Individual Characteristics and the Good Working Life

This chapter focuses on the unique relations between the three dimensions of the good working life—job satisfaction, work meaningfulness, and work psychological richness—and various individual difference characteristics. These characteristics include demographic characteristics (e.g., age, sex), personality characteristics (e.g., Big Five characteristics, dark triad traits), the use of character strengths at work, and job crafting behaviors. Results of the empirical study conducted for this book showed that job satisfaction had the strongest partial correlations with core self-evaluations, emotional stability, and conscientiousness. The strongest partial correlations for work meaningfulness were with proactive personality, as well as task and cognitive job crafting. Finally, work psychological richness had the strongest partial correlations with extraversion, openness to experience, and proactive personality.