Journal o f . . . .

1978, Vol. 63, No. 3, 267-2^6

Job Preferences (What Makes a Job Good or Bad?)

Clifford E. Jurgensen
Minnesota Gas Company
Minneapolis, Minnesota

Over a 30-year period, 57,000 job applicants of a public utility ranked the im-
portance of 10 factors that make a job good or bad. The order for men is
security, advancement, type of work, company, pay, co-workers, supervisor,
benefits, hours, and working conditions. Women consider type of work more
important than any other factor, followed by company, security, co-workers,
advancement, supervisor, pay, working conditions, hours, and benefits. Prefer-
ences attributed to others differ markedly from self-preferences, with both men
and women believing pay is most important to others. Data are analyzed by sex,
age, marital status, dependents, education, and occupation. Some major differ-
ences exist, but by and large the effects are small. Although changes during the
30-year period are relatively inconsequential, there was an increase in impor-
tance of benefits, pay, and type of work, and a decrease in importance of ad-
vancement and security. Type of work has gradually replaced security as the
most important factor for men. Differences between applicants and employees
are relatively minor, as also are differences between public utility workers and
employees of other types of companies.

At the end of World War II, few data were
available on the relative importance of factors
considered by workers to make a job good or
bad. Comparative data from the then avail-
able studies have been published by Jurgen-
sen (1947). Although studies differed from
each other in number of factors, definitions,
and method of presentation, results were in
basic agreement. Security and opportunity for
advancement generally were given top pri-
ority, and pay was considered average in im-
portance. Although these findings were ac-
ceptable to psychologists, they tended to be
rejected by executives and supervisors in
business and industry. Many such persons
"knew" that pay was the most important
factor, and some considered it to be the only
important factor. Others were likewise cer-
tain the studies seriously underestimated the
importance of benefits, hours, and working
conditions. They found it easy to cite defi-
ciencies in the studies: Each was based on a
Requests for reprints should be sent to Clifford E.
Jurgensen, 4310 Minnetonka Boulevard, Apt. 201-C,
Minneapolis, Minnesota S5416.
Copyright 1978 by the American Psychological Association, Inc. 0021-9010/78/6303-0267$00.75
267
comparatively small number of subjects, all
had been conducted during the depression
years preceding the war, and subjects were
not representative of typical workers (e.g.,
YMCA members, women factory workers in
England, entering freshmen students, etc.).
Clearly, additional research was needed if
results were to be accepted by management
personnel.
Method
These data are based on a questionnaire (Figure
1) entitled "Job Preferences (What Makes A Job
Good or Bad?)." Although the design of the form
may appear simplistic in terms of today's classifica-
tions of intrinsic and extrinsic work factors, it in-
cludes the 10 factors generally considered at the
time of its development to be of primary importance
to workers.
The Job Preferences form was first introduced in
1945 when opportunity was fortuitously provided to
obtain research data. Since that time it has been
completed by all applicants of the Minnesota Gas
Company in Minneapolis. At first, applicants were
told that their responses would have no bearing on
whether they would be hired or rejected, and that
they were to drop the anonymously completed
