The discriminant validity of work alienation and work satisfaction measures

Abstract

The attitudes of work alienation and work satisfaction have had separate, although parallel, study in the behavioural science literature. Operational measures of the attitudes are examined to determine if in fact they are separate attitudes, or merely different terms for the same construct. The results reveal that when studying specifically job‐related variables, the measures of the two attitudes are extremely similar. In fact, they appear to be differentially related only to level of formal education and this is true only for certain occupational levels. The results suggest that the considerable overlap found between the measures of the two variables argues for a re‐operationalization of work alienation as a structural or objective state of being, not an evaluative, subjective reaction.