Work attitudes, motivation, and performance.

Discusses motivational variables both as determinants of performance by the individual in an organization, and as ingredients of work attitudes, such as job satisfaction. Motivation studies have included motivational traits (relatively enduring predispositions), motivating environments, expectancies, and equity theory. Research on job satisfaction and job involvement reveals few consistent relationships to job performance, but they do predict absenteeism and turnover. A few studies of motivational traits suggest possible utility in predicting role performance in managerial or sales positions. Motivating environments seem to have significant relations to job satisfaction and effectiveness. After reviewing several categories of programs aimed at improving motivation, the author expresses a cautiously optimistic view about the success of these programs in improving worker attitudes and/or worker performance. (33 ref) (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Age-related differences in work attitudes and behavior: A review and conceptual analysis.

Presents a theoretical framework for understanding age-related differences in work attitudes and behavior. Based on a review of more than 185 research studies, age-related differences in 3 major categories of variables are examined: work attitudes, work behaviors, and values, needs, and preferences. The work attitudes include overall job satisfaction; satisfaction with work itself, pay, promotions, co-workers, and supervision; job involvement; internal work motivation; organizational commitment; and turnover intention. Among the behavioral characteristics are performance, turnover, absenteeism, and accidents. Consistent age-related differences are reported for a number of work attitudes and behaviors, but conceptual and methodological difficulties preclude identifying causal factors in the relationship between age and work attitudes and behaviors. Some theoretical orientations having utility for guiding theory development and research on age differences are discussed. (6 p ref) (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Differential challenge stressor-hindrance stressor relationships with job attitudes, turnover intentions, turnover, and withdrawal behavior: A meta-analysis.

In this article, a 2-dimensional work stressor framework is used to explain inconsistencies in past research with respect to stressor relationships with retention-related criteria. Results of meta-analyses of 183 independent samples indicated that whereas hindrance stressors had dysfunctional relationships with these criteria (negative relationships with job satisfaction and organizational commitment and positive relationships with turnover intentions, turnover, and withdrawal behavior), relationships with challenge stressors were generally the opposite (positive relationships with job satisfaction and organizational commitment and negative relationships with turnover intentions and turnover). Results also suggested that the differential relationships between challenge stressors and hindrance stressors and the more distal criteria (withdrawal behavior and turnover) were due, in part, to the mediating effects of job attitudes. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Relationships of job and family involvement, family social support, and work–family conflict with job and life satisfaction.

A model of the relationship between work and family that incorporates variables from both the work-family conflict and social support literatures was developed and empirically tested. This model related bidirectional work-family conflict, family instrumental and emotional social support, and job and family involvement to job and life satisfaction. Data came from 163 workers who were living with at least 1 family member. Results suggested that relationships between work and family can have an important effect on job and life satisfaction and that the level of involvement the worker assigns to work and family roles is associated with this relationship. The results also suggested that the relationship between work and family can be simultaneously characterized by conflict and support. Higher levels of work interfering with family predicted lower levels of family emotional and instrumental support. Higher levels of family emotional and instrumental support were associated with lower levels of family interfering with work. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Some theoretical & philosophical aspects of educational psychology.

The author was invited to discuss "the extent and character of the theoretical and philosophical aspects" of educational psychology. His own work in educational psychology, however, is concerned primarily with research methodology, measurement, and statistical analyses as applied in educational research methods, and his major tie to philosophy has been in the philosophy of science. Therefore, he touches on topics such as behaviorism, logical positivism, cause-and-effect relationships, objectivity and subjectivity, relationships among variables, and Evolutionary Critical-Realism. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Is Parents' Work Involvement Responsive to the Quality of Relationships With Adolescent Offspring?

Researchers know relatively little about how family relationships influence work involvement, although individuals are concerned about how family life interferes with or enhances work experiences. This study examined change in parents' work involvement as a function of relationship quality with offspring (mean age = 15 years) with data from 191 families participating in a longitudinal study. Results suggested a compensatory association between parents' feelings of acceptance and warmth toward offspring and work involvement. Less positive acceptance predicted (a) increasing emotional job involvement for mothers with sons and fathers with daughters and (b) increasing work hours for fathers with daughters. Results highlight how parents may compensate for less positive relationships with adolescents and are discussed in terms of research and applied implications. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

On the role of positive and negative affectivity in job performance: A meta-analytic investigation.

