Discriminating Five Forms of Job Satisfaction: Investigating Their Relevance for Occupational Health Research and Practice

Abstract

This study analyzed the relation and discrimination between five forms of job satisfaction (stabilized, progressive and resigned satisfaction; constructive and fixated dissatisfaction) regarding health, work-related determinants of health and demographic variables. Job satisfaction was assessed with a forced-choice survey item in 10 Swiss companies (768 employees). Significant differences between forms of job satisfaction with respect to health status, effort-reward imbalance, job control, work engagement, age and sex were found. The five forms of job satisfaction were discriminated, but classifying only 49.9% of the cases correctly. General utility of this forced-choice item therefore must be relativized.