Journal of Vocational Behavior 19, 98-112 (1981)

Career Roles, Psychological Success, and Job Attitudes

STEPHEN A. STUMPF

New York University

D. T. Hall's (Careers in organizations. Pacific Palisades, Calif.: Goodyear Pub., 1976) psychological success-based model of career development was investigated using path analyses across three faculty member roles and several performance indices. The model received moderate support for each role. While alternative paths from performance to job involvement and satisfaction with promotional opportunities were observed, they did not contradict the portions of the psy- chological success model studied.

Hall (1971, 1976) has proposed a psychological success-based model of career development which integrates concepts of self with individual task behavior and job attitudes. Individuals develop in their careers through a cyclical process of goal setting, performance, feelings of success and self-worth, favorable job attitudes, and goal resetting (Hall, 1976; Hall & Foster, 1977) . Research on the model has provided preliminary support for the hypothesized causal relationships for managers (Hall & Nougaim, 1968), priests (Hall & Schneider, 1973), and students (Hall & Foster, 1977). The model’s utility is in that it explains and predicts personal causes of performance in a parsimonious manner. Each variable is hypothesized to have one salient cause and effect. Research with other populations and incorporating other variables which would compete with the simple cause-effect relationships proposed by the psychological suc- cess model is necessary to determine the generalizability of the model.

The present study investigates several relationships proposed in the psychological success model in a field setting using several performance indices based on distinct sources of information: archives, peers, and superiors. While Hall and Foster (1977) found performance to have a direct causal relationship with psychological success and an indirect rela- tionship with job involvement and self-esteem, only one index of perfor-

Portions of this paper were presented at the Academy of Management 40th Annual Meet- ing, Detroit, Michigan, August 1980. The helpful comments of Richard Freedman, Samuel Rabinowitz, and several anonymous reviewers are appreciated. Requests for reprints should be sent to: Stephen A. Stumpf, New York University, Graduate School of Business Admini- stration, 100 Trinity Place, New York, NY 10006.

98 0001~8791/81/040098-15$02.00/O Copyright Q 1981 by Academic Press, Inc. All rights of reproduction in any form reserved.

CAREER ROLES, PSYCHOLOGICAL SUCCESS, JOB ATTITUDES 99

mance was used. Their index was an objective measure based on indi- vidual decisions which was updated and fed back repeatedly between times 1 and 2 (3 weeks). Organizations often lack objective measures of performance which can be attributed to each individual, and they seldom provide as much feedback per unit of time as did Hall and Foster. Hence, the extent to which Hall and Foster’s results generalize to field settings is unclear.

Career Roles

Hall (1971, 1976) suggests that the psychological success cycle relates to a person’s subidentity development, where a subidentity is that aspect of the total identity engaged in a specific career role (Miller, 1%3). A career role is defined by Hall (1971, p. 56) as “the area of occupational functioning in which a person chooses to work.” While many individuals will have only one career role at a time (e.g., a high school teacher), others maintain several career roles simultaneously (e.g., a college pro- fessor has career roles of researcher, instructor, and often administrator). Since one can feel and be successful in many different career roles (Kahn, Wolfe, Quinn, Snoek, & Rosenthal, 1964), performance in different roles should be indexed separately. Accordingly, feelings of psychological suc- cess may relate to each career role rather than some unspecified aggregate of career roles.

The psychological success measure used by HalI and associates as- sumes that psychological success is a composite based on all career roles. Such a composite measure leaves the relative weighting of various roles undisclosed. It may be that one person develops his/her feelings of psy- chological success from one role while others feel psychologically suc- cessful on the basis of other roles. Alternatively, within an occupation some career roles may be more salient than others. By examining the psychological success model relative to different career roles, the psy- chological success construct may be more clearly understood.

A portion of the psychological success model (Hall, 1976) is investi- gated: role performance --, role psychological success + work satisfac- tion + job involvement. The intervening effect of self-esteem between psychological success and job satisfaction or job involvement was not considered based on the revised model reported by Hall and Foster (1977). Two facets of job satisfaction were considered: satisfaction with work and satisfaction with promotional opportunities. Hall (1976) suggests that one’s satisfaction with work may be an outcome of feelings of psychological success and subsequently leads to job involvement (Rabinowitz & Hall, 1977). Satisfaction with promotional opportunities can be viewed as an individual’s affective reaction to how current perfor- mance is evaluated by the organization vis-Svis advancement oppor- tunities. If opportunities for advancement exist, then individuals whose

100 STEPHEN A. STUMPF

performances are rated highly by the organization and who feel psy- chologically successful are likely to feel satisfied with their promotion opportunities.

