relationship between job satisfaction and job performance: job ambivalence as a moderator

Relationship Between Job Satisfaction and JobPerformance: Job Ambivalence as a Moderator

Rene Ziegler,1 Britta Hagen, and Michael DiehlUniversity of Tübingen

Tübingen, Germany

Based on research regarding the role of attitudinal ambivalence in the validity ofattitudes in predicting behavior, we propose job ambivalence as a promising conceptfor job satisfaction research. In particular, we argue that job ambivalence (i.e.,coexistence of positive and negative evaluations of one’s job) may moderate therelationship between job satisfaction and job performance. Results of a study con-ducted with managers of an IT company show, as predicted, that job satisfaction isa better predictor of job performance (i.e., higher satisfaction related to higherperformance) when individuals experience low job ambivalence, as compared towhen individuals experience high job ambivalence. Implications for future researchare discussed.jasp_929 1..22

Job satisfaction is assumed to be related to a number of important work-related outcomes (e.g., Spector, 1997). The present focus is on the relation-ship between job satisfaction and job performance. While existing researchhas established the role of job satisfaction in predicting job performance, ithas also been suggested that research should be concerned with potentialmoderators of this relationship (e.g., Judge, Thoresen, Bono, & Patton,2001). Hence, it is an important task for job satisfaction research to delineatewhen job satisfaction relates more or less strongly to job performance.

Job satisfaction is conceptualized as an individual’s attitude toward his orher job; that is, an overall evaluative judgment regarding one’s job that iscaused by affective experiences on the job and (cognitive) beliefs about thejob (Brief, 1998; Brief & Weiss, 2002; Weiss, 2002; also see Eagly & Chaiken,1993; Fisher, 2000; Ilies & Judge, 2004). Based on the social psychologicalliterature on attitudinal ambivalence, we introduce the notion of job ambiva-lence as a construct hypothesized to function as a moderator variable regard-ing the relationship between job satisfaction and job performance.

An attitude is considered to be ambivalent to the extent that an individuallikes and dislikes the same attitude object simultaneously (cf. Jonas,

1Correspondence concerning this article should be addressed to René Ziegler, UniversitätTübingen, Fachbereich Psychologie, Schleichstr. 4, D-72076, Tübingen, Germany. E-mail:[email protected]

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Journal of Applied Social Psychology, 2012© 2012 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.doi: 10.1111/j.1559-1816.2012.00929.x

Broemer, & Diehl, 2000a; Jonas & Ziegler, 2007; Kaplan, 1972; Thompson,Zanna, & Griffin, 1995). With respect to one’s job as the attitude object,attitudinal ambivalence (viz. job ambivalence) is concerned with the extent towhich a person simultaneously likes and dislikes his or her job. Of impor-tance, social psychological research conceives of attitudinal ambivalence asone of several indicators of the strength of an attitude (cf. Petty & Krosnick,1995). Attitudes high in ambivalence are considered to be weaker attitudesthan attitudes low in ambivalence. Moreover, strong attitudes are assumed tobe better predictors of behavior than are weak attitudes (e.g., Krosnick &Petty, 1995). Accordingly, it has been suggested that attitudinal ambivalenceshould moderate the attitude–behavior relationship. Highly ambivalent atti-tudes should be less predictive of behavior than less ambivalent attitudes (cf.Brief, 1998; Eagly & Chaiken, 1993). Based on this literature, we aim to testthe extent to which job satisfaction is more or less strongly related to jobperformance contingent on job ambivalence.

Relationship Between Job Satisfaction and Job Performance

New impetus for research on the role of job satisfaction in job perfor-mance has been provided by a review by Judge et al. (2001). WhereasIaffaldano and Muchinsky’s (1985) highly influential meta-analysis led to theconclusion that job satisfaction is hardly related to job performance (averagecorrected correlation = .17), Judge et al.’s meta-analysis revealed a substan-tial relationship between job satisfaction and job performance (average cor-rected correlation = .30). However, the meta-analytic results also showedsubstantial variation in the correlations across empirical studies. Accord-ingly, although various variables have been proposed as moderators of thesatisfaction–performance relationship (e.g., job complexity; Baird, 1976),Judge et al. suggested that the satisfaction–performance literature may profitfrom investigations regarding the conditions under which the two are more orless related. Further, in light of the conceptualization of an individual’s jobsatisfaction as his or her attitude toward the job, extensive reference toattitude research was made by Judge et al.

In this respect, it has been noted (e.g., Brief, 1998; Judge et al., 2001)that the hypothesis of a positive relationship between job satisfaction andjob performance is implicitly grounded in the more general assumption thatattitudes predict behavior (Fishbein & Ajzen, 1975). Hence, the quest formoderator variables of the job-satisfaction/job-performance relationshipmay be informed by variables identified as moderating attitude–behaviorconsistency; that is, the extent to which an individual’s behavior is consis-tent with the attitude he or she holds (Brief, 1998; Ilies & Judge, 2004;

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Judge et al., 2001). With respect to the attitude–behavior relationship, ameta-analysis conducted by Kraus (1995) shows that attitudes are indeedimportant predictors of behavior (mean correlation based on 88 studies,r = .38).

