The Differential Effects of Negative Affectivity on Measures of Well-being versus Job Satisfaction and Organizational Commitment

• Published in: Anxiety, stress, and coping Vol. 15; no. 3; pp. 231 - 244
• Main Authors: Payne, Roy L., Morrison, David
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: Abingdon Taylor & Francis Group 01.09.2002; Taylor and Francis
• Subjects: Biological and medical sciences; Fundamental and applied biological sciences. Psychology; Job Satisfaction; Moderator Variables; Motivation. Job satisfaction. Attitude; Negative Affect; Occupational psychology; Organizational Commitment; Psychological Health; Psychology. Psychoanalysis. Psychiatry; Psychology. Psychophysiology; Work condition. Job performance. Stress; Human; Affect affectivity; Employee; Health status; Attitude; Job satisfaction; Public sector; Stress; Psychological well being; Occupational burnout
• ISSN: 1061-5806; 1477-2205
• DOI: 10.1080/1061580021000020707

This paper reports an empirical study of the self-reported psychological strain, ill-health, job satisfaction and organizational commitment of 2450 public sector employees located in Western Australia. The framework used to predict these variables is a demands, supports-constraints framework. The key theoretical issue explored is the differential roles of negative affectivity in predicting the outcomes from this framework. Four different pathways are explored which are taken from Moyle ( Journal of Organizational Behaviour , 16 (1995), 647-668). Multiple regression methods are used to control for negative affectivity and other effects such as curvilinear relationships. The results show that negative affectivity has a variety of effects on both health and job attitude variables but the effects are much larger for the health variables. The conclusion recommends that, in studies that rely on all self-report data, the various possible effects of personality variables such as negative affectivity should be explored in preference to ignoring them.