Although interest regarding the role of dispositional affect in job behaviors has surged in recent years, the true magnitude of affectivity's influence remains unknown. To address this issue, the authors conducted a qualitative and quantitative review of the relationships between positive and negative affectivity (PA and NA, respectively) and various performance dimensions. A series of meta-analyses based on 57 primary studies indicated that PA and NA predicted task performance in the hypothesized directions and that the relationships were strongest for subjectively rated versus objectively rated performance. In addition, PA was related to organizational citizenship behaviors but not withdrawal behaviors, and NA was related to organizational citizenship behaviors, withdrawal behaviors, counterproductive work behaviors, and occupational injury. Mediational analyses revealed that affect operated through different mechanisms in influencing the various performance dimensions. Regression analyses documented that PA and NA uniquely predicted task performance but that extraversion and neuroticism did not, when the four were considered simultaneously. Discussion focuses on the theoretical and practical implications of these findings. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Factors in the job involvement of middle managers.

Investigated the nature of job involvement (JI) and its relationship to other variables for 149 male middle managers in 1 company. A replication group contained 58 Ss. Both company satisfaction(CS) and JI were measured using 20-item Likert scales. A significant linear relationship between JI and CS was found in both groups (r = .44, .45). Principal components factor analyses of JI scores for both groups produced 3 orthogonal factors that replicated. Because only the 1st factor, job ambition, was consistent with previous research, it is concluded that the factor structure of JI is occupationally specific. Results are interpreted as supporting the idea that importance of the job to a worker's self-image is associated with his satisfaction with the company. Possible relationships of JI to theories of work motivation are discussed. (23 ref.) (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Work and family satisfaction and conflict: A meta-analysis of cross-domain relations.

This meta-analysis is a review of the literature examining the relations among stressors, involvement, and support in the work and family domains, work-family conflict, and satisfaction outside of those domains. Results suggest that a considerable amount of variability in family satisfaction is explained by work domain-specific variables, whereas a considerable amount of variability in job satisfaction is explained by family domain-specific variables, with job and family stress having the strongest effects on work-family conflict and cross-domain satisfaction. The authors propose future directions for research on work and family issues focusing on other explanatory mechanisms and moderators of cross-domain relations. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Organizational correlates of employee self-esteem.

166 15–22 yr old male electrical apprentices were administered a battery of tests, including the Job Diagnostic Survey, Central Life Interest Questionnaire, Social Readjustment Rating Scale and Tennessee Self-Concept Scale. Regression analyses revealed that global self-esteem and sense of competence could be predicted by the 4 variables, with job level most associated with global self-esteem and job satisfaction and complexity most associated with competence. The amount of explained variance in global self-esteem and competence increased with the addition of control variables. Defensiveness, age, and urbanicity were most associated with global self-esteem, whereas job complexity and satisfaction remained most highly associated with competence. Central life interest, growth need strength, and defensiveness moderated some of the competence/job satisfaction/performance relationships. The ability of organizational variables to account for substantial amounts of variance in competence, but not in global self-esteem, and the differential nature of the relationships between such variables and different types of esteem are discussed. (33 ref) (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Stress at work: Linear and curvilinear effects of psychological-, job-, and organization-related factors: An exploratory study of trinidad and tobago.

In this study, the authors operationalized job stress as a two-dimensional construct consisting of time pressure and anxiety. The authors hypothesized that the relationship between job stress and job-related attitudes such as job involvement and job satisfaction would be curvilinear but would be linear with psychosomatic problems. In addition, the authors proposed that attitudinal factors would mediate the relationship between job stress and organizational commitment. Data were obtained from 241 respondents in Trinidad and Tobago. Our findings revealed that curvilinear relationships were supported for anxiety and the outcome variables but not for time pressure. The results also provided full support for our mediation hypotheses in the case of anxiety. However, partial support for mediation was obtained for time pressure. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Relationship between job attitudes and two forms of withdrawal from the work situation.

