Relationship between the need for social approval and job attitude in anonymous research
Abstract
The need for social approval means a tendency to present oneself in a favourable light in order to obtain social approval. In anonymous research the need for social approval mirrors mainly conformity, which in Polish respondents can activate a tendency to complain. The aim of the study was to address the following questions: 1. Are dimensions of job attitude related to the need for social approval as investigated in anonymous research? 2. Do these relationships depend on a period of life, gender, type of employing institution (private, army, state) and a status in the employing institution (low or high)? Three-hundred-sixteen employees (109 women), aged 19-60, were investigated. Both affective (well-being at workplace) and cognitive (job satisfaction) aspects of job attitude were measured and Lie subscale in the Polish version of Eysenck Personality Questionnaire-Revised served as an index of the need for social approval. Results showed that in the whole sample only the measure of negative affect at work is loaded with social approval and only to a very low degree. In subgroups of the sample, the associations of the need for social approval were stronger with affective aspects than with cognitive aspects (job satisfaction). Period of life, type of employing institution, status in the employing institution and gender were moderators of these relationships. The need for social approval activated the tendency to complain only among: subjects in middle age, subjects with a high status in their employing institutions, soldiers and women – the higher level of the need for social approval, the lower their emotional well-being at workplace or lower satisfaction with some facets of job. Among subjects in early adulthood, persons with low status in the employing institutions and workers of employed in private enterprises it activates a weak opposite tendency.
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