Is it all about the personal resources? The moderating role of resilience on daily stress appraisal and emotion

Recent reviews of occupational resilience have called for this personal resource to be included as both a predictor and moderator of the stress appraisal-emotion relationship. This research addresses these calls by investigating how employees’ self-reports of daily challenge, hindrance, and threat appraisals relate to their daily work-related positive affect, anger, and anxiety, while assessing both the main and moderating effects of resilience. Data were collected through daily diaries from 318 employees over five consecutive workdays (1,502 daily observations). Results were supportive of the distinct appraisal-emotion relationships, as daily challenge appraisal positively predicted daily work-related positive affect, daily hindrance appraisal positively predicted daily work-related anger, and daily threat appraisal positively predicted daily work-related anxiety. Results of the moderating effect of resilience on these relationships were mixed. Despite resilience positively predicting positive affect and negatively predicting anger and anxiety, resilience only appeared to buffer the daily hindrance-anger relationship. While further research is required to understand which personal resources are the most effective in promoting employee wellbeing, this research is supportive of the influence of both stressor appraisal and resilience in understanding occupational wellbeing, particularly the benefit of challenge appraisal and resilience in promoting emotional wellbeing.