Latent profiles of work motivation in adolescents in relation to work expectations,goal engagement,and changes in work experiences

Motivation plays a key role in successful entry into working life. Based on a cross-sectional and a one-year longitudinal study, we used a person-centered approach to explore work-related motivation (i.e., autonomous goals, positive affect, and occupational self-efficacy) among 577 students in 8th grade (Study 1) and 949 adolescents in vocational training (Study 2). Based on latent profile analysis, in both studies we identified four groups that were characterized by different levels of overall motivation and one group characterized by low positive affect and mean levels in autonomous goals and self-efficacy. Profiles characterized by high levels of motivation showed the highest levels of positive work expectations and goal engagement and the lowest levels of negative work expectations in Study 1 and the highest levels of person-job fit, work engagement, and job satisfaction in Study 2. Moreover, latent difference score analysis showed that motivational profiles predicted changes in person-job fit and work engagement across one year but not in job satisfaction. The results imply that career counselors should be aware of characteristic motivational patterns of clients that may require specific counseling approaches.     

Values,preferences, needs,work ethics,and orientations to work: Toward a conceptual and empirical integration

There have been comparatively few attempts on either the conceptual or empirical level to integrate values, preferences, needs, work ethics, and orientations to work. A rationale outlining the way these concepts can be related to each other, is presented. It is maintained that these concepts are categories of relations between humans and work. These categories are qualitatively similar and differ principally in the level of generality of the characteristics of work considered. Complete-link cluster analysis is suggested as a method of analysis compatible with the proffered rationale. Two studies are presented with data gathered during the development of two versions of Work Aspect Preference Scale (WAPS). The samples for the two studies both comprised senior high school students, controlled for sex and age, who were administered the WAPS. Study 1 had a sample of 532 while Study 2 had a sample size of 482. Both sets of data were cluster analyzed. Results indicated a very substantial amount of agreement between the two samples, particularly at the more general levels of clustering. The bipartite and tripartite groupings of vocational needs suggested by L. H. Lofquist and R. V. Dawis (Journal of Vocational Behavior, 1978, 12, 12–19) were confirmed as were the findings of J. Mortimer (Sociology of Work and Occupations, 1975, 2, 29–53). Other clusters were also identified with findings from previous research. It is concluded that the investigation of preferences at different levels of generality and the interrelation between these levels shows great promise for both the researcher and the counselor and therefore merits more research effort.     

Suggestion,persuasion and work: Psychotherapies in communist Europe

Abstract

This article traces what recent research and primary sources tell us about psychotherapy in Communist Europe, and how it survived both underground and above the surface. In particular, I will elaborate on the psychotherapeutic techniques that were popular across the different countries and language cultures of the Soviet sphere, with a particular focus upon the Cold War period. This article examines the literature on the mixed fortunes of psychoanalysis and group therapies in the region. More specifically, it focuses upon the therapeutic modalities such as work therapy, suggestion and rational therapy, which gained particular popularity in the Communist countries of Central and Eastern Europe. The latter two approaches had striking similarities with parallel developments in behavioural and cognitive therapies in the West. In part, this was because clinicians on both sides of the ‘iron curtain’ drew upon shared European traditions from the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. Nevertheless, this article argues that in the Soviet sphere, those promoting these approaches appropriated socialist thought as a source of inspiration and justification, or at the very least, as a convenient political shield.     

Work stress, Chinese work values, and work well-being in the Greater China

Work values influence our attitudes and behavior at work, but they have rarely been explored in the context of work stress. The aim of this research was thus to test direct and moderating effects of Chinese work values (CWV) on relationships between work stressors and work well-being among employees in the Greater China region. A self-administered survey was conducted to collect data from three major cities in the region, namely Beijing, Hong Kong, and Taipei (N = 380). Work stressors were negatively related to work well-being, whereas CWV were positively related to work well-being. In addition, CWV also demonstrated moderating effects in some of the stressor-job satisfaction relationships.     

Personality complexes in adolescence: Traits,interests, work values,and self-evaluations

Following the recent trend in psychology towards a more integrative view of personality, the study attempted to establish the connections and underlying complexes of fundamental personality dispositions within two cohorts of Swiss adolescents in eighth and eleventh grade (N = 492, ages 13–19): Big-Five basic traits, big six vocational interests, work values, and generalized self-efficacy and externality of control beliefs. Five factors were identified which accounted for 60% of variance among the relations of the variables: (1) enterprising-conventional interests, (2) favorable personality dispositions, (3) social-artistic personality characteristics, (4) investigative-realistic interests, and (5) work value endorsement. Cross-sectional findings indicate that particularly agreeableness and conscientiousness become closer related to interests and work values with increasing grade-level.     

Callings and work engagement: moderated mediation model of work meaningfulness, occupational identity, and occupational self-efficacy

Scholarly interest in callings is growing, but researchers' understanding of how and when callings relate to career outcomes is incomplete. The present study investigated the possibility that the relationship of calling to work engagement is mediated by work meaningfulness, occupational identity, and occupational self-efficacy--and that this mediation depends on the degree of perceived person-job fit. I examined a highly educated sample of German employees (N = 529) in diverse occupations and found support for 2 of the 3 hypothesized mediators-work meaningfulness and occupational identity--after controlling for the relation of core self-evaluations to work engagement. Contrary to expectations, the mediated relations of callings to work engagement were not conditional upon the degree of person--job fit. The findings are considered in terms of the pathways through which callings may relate to work engagement and other career development outcomes.     

