Unemployment has negative consequences for individuals’ psychological well-being. Consequently, interventions should be designed and implemented to alleviate the psychological burden of unemployment. The design of these interventions should, however, be approached with care, as ‘the unemployed’ may not be a homogeneous group. The aim of the study was to determine whether the four already identified (the optimists, the desperate, the discouraged, and the adapted) South African unemployment profiles could be replicated in other unemployed communities in South Africa. The study also aimed to examine the associations between these profiles and negative emotions and basic psychological need frustration. To establish the replicability of the types, a multiphased sampling design was followed to recruit 867 unemployed people residing in Boipatong and Orange Farm in the Gauteng Province in South Africa. Through latent profile analysis, the study replicated the four profiles: the optimists, the desperate, the discouraged, and the adapted. The profiles were differentially associated with negative emotions and psychological need frustration, further attesting to the validity of the profiles. The results of the study can be applied towards creating tailored interventions for the different types of unemployed people from South African communities to enhance the efficacy of these interventions.
ArnoldM. B. (1960). Emotion and personality. Columbia University Press.
2.
BakkZ.VermuntJ. K. (2016). Robustness of stepwise latent class modeling with continuous distal outcomes. Structural Modeling: A Multidisciplinary Journal, 23(1), 20–31.
3.
BarnettM. A. (2008). Economic disadvantage in complex family systems: Expansion of family stress models. Clinical Child and Family Psychology Review, 11(3), 145–161.
BrandJ. E. (2015). The far-reaching impact of job loss and unemployment. Annual Review of Sociology, 41, 359–375.
6.
BurkeM. J.BriefA. P.GeorgeJ. M.RobersonL.WebsterJ. (1989). Measuring affect at work: Confirmatory analyses of competing mood structures with conceptual linkage to cortical regulatory systems. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 57(6), 1091–1102.
7.
ChenB.VansteenkisteM.BeyersW.BooneL.DeciE. L.Van der Kaap-DeederJ.DuriezB.LensW.MatosL.MouratidisT.RyanR. M.SheldonK.SoenensB.Van PetegemS.VerstuyfJ. (2015). Basic psychological need satisfaction, need frustration, and need strength across four cultures. Motivation and Emotion, 39(2), 216–236.
8.
ClarkS. L. (2010). Mixture modeling with behavioral data (UMI No. 3405665) [Doctoral dissertation, University of California]. ProQuest Dissertations and Theses Global.
9.
De KockF.KanjeeA.FoxcroftC. (2013). Cross-cultural test adaptation, translation, and tests in multiple languages. In FoxcroftC.RoodtG. (Eds.), Introduction to psychological assessment in the South African context (4th ed., pp. 83–106). Oxford University Press.
10.
De WitteH. (1992). Tussen optimisten en teruggetrokken: Een empirisch onderzoek naar het psychosociaal profiel van langdurig werklozen en deelnemers aan de Weer-Werkactie in Vlaanderen [Between optimism and withdrawn: An empirical investigation into the psychosocial profile of the long-term unemployed]. Hoger Instituut voor de Arbeid, KU Leuven.
11.
De WitteH.HoogeJ. (1995). Een vergelijking van typologieen van kort- en langdurig weklozen: wetenschappelijke en beleidsmatige implicaties [A comparison between the short- and long-term unemployed: Scientific and policy implications]. In Van der HallenP. (Ed.), De Arbeidsmarktonderzoekersdag (pp. 126–142). Hoger Instituut voor de Arbeid, KU Leuven.
12.
De WitteH.HoogeJ.VanbelleE. (2010). Do the long-term unemployed adapt to unemployment?Romanian Journal of Applied Psychology, 12, 8–14.
13.
De WitteH.RothmannS.JacksonL. (2012). The psychological consequences of unemployment in South Africa. The South African Journal of Economic and Management Sciences, 15(3), 235–252.
14.
De WitteH.WetsJ. (1996). On the heterogeneity of the experience of long-term unemployment among young women. In De GoedeM. P. M.De KlaverP. M.Van OphemJ. A. C.VerhaarC. H. A.De VriesA. (Eds.), Youth: Unemployment, identity and policy (pp. 65–85). Ashgate.
15.
Du ToitM.De WitteH.RothmannS.Van den BroeckA. (2018). Unemployment experiences in context: A phenomenological study in two townships in South Africa. Journal of Psychology in Africa, 28(2), 122–127.
16.
FestingerL. (1957). A theory of cognitive dissonance. Stanford University Press.
17.
FlaskerudJ. (2012). Cultural bias and Likert-type scales revisited. Issues in Mental Health Nursing, 33(2), 130–132.
GadermannA. M.GuhnM.ZumboB. D. (2012). Estimating ordinal reliability for Likert-type and ordinal item response data: A conceptual, empirical, and practical guide. Practical Assessment, Research, & Evaluation, 17(3), 1–13.
21.
HorwitzF. M.JainH. (2011). An assessment of employment equity and Broad Based Black Economic Empowerment developments in South Africa. Equality, Diversity and Inclusion, 30(4), 297–317.
