Overall Job Satisfaction scale

Abstract

The Overall Job Satisfaction scale (OJS), originally conceptualized and validated by Arthur H. Brayfield and Harold F. Rothe in 1951, represents one of the most foundational and enduring psychometric instruments in industrial-organizational psychology and organizational behavior. Designed to assess an employee's global affective and cognitive evaluation of their working life, the original instrument consists of 18 self-report items evaluated on a 5-point Likert response format ranging from 1 (Strongly Disagree) to 5 (Strongly Agree). In response to organizational demands for brevity in multi-construct survey batteries, Agho, Price, and Mueller (1992) extracted and validated a widely adopted 6-item short form. Both versions measure a unidimensional global construct, capturing overarching satisfaction rather than discrete facet-level evaluations such as pay, supervision, or physical working conditions. Psychometric evaluations across diverse occupational cohorts have consistently established high internal consistency, with Cronbach's alpha coefficients ranging between .88 and .91 for the full 18-item scale and .83 to .90 for the 6-item short form. Confirmatory factor analytic investigations have affirmed its construct validity, demonstrating robust discriminant validity from related organizational constructs, including organizational commitment and job involvement. Furthermore, the scale exhibits significant convergent and criterion-related validity through established relationships with job autonomy, distributive justice, supervisory support, occupational stress, and objective performance metrics, as well as multi-source convergence with significant-other evaluations. This article provides an exhaustive psychometric compendium of the OJS, outlining its theoretical underpinnings, structural properties, scoring protocols, and research applications.

Keywords

Overall Job Satisfaction, Brayfield-Rothe Scale, Job Attitudes, Organizational Behavior, Psychometrics, Affective Well-being, Employee Morale, Measurement Theory, Industrial-Organizational Psychology, Construct Validity

Authors

The original 18-item Overall Job Satisfaction scale was constructed by:

• Arthur H. Brayfield, Ph.D. – Department of Psychology, University of Kansas. Dr. Brayfield was a prominent industrial psychologist and former Executive Officer of the American Psychological Association (APA), widely recognized for his pioneering contributions to personnel selection, counseling psychology, and work attitudes.
• Harold F. Rothe, Ph.D. – Studebaker Corporation and University of Illinois. Dr. Rothe was an influential corporate and research psychologist renowned for his empirical investigations into employee output variations, financial incentives, and absenteeism.

Prominent methodological adaptations and short forms were subsequently developed and validated by:

• Augustine O. Agho, Ph.D. – School of Health Professions, University of Alabama at Birmingham (and later Old Dominion University).
• James L. Price, Ph.D. – Department of Sociology, University of Iowa, an eminent scholar of organizational turnover and administrative systems.
• Charles W. Mueller, Ph.D. – Department of Sociology, University of Iowa, recognized for structural equation modeling of workplace behaviors and organizational justice.

Purpose

The fundamental purpose of the Overall Job Satisfaction scale is to quantify an individual's global attitude toward their work as an integrated whole, rather than disaggregating work into segmented operational components. When Brayfield and Rothe formulated the measure in 1951, extant job attitude assessments were heavily skewed toward commercial morale surveys or highly localized industrial indices that suffered from poor psychometric standardization, lack of generalizability across occupational classes, and confounding contamination with community or general life satisfaction.

Brayfield and Rothe sought to develop an objective, easily administrable, and theoretically sound instrument capable of yielding an overarching index of job satisfaction that could be applied with equal validity to clerical, managerial, service, and manual labor personnel. In applied organizational settings, the scale serves as a macro-level diagnostic barometer, enabling human resource practitioners, occupational health psychologists, and executives to monitor institutional morale, track longitudinal changes following organizational restructuring, evaluate the psychological impact of organizational changes, and benchmark organizational health.

In academic research, the instrument addresses a critical methodological dichotomy in organizational scholarship: the distinction between facet-specific satisfaction and global satisfaction. Facet instruments—such as the Job Descriptive Index (JDI) or the Minnesota Satisfaction Questionnaire (MSQ)—assess discrete workplace dimensions (e.g., pay, promotion opportunities, coworkers, supervisor competence, task variety). However, theoretical psychometrics confirms that global job satisfaction is not simply the algebraic sum of individual facet ratings; individuals apply idiosyncratic cognitive weighting schemes to facets depending on their subjective values, life stages, and occupational expectations. The OJS captures this gestalt cognitive-affective synthesis, making it an indispensable tool for structural equation modeling of employee withdrawal, turnover intentions, burnout, absenteeism, organizational citizenship behavior (OCB), and subjective well-being.