Of further interest in this regard is research by Schleicher, Watt, andGreguras (2004). Their research investigated whether the evaluative-cognitive consistency of job attitudes moderates the job-satisfaction/job-performance relationship. Evaluative-cognitive consistency is one of anumber of attitudinal attributes that go beyond basic attitudinal features(i.e., valence, extremity) and that indicate the strength of an attitude (cf.Eagly & Chaiken, 1998). Specifically, evaluative-cognitive consistency (ECC)refers to attitude–belief consistency or, as indicated by Chaiken, Pomerantz,and Giner-Sorolla (1995), “the degree of consistency that exists between aperson’s overall, abstract evaluation of an attitude object and the evaluativemeaning of his or her beliefs about the object” (p. 388).2 In line with theassumption that high ECC indicates a stronger attitude than does low ECC,Schleicher et al. (2004) showed that satisfaction is related to performancein the case of high ECC, but is unrelated to performance in the case oflow ECC.

Following up this line of investigation, we focus on another attitudinalattribute: attitudinal ambivalence. This appears worthwhile for a number ofreasons. First, we were inspired by Brief (1998), who suspected that “ambiva-lent job attitudes are far from rare; understanding such inconsistency may goa long way toward explaining when overall job attitudes do and do notpredict organizationally relevant behaviors” (p. 112). Second, attitudinalambivalence has been and continues to be one of the most actively investi-gated topics in attitude research (e.g., Crano & Prislin, 2008). Finally, a focuson attitudinal ambivalence allows us to build on the research of Schleicheret al. (2004) regarding the role of different properties of attitudes in thejob-attitude/performance relationship.

2Referring to work by Rosenberg (1960, 1968) and Norman (1975), Schleicher et al. (2004)used the label affective-cognitive consistency, rather than evaluative-cognitive consistency.However, while previous attitude research sometimes has regarded the term affect as isomorphicwith evaluation, and thus used affect as a synonym for evaluation (Rosenberg, 1960), more recentconceptions of attitude/job satisfaction (e.g., Brief & Weiss, 2002; Eagly & Chaiken, 1993) haveclearly distinguished between attitude and affect. Hence, what has classically been labeledaffective-cognitive consistency (e.g., Chaiken & Baldwin, 1981; Rosenberg, 1960) is now calledevaluative-cognitive consistency (e.g., Chaiken et al., 1995). In concordance with the definition ofECC, the Overall Job Satisfaction scale (Brayfield & Rothe, 1951) that was employed bySchleicher et al. (2004) to assess the affective component of the job attitude is a job satisfactionmeasure that is conceived of as being balanced with respect to capturing both cognitive andaffective aspects, rather than being purely affective (cf. Brief, Burke, George, Robinson, &Webster, 1988; Brief & Roberson, 1989; Kaplan, Warren, Barsky, & Thoresen, 2009; vanKatwyk, Fox, Spector, & Kelloway, 2000).

JOB AMBIVALENCE AND JOB SATISFACTION 3

Attitudinal Ambivalence

Most attitude researchers agree in defining attitudes as tendencies toimpute a certain degree of positive or negative evaluation to a given attitudeobject (e.g., Crano & Prislin, 2006; Eagly & Chaiken, 1993). Implicit in thisdefinition of attitudes is the assumption that this evaluation is unidimen-sional. Thus, attitude objects are assumed to be evaluated as (more or less)positive or negative (or neutral), but not as both positive and negative at thesame time. However, this may not adequately represent cases in which theattitude holder likes and dislikes the same object simultaneously (cf. Jonas &Ziegler, 2007). Such cases of evaluative conflict are labeled attitudinal ambiva-lence (e.g., Kaplan, 1972; Thompson et al., 1995). In fact, it is now wellestablished in attitude research that global attitudes often arise from distinctpositive and negative evaluations of the attitude object (e.g., Cacioppo &Berntson, 1994).

More formally, attitudinal ambivalence is defined as the simultaneousexistence of equivalently strong positive and negative evaluations of theattitude object (e.g., Conner & Sparks, 2002; Thompson et al., 1995). In linewith the conceptualization of attitudes as being caused by affective andcognitive processes (Brief, 1998; Brief & Weiss, 2002; Eagly & Chaiken, 1993;Weiss, 2002), these conflicting evaluations may result from positive andnegative beliefs or emotions with regard to the attitude object. Accordingly,ambivalence may arise because of mixed beliefs (i.e., evaluative oppositecognitions), torn feelings (i.e., evaluative opposite affect), or a heart versusmind conflict (i.e., an evaluative antagonism between affect and cognition).Obviously, these sources of ambivalence are not mutually exclusive. Hence,ambivalence should be higher to the extent that an individual’s reactions toan attitude object are evaluatively mixed in that both positive–favorable andnegative–unfavorable elements are included; that is, when an individual bothlikes and dislikes the same attitude object simultaneously.

