Personality Dispositions and Job Satisfaction

Abstract

Interactional explanations of job satisfaction are generally accepted, but the relative weight attached to dispositional and situational aspects is a matter of debate. Relationships of two negative affectivity, two positive affectivity, and one bipolar affective measure, as well as a sense of coherence scale, to intrinsic, extrinsic, total and global job satisfaction were investigated. Three samples of, respectively, 118 student nurses, 88 professional, managerial and administrative employees of the property investments division of an insurance company, and 117 artisans in a public utility participated. Correlations between intrinsic and extrinsic scores were unacceptably high (0.64–0.72). There was some support for the view that dispositions and job satisfaction are related: weakly for negative affectivity, somewhat stronger for positive affectivity, still stronger for the bipolar measure, and strongest for the sense of coherence. As in similar studies, the significant correlations were only moderate, ranging from 0.21 to 0.47. It was, however, argued that personality (and also situational) variables are likely to be, at best, modest predictors of job satisfaction, in view of the number and complexity of co-producers and the product.