore, to our knowledge, few studies have investigated the role of empathy in the crossover of negative experiences, which represents a serious gap in the literature. The current research sought to fill in this gap by testing the role of empathy in both the negative and positive crossover experiences. An unexpected but important finding was that wives’ perspective taking actually played a stress-buffering role in the negative transmission from husbands’ WFC to wives’ psychological strain. Finally, a set of moderated APIM analyses, which accommodated dyadic data, were employed to test the all hypotheses. The findings highlight the importance of applying this style of dyadic analysis in future work–family studies.

The current findings have important implications for individuals, couples, and organizations aiming at flourishing workforces. Partners in a dyad share their responses to work and family conditions, and decisions about each partner’s work and family obligations are often couple-level decisions. However, many previous employee assistance programs focus on the individual employees and often neglect their partners. In order to develop more dyad-focused interventions and handle stressors more effectively, the intervention programs are encouraged to collaborate with family or marriage experts to provide guidance in developing communal coping strategies. This study showed that wives’ empathy (empathic concern and perspective taking) played a beneficial role in the crossover from husbands’ work–family interface to wives’ outcomes. Accordingly, employee assistance programs might consider providing communication skills training, such as the ability of expressing concern or adopting the standpoint of others while engaging in social interactions for their female employees. These practices could help employees harmonize both work and family domains.

Conclusion

This study showed that between Chinese dual-earner couples, one partner’s work–family interface (WFC and WFE) can affect the other partner’s psychological strain and marital satisfaction. In particular, empathy (empathic concern and perspective taking) may function as one of the explanatory variables: Wives’ perspective taking buffered the impact of husbands’ WFC on wives’ psychological strain, as well as strengthened the relationship between husbands’ WFE and wives’ marital satisfaction. Wives’ empathic concern reinforced the relationship between husbands’ WFE and wives’ marital satisfaction. Future investigation of cross-cultural work–family dynamics would be helpful to examine whether the mechanisms identified in this study are transportable between different countries.

Footnotes

Declaration of Conflicting Interests

The author(s) declared no potential conflicts of interest with respect to the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article.

Funding

The author(s) received no financial support for the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article.

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