A method of measuring ambivalence is to assess an individual’s subjectiveexperience of tension regarding his or her attitude by way of statements suchas “I’m confused about . . . because I have strong thoughts about it and can’tmake up my mind one way or another,” “I find myself feeling ‘torn’ betweenthe two sides of . . . ,” or “My mind and heart seem to be in disagreement onthe issue of . . .” (Jamieson, 1988, as cited in Thompson et al., 1995, p. 373).

Attitudinal Ambivalence as an Indicator of Attitude Strength

Ambivalence is one of several properties of attitudes having to do with thestrength of an attitude (Petty & Krosnick, 1995). The strength of an attitude

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is considered to be important because strong (as compared to weak) attitudesare presumed to have four consequences. Specifically, strong attitudes areassumed (a) to be more stable over time; (b) to be more resistant to attacks;and (c) to have a greater impact on information processing and judgments.Of most importance in the present context, strong attitudes are also pre-sumed (d) to be better predictors of behavior than weak attitudes (Bassili,2008; Krosnick & Petty, 1995). Theoretically, this can be because of thegreater stability of stronger attitudes across time (cf. Erber, Hodges, &Wilson, 1995), because of the fact that stronger attitudes are more accessibleat any moment in time, or because stronger attitudes are more capable ofbiasing perceptions of the attitude object and the context in which the behav-ior is performed (Fazio, 1986). Research findings support these assumptions.With respect to attitudinal ambivalence in particular, it has been shown thatlow ambivalence is associated with more stable attitudes and a higherattitude–behavior relationship than high ambivalence (e.g., Conner et al.,2002; Jonas, Broemer, & Diehl, 2000b). Moreover, Cooke and Sheeran(2004) meta-analyzed six tests on the role of attitudinal ambivalence inattitude–behavior consistency. As predicted, attitudinal ambivalence wasidentified as a significant moderator of attitude–behavior consistency. Thatis, consistency was found to be higher, given low rather than high ambiva-lence. Thus, overall, research has shown that non-ambivalent attitudes arestronger than are highly ambivalent attitudes.

In view of the work of Schleicher et al. (2004) regarding the role of ECCfor the job-satisfaction/job-performance relationship, it is important to notethat research has shown that the various conceptually and operationallydifferent dimensions of attitude strength (e.g., accessibility, ambivalence,certainty, ECC, importance) may not be accounted for by a single-factormodel (e.g., Krosnick, Boninger, Chuang, Berent, & Carnot, 1993; Lavine,Huff, Wagner, & Sweeney, 1998). Rather, it has been concluded that thesedimensions are distinct and that research should be devoted to exploring theantecedents and consequences of each dimension individually (Bassili, 2008;Eaton, Majka, & Visser, 2008; Krosnick et al., 1993).

Perhaps more important, ECC and ambivalence differ from each other intwo important ways. First, Bassili (1996) proposed an influential frameworkthat distinguishes between meta-attitudinal and operative attitude strengthmeasures (cf. Greenwald & Banaji, 1995). That is, certain measures to assessthe strength of an attitude ask respondents to report directly on it. Forinstance, attitude importance is usually measured by asking individuals howimportant the attitude issue is to them personally. Such a self-report measureof this attitude property is meta-attitudinal in that it involves a subjectivejudgment regarding this attitude attribute. Similarly, the measure of ambiva-lence is meta-attitudinal in that it measures the subjectively experienced


tension regarding the evaluation of the attitude object. Accordingly, indi-viduals are asked to provide a self-report regarding the level of experiencedconflict with respect to the attitude.

In contrast, operative measures of attitude strength are indirect measuresin that they are based on the processes that underlie attitude responses (cf.Bassili, 1996, 2008). For instance, attitude accessibility is inferred fromresponse latency (Fazio, 1995). That is, the faster an individual gives his orher attitudinal response, the more accessible the attitude is inferred to be.Similarly, ECC (Chaiken et al., 1995; Schleicher et al., 2004) is an operativemeasure of attitude strength in that scores are calculated based on separateratings provided by an individual, which are subjected to a series of transfor-mations, finally leading to his or her ECC score. For example, Schleicher et al.calculated ECC by rank-ordering participants separately in terms of theirscores on a cognitive job satisfaction measure and their scores on a global jobsatisfaction measure. The absolute value of the discrepancy between a par-ticipant’s positions in the two rankings then served as a measure of ECC (i.e.,the higher the absolute value of the discrepancy, the lower the ECC).

More generally, it is worth noting that research has found the distinctionbetween meta-attitudinal measures and operative measures to be consequen-tial. Recent attitude research has established the importance of various meta-attitudinal measures in comparison to operative measures (Petty, Briñol,Tormala, & Wegener, 2007; See, Petty, & Fabrigar, 2008). For example, Seeet al. showed that a meta-attitudinal measure uniquely predicted interestin certain information over and above an operative measure of the samevariable. More generally, it has been shown that even meta-attitudinaland operative measures of the same variable (e.g., attitude extremity) reflectdistinct constructs, rather than just represent alternative methods of assessingthe variable (e.g., Bassili, 1996; Krosnick & Petty, 1995; See et al., 2008).