Sample and Procedure

METHOD

As part of a larger study of faculty roles, confidential questionnaires were mailed to 134 fulLtime business school faculty members of a large northeastern university (Stumpf & Rabinowitz, 1981; Stumpf, Freedman, & Rabinowitz, Note 1). Of these, 102 returned usable questionnaires (76%). Performance indices were available on the entire faculty. There were no significant differences between respondents and nonrespondents on any of the performance indices or on any of 11 other demographic variables (e.g., sex, age, rank). The average age was 41 years; 11 were full-time, tenure-track instructors, 41 assistant professors, 33 associate professors, and 49 professors. Since faculty roles of researcher, teacher, and administrator/committee member were separate aspects of perfor- mance used in salary and promotion decisions, they were considered separate roles in this research.

Performance Measures

Several measures of performance were obtained for faculty roles of researcher, teacher, and administrator/committee member. Three sources of performance information were collected: unobtrusive indices, peer nominations, and superior ratings. Research productivity was indexed unobtrusively by the number of manuscripts submitted to the organization for internal circulation in the past 3 years. Single-authored papers counted one, while coauthored papers were weighted by the inverse of the number of coauthors. Records kept on journal publications of such manuscripts indicated that over 70% get published within 2 years. The manuscript index correlated .65 with a comprehensive publications index developed in previous research (Stumpf, Freedman, & Aguanno, 1979). A manu- script index was used rather than publications in order to have an unob- trusive organizationally and temporally relevant index of research output.

Teaching effectiveness was indexed by a 3-year average of over 30,000 student evaluations. The Course-Faculty Instrument (CFI) was used to collect student evaluations; it demonstrates excellent reliability, validity, and generalizability (Freedman & Stumpf, 1978; Stumpf, Freedman, & Krieger, 1979). CFI results are reported to the faculty each semester as standardized T scores. Stumpf et al. (1979) investigated potential biases in CFI ratings averaged across 1 year and found the average ratings to be free from undesired covariance related to sex, age, rank, class size, and the proportion of required courses taught.

CAREER ROLES, PSYCHOLOGICAL SUCCESS, JOB ATTITUDES 101

Peer nominations for excellence in research, teaching, and administrative/committee work were solicited in the mail questionnaire. Each respondent nominated up to three professionals employed by the organization for each dimension. A peer rating index was formed by totaling the number of times an individual was nominated for a particular dimension. Since respondents could (and did) nominate people outside of their own department, no adjustment was made for department size.

In order to obtain a rating by a superior that was uniform across all participants, three deans were asked to evaluate all faculty members for excellence in research, teaching, and administrative/committee work. They performed their evaluations independently by Q-sorting 134 names into 1 of 10 approximately equal sized categories ranging from “bottom 10%” to “top 10%” for each dimension. The median inter-rater reliability was .67 with a range of .37 to .79. The average rating one received by the three deans was the index of performance used. Reliabilities are reported in Table 1.

Salary data for the most recent 2 years was available on all participants; however, the current-year salary decisions had not been made at the time the other data were collected. Salary decisions were made collectively by the three deans who made the superior ratings in consultation with de- partment chairpeople. The stated policy was to base salary increases on merit. Hence salary change was used as an overall organizational index of an individual’s performance. The mean salary change was $2,000, the standard deviation $1,100.

Job Attitudes

Psychological success for each role was measured on a 5-point Likert scale in response to the question: “How much have the aforementioned activities contributed to accomplishing your career goals?” Activities related to research, teaching, administration, and committee work were described. The response to the administration and committee work roles were averaged (IX = .72).

Job satisfaction was measured by the Job Descriptive Index (Smith, Kendall, & Hulin, 1969). Only satisfaction with work (a! = .66) and satisfaction with promotional opportunities (cu = .90) were relevant to this research. A six-item version of the Lodahl and Kejner (1965) job involve- ment instrument was used (cr = .83).