blank in a ballot box. Nevertheless, some applicants
268 CLIFFORD E. JURGENSEN
JOB PREFERENCES
(What Makes A Job Good Or Bad?)
What are your preferences?
Decide which of the following is most important to
you. Place 1 in front of it. Then decide which is
second most important to you and place 2 in front
of it. Keep on numbering the items in order of
importance to you till the least important is ranked
10. All items are important, but people differ in the
order in which they rank them. Give your pref-
erences, not what you believe others think.
ADVANCEMENT (Opportunity for promotion.)
BENEFITS (Vacation, sick pay, pension, in-
surance, etc.)
. COMPANY (Employment by a company for
which you are proud to work.)
. CO-WORKERS (Fellow workers who are
pleasant, agreeable, and good working com-
panions.)
HOURS (Good starting and quitting time,
good number of hours per day or week, day
or night work, etc.)
. PAY (Large income during year.)
SECURITY (Steady work, no lay-offs, sure-
ness of being able to keep your job.)
. SUPERVISOR (A good boss who is consider-
ate and fair.)
TYPE OF WORK (Work which is interesting
and well liked by you.)
Figure 1. Job Preferences (What makes a job good or bad?).
returned the form to the interviewer with their
application blank. It quickly became apparent that
it could be a valuable employment tool to save time
for both applicant and interviewer when the appli-
cant attributed high importance to factors that the
company did not provide (e.g., high pay) and low
importance to factors amply provided by the com-
pany (e.g., security).
Early studies showed no differences between
forms deposited anonymously in the ballot box and
those given to the interviewer with the application
blank. Therefore, the administrative procedure was
changed to incorporate the Job Preferences blank
with the overall employment procedure, and the
form subsequently has been given to each job appli-
cant at the same time as the application.
During the 30 years of use, three changes have
been made in the form. The first change was to
increase its readability by incorporating such minor
WORKING CONDITIONS (Comfortable and
clean, absence of noise, heat, cold, odors,
etc.)
What do you think others prefer?
Now number the factors as you think they would
be ranked by other persons. Consider others who
are in your type of work. Also consider those who
are like you in age, number of dependents and edu-
cation. Rank the factors from 1 (most important)
to 10 (least important). Be sure to give what you
think others prefer.
ADVANCEMENT
BENEFITS
COMPANY
CO-WORKERS
HOURS
PAY
SECURITY
SUPERVISOR
TYPE OF WORK
WORKING CONDITIONS
Please answer the questions on the other side of
the sheet.
changes as breaking a sentence into two sentences.
A second change was the deletion of a sentence
("There are no right or wrong answers") for
ethical reasons. When the form was used solely to
collect research data, the statement was true in the
sense that no one set of ranks could be considered
correct and the others wrong. The right answer was
what was true for each ranker. However, when the
form is used as an employment tool, the proper
interpretation of right changes from correct to best.
From an institutional point of view, the form is not
useful as an employment tool unless some rankings
are considered better than others. Thus, from the
applicant's point of view of desiring employment,
some rankings are right and others are wrong. The
third change consisted of adding a section (see
Figure 1) that asked the applicant to rank the 10
factors a second time on the basis of "What do you
think others prefer?" Care was taken to define
 JOB PREFERENCES 269