Second, and more important, ECC and ambivalence are conceptuallydistinct variables. As Maio, Esses, and Bell (2000) pointed out in a thoroughconceptual analysis, ECC is concerned with the magnitude of the difference(or lack thereof) between the evaluations that are associated with the overallattitude and the cognitive component of the attitude. In comparison, ambiva-lence is concerned with the amount of conflict within an attitude and itsunderlying cognitive and affective components. Accordingly, evaluative-cognitive inconsistency reflects dissimilarity without directly assessing con-flict. Dissimilarity may sometimes be the result of evaluative conflict, but mayat other times be the result of little or no conflict.

With respect to job satisfaction, for instance, it is a common finding thatthe average job satisfaction of a sample is clearly above the theoreticalmidpoint of the scale (e.g., Gallup Poll, 2005; Szilagyi & Wallace, 1983;Weaver, 1980). This implies that most individuals’ satisfaction scores lie

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above the scale midpoint. Consider, for instance, a hypothetical sample of 70individuals whose scores on both a global job satisfaction scale and a cogni-tive job satisfaction scale are known. Both scales possess a theoretical rangeof scores from 0 to 100. For ease of presentation, assume that actual scoreson both scales range from 25 to 94, with each actual score existing exactlyonce on each scale. In such a case, rank-ordering individuals separately oneach scale may result in the same ECC score for different individuals. Moreimportantly, the same score may indicate different states of these individuals.For example, an ECC score of 30 would result in the case of an individualwith highly positive cognitive job satisfaction (e.g., 10th rank; score of 85) andslightly positive global job satisfaction (e.g., 40th rank; score of 55). The sameECC score would result in the case of an individual with moderately positivecognitive job satisfaction (e.g., 30th rank; score of 65) and moderately nega-tive global job satisfaction (e.g., 60th rank; score of 35). However, whileevaluative-cognitive inconsistency is a result of evaluative conflict betweenglobal and cognitive job satisfaction in the case of the second individual(inconsistency arising from conflicting valence), it is not a result of evaluativeconflict between global and cognitive job satisfaction in the case of the firstindividual (inconsistency arising from nonconflicting valence). Rather, itsimply represents dissimilarity in positivity.

Of further interest, Maio and colleagues (Maio, Bell, & Esses, 1996; Maioet al., 2000) measured both ECC and ambivalence and found them to beunrelated (rs < |.10|). Moreover, Maio et al. argued that ECC and ambiva-lence may have different consequences regarding the effort invested inmessage processing. Specifically, the conflict underlying ambivalence wasassumed to increase processing effort (as compared to non-ambivalence) as ameans to resolve this conflict. In comparison, given that evaluative-cognitiveinconsistency does not directly reflect the amount of conflict underlyingattitudes, ECC was assumed not to affect processing effort. Findings clearlysupported these predictions. Accordingly, Maio et al.’s principal conclusionwas that evaluative-cognitive inconsistency and ambivalence are distinct con-structs. Given this state of affairs, it seems important to consider whether themeta-attitudinally measured attribute of experienced ambivalence may play asimilar role in the job-satisfaction/job-performance relationship, as has beenshown with respect to the operatively measured attribute of ECC (Schleicheret al., 2004).

Job Ambivalence and the Relationship BetweenJob Satisfaction and Job Performance

We define job ambivalence as the simultaneous existence of equivalentlystrong positive and negative evaluations of one’s job. Such conflicting evalu-


ations may result from positive and negative beliefs or emotions with regardto an individual’s job. Specifically, job ambivalence may result from job-related beliefs that are associated with conflicting (positive–negative) evalu-ations, from the experience of both positive and negative emotions, or froman evaluative conflict between beliefs and affective experiences. With regardto beliefs, for instance, a person may hold that some job facets (e.g., super-vision, communication, nature of the work itself) are adequate, but may holdthat other facets (e.g., pay, promotion opportunities, job security) are notadequate. With respect to affective experiences, a person may feel happy,enthusiastic, and proud (i.e., positive affect); but also feel frustrated, worried,and disappointed (i.e., negative affect; for empirical data supporting this lineof reasoning, see Fisher, 2000).

More generally, this suggests that there may be individuals who areambivalent toward their jobs; that is, they hold both positive and negativeevaluations, given the presence of both positive and negative affect or thepresence of both adequate and inadequate job facets. However, there mayalso be individuals who are rather indifferent toward their jobs. That is, theyhave a neutral job attitude, given the absence of both positive and negativeaffect, and the absence of both any job facets they view as adequate and anyjob facets they view as not adequate.

