The social reference-group theory of job satisfaction : a comparative study of Coloured and White salesmen in South Africa

Vos, Eline Amarens

The social reference-group theory of job satisfaction : a comparative study of Coloured and White salesmen in South Africa

Master Thesis

1974

Publisher

University of Cape Town

Department

Department of Psychology

Faculty

Faculty of Humanities

Abstract

Data relevant to five separate areas of a worker's job satisfaction (satisfaction with: work, pay, promotion opportunities, co-workers and supervision) were gathered from a sample of 98 male Coloured salesmen and 95 male White salesmen, employed in different branches of a life assurance company in South Africa. Furthermore, measures were obtained of the subjects' feelings of overall job satisfaction and dissatisfaction, in order to investigate the validity of Herzberg's theory that job satisfaction and job dissatisfaction are qualitatively different and that, as a result, they should be measured separately. Next, measures were obtained of the subjects' feelings of internal versus external control in life. Separate measures were obtained on the two subscales of personal control and control ideology of Gurin's Internal-External Scale (1969). The subjects were asked to indicate in what class (upper, middle or lower) they regarded themselves to be and with what class they compared themselves. Analysis of these data included: (a) the Coloured subjects were more satisfied with their jobs than the White subjects; (b) the workers who compared themselves with a higher comparative reference-group were less satisfied with their jobs than were workers who compared themselves with their membership reference-group, or with a lower comparative reference-group. An explanation of these findings in terms of frames of reference and alternatives available to the workers is offered. (c) The Coloured subjects were less internally-orientated than the Whites and expressed less sense of personal control over their lives; (d) feelings of personal control were more highly correlated with satisfaction with intrinsic than with extrinsic job-aspects. The present study established not only the usefulness of reference-group theory as a social explanation for differences in workers' satisfaction with various job-aspects, but also served to remove cultural limitations of Gurin et aI's theory of internal-external control and to increase its generality. Finally, measures of internal-external control were related to satisfaction with intrinsic and extrinsic job-aspects, and the I-E concept was related to the social reference-group theory.