others in terms of the respondent's own character-

istics and background.
Importance of each of the 10 factors is indicated
by median ranks, the smaller the median the more
important the factor. No tests of significance of
differences are given. With many thousands of cases
in some groups, a difference in the second or even
third decimal place could be highly significant in
the statistical sense, although of no theoretical or
practical value (Jurgensen, 1951).
Partial reports have been published previously
(Jurgensen, 1947, 1948, 1949, 1961, 1967). This final
report makes available subgroup data not previ-
ously obtainable, and also gives data reflecting
changes in work preferences over time.

Subjects
Over 57,000 job applicants of the Minnesota Gas
Company have completed the Job Preferences blank
during the 30-year period from August 1945 to
August 1975. After eliminating forms that were
unusable because of failure to follow instructions
(e.g., ranking all items 1), a total of 56,621 were
available for this study. This comprises all appli-
cants, in person or by mail, who completed an
application blank. The only exclusions from the
total applicant population consisted of those who
made job inquiries of the employment receptionist
and decided not to pursue the applications for rea-
sons such as the fact that there were no immediate
openings, no jobs involving the type of work de-
sired, being over the age of mandatory retirement,
etc. All applications were for work in the greater
1
Minneapolis area.

Results and Discussion

Summarized results for the entire period
are given in the next-to-last column of Table
1 for men, and in Table 2 for women. Al-
though some grouping (including one tie)
occurred among men, by and large there is an
orderly progression from security (most im- 00

portant) to working conditions (least im-

portant). Results are quite different for
women. Type of work is far more important
than any other factor. The next eight factors
are fairly close to each other in importance,
and benefits stands alone in tenth place. The
Pearson correlation between median ranks of
men and women is .69.
Job preferences attributed to other appli-
cants differ markedly from self-preferences
(see the last column of Tables 1 and 2). Both 4
8
i
du >H
men and women predicted pay to be most
important to others, and co-workers to be
least important, thereby indicating essentially
270 CLIFFORD E. JURGENSEN

the same stereotype typically held by man-

agement personnel. The correlation between
preferences of self and those ascribed to oth-
ers is only .46 for men and .22 for women.
Job preferences are remarkably consistent
over the 30-year period, as illustrated by a
correlation between the first and 30th year of
.86 for men and .80 for women. This consis-
tency is all the more remarkable in light of
the profound changes in life-styles of Ameri-
I
can people occurring between 1945 and 197S
as a result of the major 'political, social, and
i; economic changes that followed World War
II and the preceding depression years.
Median ranks of job factors for S-year
intervals are given in the first six columns of
Table 1 for men and of Table 2 for women.
Correlations between these S-year intervals
range from .91 to 1.00 for men (Mdn = .97)
o
t^
o and range from .85 to .99 for women (Mdn =
.95). As would be expected, the highest cor-
relations are between adjacent time intervals,
and the lowest are between the first and last
periods.
I
I In spite of the high correlations over time,
•a some trends are apparent. The most impor-
tant of these are an increase in importance
of type of work for men, an increase for both
men and women in benefits and pay, and a
decrease in importance of advancement and
security. In addition, there was also a de-
10
crease in importance of working conditions
»—i
I for women.
For the 30-year period as a whole, secur-
ity has been the most important factor for
a8 o
men. However, analysis by individual years
^I shows a gradual decrease in importance.
S
During 19 of the first 21 years, men ranked
security in first place, but during the last 9
years gave top rank to type of work. (Type
of work consistently has been ranked highest
by women for each of the 30 years.) This
decrease in importance of security may re-
o sult from numerous, and possibly contradic-
tory, reasons. Perhaps the more than a decade
of depression years preceding World War II
•es .*H
resulted in increased emphasis on the already
S important factor of seniority, and that this
increased emphasis has persisted for life
among a majority of those who experienced
(even as children) the depression. Perhaps
the increase in unionization, and the ac-
 JOB PREFERENCES 271
Table 3
Median Ranks A ssigned Job Factors in ion to Age

Under 55 or
Job factor 20 20-24 25-29 30-34 35-39 40-44 45-49 50-54 over

Men
Advancement 4.4 3.2 3.0 3.2 3.5 3.7 4.1 4.3 5.8
Benefits 7.9 6.7 6.5 6.5 6.6 6.6 6.9 6.9 6.9
Company 5.7 5.0 4.3 3.9 3.3 3.2 2.8 3.0 2.6
Co-workers 5.6 6.2 6.3 6.2 5.8 5.8 5.8 5.3 5.1
Hours 6.2 7.6 7.9 7.9 7.9 8.0 7.8 7.8 7.3
Pay 4.5 5.2 5.7 6.3 7.0 7.4 7.4 7.6 8.4
Security 3.8 2.7 2.2 2.0 1.9 2.0 2.1 2.1 2.1
Supervisor 6.1 6.5 6.5 6.3 6.0 5.8 5.4 5.5 5.0
Type of work 2.7 3.0 3.3 3.6 3.9 4.0 4.4 4.3 4.5
Working conditions 7.1 7.8 8.2 8.2 8.3 7.9 7.9 7.5 7,0
No. 6,626 14,109 8,842 4, 560 2,755 1,326 779 393 280