Note that when measuring job satisfaction, scores of individuals withboth indifferent and ambivalent job attitudes are rather similar. For example,expectancy theories of job satisfaction (e.g., Mitchell, 1974) do take jobattitudes that are based on evaluative conflicting beliefs into consideration.However, they conceptualize job attitudes as a linear combination of theevaluative implications of underlying beliefs. Thus, the resulting job satisfac-tion score is the same, whether it is derived from, for example, six beliefs withneutral evaluations or three beliefs with positive evaluations and three beliefswith negative evaluations. Accordingly, in common job satisfaction scalescomprised of multiple items (e.g., Brayfield & Rothe, 1951; Weiss, Dawis,England, & Lofquist, 1967), summary scores reflecting ambivalence towardthe job are indistinguishable from summary scores reflecting indifferencetoward the job (cf. Kaplan, 1972).

In light of research regarding the role of attitudinal ambivalence in theattitude–behavior relationship, however, it seems important to distinguishbetween ambivalent and non-ambivalent job attitudes. More specifically, thecurrent research tests the following:

Hypothesis. The relationship between job satisfaction and per-formance will be moderated by experienced job ambivalence.More specifically, the job-satisfaction/job-performance rela-tionship will be stronger for individuals who express lower

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job ambivalence than for individuals who express higher jobambivalence.

As outlined previously, this is assumed to be the case because the jobattitude should be less strong and thus less stable, given high rather than lowjob ambivalence. For instance, consider a number of individuals who areambivalent toward their jobs. At one point in time, mainly positive beliefsand emotions may be salient for some of these individuals, thus leading topositive responses to a job satisfaction scale (i.e., high job satisfaction). Incomparison, for other individuals, mainly negative beliefs and emotions maybe salient, thus leading to negative responses to a job satisfaction scale (i.e.,low job satisfaction).

Further, orthogonally to the first point in time, at a second point in time(e.g., 4 weeks later), mainly positive beliefs and emotions may be salient forsome individuals (leading to high job satisfaction); and mainly negativebeliefs and emotions may be salient for other individuals (leading to low jobsatisfaction). As a consequence—assuming that actual job performance atany point in time is (partly) a function of job satisfaction at that moment intime (e.g., Beal, Weiss, Barros, & MacDermid, 2005)—overall job perfor-mance across a certain time period would be only weakly related to jobsatisfaction measured at any specific point in time.

In comparison, other individuals may not be ambivalent toward theirjobs. Accordingly, at both points in time, mainly positive beliefs and emo-tions should be salient for some of these individuals (leading to high jobsatisfaction); and mainly negative beliefs and emotions should be salient forother individuals (leading to low job satisfaction). As a consequence, therelationship of job satisfaction measured at one point in time with overall jobperformance should be more substantial.

The Present Study

To test the present hypothesis, we conducted a study in which jobsatisfaction, job ambivalence, and job performance were measured cross-sectionally. Further, we employed a scale to measure job satisfaction that isof similarly broad scope as job performance. More specifically, both in socialpsychological attitude research and in job attitude research it has been arguedthat it is important for measures of attitude and behavior to be compatiblein terms of their level of generality (Ajzen & Fishbein, 1977; Fisher, 1980;Harrison, Newman, & Roth, 2006; Judge et al., 2001). In fact, it has beenshown that the attitude–behavior consistency is higher when both attitudesand behavior are measured at the same level of abstraction.


Given that overall job performance represents a global behavior assess-ment, we chose to measure job attitudes with a measure of similarly broadscope. Accordingly, we employed the Overall Job Satisfaction scale (Bray-field & Rothe, 1951) to measure job satisfaction, rather than a scale assessingan individual’s satisfaction with various job facets (e.g., Job DescriptiveIndex [JDI]: Smith, Kendall, & Hulin, 1969; Minnesota Satisfaction Ques-tionnaire: Weiss et al., 1967). While scales of the latter type focus specificallyon cognitive processes, the set of items of the OJS captures both affectiveprocesses and cognitive processes of an individual’s job attitude.3 Withrespect to job ambivalence, we included items tapping both affective andcognitive processes to obtain a broad measure of an individual’s subjectiveexperience of tension regarding his or her job.

Method

Participants and Procedure

We sent a questionnaire via e-mail to 210 managers from a large Germaninformation technology company (of over 5,000 employees). Of the 73 ques-tionnaires that were returned via e-mail (35%), 65 questionnaires (54 male, 11female) were complete and thus were retained for data analysis. All managerswere White. Participants’ ages ranged from 21 to 60 years (mode = 36–40years; n = 24). A similar answer format was used to measure tenure. Themodal answer was between 6 and 10 years (n = 24; range = 1–35 years).

Measures

Job satisfaction measure. Participants responded to the 18 items of theOverall Job Satisfaction scale (OJS; Brayfield & Rothe, 1951). Responseswere rated on a 5-point Likert-type scale ranging from 1 (do not agree at all )to 5 (agree completely; coefficient a = .84).

Job ambivalence measure. To ascertain job ambivalence, we had partici-pants complete a self-report measure consisting of the following eight items(adapted from Riketta & Ziegler, 2006, 2007): “I have positive and negativefeelings toward my job at the same time,” “When I look at my job, think-ing and feeling tell me different things,” “My image about my job is con-tradictory,” “I am torn in my attitude toward my job,” “I face my job withmixed feelings,” “My view of my job includes positive and negative ideas,”

3See Footnote 2.