Correlated attitudes concerning the job in general and specific aspects of the work situation with termination decisions and recorded frequency of absences during the year following administration of job attitude questionnaire to 160 nonsupervisory female employees. Overall satisfaction and satisfaction with several intrinsic aspects of the work situation were significantly related to the termination criterion. None of the extrinsic variables were related. For the frequency of absence criterion, attitudes toward specific aspects of the work situation showed no consistent relationships when nonattitudinal variables were partialed out, but overall satisfaction was significantly related. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

The mediating effects of job satisfaction and propensity to leave on role stress-job performance relationships: Combining meta-analysis and structural equation modeling.

This article combines meta-analysis with structural equation modeling to compare alternative models of the relationships among work stress, psychological mediators, and job performance. Specifically, the authors examined the mediating effects of job satisfaction and propensity to leave and their effect on the relationships between role ambiguity, role conflict, and job performance. The meta-analysis included both published and unpublished studies conducted over a period of 25 years, resulting in 113 independent samples with more than 22,000 individuals. As hypothesized, the structural model that best fit the meta-analytic estimates was the partial mediation model, in which stress is related to job performance both directly and indirectly through job satisfaction and propensity to leave and in which all path coefficients were reliably different from zero. The results are discussed in terms of theoretical contributions and implications for future stress-performance research. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Job involvement and organizational commitment as longitudinal predictors of job performance: A study of scientists and engineers.

A study of 532 scientists and engineers from 4 industrial research and development organizations showed that as hypothesized, the scientist–engineer distinction had a moderating effect on the relationships between job involvement and 1-year-later job-performance ratings and on counts of patents and publications. Scientists had stronger relationships between job involvement and each of the performance measures taken 1 year later than did engineers. No moderating effect was found for the scientist–engineer distinction on the relationships between organizational commitment and the performance measures. Moreover, no moderating effect was shown for an interaction term of job involvement and organizational commitment on the performance measures. Implications are discussed for theory building of the construct of job involvement and for the differential management of scientists versus engineers. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Safety behavior: Job demands, job resources, and perceived management commitment to safety.

The job demands-resources model posits that job demands and resources influence outcomes through job strain and work engagement processes. We test whether the model can be extended to effort-related “routine” safety violations and “situational” safety violations provoked by the organization. In addition we test more directly the involvement of job strain than previous studies which have used burnout measures. Structural equation modeling provided, for the first time, evidence of predicted relationships between job strain and “routine” violations and work engagement with “routine” and “situational” violations, thereby supporting the extension of the job demands-resources model to safety behaviors. In addition our results showed that a key safety-specific construct 'perceived management commitment to safety' added to the explanatory power of the job demands-resources model. A predicted path from job resources to perceived management commitment to safety was highly significant, supporting the view that job resources can influence safety behavior through both general motivational involvement in work (work engagement) and through safety-specific processes. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Predicting sales performance, job satisfaction, and depression by using the Achievement Strivings and Impatience-Irritability dimensions of Type A behavior.

Recent research suggested that two dimensions of Type A behavior, namely, Achievement Strivings (AS) and Impatience-Irritability (II), differentially predict physical health and performance outcomes. The present study extends this research and examines whether AS and II differentially predict work performance (number of insurance policies sold), work attitudes (job satisfaction), and depression in a sample of 117 life insurance salespersons. As hypothesized, after statistically controlling for relevant biographical variables and II, AS predicted the number of policies sold and job satisfaction but was not related to depression. After partialing out the effect of relevant biographical variables and AS, II was associated with depression but not with the number of policies sold. In addition, controlling for the same variables, II was negatively associated with job satisfaction. Implications for the prediction of sales performance, job satisfaction, and depression, and interventions designed to decrease the negative consequences of Type A by reducing II but not AS, are discussed. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Job involvement and satisfaction as related to mental health and personal time devoted to work.

A week-long daily record and self-report measures of job involvement, satisfaction, and mental health were completed by 54 female elementary school teachers. Results show that devoting personal time to work-related activities was positively associated with job involvement, but unrelated to job satisfaction. Mental health was positively related to job satisfaction, but did not correlate significantly with involvement. These differential relationships support the view that satisfaction and involvement should be thought of as separate and distinct job attitudes. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)