1. Abstract
The Work to Family Conflict Scale (WFCS), developed by Gregory K. Stephens and Steven M. Sommer (1996), is a specialized psychometric instrument engineered to evaluate the multidimensional intrusion of occupational demands into domestic and familial life. Grounded in the interrole conflict taxonomy established by Greenhaus and Beutell (1985), the scale operationalizes work-to-family conflict as an asymmetrical, bidirectional construct originating specifically within the professional domain and manifesting within household, parental, or spousal functioning. Comprising 14 self-report items administered via a 7-point Likert-type response scale (ranging from 1 = Strongly disagree to 7 = Strongly agree), the instrument segregates interrole friction into three distinct theoretical dimensions: time-based conflict (4 items), strain-based conflict (4 items), and behavior-based conflict (6 items).
Psychometric evaluation across empirical studies validates the structural stability and internal consistency of the WFCS. Initial validation conducted by Stephens and Sommer (1996) demonstrated acceptable to robust reliability coefficients, with Cronbach’s alpha values of .74 for time-based conflict, .77 for strain-based conflict, and .80 for behavior-based conflict. Exploratory and confirmatory factor analyses supported an oblique three-factor latent model, distinguishing the behavioral dimension from time and strain dimensions after adjusting for item-wording directional artifacts. The instrument demonstrates extensive construct, convergent, and discriminant validity through established correlations with occupational burnout, somatic complaints, marital dissatisfaction, organizational withdrawal, and turnover intentions. The WFCS remains a foundational operational assessment in occupational health psychology, industrial-organizational research, and human resource policy evaluation.
2. Keywords
Work-to-family conflict, work-family interface, interrole conflict, time-based conflict, strain-based conflict, behavior-based conflict, psychometrics, scale validation, Stephens and Sommer, role scarcity hypothesis, Conservation of Resources theory, occupational stress.
3. Authors
The Work to Family Conflict Scale was formulated and psychometrically standardized by:
- Gregory K. Stephens, Ph.D. — Professor of Management, Department of Management and Leadership, Neeley School of Business, Texas Christian University (TCU), Fort Worth, Texas, United States. Dr. Stephens’s scholarship concentrates on leadership development, cross-cultural management, interpersonal dynamics, and the interface of professional responsibilities and domestic life.
- Steven M. Sommer, Ph.D. — Associate Professor of Management, Department of Management, College of Business Administration, University of Nebraska-Lincoln, Lincoln, Nebraska, United States (subsequently affiliated with the Graziadio School of Business and Management, Pepperdine University, Malibu, California). Dr. Sommer specializes in organizational behavior, change management, employee performance, and organizational stress dynamics.
Correspondence regarding the original developmental validation was addressed through the Department of Management, M. J. Neeley School of Business, Texas Christian University, Fort Worth, TX 76129.
4. Purpose
The primary purpose of the Work to Family Conflict Scale (Stephens & Sommer, 1996) is to provide an empirically rigorous, multidimensional assessment mechanism capable of isolating and quantifying the distinct vectors through which occupational responsibilities impair family life. Prior to its publication, early organizational literature predominantly conceptualized work-family conflict as an undifferentiated, global construct, frequently conflating work-to-family interference (WFC) with family-to-work interference (FWC), or collapsing fundamentally distinct conflict modalities into a single composite index. Stephens and Sommer designed this scale to translate Greenhaus and Beutell’s (1985) theoretical tripartite taxonomy into a targeted diagnostic instrument specifically calibrated to the work-to-family vector.
In occupational health and organizational psychology research, the WFCS serves as an empirical instrument to delineate how idiosyncratic job characteristics influence familial disruption. Researchers use the scale to determine whether occupational stressors manifest primarily as temporal depletion, emotional/physiological strain, or behavioral incongruence. This diagnostic granularity is vital: while extended shift work or rigid scheduling primarily fuels time-based conflict, high cognitive demands, toxic workplace climates, or heavy interpersonal friction typically activate strain-based conflict. Similarly, high-stress roles requiring authoritative, emotionally detached, or confrontational stances (e.g., law enforcement, executive management, litigation) often induce behavior-based conflict, as employees struggle to recalibrate interpersonal patterns upon re-entering the family system.
From an applied organizational and clinical perspective, the WFCS functions as an evaluation and diagnostic tool. In clinical and counseling psychology, particularly in couples and family therapy, the instrument enables clinicians to identify the workplace etiologies of domestic distress, poor parenting self-efficacy, and spousal disharmony. For industrial-organizational consultants and human resources executives, the scale facilitates targeted needs assessments for organizational interventions, evaluating the efficacy of family-responsive benefits, telecommuting policies, flexible working arrangements, and supervisor support initiatives.