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“My feelings toward my job are conflicting with my ideas about my job,”and “My attitude toward my job is mixed.” Responses were rated on a6-point scale ranging from 1 (completely incorrect) to 6 (completely correct;a = .91).4

Job performance measure. As a performance measure, we informed eachparticipant that we were collecting his or her direct supervisor’s performancerating. In order to keep time and effort low, the rating scale that we used wasone that is commonly used by supervisors of the company in appraisalinterviews. It is an overall job performance assessment on a single 4-pointscale. Specifically, supervisors rated participants’ performance as improve-ment needed, meets all or most objectives, exceeds most objectives, or signifi-cantly exceeds all objectives. Responses were coded 1 (low job performance) to4 (high job performance), respectively.

Results

Table 1 shows the descriptive statistics and intercorrelations for the studyvariables. The zero-order correlation between the job satisfaction index andsupervisors’ performance ratings was not significant (r = .08, ns). Nonethe-

4A factor analysis (principal components analysis) reveals a single factor (eigenvalue = 5.20)accounting for 65% of the variance, with factor loadings of the eight items between .62 and .90.

Table 1

Means, Correlations, and Reliabilities

Variable M SD 1 2 3 4 5

1. Job satisfaction 3.95 0.45 (.84)2. Job ambivalence 2.57 1.10 -.58* (.91)3. Job performance 2.78 0.62 .08 -.09 —4. Gendera — — -.20 .10 .04 —5. Ageb 4.72 1.41 .21 -.13 -.23 .00 —6. Tenurec 3.03 1.39 .19 -.10 -.10 -.16 .64*

Note. Entries on the diagonal represent Cronbach’s alphas; off-diagonal entries arecorrelation coefficients.aGender: 1 = female, 2 = male. bAge was measured in 5-year intervals, coded as1 = between 21 and 25 years to 8 = between 56 and 60 years. c Tenure was measuredin 5-year intervals, coded as 1 = between 1 and 5 years to 7 = between 31 and 35 years.*p < .01.


less, given the lower end of the credibility interval of the meta-analyzedstudies’ corrected true score correlations (r = .03; Judge et al., 2001), thepresent correlation fell within the expected range. Further, job ambivalencecorrelated markedly negatively with job satisfaction (r = -.58). We will returnto this finding in the Discussion.

To test for the postulated effect of job ambivalence on the relationshipbetween job satisfaction and job performance, we conducted a hierarchicalmoderated multiple regression analysis. To do so, job satisfaction scores andambivalence scores were centered. Further, product scores were calculated bymultiplying the centered job satisfaction index with centered job ambivalence(cf. Aiken & West, 1991).5 Given that previous research has found thatgender, age, and tenure may be related to job satisfaction (e.g., Kossek &Ozeki, 1998; also see Table 1), these demographic variables were alsoincluded in the regression analysis. Specifically, in Step 1, job satisfaction,job ambivalence, age, gender, and tenure were entered into the regression.None of these variables was significantly related to job performance (overallR2 = .08, ns). In Step 2, the job-satisfaction/job-ambivalence product wasadded to the regression model (see Table 2 for the results of the final regres-sion model). In line with predictions, the interaction of job ambivalenceand job satisfaction proved significant (B = -.41; SE = .20), t = -2.09, p < .05(DR2 = .06; Cohen’s f 2 = 0.075).

5Multicollinearity between the two independent variables (i.e., job satisfaction and ambiva-lence) and their interaction may compromise the accuracy of the interaction test. Multicollinear-ity may be reduced by centering the two independent variables (Aiken & West, 1991).

Table 2

Results From Moderated Multiple RegressionAnalysis of Job Performance

Predictor B SE t p

Constant 2.97 0.51 5.81Job satisfaction (JS) 0.19 0.22 0.90 .374Job ambivalence (JA) -0.10 0.09 -1.11 .271Gender 0.09 0.24 0.37 .716Age -0.12 0.07 -1.66 .102Tenure 0.03 0.07 0.47 .639JS ¥ JA -0.41 0.21 -2.09 .041

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Hence, we conducted simple-slopes tests to assess the extent to whichOJS scores and supervisor performance ratings were related, given low jobambivalence (i.e., 1 SD below the sample mean) or high job ambivalence (i.e.,1 SD above the sample mean). The simple slope was significant, given lowambivalence (B = .65; SE = .33), t = 2.00, p < .05; but was not significant,given high ambivalence, t = -0.90, ns. Thus, in line with the hypothesis,individuals with higher job satisfaction, as measured by the OJS, were givenhigher performance ratings by their supervisor only when they did not expe-rience ambivalence toward their jobs. Figure 1 shows these slopes.

Discussion

The present research provides an initial test of the construct of attitudinalambivalence in the realm of job satisfaction. Specifically, we tested a hypoth-esis regarding the relationship between job satisfaction and job performancecontingent on job ambivalence; that is, an ambivalent attitude towardthe job.

