Vocational Identity as a Mediator of the Relationship between Core Self‐Evaluations and Life and Job Satisfaction

This study investigated whether vocational identity achievement mediates the relation between basic personality dispositions (i.e. core self‐evaluations) and career and well‐being outcomes in terms of job and life satisfaction. Two studies with Swiss adolescents were conducted. Study 1 ( N = 310) investigated students in eighth grade, prior to making the transition to vocational education and training (VET); it showed that vocational identity related positively to life satisfaction but that this relationship disappeared once core self‐evaluations were controlled. Study 2 ( N = 150) investigated students in their second year of VET; it showed that job satisfaction was unrelated to identity and self‐evaluations. However, identity fully mediated the relation between self‐evaluations and life satisfaction.