CURRENT LITERATURE ON WORK AND SELF-ESTEEM
The purpose of this paper is to examine a sampling of the current research investigating self-esteem in relation to work or work-related variables. In this regard, a search of the Psych-Lit database revealed that in the last five years, over 180 studies had been conducted on self-esteem in the work setting. While it is not possible to review all of these studies, a representative sampling is examined here.
Mallinckrodt (1990) examined for relationships between work variables, job satisfaction, and self-esteem for a sample of 40 middle-aged professionals. All professionals were pretested after losing their jobs, and then posttested one year later. Of interest to Mallinckrodt was whether a hidden cost of job loss was decreased job satisfaction and/or self-esteem upon reemployment.
Findings showed that those who were employed one year later were indeed experiencing significantly less job satisfaction in their new positions than that they had experienced in their former positions. Dissatisfaction tended, primarily, to be associated with the factors of pay and company benefits. However, both self-esteem and internal locus of control (degree to which one feels his life circumstances are controlled by internal factors like choice, effort, decision, etc.) were elevated following reemployment. Interestingly, age was observed to be positively correlated with satisfaction on the new job.
Maric, Aiuppa and Watson (1989) also examined job satisfaction and self-esteem. Of interest to these authors was whether personality characteristics were linked to job satisfaction and/or self-esteem. Subjects in the study were 102 health-care supervisors. The authors summarized their findings as follows:
Subjects who scored in personality type more like their own work group had higher self-esteem and longer job tenure than those who were less similar in type to that of their group. (p.915)
Ma...