Relationship Between Job Satisfaction and Job Performance

In line with our predictions, job ambivalence was found to moderate therelationship between job satisfaction and job performance. Whereas higher

1.0

1.5

2.0

2.5

3.0

3.5

4.0

Low job satisfaction High job satisfaction

Low ambivalence

High ambivalence

Figure 1. Interactive effect of job satisfaction and job ambivalence on job performance. Higherscores indicate better job performance. Low and high job satisfaction—as well as low and highjob ambivalence—refer to individuals 1 SD below and above the respective mean.


job satisfaction was related to a higher supervisor rating of the individual’sjob performance when the individual experienced little ambivalence regard-ing the job, job satisfaction and job performance were unrelated for individu-als who experienced a high level of ambivalence regarding the job. That is,similar to what has been found in research on the attitude–behavior relation-ship, an individual’s job attitude is more strongly related to job performancewhen the individual does not hold an ambivalent attitude toward the job.Thus, the current results suggest that future research on the job-satisfaction/job-performance relationship may profit from measuring job ambivalence inaddition to job satisfaction.

More generally, both the present findings and the research by Schleicheret al. (2004) suggest that job attitudes may be related to job behavior more orless strongly contingent on strength-related attitudinal properties (cf. Brief,1998; Ilies & Judge, 2004; Krosnick & Petty, 1995). For instance, attitudeimportance (Boninger, Krosnick, Berent, & Fabrigar, 1995) may play asimilar role in the job-satisfaction/job-performance relationship, not the leastgiven its conceptual similarity to work centrality (e.g., Paullay, Alliger, &Stone-Romero, 1994). Attitude importance refers to the sense of significancethat an individual attaches to an attitude; similarly, work centrality is definedas the degree of importance that work plays in one’s life.

Relationship Between Job Satisfaction and Job Ambivalence

As the results show, ambivalence correlated negatively with job satisfac-tion (r = -.58). Thus, individuals with lower job satisfaction were found to bemore ambivalent regarding their jobs than were individuals high in jobsatisfaction. In this respect, it is worth restating that it is a very commonfinding that most people are satisfied with their jobs (Gallup Poll, 2005;Szilagyi & Wallace, 1983; Weaver, 1980). Distributions of job satisfactionscores are usually skewed such that most people score above the midpoint ofthe job satisfaction scale. As a consequence, people considered to have com-paratively low job satisfaction actually have job satisfaction scores around,or even slightly above, the midpoint of a job satisfaction scale.

Importantly, this suggests two alternative interpretations concerning thenature of (relatively) low job satisfaction. First, these scores may reflectindifference—or a neutral attitude—toward the job. In this case, low jobsatisfaction would denote the absence of both positive and negative views ofthe job. Second, those moderate job attitudes may reflect job ambivalence, ora conflicted attitude toward one’s job. In this case, low job satisfaction woulddenote the co-existence of positive and negative views regarding one’s job.In this respect, the present findings suggest that job ambivalence is more

14 ZIEGLER ET AL.

characteristic of people with relatively low, as compared to high job satisfac-tion. In particular, people with comparatively low job satisfaction are morelikely to be characterized by having mixed feelings and holding contradictorybeliefs regarding their jobs; that is, by experiencing ambivalence regardingtheir jobs, rather than by holding a neutral attitude toward their jobs.6

Limitations and Future Research

The present results are based on a sample of relatively small size consistingof White, predominantly male managers of a single IT company. As is truewith regard to any study, it remains a task for future research to replicate (andextend) these findings. In this respect, it might be informative to also test thepresent hypothesis with more diverse samples and samples from other types ofwork, industries, racial, ethnic, or cultural backgrounds, and so forth.

In any case, it is worth noting that the present homogeneous sampleallowed for a rather conservative test of the present hypothesis. Specifically,restrictions of range with respect to predictor and criterion variables areknown to limit the extent to which the two variables may correlate. Note alsothat the rather small sample size limits the statistical power for the currentinteraction hypothesis. Further, as has been demonstrated by McClelland andJudd (1993), it is difficult for field research (as compared to experimentalresearch) to find evidence for interaction effects for statistical reasons.Looking at it from this perspective, it may be seen as encouraging that thefindings provide support for our hypothesis, despite these restrictions. In thisrespect, also note that the size of the interaction effect in the present research(Cohen’s f 2) lies between what is considered to be a small effect size (f 2 = 0.02)and what is considered to be a medium (f 2 = 0.15) effect size (cf. Cohen, 1988).

