Relationship of Life Satisfaction and Job Satisfaction among Pakistani Army Soldiers

Relationship of Life Satisfaction and Job Satisfaction among Pakistani Army Soldiers Summaira Naz Hazara University, Psychology Department, Mansehra, Pakistan Abstract The present study had two main objectives; first, to discover the relationships between job satisfaction and life satisfaction in Pakistani army soldiers, second, to find out the age, salary, marital status, and education differences on job satisfaction and life satisfaction in Pakistani army soldiers. In the present study two questionnaires; Job Satisfaction Scale JSS (Macdonald & Maclntyre, 1997) and Satisfaction With Life Scale (Diener, et al., 1985); were administered to a sample (N=400) along with a demographic sheet. The results of the study revealed a significant positive correlation between job satisfaction and life satisfaction of Pakistani army soldiers. The findings of the study also showed a significant age, education, salary, and marital status differences in job satisfaction and life satisfaction. Age, marital status, and salary variables had positive correlation with job satisfaction and life satisfaction but education had a negative association with job satisfaction and life satisfaction. Keywords: Relationship, Life Satisfaction, Job Satisfaction, Pakistani, Army Soldiers INTRODUCTION In the last decade a dramatic increase in research on the construct of subjective well-being has seen (Diener & Larsen, 1993). This research begun to provide a very important complement to one of contemporary psychology's traditional goals: understanding mental illness in the form of depression, anxiety, and unpleasant emotions. Researches have identified two broad aspects of subjective well-being: affective component (usually further divided into unpleasant and pleasant affect (Diener, 1990); and a cognitive component (life satisfaction) which generally received less attention than subjective well-being component (Andrews & Withey, 1976; Diener, Emmons, Larsen, & Griffin, 1985). Life satisfaction is defined as a judgmental process in which individuals assess the quality of their lives on the basis of their own unique set of criteria (Shin & Johnson, 1978). Therefore, life satisfaction is a conscious cognitive judgment of one's life in which the criteria for judgment are made by the person (Pavot, & Diener, 1993). Life Summaira Naz 7/1 (2015) 7-25 satisfaction explains the difference which emerged after the comparison of individual’s expectations with the real situation. Through research it was found that those individuals who are satisfied with their lives are also satisfied with their current jobs. Job satisfaction is an important criterion for the success of an organization. It has a close association with job turnover and life satisfaction. Job satisfaction can also be defined as the extent that the working environment meets the needs and values of employees and the individual’s response to that environment (Camp, 1994; Lambert, 2004; Tewksbury & Higgins, 2006). Job satisfaction is a multi-dimensional concept as it includes several domains (e.g., satisfaction with pay, fringe benefits, the importance/challenge of the job, promotion opportunities, and job security). For the organization, job satisfaction of its workers means a work force that is fully motivated and committed to high quality performance (Baloch, 2008). Job satisfaction can predict how workers feel about their jobs and also predict work behaviors such as organizational citizenship, turnover, and absenteeism. One common research finding is that job satisfaction is correlated with life satisfaction (Rain, Lane, & Steiner, 1991). This correlation is reciprocal because people who are satisfied with life tend to be satisfied with their job and vice versa. However, some research has found that when other variables such as non-work satisfaction and core self-evaluations are taken into account then job satisfaction is not a significantly related to life satisfaction (Rode, 2004). Some researchers would even say that this is basically all that matters. Thus we find many philosophers, including Nozick (1974) and Sumner (1996), taking something as important as happiness to consist largely or wholly in being satisfied with one’s life. Sumner (1996) further found by placing life satisfaction at the center of his account of well-being as authentic happiness: being happy, where one’s happiness is solidly grounded both in reality and in the values that are truly one’s own; deceived experience machine users and brainwashing victims thus don’t count as flourishing. The life satisfaction component of this theory clearly gets the most weight, so that Sumner (1996) actually refers to it as a life satisfaction theory of happiness. LIFE SATISFACTION Life satisfaction implies contentment with the circumstances of life and with the satisfaction of one’s wants and needs of one’s life as a whole. It has been defined as a person’s subjective and global evaluation of the positivity of her/his life as a whole or with specific life domains (Diener, Suh, Lucas, & Smith, 1999). Recent years have seen an increase in overall research on subjective well-being (Diener & Emmons, 1985). Life satisfaction Judgments are dependent upon a comparison of one's circumstances with the idealized appropriate standard. This judgment of how satisfied people are linked with their present state of affairs. It is not externally imposed as it based on a comparison with a standard which each individual sets for him or herself. Chen and Crewe (2009) said that informed desire theory suggests that life satisfaction is contingent upon satisfying the goals that informed people would desire to pursue. Variables that have been closely linked to higher life satisfaction for persons with disabilities include age (Mehnert, Krauss, Nadler, & Boyd, 1990), employment status (Viemero & Krause, 1998), income (Boschen, 1996), marital stress (Mehnert et al., 1990), and age at the onset of the disability (Mehnert et al., 1990). Ahlstrom and Sjoden (1996) indicated that the prevalence rate of low quality of life in people with İşletme Araştırmaları Dergisi 8 Journal of Business Research-Türk Summaira Naz 7/1 (2015) 7-25 muscular dystrophy (MD) could be partially explained with the help of their tendency to utilize emotion-focused coping when facing stressful problems. Life Satisfaction, Subjective Well-Being and Life Domain Satisfaction According to Diener et al., (1999), subjective well-being has both cognitive component and affective components. The affective component study how frequently an individual report experiencing positive and negative affect. Researchers differentiate between life-domain satisfaction and life-as-a- whole (or global) life satisfaction. They said that life-domain satisfaction study individual’s life satisfaction with specific areas (e.g., work, income, and marriage) but the judgments of global life satisfaction are much broader, which comprised on an individual’s comprehensiv (...truncated)