The Illusion of Family Motivation: Why the Drive to Work Hard for Your Family Can Hurt Them

Abstract: Family motivation is important in both organizational and family life, as it drives employees to work hard to support their family. A common assumption is that family motivation inherently benefits the family. Our research challenges this assumption by providing an alternative perspective on how family motivation can also backfire. Drawing on identity theory and insights from Rokeach’s value system (terminal vs. instrumental values), we develop a dual-pathway model in which family motivation acts as a double-edged sword impacting family satisfaction through countervailing mechanisms. Specifically, we propose the terminal pathway highlights how employees’ family motivation heightens family role salience (the end goal of family motivation), reduces workaholism, and ultimately promotes their spouse’s family satisfaction. On the other hand, the instrumental pathway predicts how family motivation simultaneously heightens work role salience (the means to achieve the end goal) and increases workaholism, thereby undermining family satisfaction. Findings from two pre-registered experiments and a field survey using dyadic (employee–spouse pairs) and time-lagged designs reveal that family motivation enhances the employee’s family and work role salience. However, we find consistent support for the instrumental pathway, whereby family motivation impairs family satisfaction via enhanced work role salience and workaholism, but not for the terminal pathway. In the field study, we further extend our model by showing that the positive effect of family motivation on family role salience is stronger when intrinsic work motivation is lower rather than higher. This research underscores that the motivation to work hard for one’s family can in fact create work–family conflict and undermine family life.

Keywords: Identity Theory; Value Systems (Terminal vs. Instrumental Values); Family Motivation; Family and Work Role Salience; Workaholism; Family Satisfaction (Spousal Perspective)