It should also be pointed out that job performance was measured with asingle item, disallowing computation of scale reliability. We believe this

6Note that, more generally, there should be a nonlinear relationship between attitude andattitudinal ambivalence. Specifically, it seems reasonable to assume that the global evaluation ofan object (i.e., attitude toward an object) is a function of the average of its separate positive andnegative evaluations (Kaplan, 1972). Hence, the global evaluation is very positive (negative) ifthe positive (negative) evaluation is very high and the negative (positive) evaluation is low.Under these circumstances, ambivalence should be at its minimum. In comparison, the globalevaluation is least extreme (i.e., neither very positive nor very negative) if both the positiveevaluation and the negative evaluation are very high. Under these circumstances, ambivalence isat its maximum. Thus, when a sample’s attitude scores spread across the full bipolar evaluativecontinuum, there should be an inverted U-shaped relationship between global evaluation andambivalence, with the strongest ambivalence at the theoretical midpoint of the global evaluationscale. In the present study, however, as in previous research, the mean job satisfaction wasmarkedly above the scale midpoint of 3 (M = 3.95), t(64) = 17.10, p < .001, with only 3 partici-pants scoring below the midpoint.


measure to tap a central aspect of this construct inasmuch as the rating scaleis one that is used on a regular basis in appraisal interviews in the partici-pants’ company. Further, single-item measures have been employed success-fully in prior research (e.g., Miller, Katerberg, & Hulin, 1979). Also, althoughdealing with single-item measures of overall job satisfaction (e.g., FacesScale; Kunin, 1955), rather than overall job performance, a meta-analysisconducted by Wanous, Reichers, and Hudy (1997) found single-item mea-sures to be acceptable. These authors suggested that their findings should beinterpreted “as a case for the acceptability of single-item measures wheneither the research question implies their use or when situational constraintslimit or prevent the use of scales” (p. 250). Following up on their work, Nagy(2002) showed single-item measures of the JDI facets to predict significantincremental variance (beyond the full JDI multiple-item measures of facetsatisfaction) in a single-item job performance measure. Nonetheless, futureresearch should aim to replicate the present findings with larger and morediverse samples, as well as profit from the use of multiple-item scales tomeasure job performance.

As the current findings show, jobholders vary regarding the extent ofambivalence experienced with respect to their attitudes toward their jobs (cf.Table 1; individual values ranged from 1.00 [no ambivalence at all] to 5.13[clearly above the scale midpoint of 3.5]). Furthermore, supporting Brief’s(1998) conjecture as to the frequency of ambivalent job attitudes (as outlinedpreviously), 17% of the present study’s participants indicated experiencingambivalence at a level at least as high as the scale midpoint. Accordingly, itmay be interesting to investigate whether the extent of experienced ambiva-lence is similar, higher, or lower for employees in different industries, occu-pying different jobs, holding different positions, with different ethnic orcultural backgrounds, and so forth.

Moreover, future research should aim to understand the causes of jobambivalence. In this respect, facet measures of job satisfaction (e.g., Smithet al., 1969; Weiss et al., 1967) may be of interest even though, as outlinedpreviously, summary scores calculated from an individual’s evaluation of thedifferent job facets do not allow distinguishing between an indifferent jobattitude and an ambivalent job attitude. Specifically, ambivalence shouldbe higher to the extent that there are both many positively evaluated jobfacets and many negatively evaluated job facets. Further, however, affectiveexperiences should contribute to job-related ambivalence. In other words,ambivalence should be higher to the extent that a person experiences manypositive and many negative emotions at work (cf. Fisher, 2000).

The current findings open up opportunities for further research regardingthe consequences of job ambivalence. For instance, the present findings implythat job performance of individuals with high (vs. low) job ambivalence may

16 ZIEGLER ET AL.

fluctuate such that job performance is comparatively high when positivebeliefs and affective experiences are salient and thus predominate at a certainpoint in time, but their performance may be comparatively low at other timeswhen negative beliefs and affective experiences are salient and predominate.In this respect, research could, for instance, collect manager perceptions ofperformance consistency.7

Moreover, future research may extend the present focus on job perfor-mance by exploring the role of job ambivalence for the relationship of jobsatisfaction with other work-related behaviors, such as lateness and organi-zational citizenship behavior (Organ, 1988). Further, based on attitudinalambivalence research (cf. Conner & Sparks, 2002; Jonas et al., 2000a; Kros-nick & Petty, 1995), it may be of interest to explore the extent to which jobambivalence plays a role in the stability of job satisfaction (Dormann & Zapf,2001), as well as for individuals’ reactions to positive or negative job-relatedinformation (cf. Riketta & Ziegler, 2007). With respect to reactivity, forexample, more recent work using experience-sampling methodology (e.g.,Ilies & Judge, 2004) has begun to examine the extent to which affect at workfluctuates across time.

Implications

The present findings show that job satisfaction is a better predictor of jobperformance when individuals are not ambivalent toward the job; that is,when they do not hold evaluative conflicting beliefs about the job and do notexperience both positive and negative affect on the job. Similar to the work ofSchleicher et al. (2004), the present research provides evidence that it ishelpful to consider job attitudes not only as a global evaluation on a bipolarcontinuum, but also to take into account other aspects of job attitudesbeyond their valence. With regard to attitude ambivalence, for such endeav-ors the eight items that we employed to measure job ambivalence may serveas a rather short, but nonetheless internally consistent scale. In any case, wehope that job ambivalence will turn out to be a valuable construct in futurejob satisfaction research.

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7We thank an anonymous reviewer for this suggestion.


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relationship between job satisfaction and job performance: job ambivalence as a moderator

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