Engagement de continuité et santé mentale des employés : le rôle des traits d’affectivité. [Continuance commitment and employee mental health: The role of trait affectivity]

Continuance commitment to the organization has been scarcely studied, particularly in connection to employees' mental health. This study uses the tenets of the conservation of resources theory to examine the relationship between the two dimensions of continuance commitment, i.e., perceived sacrifice commitment and low alternatives commitment, and two health indicators: emotional exhaustion and depressive symptoms. Moreover, the study controls for the effect of positive and negative affectivity in the analyses predicting health outcomes and relies on the principles of the broaden-and-build theory to expect these traits to exert a moderating role. Based on a large sample of respondents (n = 1001), the analyses indicate that perceived sacrifice commitment and low alternatives commitment are respectively positively and negatively related to emotional exhaustion and depressive symptoms. Moreover, positive affectivity enhances the negative relationship between perceived sacrifice commitment and health-related outcomes. Surprisingly, the relationship between perceived sacrifice commitment and the outcomes is more negative when negative affectivity is high. Finally, negative affectivity accentuates the positive link between low alternatives commitment and depressive symptoms. These results are put into perspective and discussed in the context of research on continuance commitment.