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ORIGINAL RESEARCH article

Front. Psychol.
Sec. Quantitative Psychology and Measurement
Volume 14 - 2023 | doi: 10.3389/fpsyg.2023.1298242
This article is part of the Research Topic

Quality of Life in Academia: New Perspectives for Assessing and Promoting Wellbeing in University Population

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Putting PhD Students Front and Center: An Empirical Analysis Using the Effort-Reward Imbalance Model

Melanie Vilser1, 2* Selina Gentele1 Irmgard Mausz3
  • 1Ludwig Maximilian University of Munich, Germany
  • 2Center for Leadership and People Management, Ludwig Maximilian University of Munich, Germany
  • 3Department of Business Psychology & HR, Munich, Germany, International School of Management, Germany

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A doctorate is associated with numerous challenges for many PhD students, including financial insecurities, little support from supervisors, and time pressure. The present study explores well-being of PhD students via the Effort-Reward Imbalance (ERI) model as well as the potential protective factor resilience. A web-based questionnaire survey was conducted among 1,275 PhD students from Germany. Data was collected at two measurement points over a six-week follow-up period. As hypothesized, overcommitment was found to mediate the relationship between ERI and perceived stress while no mediation effect was found for work engagement. Resilience strengthened the relationship between ERI and overcommitment, especially for an increasing unfavorable ERI, and counterintuitively did not act as a protective factor.

Keywords: Effort-reward imbalance model, Overcommitment, PhD students, resilience, stress, Well-being, work engagement

Received: 21 Sep 2023; Accepted: 06 Dec 2023.

Copyright: © 2023 Vilser, Gentele and Mausz. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY). The use, distribution or reproduction in other forums is permitted, provided the original author(s) or licensor are credited and that the original publication in this journal is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms.

* Correspondence: Dr. Melanie Vilser, Ludwig Maximilian University of Munich, Munich, Germany