The Good Working Life

In this chapter, I define and explain the three dimensions of the good working life, including job satisfaction, work meaningfulness, and work psychological richness. Job satisfaction refers to a positive, pleasurable emotional state that results from the evaluation of one’s job and job-related experiences. Work meaningfulness involves people’s belief that their work is important and has a growth- and purpose-oriented focus. Work psychological richness refers to people’s experience that their working life is characterized by complexity, entails a variety of interesting and perspective-changing experiences, and involves feeling a variety of deep emotions. I describe the results of previous research on the potential antecedents and consequences of these three dimensions of the good working life. Additionally, I present novel findings on which kind of working life—a satisfied, a meaningful, or a psychologically rich working life—people would choose for themselves if they could only pick one of these options.