Financial Worries, Health Complaints, and Career Exploration: The Role of Action Crises

This study investigates associations between financial worries, a distressing emotional state prompted by perceived threats to financial resources, and employees’ health and career behaviors. We proposed that financial worries are not only positively related to health complaints, but also positively related to employees’ career exploration. We further explored how financial worries are associated with action crises—internal conflicts about whether to leave one’s job—and how these crises may help explain the relationship between worries and employee outcomes. In a two-month time-lagged study with 321 employees, we observed a positive association between financial worries and health complaints, but no significant association with career exploration. Furthermore, the experience of an action crisis mediated the relationship between financial worries and health complaints. Action crises were positively related to subsequent career exploration, and we established a significant indirect effect of financial worries on career exploration through action crises. This research contributes to a better understanding of the potential health-related and career behavioral outcomes of financial worries by introducing action crisis as a cognitive–emotional mechanism.

The article authored by Schmitt, Heihal, and Zacher (2024) is available here.