Can't Get No Satisfaction?

By Gene Pinder

Keep a person satisfied in his or her job and it will result in superior job performance. At least that's been the prevailing wisdom.

But now a researcher says it doesn't quite work that way. Nathan Bowling, Ph.D., assistant professor of psychology at Wright State, says that his research shows that satisfaction does not cause performance. Instead, he says that employee personality characteristics, such as self-esteem, emotional stability, extroversion and conscientiousness determine it.

According to Bowling, the studies show that employees who have an overall negative attitude to all things in life likely won't find job satisfaction, regardless of performance, because of their personality characteristics.

"Emotional stability matters a lot," Bowling said. "People who are neurotic, those who tend to be anxious, depressed, regardless of the situation, typically won't find satisfaction no matter how many jobs they try."

What are the implications of his work?

Bowling says that workplace interventions designed to improve performance by exclusively targeting employee satisfaction are unlikely to be effective. He also suggests that the studies show that intelligence is one of the things that drives the performance. Another common denominator of solid performing employees, according to Bowling, are those who exhibit a high level of conscientiousness - those who are detail-oriented, hard workers and who set goals.

What are the implications of this research? Managers and business owners may want to pay more careful attention to the personality of the people they hire. If the goal is to find, hire and keep people who will be productive, then the research strongly suggests that on-the-job satisfaction is far less dependent on all of the "goodies" and more dependent on one's positive attitude and personality they bring to the job.

Gene Pinder is the assistant director of an executive master's program at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. He is also the author of The Psychology of Satisfaction and Happiness, a blog focusing on the current science and research of well-being. A journalist and marketer by training, Gene is also an artist of original oils and acrylic paintings.

Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/?expert=Gene_Pinder