Psychological Construct

The construct operationalized by the OJS is global job satisfaction, defined as an evaluative affective and cognitive state reflecting an individual's overall appraisal of their job experience. Psychometrically, the construct is conceptualized as a single-factor, bipolar latent variable extending along a continuum from severe negative affective aversion to enthusiastic positive psychological fulfillment.

Brayfield and Rothe explicitly defined job satisfaction as an “attitude,” drawing upon early 20th-century social psychological frameworks that characterize an attitude as an enduring predisposition to experience feeling-states and behave in a characteristic manner toward an attitude object—in this instance, the respondent's ongoing employment situation. The construct encompasses two tightly intertwined dimensions:

• Affective Component: This dimension measures the pervasive emotional tone experienced during the enactment of work tasks. It reflects feelings of enjoyment, enthusiasm, pleasure, and enthusiasm versus boredom, unpleasantness, and emotional strain. For example, items such as “I find real enjoyment in my work” and “Most days I am enthusiastic about my work” directly tap the presence of positive affective activation, whereas items such as “I definitely dislike my work” or “Most of the time I have to force myself to go to work” assess persistent aversive affective states.
• Cognitive-Evaluative Component: This dimension captures the rational comparative appraisal made by the employee when judging their job against internal standards, alternative employment opportunities, and peer references. Items such as “I feel that my job is no more interesting than others I could get” and “I like my job better than the average worker does” require the respondent to perform social comparison and counterfactual evaluation, determining whether their current organizational tenure represents a subjective net gain.

Importantly, the construct of global job satisfaction is conceptually distinct from adjacent occupational constructs. While work engagement denotes a high-energy, dedicated, and absorbed motivational state, job satisfaction represents an evaluative, often satiated state of contentment. Similarly, while organizational commitment binds the individual's identity and loyalty to the broader employing institution, job satisfaction focuses specifically on the immediate experience and appraisal of the work role itself.

Theoretical Framework

The development and longevity of the Overall Job Satisfaction scale are situated at the intersection of several influential theoretical paradigms in organizational psychology and attitude theory.

1. Attitude Theory and the Thurstone-Likert Scaling Paradigm

During the 1930s and 1940s, psychometric theory underwent a major transformation driven by L. L. Thurstone's method of equal-appearing intervals and Rensis Likert's summated rating scale methodology. Brayfield and Rothe integrated both traditions. They initially generated an extensive pool of potential items reflecting varying degrees of job satisfaction, which were subsequently judged and categorized by an expert panel along a Thurstone-style 11-point affective continuum. Items exhibiting excessive variability in judge sorting (high Q-values) were discarded as ambiguous, and the surviving items spanning the entire evaluative continuum were formatted into a Likert-style summated rating scale. This rigorous dual-methodological foundation ensured that the scale items possessed strong linguistic clarity and consistent psychological intervals.

2. Hoppock's Global Satisfaction Model

The scale directly inherited the theoretical orientation pioneered by Robert Hoppock (1935), whose seminal monograph Job Satisfaction posited that an employee's psychological orientation toward work represents an integrated, subjective equilibrium. Hoppock maintained that while employees can articulate distinct dissatisfaction with specific operational facets, their overall behavior (e.g., quitting, maintaining tenure, psychological withdrawal) is governed by an overarching holistic attitude. Brayfield and Rothe codified this theoretical orientation into a standardized psychometric instrument designed to transcend the specific trade idiosyncrasies of Hoppock's early interview methodologies.

3. Locke's Value-Percept Theory

In subsequent decades, the theoretical interpretation of the OJS was substantially reinforced by Edwin A. Locke's (1976) Value-Percept Theory. Locke conceptualized job satisfaction as a pleasurable or positive emotional state resulting from the appraisal of one's job as achieving or facilitating the achievement of one's job values. Because individuals possess radically divergent value hierarchies (e.g., one employee prioritizes high remuneration over autonomy, whereas another values creative expression over security), measuring individual facets and calculating an unweighted arithmetic sum introduces systematic measurement error. The OJS allows the respondent's cognitive processing system to automatically perform this internal weighting, yielding a pure, ecologically valid measure of the net value-percept discrepancy.

