Partner psychological abuse: Can you leave home at work?

Utilizing sociometer theory, we examine the impact of partner psychological abuse at home on an individual's self-esteem and the resulting effects on job performance in the work domain. Further, we propose that the respondent's ability to psychologically detach from family will buffer those effects. Using a sample of dual-career married couples, we use the actor-partner interdependence model to test this for both individuals in the couple (176 men and 176 women) and find that psychological abuse by one's partner at home diminishes the target's self-esteem and contributes to reduced job performance and that psychological detachment from family moderated the effect of psychological abuse on self-esteem for men only, such that men are able to detach and buffer the effects of abuse on their job performance. Implications for practice and future research are discussed.