A field study of job satisfaction in university employees was conducted to test Fishbein's (1967) theory of attitudes under natural conditions. It was hypothesized that job satisfaction would be predicted by beliefs about the job. 507 secretaries and nurses responded to a questionnaire containing 5-point, Likert-type belief items and two measures of job satisfaction, the FACES Scale and the Job Descriptive Index. As predicted, the sum of beliefs about the job was significantly related to both measures. Also as predicted, results showed that beliefs about democratic supervision were more strongly related to job satisfaction than beliefs about autocratic supervision. Implications of Fishbein's theory for improving job satisfaction were discussed.
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