Women
Advancement 5.4 5.0 5.1 4.7 5.1 5.6 5.4 6.1 6.7
Benefits 8.4 8.0 7.7 7.5 7.6 7.1 7.0 7.0 7.8
Company 4.6 5.0 4.7 4.4 3.8 3.9 3:0 2.3 2.3
Co-workers 5.3 4.8 5.1 5.7 5.5 5.6 5.7 5.5 5.1
Hours 6.5 7.2 7.1 7.3 7.3 6.8 7.0 7.5 7.0
Pay 6.1 5.5 5.8 6.0 6.7 7.0 7.3 8.2 7.3
Security 4.8 5.2 4.9 4.1 3.4 3.7 3.5 3.5 3.6
Supervisor 5.6 5.1 4.9 5.0 4.9 5.1 5.2 4.9 5.0
Type of work 1.5 1.4 1.6 2.1 2.4 2.3 2.5 2.3 2.8
Working conditions 5.9 6.8 7.0 7.2 7.3 7.2 7.1 7.1 6.9
No. 7,501 5,535 1,633 709 495 396 291 166 101

companying emphasis on seniority, has pro-
vided workers with a basal satisfaction of the
need for security. Or perhaps a new genera-
tion of workers has decided that the quest
for security is either illusory or not worth
the cost. It is interesting to note that the
decreasing emphasis on seniority and increas-
ing emphasis on type of work by men tends
to bring their job wants closer to those that
have been possessed by women.
The effect of age on the importance of the
10 job factors is given in Table 3. The effect
is also evidenced by the correlations between
the nine age groups. For men these range
from .39 to .99, with a median of .89. For
women they range from .71 to .99, with a
median of .92. In some cases increased age is
accompanied by an increase in importance by
both men and women (e.g., company), and in
other cases by a decrease (e.g., advancement,
pay, and type of work). Younger applicants,
especially those under age 20, respond quite
differently than do those who are older. For
example, men under age 20 attach greater
importance to co-workers, hours, pay, super-
visor, and working conditions, but they at-
tach less importance to advancement, benefits,
company, and security. This is consistent
with the hypothesis that younger men do not
take work as seriously as do older persons,
and therefore place increased emphasis on
factors that make work more pleasant at the
present time, and less emphasis on factors
that are more important in the long run. Age
differences of men and women follow the
same basic pattern, though the sexes differ in
degree.
Data were analyzed by marital status for
single, married, widowed, divorced, and sepa-
rated persons. Single men differ markedly
from other men, and their preferences are
very similar to those under age 20, which is
not surprising in view of the overlap between
the two groups. Differences are unimportant
between married, widowed, divorced, and
separated men, with correlations ranging
272 CLIFFORD E. JURGENSEN

from .96 to .99. Marriage has no effect on
the preferences of women, the correlation be-
tween single and married women being .99.
The loss of a husband does make a dif-
ference, the correlations between married
women and those who are widowed, divorced,
or separated being .73, .79, and .82, respec-
tively. With the loss of a husband, there is
an increase in importance of advancement,
benefits, and security; and a decresae in im-
portance of co-workers, hours, type of work,
and working conditions.
Changes accompanying an increase in num-
ber of dependents are also of minor impor-
tance. Correlations for men grouped from
those having none to those having five or
more dependents range from .85 to 1.00, with
a median of .99. Differences were essentially
the same for women, with correlations rang-
ing from .79 to .98 and a median of .91.
Effects of educational level on work pref-
erences are given in Table 4. Correlations be-
tween the seven educational groups of men
range from .37 to .98, with a median of .85.
For women they range from .63 to .99, with
a median of .91. The greatest change is a
decrease in importance of security and an
increase in type of work as educational level
increases. Other changes are more pronounced
for men than for women, and include in-
creased emphasis on advancement, pay, and
working conditions; and decreased emphasis
on benefits and hours. In some cases there is
a difference between applicants of higher or
lower educational level without a marked
trend being present. For example, men who
have attended college (with or without de-
grees) rank benefits considerably lower than
do those who have not attended college.
Data are analyzed for six occupational
groups listed in rough hierarchal order. Clas-
sification as professional includes those in
scientific, social, and technical areas, but
excludes those in the talent area such as
musician. Managerial includes executive or
administrative head or assistant and super-