5. Psychological Construct
The construct measured by the WFCS is work-to-family conflict, conceptualized as a form of interrole friction in which the role pressures from the work and family domains are mutually incompatible in some respect, specifically where participation in the family role is made more difficult by virtue of participation in the work role (Greenhaus & Beutell, 1985; Kahn et al., 1964). Rather than treating this friction as homogeneous, the scale decomposes the construct into three distinct operational dimensions:
Time-Based Conflict
Time-based conflict occurs when temporal commitments, schedule rigidity, or heavy hours devoted to the occupational role physically prevent or significantly undermine the individual’s capacity to fulfill responsibilities, expectations, or relational desires within the family domain. This dimension operates on structural and physical limits: time expended in one domain cannot be concurrently allocated to another. Within the WFCS, time-based conflict captures both direct temporal deficits (e.g., being physically absent from family gatherings, working late into the evening) and internal subjective dissatisfaction regarding time allocation (e.g., feeling that occupational duties usurp time that rightfully belongs to household functioning and family development).
Strain-Based Conflict
Strain-based conflict occurs when physiological, psychological, or emotional strain generated within the workplace spills over into the home environment, hampering the individual’s capacity to effectively enact domestic roles. In this modality, the individual may be physically present in the home, but their psychological presence and emotional energy are severely compromised. Symptoms such as physical fatigue, irritability, tension, cognitive rumination, anxiety, and emotional exhaustion stem from workplace pressures (e.g., interpersonal hostility, role ambiguity, unrealistic deadlines) and directly undermine marital communication, parental patience, and domestic problem-solving.
Behavior-Based Conflict
Behavior-based conflict arises when specific behavioral repertoires developed, reinforced, and expected within the occupational setting conflict with the interpersonal, emotional, and social behavioral patterns necessary within the family domain. Professional environments frequently demand and reward emotional detachment, analytical skepticism, unilateral authority, assertiveness, and impersonal efficiency. Conversely, familial environments necessitate warmth, emotional vulnerability, consensual dialogue, patience, and empathetic nurturance. When an individual fails to switch behavioral repertoires across boundaries—or when workplace behaviors are inappropriately transposed onto domestic interactions—severe relational friction emerges.
6. Theoretical Framework
The architectural foundation of the Work to Family Conflict Scale rests upon several classic theories of role dynamics, resource allocation, and organizational stress:
The Interrole Conflict Paradigm
The primary theoretical bedrock is the structural taxonomy advanced by Greenhaus and Beutell (1985), which built upon the classical role theory formulations of Kahn, Wolfe, Quinn, Snoek, and Rosenthal (1964). Kahn et al. posited that individuals occupy multiple social positions, each associated with distinct sets of normative expectations (role demands). When pressures across these boundary spaces become mutually incompatible, the individual experiences interrole conflict. Greenhaus and Beutell refined this framework by formalizing the tripartite division into time, strain, and behavior, arguing that each represents a theoretically and empirically distinct causal pathway through which work infringes upon family life.
Role Scarcity and the Conservation of Resources (COR) Theory
The instrument also integrates the Scarcity Hypothesis of human energy and attention (Goode, 1960; Marks, 1977), which presumes that individuals possess finite quantities of physiological, cognitive, and temporal resources. Consequently, heavy investments of personal resources into one life sphere (employment) deplete the remaining reservoir available for alternative life spheres (domesticity), inevitably generating interrole strain. This conceptualization converges with Hobfoll’s (1989) Conservation of Resources (COR) Theory, which states that psychological distress occurs when individuals encounter actual resource loss, the threat of resource loss, or a failure to gain anticipated resources following significant effort. In the context of the WFCS, time-based and strain-based items directly capture the depletion and exhaustion of personal resources (vitality, cognitive attention, temporal capital).
Spillover Theory
Spillover theory (Staines, 1980) asserts that emotional states, attitudes, and behavioral repertoires generated within one domain cross over the porous psychological boundaries between life spheres. Negative spillover occurs when workplace dissatisfaction, anxiety, or authoritative styles migrate across the organizational perimeter into domestic life. The WFCS directly formalizes negative behavioral and affective spillover mechanisms, measuring the failure of boundary-spanning psychological buffers.
7. Validity
Extensive psychometric investigations have established the validity profile of the Work to Family Conflict Scale across diverse organizational populations:
Construct and Structural Validity
Stephens and Sommer (1996) verified construct validity using both exploratory factor analysis (EFA) and confirmatory factor analysis (CFA) across separate samples. Initial EFA demonstrated that items designed to measure behavior-based conflict formed factors clearly differentiated from temporal and strain dimensions. When testing an independent sample via CFA, a hypothesized three-factor oblique model exhibited superior fit relative to competing unidimensional or two-factor models, corroborating that time-based, strain-based, and behavior-based conflict represent empirically distinct yet correlated facets of a broader work-to-family conflict construct.
