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Attachment to God, Vocational Calling, and Worker Contentment

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Review of Religious Research

Abstract

Existing organizational research overlooks divine attachment as a “personal characteristic” relevant to work. We argue that secure attachment to God as an internal working model can function as a “secure base” from which individuals form meaningful attachments to their workplace and work position. We further hypothesize that a sense of vocational calling (i.e., a belief that God calls individuals to particular work settings or jobs) will mediate the relationship between secure God attachment and positive work attitudes. We test these hypotheses by analyzing data from the Baylor Religion Survey 2010, a random sample of US adults. Findings demonstrate that secure attachment to God positively relates to affective organizational commitment and job satisfaction. As hypothesized, vocational calling also mediates a large proportion of these relationships. Implications of our findings are discussed in conclusion.

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Notes

  1. Conversely, avoidant attachment will negatively associate with affective commitment since it forms the opposite pole of the attachment security measure.

  2. Factor analysis demonstrates a one-factor solution for the affective commitment and job satisfaction scales, but we retain them as separate analytic constructs in keeping with the literature.

  3. The patterns observed here do not take into account the potential effects of attachments to others besides God. More will be said about this in our discussion of study limitations.

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  1. Department of Sociology, Baylor University, One Bear Place #97326, Waco, TX, 76798-7326, USA

    Blake Victor Kent, Matt Bradshaw & Kevin D. Dougherty

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  1. Blake Victor Kent
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Kent, B.V., Bradshaw, M. & Dougherty, K.D. Attachment to God, Vocational Calling, and Worker Contentment. Rev Relig Res 58, 343–364 (2016). https://doi.org/10.1007/s13644-016-0250-9

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