Interpersonal and Societal Mattering in Work: A Review and Critique

For more than 2 decades, the concept of mattering, "the individual's feeling that he or she counts, makes a difference"(Rosenberg, 1985, p. 215), has been studied in many disciplines, including social psychology (e.g., Elliott, Kao, & Grant, 2004), adolescent studies (e.g., Marshall, 2001; Rayle, 2005), education (e.g., A. L. Dixon & Tucker, 2008), and counseling (e.g., Powers, Myers, Tingle, & Powers, 2004). Many researchers who studied adolescents and young adults, such as A. L. Dixon, Scheidegger, and McWhirter (2009) and S. K. Dixon and Kurpius (2008), have found that a higher sense of mattering is associated with better mental health outcomes among this population. On college campuses, mattering has been used to predict a student's adjustment to the college environment (Schlossberg, Lassalle, & Golec, 1988; Tovar, Simon, & Lee, 2009). Corbiere and Amundson (2007) suggested that counselors can evaluate the level of working alliance by measuring clients' perceived mattering to their counselors. In general, most empirical studies have supported the positive relationship between a sense of mattering and mental health indices.In addition, several scholars have emphasized the importance of perceived mattering in the work context. For example, Savickas (2004) argued that the purpose of work is "to produce significance and validation" (p. 1). Referencing Josselson's (1994) view on mattering, Savickas highlighted a relational aspect of mattering in the broader social context. Similarly, in her theoretical approach to the mothering experience, Schultheiss (2009) poignantly addressed the loss of mattering when women become full-time mothers in the current society because their work is not seen as a legitimate career compared with paid work.Despite being raised as a theoretically important construct among career researchers and counselors, in general, mattering has received relatively limited attention in the career and work literature (e.g., Blustein, 2011; Connolly & Myers, 2003; Rayle, 2006a; Schultheiss, 2009). This insufficient consideration might have been influenced by the following three factors. First, the findings by Connolly and Myers (2003) and Rayle (2006a) did not fully support the role of mattering in the work context, which might have deterred researchers and counselors from using this construct in their work. Potential reasons for this will be more thoroughly discussed later in this review. Second, limits in available measurements could have discouraged career researchers from investigating mattering at work. No psychometrically sound scale that can be applied to the general work context and/or that can operationalize both societal and interpersonal mattering exists in the literature. Existing scales used in previous career and work studies consist of either questions that are too broad and not related to work per se (e.g., General Mattering Scale; Marcus, 1991) or site-/profession-related questions that are too specific and cannot be used in a different work context (e.g., mattering of school counselors; Rayle, 2006a). Finally, the insufficient emphasis on the construct of mattering throughout graduate training and education may lead researchers and counselors away from using mattering in their studies and practices. Mattering might not be the most familiar word among career researchers and counselors because it is not often learned in graduate schools or easily picked up from career textbooks. Although the construct was introduced more than 2 decades ago, the fact that mattering has not been a part of major career development and work theories might have created a situation in which many professionals are not exposed to the construct. Therefore, the purpose of this article was to provide a comprehensive literature review on the sense of mattering, with a particular interest in its role in the work context.Before I introduce the current literature on work mattering, it is important to define the major construct used throughout this article. …