Validity

Extensive psychometric validation over more than seven decades has provided robust evidence supporting the construct, convergent, discriminant, and criterion-related validity of the Overall Job Satisfaction scale in both its 18-item and 6-item forms.

1. Convergent and Correlational Validity

Construct validation studies have repeatedly confirmed theoretically predicted associations between the OJS and a wide range of antecedent, correlational, and outcome variables. In comprehensive empirical investigations by Agho, Price, and Mueller (1993), Aryee, Fields, and Luk (1999), and Judge, Locke, Durham, and Kluger (1998), overall job satisfaction measured by this scale exhibited statistically significant positive correlations with:

• Autonomy and Task Discretion: Strong positive associations (typically ranging from r = .35 to .52), demonstrating that structural empowerment enhances global work attitudes.
• Distributive and Procedural Justice: Moderate to high correlations (r = .40 to .58), reflecting the profound role of organizational fairness in global evaluations.
• Supervisory Support and Leadership Quality: Consistent positive correlations (r = .38 to .49).
• Task Significance and Variety: Congruent with the Job Characteristics Model (Hackman & Oldham, 1976), intrinsically enriched work correlates positively with OJS scores (r = .42 to .55).
• Job Involvement and Intrinsic Motivation: Significant positive alignment (r = .36 to .50).

Conversely, the scale correlates negatively with debilitating workplace stressors and structural organizational pathologies:

• Role Ambiguity and Role Conflict: Significant negative correlations ranging from r = -.32 to -.48 (Agho et al., 1993; Aryee et al., 1999).
• Work-Family and Family-Work Conflict: Consistent inverse relationships (r = -.25 to -.41).
• Work Routinization and Monotony: Strong negative correlations (r = -.38 to -.51), validating that high task repetitiveness erodes positive global work attitudes.

2. Discriminant Validity

A perennial challenge in organizational behavior is establishing that self-reported attitude measures reflect empirically distinct phenomena rather than a generalized affective response bias or common method variance. Brooke, Russell, and Price (1988) conducted a rigorous confirmatory factor analysis (CFA) to examine whether job satisfaction (operationalized via the Brayfield-Rothe items), organizational commitment, and job involvement represented distinct constructs. Their structural modeling demonstrated that a three-factor model yielded superior fit over alternative single-factor or two-factor models, providing definitive statistical evidence that the OJS measures a psychological reality distinct from institutional loyalty or ego-involvement in work.

Furthermore, Agho et al. (1992) demonstrated robust discriminant validity between the 6-item OJS and dispositional affectivity measures, establishing that while positive affectivity (PA) and negative affectivity (NA) influence job attitudes, the OJS captures substantial unique variance attributable to the work environment itself.

3. Multi-Source and Criterion Validity

A notable limitation of many self-report surveys is vulnerability to self-presentation biases. In an innovative multi-source validation study, Judge, Locke, Durham, and Kluger (1998) gathered significant-other (spouse or partner) evaluations of the focal employee's job satisfaction alongside self-reports. The correlation between the employee's self-reported OJS score and the significant-other report was substantial (r = .68, p < .001). This convergence between independent observers validates that the scale captures authentic, behaviorally observable psychological states that manifest outside the formal workplace.

Reliability

The Overall Job Satisfaction scale has demonstrated exceptional reliability across diverse samples, cultures, and occupational sectors.

1. Internal Consistency (Cronbach's Alpha)

In their initial validation with a sample of 231 female clerical workers, Brayfield and Rothe (1951) reported a split-half reliability coefficient, corrected via the Spearman-Brown prophecy formula, of .87. Subsequent contemporary investigations utilizing Cronbach's coefficient alpha have repeatedly demonstrated high internal consistency for the complete 18-item instrument:

• Shore, Newton, and Thornton (1990): Reported an internal consistency coefficient of α = .91 among a large multinational workforce.
• Moorman (1991): Observed an alpha coefficient of α = .88 in an empirical study linking justice perceptions to citizenship behaviors.
• Pillai, Schriesheim, and Williams (1999): Documented an alpha coefficient of α = .91 in a structural model of transformational leadership and organizational justice.