Convergent Validity
The WFCS exhibits pronounced convergent validity when evaluated against conceptually parallel scales and recognized occupational stress outcomes. Scores on the time-based and strain-based subscales correlate substantially with established measures such as Netemeyer, Boles, and McMurrian’s (1996) Work-Family Conflict Scale and Kopelman, Greenhaus, and TFCS indices ($r$ ranging from .55 to .72). Moreover, the strain-based dimension demonstrates strong positive correlations with emotional exhaustion on the Maslach Burnout Inventory (MBI), perceived stress scales, and somatic symptom inventories, confirming that psychological drain at work aligns with elevated familial strain scores.
Discriminant Validity
Discriminant validity analyses confirmed that the three subscales measure distinct components rather than general negative affectivity. Inter-factor correlations among the three dimensions typically range from moderate ($r = .35$) to high-moderate ($r = .58$), confirming sufficient shared variance to indicate a common overarching construct while maintaining sufficient unique variance to warrant independent subscale scoring. Notably, the behavior-based subscale shares less variance with purely temporal indicators (e.g., total weekly hours worked, overtime frequency) than does the time-based subscale, providing empirical evidence of discriminant validity between the behavioral and temporal dimensions.
Criterion-Related and Predictive Validity
Empirical studies demonstrate that elevations across the WFCS subscales predict key personal, familial, and organizational outcomes. Longitudinal and cross-sectional designs show that higher strain-based and time-based conflict scores predict decreased marital satisfaction, higher parental distress, elevated turnover intentions, lower organizational commitment, and increased absenteeism. Behavior-based conflict uniquely predicts family-level interpersonal friction and lower home-domain psychological well-being, even after controlling for the total number of hours worked per week.
8. Reliability
The Work to Family Conflict Scale has demonstrated sound internal consistency reliability across multiple validation samples, meeting standard psychometric thresholds for research and diagnostic utility.
Internal Consistency (Cronbach’s Alpha)
In the seminal psychometric validation study conducted by Stephens and Sommer (1996), Cronbach’s alpha ($lpha$) coefficients were evaluated across the three subscale dimensions:
- Behavior-Based Conflict Dimension: Demonstrated the highest internal consistency among the subscales, yielding a coefficient alpha of $\alpha = .80$.
- Strain-Based Conflict Dimension: Displayed robust internal consistency, with a coefficient alpha of $\alpha = .77$.
- Time-Based Conflict Dimension: Produced an acceptable internal consistency coefficient of $\alpha = .74$.
Subsequent psychometric replications utilizing the WFCS in diverse organizational settings (including manufacturing, healthcare, and educational sectors) have reported alpha reliabilities ranging from .73 to .84 across the subscales, confirming the temporal and cross-sample reliability of the item sets.
Composite Reliability and Scale Homogeneity
Confirmatory factor analytic evaluations have reported composite reliability (CR) indices exceeding the conventional .70 benchmark across all three latent dimensions. Item-total correlations within each subscale consistently exceed .40, verifying that individual items contribute meaningfully to their respective subscale constructs without excessive redundancy.
9. Factor Analysis
The structural dimensionality of the WFCS was established through sequential exploratory and confirmatory factor analytic procedures conducted by Stephens and Sommer (1996):
Exploratory Factor Analysis (EFA)
In the initial phase of scale development, Stephens and Sommer administered candidate items to a developmental sample and subjected the data to exploratory factor analysis using principal axis factoring with oblique rotation (acknowledging the theoretical interdependence of the dimensions). The EFA yielded three primary latent factors. Notably, in this initial extraction, eight items reflecting time-based and strain-based interrole interference loaded heavily onto an overarching temporal/strain factor, while the remaining six items captured behavior-based conflict across two sub-factors.
Crucially, methodological investigation revealed that the separation within the behavior-based items was driven by item wording directionality: positively worded behavior items clustered together, while negatively worded behavior items formed a second cluster. Methodologists have long observed that directional wording artifacts can artificially split a unidimensional latent trait into pseudo-factors. Accounting for this wording artifact, the six behavior-related items clearly represented a unified conceptual and empirical dimension of behavior-based conflict.
Confirmatory Factor Analysis (CFA)
To definitively evaluate the structural model and resolve the overlap observed in the EFA, Stephens and Sommer (1996) executed a confirmatory factor analysis on an independent, separate sample of working professionals. The CFA tested a three-factor oblique measurement model specifying:
- Factor 1: Four time-based conflict items.
- Factor 2: Four strain-based conflict items.
- Factor 3: Six behavior-based conflict items.
The CFA results demonstrated that the hypothesized three-factor model yielded a satisfactory fit to the data, significantly outperforming alternative nested models (including a single-factor unidimensional model and a two-factor model combining time and strain into a single dimension). Standardized factor loadings across items onto their assigned latent constructs were uniformly salient and statistically significant ($p < .001$), supporting the structural validity of the three distinct dimensions originally proposed by Greenhaus and Beutell (1985).
