A good night's sleep can boost women's work ambitions

During a two-week survey of 135 U.S. workers, the researchers discovered this finding. The participants recorded each day, first, how well they slept and how they were feeling, and then, later in the day, how they felt about striving for more status and responsibility at work.

"When women get a good night's sleep and their mood is boosted, they are more likely to be oriented in their daily intentions toward achieving status and responsibility at work," said Leah Sheppard, associate professor in the Carson College of Business at Washington State University. If their sleep quality is poor and their positive mood is diminished, we observed that they were less committed to these objectives.

A good night's sleep can boost women's work ambitions (Illustrative image).

For the study published in the journal Sex Roles, Sheppard and co-authors Julie Kmec of Washington State University and Teng Iat Loi of the University of Minnesota-Duluth surveyed full-time employees twice a day for two consecutive work weeks, accumulating over 2,200 observations. Every day at noon, the participants answered questions regarding their previous night's sleep and current mood. In the evenings, they answered questions regarding their intentions to pursue greater responsibility, status, and influence at work.

Men and women alike reported both good and poor sleep quality over the course of the study, with no discernible difference between the sexes. However, following a night of poor sleep, women's intentions to pursue greater status at work were significantly diminished.

The researchers can only speculate as to why sleep's impact on mood affects women's aspirations but not men's, but they suspect it has to do with gender differences in emotion regulation and societal expectations — or a combination of these factors.

Research in the field of neuroscience has revealed that women tend to experience greater emotional reactivity and less emotion regulation than men, and cultural stereotypes of women as more emotional can reinforce this phenomenon. At the same time, the perception that men are more ambitious than women likely increases the pressure on them to climb the corporate ladder, so it is possible that poor sleep quality would be less likely to deter men from pursuing their career goals.

Sheppard stated that these findings provide some good news for women who wish to advance in their careers. For instance, they could practise meditation to help with sleep and emotion regulation, set better limits on their work hours, and, of course, strive to get better sleep to improve their work motivation.

"It's important to be able to connect aspirations to something happening outside the work environment that is controllable," she said. There are numerous things that anyone can do to sleep better and regulate their mood in general.

Journal Reference: Leah D. Sheppard, Teng Iat Loi, Julie A. Kmec. Too Tired to Lean In? Sleep Quality Impacts Women’s Daily Intentions to Pursue Workplace Status. Sex Roles, 2022; DOI: 10.1007/s11199-022-01321-1