Job Importance as a Moderator of the Relationship Between Job Satisfaction and Life Satisfaction

Moderated regression analyses were used to assess the degree to which indirect indicators of job importance moderate the relationship between job satisfaction and life satisfaction. The 1971 Quality of American Life Survey and the 1972-1973 Quality of Employment Survey provided two large (N = 2164 and N = 1496) nationwide probability sample data sets for these secondary analyses. It was hypothesized that the strength of the job satisfaction-life satisfaction relationship is positively related to job importance. Contrary ot this hypothesis, respondents for whom their job was expected to be more important did not have substantially stronger job satisfaction-life satisfaction relationships than respondents for whom their job was expected to be less important. The zero-order job satisfaction-life satisfaction correlations in both samples were stronger than expected (r = .48 and r = .49). Discussion focused on the conceptual implications of the failure to find substantial moderator effects. Locke's (1969) theory of the implicit role of importance in determining satisfaction was invoked to explain the obtained pattern of results.