Job Satisfaction and General Well-Being

Goal Attainment

Discussions of general well-being often emphasize the importance of goal directedness and goal attainment to well-being. Given the extensive person-environment fit literature demonstrating significant relationships between job fit and job satisfaction, it has been suggested that these models might provide direction regarding which goals to aim for and provide an aid for understanding the motivation to achieve one's goals. Currently, TWA is the person-environment fit model that is most amenable to making linkages between job satisfaction and general well-being. TWA views work as an interactive and reciprocal process between the individual and the work environment. In simplest terms, individuals may be viewed as fulfilling the labor requirements of the work environment in exchange for the work environment fulfilling a wide range of financial, social, and psychological needs for the individual. The TWA instrumentation developed to operationalize job satisfaction uses 20 dimensions: ability utilization, achievement, activity level, independence, variety, compensation, job security, working conditions, opportunity for advancement, recognition, authority, social status, coworker relations, social relevance, moral values, company policies, supervision (human relations), supervision (technical), creativity, and responsibility. Clearly, these dimensions reflect a mixture of both motivating factors and end goals.

Hedonic and Eudemonic Perspectives

Most models of well-being may be categorized as either hedonic or eudemonic in perspective. The hedonic perspective defines well-being in terms of pleasure attainment and pain avoidance. The eudemonic perspective focuses on meaning and self-realization and defines well-being in terms of doing what is worthwhile. Although, the reinforcer dimensions of TWA reflect aspects of both the hedonic and eudemonic models, given the model's overall emphasis on satisfaction of needs, one might conclude that it leans more toward the hedonic perspective. However, structural analysis of the 20 reinforcer dimensions suggests there are six underlying dimensions or values. These values have been labeled achievement, comfort, status, altruism, safety, and autonomy. Achievement reflects making use of one's abilities and feelings of accomplishment. Comfort reflects feeling comfortable and an absence of stress or distress. Status reflects gaining recognition from and/or having authority over others. Altruism reflects helping others and having a sense of doing good deeds for others. Safety reflects an appreciation for structure and order and an absence of unpredictability. Autonomy reflects [Page 1558]being independent and feeling in control. Viewed on this level, TWA appears fairly balanced between eudemonic and hedonic perspectives of well-being.

Extrinsic and Intrinsic Motivation

Well-being researchers have differentiated between extrinsic and intrinsic motivation. Intrinsic motivation refers to doing an activity for the inherent satisfaction of the activity itself. In contrast, extrinsic motivation refers to doing an activity to attain some separable reward. This closely parallels the concepts of intrinsic and extrinsic job satisfaction in TWA. In TWA, intrinsic job satisfaction reflects aspects that are inherent to the job itself (e.g., feelings of accomplishment), and extrinsic job satisfaction reflects aspects that are not inherent to the job itself and that are usually under the control of the work environment (e.g., salary). It should be noted that in the well-being literature, it has been argued that individuals who are motivated intrinsically tend to experience greater levels of well-being than individuals who are extrinsically motivated. However, TWA makes no differential predictions; job satisfaction arises from the degree of correspondence between worker needs and job reinforcers regardless of whether the most salient of these dimensions are categorized as being related to extrinsic or intrinsic job satisfaction.

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