Table 4
Median Ranks Assigned Job Factors in Relation to Educational Level

High school
8th grade Some high High school plus Some College Advanced
Job factor or less school diploma technical college degree degree

Men
Advancement 4.6 3.5 3.3 3.1 3.4 2.6 3.0
Benefits 6.1 6.4 6.3 6.7 7.7 7.6 8.0
Company 3.6 4.2 4.6 4.2 5.1 4.4 4.0
Co-workers 5.2 5.7 6.4 6.3 5.9 5.8 5.5
Hours 6.9 7.3 7.5 8.2 7.4 8.4 8.3
Pay 7.7 6.8 5.8 5.8 4.4 4.8 4.5
Security 1.6 1.8 2.1 2.4 3.7 4.9 5.7
Supervisor 5.4 6.1 6.6 6.5 6.3 6.0 5.2
Type of work 5.2 4.3 3.5 2.9 2.5 1.7 1.7
Working conditions 8.4 8.5 8.0 7.8 7.4 7.6 7.4
No. 2,382 6,248 14,279 3,814 9,849 2,865 220

Women
Advancement 5.9 5.7 5.2 5.1 5.3 5.2 5.3
Benefits 6.8 8.3 8.0 7.7 8.2 8.4 8.6
Company 3.1 4.2 4.7 4.3 5.0 4.3 3.9
Co-workers 5.4 5.0 5.4 5.4 5.0 4.1 4.5
Hours 7.0 6.6 6.7 7.3 6.9 7.4 7.7
Pay 6.5 7.2 6.0 6.2 5.3 5.8 6.0
Security 3.2 3.8 4.5 4.5 5.4 6.6 6.3
Supervisor 4.8 5.1 5.5 5.1 5.3 4.7 5.2
Type of work 3.3 2.3 1.7 1.8 1.4 1.2 1.1
Working conditions 7:6 6.4 6.4 6.8 6.4 6.6 6.4
No. 100 851 9,000 1,932 3,214 1,670 59
 JOB PREFERENCES 273

Table 5
Median Ranks Assigned Job Factors in Relation to Previous Occupation

Job factor Professional Managerial Sales Clerical Physical Service

Men
Advancement 3.0 2.3 2.5 2.8 3.4 3.9
Benefits 7.4 7.1 7.0 7.2 6.3 6.1
Company 4.7 3.5 3.3 4.4 4.3 4.0
Co-workers 5.9 6.3 6.7 6.2 6.0 5.9
Hours 8.5 8.8 8.5 8.1 7.5 7.2
Pay 4.9 5.2 5.1 5.6 6.4 6.6
Security 4.0 3.8 3.3 2.8 1.8 2.0
Supervisor 5.9 6.2 6.6 6.5 6.3 6.2
Type of work 1.8 2.5 2.6 2.8 3.9 4.4
Working conditions 7.6 8.1 8.1 7.4 8.3 7.9
No. 1,131 1,035 1,659 3,808 18,158 1,438

Women
Advancement 5.5 3.1 4.5 5.0 4.5 6.1
Benefits 8.3 7.2 8.2 7.8 7.0 7.9
Company 4.4 3.6 3.7 4.8 4.7 4.2
Co-workers 4.1 6.0 5.3 5.2 5.6 5.5
Hours 7.3 8.1 7.1 7.1 6.9 5.8
Pay 6.0 4.8 6.0 5.9 6.6 6.3
Security 6.6 6.7 S.5 4.5 3.0 4.2
Supervisor 4.5 5.6 5.6 5.2 5.5 5.2
Type of work 1.2 1.3 1.4 1.8 2.9 2.2
Working conditions 6.5 8.0 6.9 6.8 7.1 6.7
No. 702 90 62 8,703 294 396