22.
HowardJ.GagnéM.MorinA. J. S.Van den BroeckA. (2016). Motivation profiles at work: A self-determination theory approach. Journal of Vocational Behavior, 95–96, 74–89.
23.
JahodaM. (1982). Employment and unemployment: A social-psychological analysis. Cambridge University Press.
24.
KlineR. B. (2016). Principles and practice of structural equation modeling (4th ed.). Guilford Press.
KoopmanM. Y.PieterseM. E.BohlmeijerE. T.DrossaertC. H. C. (2017). Mental health promoting interventions for the unemployed: A systematic review of applied techniques and effectiveness. International Journal of Mental Health Promotion, 19(4), 202–223.
27.
LazarusR. S. (1966). Psychological stress and the coping process. McGraw-Hill.
28.
LazarusR. S.Cohen-CharashY. (2001). Discrete emotions in organizational life. In PayneR. L.CooperG. L. (Eds.), Emotions at work: Theory, research and applications for management (pp. 45–81). John Wiley & Sons.
29.
LiuS.HangJ. L.WangM. (2014). Effectiveness of job search interventions: A meta-analytic review. Psychological Bulletin, 140(4), 1009–1041.
30.
MarshH. W.LüdtkeO.TrautweinU.MorinA. (2009). Classical latent profile analysis of academic self-concept dimensions: Synergy of person- and variable-centered approaches to theoretical models of self-concept. Structural Equation Modeling, 16(2), 191–225.
31.
MeyerJ. P.MorinA. J. S. (2016). A person-centered approach to commitment research: Theory, research, and methodology. Journal of Organizational Behavior, 37(4), 584–612.
32.
MoorsA.EllsworthP.SchererK. R.FrijdaN. H. (2013). Appraisal theories of emotion: State of the art and future development. Emotion Review, 5(2), 119–124.
33.
MorinA. J. S.McLarnonM. J. W.LitalienD. (2020). Mixture modeling for organizational behavior research. In GriepY.HansenS. D. (Eds.), Handbook on the temporal dynamics of organizational behavior (pp. 351–379). Edward Elgar.
34.
MuthénB.MuthénL. K. (2000). Integrating person-centered and variable-centered analyses: Growth mixture modeling with latent trajectory classes. Alcoholism: Clinical and Experimental Research, 24(6), 882–891.
35.
MuthénL. K.MuthénB. O. (1998–2019). Mplus user’s guide (8th ed.).
36.
NylundK. L.AsparouhovT.MuthénB. O. (2007). Deciding on the number of classes in latent class analysis and growth mixture modeling: A Monte Carlo simulation study. Structural Equation Modeling: A Multidisciplinary Journal, 14, 535–569.
37.
PaverR.RothmannS.Van den BroeckA.De WitteH. (2019). Labour market interventions to assist the unemployed in two townships in South Africa. South African Journal of Industrial Psychology, 45(0), a1596.
Van Der VaartL.De WitteH.Van den BroeckA.RothmannS. (2018). A psychosocial typology of the unemployed in South Africa. South African Journal of Psychology, 48(2), 179–192.
40.
Van KatwykP. T.FoxS.SpectorP. E.KellowayE. K. (2000). Using the Job-Related Affective Well-Being Scale (JAWS) to investigate affective responses to work stressors. Journal of Occupational Health Psychology, 5(2), 219–230.
41.
VansteenkisteM.RyanM. R. (2013). On psychological growth and vulnerability: Basic psychological need satisfaction and need frustration as a unifying principle. Journal of Psychotherapy Integration, 23(3), 263–280.
42.
VansteenkisteM.RyanR. M.SoenensB. (2020). Basic psychological need theory: Advancements, critical themes, and future directions. Motivation and Emotion, 44, 1–31.
43.
VansteenkisteM.Van den BroeckA. (2018). Understanding the motivational dynamics among unemployed individuals: Refreshing insights from the self-determination theory perspective. In KleheU.van HooftE. A. J. (Eds.), The Oxford handbook of job loss and job search (pp. 1–23). Oxford University Press.
44.
VleugelsW.RothmannS.GriepY.De WitteH. (2013). Does financial hardship explain differences between Belgian and South African unemployed regarding experiences of unemployment, employment commitment and job search behaviour?Psychologica Belgica, 53(2), 75–95.
45.
WanbergC. R. (2012). The individual experience of unemployment. Annual Review of Psychology, 63, 369–396.
WarrP. B.CookJ. D.WallT. D. (1979). Scales for the measurement of work attitudes and aspects of psychological well-being. Journal of Occupational Psychology, 52(2), 129–148.
Supplementary Material
Please find the following supplemental material available below.
For Open Access articles published under a Creative Commons License, all supplemental material carries the same license as the article it is associated with.
For non-Open Access articles published, all supplemental material carries a non-exclusive license, and permission requests for re-use of supplemental material or any part of supplemental material shall be sent directly to the copyright owner as specified in the copyright notice associated with the article.
