Synopses & Reviews
Award-winning psychologist Peter Warr explores why some people at work are happier or unhappier than others. He evaluates different approaches to the definition and assessment of happiness, and combines environmental and person-based themes to explain differences in people’s experience. A framework of key job characteristics is linked to an account of primary mental processes, and those are set within a summary of demographic, cultural, and occupational patterns. Consequences of happiness or unhappiness for individuals and groups are also reviewed, as is recent literature on unemployment and retirement. Although primarily focusing on job situations, the book shows that processes of happiness are similar across settings of all kinds. It provides a uniquely comprehensive assessment of research published across the world.
Initial chapters explore the several meanings of happiness and the ways in which those have been measured by psychologists. The construct includes pleasure, satisfaction and subjective well-being, and unhappiness has been studied in terms of dissatisfaction, strain, anxiety, and depression. The impacts of principal environmental features on these experiences are reviewed through an analogy with vitamins in relation to physical health—beneficial only up to a point.
However, environmental effects are not fixed. Influences on happiness from within the person are examined in terms of principal thinking patterns, personality styles, and cultural backgrounds. Differences are explored between groups (men and women, older and younger people, employees who are full-time and part-time, and so on), and processes of person-environment fit are placed within an overall framework which emphasizes the impact of variations in personal salience.
The book is written primarily for academic readers, including senior undergraduates, graduate students, teachers, and researchers in fields of Industrial/Organizational Psychology, Management, Human Resources, and Labor Studies. However, the topic's centrality in many professions makes it important also to a wider readership.
Synopsis
Paid work is a primary arena of human activity and one that influences an individual’s well-being and sense of self. In
Work, Happiness, and Unhappiness, author Peter Warr, an award-winning psychologist who studies the topic of effectiveness and well-being in work situations, explores why some people at work are happier or unhappier than others, and adopts an environment-centered as well as a person-centered approach to explain such differing sentiments. Ultimately, Warr illustrates that environmental and personal sources of happiness are similar across settings, and not solely relevant to the domain of paid work.
To elaborate on environmental features that affect well-being, the book presents what is dubbed the “vitamin model”. This model identifies nine principle features of any environment that affect happiness or unhappiness, and demonstrates that an increase in a particular environmental feature does not pose an equally significant influence on an individual, much like the benefits associated with vitamins do not accrue when more vitamins are consumed. Consequently, Warr proposes balancing environmental characteristics, such that a deficiency is harmful, but excess is unnecessary. An examination of person-centered approaches complements the environment-centered emphasis. This part of the volume addresses the mental processes that take place in an individual’s assessment of his or her happiness or unhappiness, while reviewing judgments made in the face of the type of environmental features introduced in the book’s earlier chapters. Cultural, demographic, and gender differences are also covered.
The book is written primarily for academic readers, including senior undergraduates, graduate students, teachers, and researchers in fields of Industrial/Organizational Psychology, Management, Human Resources, and Labor Studies. However, the topic's centrality in many professions makes it important also to a wider readership.