How Work Challenges Affect After‐Work Mastery Experiences: The Role of Subjective Perceptions and Self‐Efficacy

ABSTRACT As a form of recovery experience, mastery experience often has a distinct relationship with work stressors compared to the other three types of recovery experiences. Being a growth‐oriented recovery experience, analysing how work challenges impact is invaluable for replenishing individual resources, fostering employee growth, and achieving an upward resource spiral. However, existing research on this relationship is limited. This study focuses on subjective perceptions, analysing the mediating role of affective experiences during work and cognitive and physical vitality perceptions after work in the relationship between Challenging Stressor and recovery experiences. Additionally, it explores the moderating role of self‐efficacy in this context—a sample of 111 full‐time employees from various industries completed daily measurements over five consecutive workdays. Cross‐level data analysis revealed the following results: Challenging Stressors during the workday reduce positive affect at work, further diminishing employees' subjective vitality after work, ultimately hindering mastery experiences. However, this negative phenomenon can be alleviated in individuals with high self‐efficacy. The study results indicate that if employees maintain high levels of affective, cognitive, and physical perceptions, along with high self‐efficacy, their mastery experiences after work will not be significantly negatively affected, even when facing high levels of Challenging Stressors in daily work.