The shortened 6-item version developed by Agho, Price, and Mueller (1992) exhibits similarly robust internal consistency despite its concise length:

• Agho et al. (1992, 1993): Reported coefficient alpha values ranging from α = .83 to α = .90 across industrial hospital employees and mixed occupational groups.
• Judge, Locke, Durham, and Kluger (1998): Documented an alpha coefficient of α = .89 across independent corporate and university samples.
• Aryee, Fields, and Luk (1999): Demonstrated high cross-cultural reliability with α = .85 among professional dual-earner cohorts in East Asia.

2. Temporal Stability (Test-Retest Reliability)

Longitudinal investigations assessing the temporal stability of the scale across intervals ranging from several weeks to one year typically yield test-retest correlations between r = .60 and r = .75. These values reflect the dual nature of job satisfaction as an attitude possessing both a stable dispositional-evaluative baseline and sensitivity to real environmental changes (such as promotion, leadership changes, or salary adjustments).

Factor Analysis

The structural dimensionality of the OJS has been rigorously examined via both Exploratory Factor Analysis (EFA) and Confirmatory Factor Analysis (CFA).

1. Dimensionality of the Original 18-Item Scale

Brayfield and Rothe (1951) designed the 18-item instrument as a strictly unidimensional measure. Early exploratory principal component analyses generally extracted a dominant first factor accounting for the vast majority of common variance (often exceeding 45% to 55%), with all items loading substantially (> .45) on this primary dimension. However, subsequent methodological inquiries identified an artificial secondary factor emerging in unconstrained exploratory analyses, driven entirely by item polarity (i.e., a method artifact distinguishing positively worded items from reverse-worded items).

When examined through CFA, structural equation models that include a substantive latent factor (Global Job Satisfaction) alongside an orthogonal method factor accounting for reverse-worded items demonstrate outstanding model fit:

• Comparative Fit Index (CFI) > .95
• Tucker-Lewis Index (TLI) > .94
• Root Mean Square Error of Approximation (RMSEA) ≤ .05
• Standardized Root Mean Square Residual (SRMR) ≤ .04

2. Factor Structure of the 6-Item Short Form

To eliminate the psychometric noise caused by redundant items and minimize method variance, Agho et al. (1992) conducted systematic factor analyses on the original item pool. They extracted six high-performing items that loaded cleanly onto a single latent dimension without cross-loading on affective disposition factors. In CFA studies across diverse industries, the 6-item short form demonstrates unidimensional structural validity without necessitating complex post-hoc correlated error terms. Standardized factor loadings on the single global latent construct routinely fall between .62 and .88, confirming that each indicator provides substantial information regarding the underlying latent variable.

Instrument / Measurement Tool

• Full Instrument Name: Overall Job Satisfaction scale (OJS)
• Alternative Titles: Brayfield-Rothe Job Satisfaction Index; Brayfield-Rothe Scale
• Instrument Structure:
  • Full Version: 18 items
  • Short Version: 6 items (derived from items 6, 7, 9, 13, 15, and 17 of the original pool)
• Administration Format: Self-administered paper-and-pencil questionnaire, computerized survey, or organizational assessment platform.
• Estimated Completion Time: 3 to 5 minutes for the 18-item scale; under 2 minutes for the 6-item short form.
• Target Population: Working adults across all occupational categories, organizational strata, and employment industries.
• Response Format: 5-point Likert-type scale scored as follows:
  • 5 = Strongly Agree
  • 4 = Agree
  • 3 = Undecided
  • 2 = Disagree
  • 1 = Strongly Disagree
• Scoring and Transformation Protocol:
  • Reverse Scoring: The 18-item scale contains exactly nine negatively worded items that must be reverse-scored prior to calculating composite scores: Items 3, 4, 6, 8, 10, 11, 14, 16, and 18. For these items, values must be inverted: 1 → 5, 2 → 4, 3 → 3, 4 → 2, 5 → 1. In the 6-item version, only Item 1 (Item 6 of the original scale) is reverse-scored.
  • Total Score Calculation (Summed Metric): For the 18-item scale, summed scores range from 18 to 90. For the 6-item scale, summed scores range from 6 to 30. Higher scores signify greater overall job satisfaction.
  • Mean Metric Calculation: Alternatively, researchers frequently compute the mean score across items (total score divided by number of items), preserving the 1.00 to 5.00 metric for intuitive interpretation against the original Likert anchor descriptors.

