Identifying the component structure of job satisfaction by principal components analysis among extension officers in North West Province, South Africa

The component structure of a 34-item scale measuring different aspects of job satisfaction was investigated among extension officers in North West Province, South Africa. A simple random sampling technique was used to select 40 extension officers from which data were collected. A structured questionnaire consisting of 34 job satisfaction and 10 personal characteristic items was administered to the extension officers. Items on job satisfaction were measured at interval level and analyzedwith Principal ComponentAnalysis. Most of the respondents (82.5%) weremales, between 40 to 45 years, 85% were married and 87.5% had a diploma as their educational qualification. Furthermore, 54% of the households size between 4 to 6 persons, whereas 75% were Christians. The majority of the extension officers lived in their job area (82.5), while 80% covered at least 3 communities and 3 farmer groups. In terms of number of farmers covered, only 40% of the extension officers covered more than 500 farmers and 45% travelled more than 40 km to reach their farmers. From the job satisfaction items 9 components were extracted to show areas for job satisfaction among extension officers. These were in-service training, research policies, communicating recommended practices, financial support for self and family, quality of technical help, opportunity to advance education, management and control of operations, rewarding system and sanctions. The results have several implications for motivating extension officers for high job performance especially with large number of clients and small number of extension agents.

The relationships of character strengths with coping, work-related stress, and job satisfaction

Personality traits have often been highlighted to relate to how people cope with stressful events. The present paper focuses on character strengths as positive personality traits and examines two basic assumptions that were derived from a core characteristic of character strengths (i.e., to determine how individuals deal with adversities): (1) character strengths correlate with coping and (2) buffer the effects of work-related stress on job satisfaction. Two different samples (i.e., a mixed sample representing various occupations [N = 214] and a nurses sample [N = 175]) filled in measures for character strengths, coping, work-related stress, and job satisfaction. As expected, intellectual, emotional, and interpersonal strengths were related to coping. Interpersonal strengths played a greater role for coping among nurses, as interactions with others are an essential part of their workday. Furthermore, intellectual strengths partially mediated the negative effect of work-related stress on job satisfaction. These findings open a new field for research on the role of personality in coping with work-related stress. Character strengths are trainable personal characteristics, and therefore valuable resources to improve coping with work-related stress and to decrease the negative effects of stress. Further research is needed to investigate this assumed causality.

Different forms of life satisfaction and their relation to affectivity

Aims: The present study is aimed at studying the research question whether high satisfaction levels achieved through either (1) the fact that one's quality of life is truly satisfactory (i.e., stabilized life satisfaction) or through (2) adapting a more favorable perception of one's quality of life by lowering standards (i.e., resigned life satisfaction) are associated with different levels of positive affect (PA) and negative affect (NA) when compared to each other but also when compared to dissatisfied individuals. Case Report: A sample of 104 adults completed measures assessing stabilized and resigned life satisfaction, PA and NA, and global life satisfaction (i.e., no explicit consideration of differences in standards) in an online survey. Participants were not paid for participation but received feedback on results of the study if interest was expressed. Results: Stabilized life satisfaction and global life satisfaction showed highly similar correlation pattern with PA and NA. Resigned satisfaction was negatively associated with PA and positively correlated with NA. Stabilized and resigned satisfied individuals showed more favorable levels of PA and NA compared with dissatisfied individuals, but did not differ from each other with regard to their levels of PA and NA. Conclusion: Although showing a less favorable correlation pattern with PA and NA, adopting a resigned form of satisfaction (i.e., taking a more favorable view of one's quality of life by lowering individual standards) seemed to prevent individuals from experiencing the same high levels of NA like dissatisfied ones. This has not been studied in detail so far, and therefore, the present paper opens a further area of research within the context of life satisfaction.