Beyond Resource Depletion: An Examination of Sleepiness, Self-Regulation, and Goal Progress

Abstract

Research on employee sleepiness and self-regulation has primarily adopted a resource depletion perspective. However, other theoretical frameworks suggest additional processes may be involved. The current study explored this idea by examining the relationship between sleepiness, self-regulation, and goal progress within an integrative self-control theoretical framework (Kotabe & Hofmann, 2015). This study included a sample of 127 employees recruited from Amazon’s Mechanical Turk and a snowball method through social media. Participants completed seven signal surveys within a single workday assessing sleepiness, desire, higher-order goal, control capacity, control motivation, self-control enactment, desire enactment, and goal progress. Results from multilevel modeling indicated that desire, higher-order goal, control motivation, and control capacity are significant mechanisms involved in self-control enactment. Additionally, results showed that sleepiness was negatively related to goal progress and exploratory analyses suggested that higher-order goal, control motivation, and self-control enactment may be important mediators in this relationship. These findings have theoretical implications for understanding sleepiness and self-regulation and practical implications for improving work-related processes.