Background, Personality, Job Characteristics, and Satisfaction with Work in a National Sample

Abstract

The impact on job satisfaction of job attributes, biographic characteristics, and personality is examined. Data from a 1977 national survey of 3288 adult Canadians revealed that personality and job characteristics have strong, independent associations with a multidimensional job satisfaction index. Personal alienation and internal-external control had sizable correlations with the index when job characteristics and personal background were controlled. All variables considered together account for 30% of the variance in job satisfaction. The reciprocal nature of cause and effect in the association between personality and job satisfaction is discussed in light of other recent analyses of panel data on response to work.