Permissions & Fee and Test Year

The Overall Job Satisfaction scale was originally published in 1951 by Arthur H. Brayfield and Harold F. Rothe in the Journal of Applied Psychology, an official publication of the American Psychological Association (APA). Under United States copyright statutes governing academic works published prior to 1978, the instrument has entered the public domain for academic, scholarly, and non-commercial research purposes, provided that appropriate scholarly attribution is accorded to the original authors.

The shortened 6-item form was published in 1992 by Augustine O. Agho, James L. Price, and Charles W. Mueller in the Journal of Occupational and Organizational Psychology (published by Wiley on behalf of the British Psychological Society). Commercial practitioners intending to integrate either version into proprietary diagnostic software, commercial employee testing suites, or monetized consulting platforms should consult APA and British Psychological Society permissions guidelines. Academic researchers and students may administer the items without fee or written permission under standard fair-use scientific conventions.

References

Agho, A. O., Mueller, C. W., & Price, J. L. (1993). Determinants of employee job satisfaction: An empirical test of a causal model. Human Relations, 46(8), 1007–1027. https://doi.org/10.1177/001872679304600806

Agho, A. O., Price, J. L., & Mueller, C. W. (1992). Discriminant validity of measures of job satisfaction, positive affectivity and negative affectivity. Journal of Occupational and Organizational Psychology, 65(3), 185–196. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.2044-8325.1992.tb00494.x

Aryee, S., Fields, D., & Luk, V. (1999). A cross-cultural test of a model of the work-family interface. Journal of Management, 25(4), 491–511. https://doi.org/10.1177/014920639902500402

Brayfield, A. H., & Rothe, H. F. (1951). An index of job satisfaction. Journal of Applied Psychology, 35(5), 307–311. https://doi.org/10.1037/h0055617

Brooke, P. P., Russell, D. W., & Price, J. L. (1988). Discriminant validation of measures of job satisfaction, job involvement, and organizational commitment. Journal of Applied Psychology, 73(2), 139–145. https://doi.org/10.1037/0021-9010.73.2.139

Cook, J. D., Hepworth, S. J., Wall, T. D., & Warr, P. B. (1981). The experience of work: A compendium of 249 measures and their use. Academic Press.

Hackman, J. R., & Oldham, G. R. (1976). Motivation through the design of work: Test of a theory. Organizational Behavior and Human Performance, 16(2), 250–279. https://doi.org/10.1016/0030-5073(76)90016-7

Hoppock, R. (1935). Job satisfaction. Harper & Brothers.

Judge, T. A., Locke, E. A., Durham, C. C., & Kluger, A. N. (1998). Dispositional effects on job and life satisfaction: The role of core evaluations. Journal of Applied Psychology, 83(1), 17–34. https://doi.org/10.1037/0021-9010.83.1.17

Locke, E. A. (1976). The nature and causes of job satisfaction. In M. D. Dunnette (Ed.), Handbook of industrial and organizational psychology (pp. 1297–1349). Rand McNally.

Moorman, R. H. (1991). Relationship between organizational justice and organizational citizenship behaviors: Do fairness perceptions influence employee citizenship? Journal of Applied Psychology, 76(6), 845–855. https://doi.org/10.1037/0021-9010.76.6.845

O'Neill, B. S., & Mone, M. A. (1998). Investigating equity sensitivity as a moderator of relations between self-efficacy and workplace attitudes. Journal of Applied Psychology, 83(5), 805–816. https://doi.org/10.1037/0021-9010.83.5.805

Pillai, R., Schriesheim, C. A., & Williams, E. S. (1999). Fairness perceptions and trust as mediators for transformational and transactional leadership: A two-sample study. Journal of Management, 25(6), 897–933. https://doi.org/10.1177/014920639902500606

Shore, L. M., Newton, L. A., & Thornton, G. C. (1990). Job and organizational attitudes in relation to employee behavioral intentions. Journal of Organizational Behavior, 11(1), 57–67. https://doi.org/10.1002/job.4030110107

13. Items of the Scale (Questionnaire)