Events

Dr. Ke WANG
Postdoctoral Fellow
Darden School of Business
University of Virginia

There is an urgent need for scalable interventions to support workers’ emotional well-being, particularly for workers in under-resourced settings who experience high stress and limited access to mental health resources. One promising approach is enhancing workers’ emotion regulation skills. Although previous literature suggests promise, the long-term effectiveness of this approach is unknown. The present study evaluated a scalable intervention that taught reappraisal—an emotion regulation strategy that alters how individuals interpret challenging situations. We tested this intervention nationwide among low- and middle-income workers (e.g., drivers, teachers, food service workers) in early education, one of the most stressful and underresourced sectors in the United States. Study 1 (n = 1,967), a pre-registered field survey, found positive correlations among reappraisal use, emotional well-being, and job performance. Study 2, a pre-registered longitudinal field experiment (n = 2,488 after exclusion), found lasting improvements in some emotional well-being and workplace outcomes (e.g., job performance, quit intentions) from the reappraisal intervention (vs. active control) six months later. These studies provide the first evidence of reappraisal’s durable effects over time in the workplace, establishing it as a scalable and enduring strategy for improving worker well-being and performance across diverse occupational settings.