Does It Make Any Difference How You Feel About Your Job? An Exploratory Study of the Relationship Between Job Satisfaction and Political Orientations

Does job satisfaction as reported by the jobholder have a bearing on one's political orientations? Findings based upon five sets of political variables suggest that job satisfaction is related to politics, though not always strongly so. Dissatisfied individuals participate less, trust government less, and are more politically alienated than job-satisfied respondents. Job satisfaction cannot be characterized as a surrogate for other joband personality-related characteristics, but has explanatory power of its own, though this power is affected when controls are introduced to the research design. While job satisfaction has important political implications, none of the relationships examined split satisfied and dissatisfied individuals into opposing majorities. In a relatively alienated, distrustful. and apathetic population, the dissatisfied are somewhat more so. The data base was NORC's General Social Survey Cumulative File 1972-1980. Comments NOTE: At the time of publication, the author Michael X. Delli Carpini was affiliated with Rutgers University. Currently January 2008, he is a faculty member of the Annenberg School for Communication at the University of Pennsylvania. This journal article is available at ScholarlyCommons: http://repository.upenn. edu/asc_papers/18 Does It Make Any Difference How You Feel About Your Job? ' An Exploratory Study of the Relationship BetweenJob Satisfaction and Political Orientations Michael X. Delli Carpini Roberta S. Sigel Robin Snyder Department of Political Science Rutgers-The State University of New Jersey New Brunswick, New Jersey Abstract Does job satisfaction-as reported by the jobholderhave a bearing on one's political orientations? Findings based upon fi ve sets of political variables suggest that job satisfaction is related to politics, though not always strongly so. Dissatisfied individuals participate less, trust government less, and are more politically alienated than job-satisfied respondents. Job satisfaction cannot be characterized as a surrogate for other joband personality-related c~aracteristjcs, but has explanatory power of its own, though this power is affected when controls are introduced to the research design. While job satisfaction has important political implications, none ofthe relationships examined split satisfied and dissatisfied individuals into opposing majorities. In a relatively alienated, distrustful. and apathetic population, the dissatisfied are somewhat more so. The data base was NORC's General Social Survey Cumulative File 19721980.Does job satisfaction-as reported by the jobholderhave a bearing on one's political orientations? Findings based upon fi ve sets of political variables suggest that job satisfaction is related to politics, though not always strongly so. Dissatisfied individuals participate less, trust government less, and are more politically alienated than job-satisfied respondents. Job satisfaction cannot be characterized as a surrogate for other joband personality-related c~aracteristjcs, but has explanatory power of its own, though this power is affected when controls are introduced to the research design. While job satisfaction has important political implications, none ofthe relationships examined split satisfied and dissatisfied individuals into opposing majorities. In a relatively alienated, distrustful. and apathetic population, the dissatisfied are somewhat more so. The data base was NORC's General Social Survey Cumulative File 19721980. Support for this research was provided by the Research Council of Rutgers University. MicropoUtics, Volume 3. Number 2 0271-6623/83/030227-00$02.00/0 Copyright © 1983 Crane. Russak & Company. Inc.