visor. Sales is limited to persuasive sales ex-
cluding clerical and delivery sales. Clerical is
limited to office clerks, and excludes shop
workers such as shipping clerk. Physical in-
cludes construction, installation, and mainte-
nance; manufacturing, operation, and pro-
cessing; and agriculture and kindred. Service
includes those in protective, personal, or
custodial wo$k.
Correlations for men in the six occupational
groups range from .74 to .99 with a median of
.94. For women, they range from .63 to .9,6
with a median of .87. Median ranks assigned
job factors by the six occupational groups
are given in Table S.
Increase in job status is accompanied by a
decrease in importance of type of work and
an increase in importance of security for
both men and women. For men increase in
job status is also accompanied by a decrease
in importance of pay and increase of bene-
fits. Pay is ranked in essentially the same way
by all occupational groups of women except
the managerial applicants, who rank it much
higher. Women managerial applicants give
less emphasis to working conditions, and in
this respect they are unlike other occupa-
tional groups of women but are similar to all
groups of men applicants. Increased impor-
tance of company is shown by managerial
and sales applicants, both men and women.
Advancement decreases in importance for
applicants in the two extreme status groups
represented by professional and service per-
sons.
General Discussion
Inasmuch as this study is based on 57,000
job applicants during a 30-year period, re-
sults cannot be rejected, as with previous
studies, on the basis of a small N or because
"conditions are different today." However,
there are three other possible limitations to
generalization of the results: Job applicants
may differ from employed persons, public
utility applicants may differ from those of
other companies, and applicants from the
274 CLIFFORD E. JURGENSEN
Minneapolis area may differ from those in
other areas. The limited data available on
these points indicate that there are some
differences, but they are smaller than might
be supposed.
The hypothesis that job applicants differ
from employed persons was tested in 1953
when the Job Preferences blank was included
in an attitude survey of all company employ-
ees. Although these employee data are dated,
they appear relevant in view of the high
consistency of preferences among applicants
over the 30-year period. Correlations between
applicants and employees are .86 for men in
blue-collar occupations, .71 for men in clerical
work, .77 for women in clerical work, and .87
for management persons of supervisory level
or higher. The most important differences
between applicants and employees are in-
creased emphasis by employees on pay, and
decreased emphasis (except for management
personnel) on company. There also is in-
creased emphasis by employees on benefits
and working conditions for all groups except
women clerks, and increased emphasis on
seniority by all employee groups except men
physical workers.
Some data are available to test the hy-
pothesis that public utility employees differ
from those of other types of companies. The
Job Preferences blank has been used by three
other investigators with employed persons in
the Minneapolis area.
Lindbom 1 administered the Job Preferences
blank during 1949-1951 to 243 blue-collar
workers who were members of six different
unions and who filled in the form at union
halls as part of a research project of the In-
dustrial Relations Center of the University of
Minnesota. Medians correlate .93 with those
of blue-collar employees of the public utility.
In spite of this high correlation, there were
two major differences: Union hall groups
rated company lower and hours higher than
did public utility employees.
Hardin, Reif, and Heneman (1951) used
the blank in a study of employees of a large
department store. Men in their group cor-
related .90 with men clerical employees in the
public utility, and women in their group cor-
related .87 with women clerical employees in
the public utility. Major differences are that
department store men rated hours and com-
pany more important and pay and security
less important than did men clerks in the
public utility; and department store women
rated hours more important and pay and type
of work less important than did women clerks
in the public utility.
Willoughby (1970) used the Job Pref-
erences form with employees in the field of
data processing. Unfortunately, he combined
data for men and women. Nevertheless, it is
clear that his group rated type of work more
important and hours and security less impor-
tant than did either men or women public
utility clerks.
A third limitation of the study is that
applicants in the Minneapolis area may not
have work preferences typical of those in
other parts of the country. Studies conducted
prior to this one in the United States, Canada,
and England (previously cited by Jurgensen,
1947) reached conclusions in basic agreement
with this study. A more recent report by
Stafford and Wilkin (1976) dealing with