10. Instrument / Measurement Tool
The Work to Family Conflict Scale (WFCS) is structured as follows:
- Instrument Name: Work to Family Conflict Scale (WFCS)
- Authors: Gregory K. Stephens and Steven M. Sommer (1996)
- Construct Assessed: Unidirectional work-to-family interrole conflict
- Administration Format: Self-administered paper-and-pencil or computerized questionnaire
- Target Population: Employed adults living with spouses, partners, or dependents
- Total Number of Items: 14 items
- Subscale Architecture:
- Time-Based Conflict: 4 items (Items 1 to 4)
- Strain-Based Conflict: 4 items (Items 5 to 8)
- Behavior-Based Conflict: 6 items (Items 9 to 14)
- Response Format: 7-point Likert-type scale:
- 1 = Strongly disagree
- 2 = Disagree
- 3 = Slightly disagree
- 4 = Neither agree nor disagree
- 5 = Slightly agree
- 6 = Agree
- 7 = Strongly agree
- Scoring and Transformation Procedures:
- Several items are worded in a reverse/positive direction to mitigate acquiescence response bias. Specifically, Items 3, 4, 9, 10, and 11 are reverse-scored before index calculation (i.e., $1 \rightarrow 7$, $2 \rightarrow 6$, $3 \rightarrow 5$, $4 \rightarrow 4$, $5 \rightarrow 3$, $6 \rightarrow 2$, $7 \rightarrow 1$).
- Subscale scores are calculated by averaging the response values of the items comprising that dimension:
- Time-Based Mean: $(\text{Item } 1 + \text{Item } 2 + \text{Item } 3_{\text{rev}} + \text{Item } 4_{\text{rev}}) / 4$
- Strain-Based Mean: $(\text{Item } 5 + \text{Item } 6 + \text{Item } 7 + \text{Item } 8) / 4$
- Behavior-Based Mean: $(\text{Item } 9_{\text{rev}} + \text{Item } 10_{\text{rev}} + \text{Item } 11_{\text{rev}} + \text{Item } 12 + \text{Item } 13 + \text{Item } 14) / 6$
- A global work-to-family conflict index can be generated by averaging all 14 items (post-reversal), with higher composite and subscale scores denoting greater degrees of work-to-family conflict.
11. Permissions & Fee and Test Year
The Work to Family Conflict Scale was published in 1996 in the peer-reviewed journal Educational and Psychological Measurement (Sage Publications). The intellectual property and formal copyright for the published article reside with Sage Publications, Inc. (Copyright © 1996 by Sage Publications, Inc.).
For non-commercial scholarly research, academic dissertations, and institutional teaching applications, the items of the scale are widely accessible under fair use scholarly conventions, provided proper academic attribution is given to Stephens and Sommer (1996). Commercial applications, including commercial executive coaching, fee-for-service consulting platforms, or inclusion in proprietary corporate well-being suites, require formal copyright clearance and licensing permissions from Sage Publications, Inc. through their rights management services (e.g., the Copyright Clearance Center / Marketplace).
12. References
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Goode, W. J. (1960). A theory of role strain. American Sociological Review, 25(4), 483–496. https://doi.org/10.2307/2092933
Greenhaus, J. H., & Beutell, N. J. (1985). Sources of conflict between work and family roles. Academy of Management Review, 10(1), 76–88. https://doi.org/10.5465/amr.1985.4277352
Hobfoll, S. E. (1989). Conservation of resources: A new attempt at conceptualizing stress. American Psychologist, 44(3), 513–524. https://doi.org/10.1037/0003-066X.44.3.513
Kahn, R. L., Wolfe, D. M., Quinn, R. P., Snoek, J. D., & Rosenthal, R. A. (1964). Organizational stress: Studies in role conflict and ambiguity. John Wiley & Sons.
Marks, S. R. (1977). Multiple roles and role strain: Some notes on human energy, time and commitment. American Sociological Review, 42(6), 921–936. https://doi.org/10.2307/2094577
Netemeyer, R. G., Boles, J. S., & McMurrian, R. (1996). Development and validation of work-family conflict and family-work conflict scales. Journal of Applied Psychology, 81(4), 400–410. https://doi.org/10.1037/0021-9010.81.4.400
Staines, G. L. (1980). Spillover versus compensation: A review of the literature on the relationship between work and nonwork. Human Relations, 33(2), 111–129. https://doi.org/10.1177/001872678003300203
Stephens, G. K., & Sommer, S. M. (1996). The measurement of work to family conflict. Educational and Psychological Measurement, 56(3), 475–486. https://doi.org/10.1177/0013164496056003011