Showing papers on "Life satisfaction published in 1969"

Source of variation in job and life satisfaction: The role of community and job-related variables.

Abstract: Several hypotheses relevant to the analysis of the effects of community characteristics on job satisfaction were tested. The 5s were 390 male and 80 female white-collar workers employed by the same company and living in two company towns in Canada. The two towns differed along certain dimensions. Predictions were made regarding the differences in reactions by the workers to these two communities. Predictions were also made regarding the relationship between responses to the communities and responses to general job and life satisfaction. Sex differences were present but the data supported the hypotheses. A discussion of the relevance of these data for job satisfaction and motivation theory is presented. Several articles have appeared recently which analyze the role played by environmental variables in determining job satisfaction and motivation. These studies (Blood & Hulin, 1967; Hulin, 1966; Hulin & Blood, 1968; Katzell, Barrett, & Parker, 1961; Kendall, 1963; Turner & Lawrence, 1965) used traditional S-R paradigms. In some of these studies characteristics of the community in which the plant being studied was located were assessed by means of data from census tracts (to index such variates as cost of living, standard of living, slums, extent of urbanization, etc.) or state-publish ed population figures (to index town size). These community characteristics have been used to predict either workers' satisfaction with various aspects of the job, behaviors in the job situation, or the relationship between satisfaction and job characteristics. The results indicate that community characteristics can be used very effectively as predictors of mean responses to the job and as moderators of relationships between job characteristics and worker responses. Individual differences in preferences for work role outcomes can be predicted using such community variables (Blood & Hulin, 1967; Hulin & Blood, 1968; xThe author would like to thank H. Peter Dachler, Linda Yarham, and the officials of the company involved for their help and cooperation in &e research described in this paper and George Graen and Harry Triandis who read and commented on an earlier draft. Requests for reprints should be sent to the author, Department of Psychology, University of Illinois, Urbana, Illinois 61801.