civilian industrial and clerical employees of
the Corps of Royal and Electrical and
Mechanical Engineers in Great Britain also
reached essentially the same conclusions inso-
far as comparable factors are concerned.
In opposition to the above studies, other
data related to job satisfaction and job en-
richment indicate that community variables,
subcultures, and race may affect work pref-
erences. Kendall (1963) found that overall
job satisfaction with pay and with the work
done were related to community variables,
with high satisfaction being associated with
unattractive community features. Hulin
(1966) found generally significant and often
sizable correlations between job satisfaction
(especially pay satisfaction) and economic
community characteristics. Wild and Kemp-
ner (1972) found that job attitudes (e.g.,
pay, supervisor, working conditions, co-work-
ers) of female manual workers in the United
Kingdom were related to population and pop-
ulation density of the community and to the
size of the plant. Slocum and Topichak
1
The author wishes to express appreciation to T.
R. Lindbom for making these data available and
for permission to refer to them here.
 JOB PREFERENCES
(1972) found that Mexican blue-collar work-
ers in a Mexican glass factory differed sig-
nificantly from American blue-collar workers
in the United States in the same type of
work,
Quinn et al. (1970) reported a study based
on personal interviews with 1,533 currently
employed workers drawn from the universe
of all dwellings in the 48 contiguous states. •
Although the sample was nationally repre-
sentative, the authors state that data do not
permit any conclusions about working condi-
tions in particular states, cities, or other such
geographical units. The survey included a
series of evaluative, job-relevant statements
(e.g., "the pay is good"), but neither the
original statements nor the resultant factor
analyses can be compared meaningfully with
the 10 factors reported here.
Discrepant results of available studies may
be related to differences between measures of
workers wants on the one hand and satisfac-
tions on the other, and also to the type and
definition of factors being measured. Studies
in closest agreement with results reported
here are those that deal with the wants of
applicants or employees. Studies in the area
of job enrichment and job satisfaction offer
less support. All factors comprising the Job
Preferences blank are of basic importance, are
far from being mutually exclusive, and are
defined so as to increase projection by re-
spondents. Thus, individual differences with-
in any single group can be expected to be
considerably greater than differences between
groups. Consequently, results from other
areas of the country can be expected to differ
from those here, but probably not in major
respects unless differences in the communi-
ties, subcultures, and races are greater than
usually exist.
Even after allowing for the limitations of
this study, some persons are still skeptical
of the results. One reason for such skepticism
is to be found in the low correlations between
self-preferences and those attributed by ap-
plicants to persons of similar demographic
characteristics. Traditional emphasis by
unions on wages, hours, and working condi-
tions (augmented by more recent emphasis
on benefits) undoubtedly is one reason for
these low correlations. Another reason for
275
skepticism lies in the tendency to ignore the
importance of individual differences. All pos-
sible ranks were assigned by both men and
women to each of the 10 factors, albeit the
numbers varied greatly. For example, al-
though security was the most important fac-
tor among the almost 40,000 men, there were
nevertheless 1,037 (1.6%) who ranked it in
tenth position. Likewise, although working
conditions were rated least important on the
average, there were 293 men (.1%) who
ranked it as most important. It would not be
surprising if a person who deviates consider-
ably from the average rank of any factor
projects his personal values into his percep-
tion of the values of others.
Although there is considerable disagree-
ment among psychologists as to whether
specific job factors are intrinsic or extrinsic
(Dyer & Parker, 1975), most would probably
consider all factors of this study except type
of work to be extrinsic. Present research em-
phasizes intrinsic factors. This direction is
supported by findings of this study such as
the gradual increase in importance of type
of work and the gradually decreasing impor-
tance of those factors that fall most clearly
in the extrinsic group. A major conclusion of
this study is that although differences can be
expected as a result of community character-
istics, and differences were found during the
30-year time period as well as between demo-
graphic groups of applicants, between em-
ployees and applicants, and between public
utility and other employees, such differences
are far less than expected and stability is far
greater.
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Received July 21, 1977