Negative work reflection,personal resources,and work engagement: the moderating role of perceived organizational support

This day-level study examined the role of perceived organizational support (POS) in the context of employees’ negative work reflection during off-job time. We hypothesized that negative work reflection during off-job time should be indirectly related to reduced work engagement on the next workday through personal resources (i.e., vigour and self-efficacy) in the morning. In addition, we hypothesized that POS moderated the relationships between negative work reflection and personal resources and between personal resources and work engagement. In total, 100 employees completed one general survey and three daily surveys (in the morning, after work, and at bedtime) over five workdays. Results of multilevel path analyses showed that negative work reflection was neither directly associated with personal resources nor indirectly with work engagement via personal resources, although vigour and self-efficacy positively predicted increased work engagement. However, negative work reflection was negatively associated with self-efficacy when POS was low. POS did not predict work engagement, but moderated the relationships between personal resources and work engagement: Consistent with the resource substitution hypothesis, high levels of POS compensated for low levels of vigour and self-efficacy. Negative work reflection had a significant negative indirect effect on work engagement through self-efficacy only when POS was low.     

Recovery,work engagement,and proactive behavior: a new look at the interface between nonwork and work

This study examined work-related outcomes of recovery during leisure time. A total of 147 employees completed a questionnaire and a daily survey over a period of 5 consecutive work days. Multilevel analyses showed that day-level recovery was positively related to day-level work engagement and day-level proactive behavior (personal initiative, pursuit of learning) during the subsequent work day. The data suggest considerable daily fluctuations in behavior and attitudes at work, with evidence that these are related to prior experience and opportunity for recovery in the nonwork domain.     

Boredom at work: towards a dynamic spillover model of need satisfaction,work motivation,and work-related boredom

Boredom occurs regularly at work and can have negative consequences. This study aimed to increase insight in the antecedents and processes underlying the development of work-related boredom by (a) examining whether work-related need satisfaction and the quality-of-work motivation mediate the associations between the work characteristics defined in the Job Characteristics Model and work-related boredom, (b) investigating if this motivational process operates both on an “enduring,” between-person level and a daily within-person level, and (c) examining if and how daily experiences of work-related boredom spill over to the next day. Data among employees were collected in a cross-sectional study (N = 115) and a 5-day daily diary study (N = 90). Study 1 results showed that need satisfaction and quality-of-work motivation mediated the association between work characteristics and work-related boredom. This motivational process was also found on a day-to-day basis in Study 2. This study further revealed that work-related boredom spills over to the next day through its associations with increased negative work attitudes and decreased intrinsic motivation. These findings provide insight in the process by which momentary experiences of boredom at work may develop into a more enduring experience of work-related boredom.     

Career exploration: Work-role salience,work preferences,beliefs, and behavior

Career exploration was investigated in two studies, each using a longitudinal design. Relationships were observed among work-role salience, work preferences, beliefs about exploration, and exploratory behaviors that suggest career exploration is as much a motivational process as a behavioral one. In Study 1, work-role salience, and to a lesser extent work preferences, was significantly related to beliefs in the instrumentality of exploration and the importance of obtaining one's preferred position. In Study 2, exploration instrumentalities and the importance of obtaining one's preferred position were significantly related to exploratory behavior and the amount of information obtained. Gender was also related to beliefs regarding the instrumentality of exploration, with women indicating greater search instrumentality than men.     

Class,housework, and happiness: Women's work and life satisfaction

Large-sample surveys often fail to find a difference in self-reported satisfaction between housewives and employed women. Several explanations that have been offered for this failure are explored here in greater detail. The suggestion that the ease of housewives' lives is experienced as a benefit compensating for fewer satisfactions in other areas is rejected; greater time pressure is associated with greater satisfaction for housewives. The suggestion that working-class women are happier at home, while middle-class women prefer careers is also not supported; working-class women appear to be less satisfied with their lives and no more satisfied with their work whether the comparison group is working-class women with jobs or middle-class housewives. Social desirability, on the other hand, is found to be a major factor predicting the self-reported happiness of housewives, and the general issue of the role of social expectations in evaluating satisfaction is raised.     

Remembered work importance,satisfaction, reminiscence and adjustment in retirement: A case study

Previous research on the relationship between adjustment to retirement and variables related to pre-retirement occupation has been inconclusive with reviewers calling for investigations which take individual dafferences into account, This case study examined the relationship between remembered importance of and satisfaction with occupation, reminiscence about working life and adjustment to retirement in the life of Mr Howard, a 70 year old ex-manager, Quantitative and qualitative analyses attentive to the importance of individual characteristics produced findings consistent with previous research suggesting that intrinsic occupational factors are important earlier on in working life but are replaced by extrinsic factors later in life. Mr Howard reported however, that this change was a reaction to external changes (organizational change due to nationalization) rather than a purely psychological process. He was fairly satisfied with life in general and retirement in particular and reminisced about working life sometimes on his own or with ex-workmates. These findings and the implications of single-case methodology are discussed.