In this study, we investigated how two types of work-related perseverative thinking (i.e. affective rumination and problem-solving pondering) during the weekend are related to job performance-related outcomes (i.e. compensatory effort and task performance) through their relationships with mood regulation in the workplace during the subsequent working week. Participants responded to weekly web-based surveys at the beginning (i.e. on Mondays) and at the end (i.e. on Fridays) on six consecutive working weeks. The data (N = 107; 490-568 week-level data points) were then analyzed using Multilevel Structural Equation Modeling (MSEM). The results revealed that affective rumination during the weekend was indirectly related to a higher level of compensatory effort and a lower level of task performance during the subsequent working week via its negative relationship with mood regulation. Problem-solving pondering was not significantly related to mood regulation, nor to compensatory effort and task performance at the within-person level. Testing a dynamic model of weekly fluctuations, the findings of this study provide empirical evidence to support that affective rumination has a stronger emotional straining effect than problem-solving pondering.

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