Analysis

Path analysis was used in order to analyze the chain of predicted relationships simultaneously and to identify indirect effects of one vat-i- able on another via intervening variables (Kerlinger & Pedhazer, 1973). Since the psychological success model was predicted to be applicable for each career role, path analyses were replicated for each role. Variables

102 STEPHEN A. STUMPF

were presumed to relate to each other within the general causal framework of the psychological success model established by Hall (1976) and the temporal priority contained in the data. The unobtrusive perfor- mance measures were presumed not to be caused by peer or superior ratings, and the peer and superior ratings were presumed not to be caused by salary change. Given the psychological success model and the tem- poral priority, three questions were examined using alternative path mo- dels: (1) Is role performance directly related to satisfaction with work? (2) Is role performance directly related to job involvement? (3) What vari- ables directly relate to satisfaction with promotional opportunities? The first two questions addressed the efficiency of the psychological success model, the third question involved exploratory analyses to see which direct relationships were consistent with the data across the three career roles.

Six path models were examined across the three roles based on the above questions and compared for their efficiency in capturing the rela- tionships which existed in the data: (1) role performance + role psy- chological success --, satisfaction with work + job involvement, (2) role performance + satisfaction with work + job involvement, (3) role per- formance + job involvement, (4) role performance + salary change + satisfaction with promotional opportunity, (5) role psychological success + satisfaction with work + job involvement + satisfaction with promo- tional opportunities, and (6) role psychological success + satisfaction with work + satisfaction with promotional opportunities --, job involve- ment. Model 1 reflects the model suggested by Hall (1976). Models 2 and 3 address the causal linkages identified in questions 1 and 2 above. Models 4-6 examine the relationship of satisfaction with promotional oppor- tunities to the psychological success model (question 3 above).

Appropriate partial correlations were computed to determine which causal paths could be deleted as suggested by Blalock (1962) and Simon (1957). Paths which had path coefficients which were not significant in at least one of the three career role psychological success models were deleted. Hence, a combined theoretical and empirical approach was used to investigate alternative path models. The model reported is consistent with the psychological success theory, fits the data, and generalizes across the three career roles.

RESULTS

Table 1 presents the means, standard deviations, and correlations of the variables investigated as part of the psychological success model for each role. The three role “triangles” shown in Table 1 indicate that the sepa- rate measures of performance correlate highly and are only moderately or weakly related to feelings of psychological success for each role. Perfor- mance in each role was reasonably independent of performance in other

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104 STEPHEN A. STUMPF

roles when indexed by unobtrusive measures (manuscripts, instructional ratings) or peer nominations; however, the superior ratings shared sub- stantial variance across roles (median r = 56).

Psychological success in research correlated significantly with psy- chological success in teaching (r = .32, p s .Ol), but was unrelated to psychological success in adminstrative work (r = .02, ns). Psychological success in teaching was unrelated to psychological success in administra- tion (r = .ll, ns). These low correlations indicate that psychological success may be role specific rather than a general construct across all facets of one’s career. Furthermore, the relative independence of these measures suggests that the similarity of path models across roles is not likely to be due to method bias.

The Psychological Success Model by Career Role

In order to investigate the network of relationships postulated by the psychological success model, path analyses were constructed for each role. Figures l-3 present the standardized and unstandardized path coefficients (in parentheses) for the three models.

Table 2 presents the path coefficients implied to be zero by the path models. The deletion of an arrow in Figs. l-3 implies that the causal relationship is small and not significant. For example, there is no causal relationship shown between job involvement and satisfaction with pro- motional opportunities for any of the career roles because the path coefficients for this relationship are small and nonsignificant (Table 2, P,, = .02 for research role, .08 for teaching role, and .09 for administrative role). Table 2 supports the deletion of the same 18 paths for each career role.

Research career role. The manuscript index related strongly to both peer nominations and superior ratings, but was not directly related to psychological success or salary change once intervening variables were considered. Peer nominations directly related to psychological success in research and superior ratings; again, no direct effect on salary change was observed.

The path relationships of psychological success to work satisfaction and job involvement were weak and nonsignificant for the research role (but see teaching and adminstrative roles below). However, the bivariate relationship of psychological success in research with job involvement was significant (r = .24, p s .05). Psychological success in research related most strongly with satisfaction with promotion (P,, = .41) and was unrelated to superior ratings for research or salary change.

The path model suggests that one’s feelings of job involvement and satisfaction with promotional opportunities are affected by superior ratings and salary change. Individuals who received higher superior ratings for research excellence felt more involved in their work (Pz5 = .21), received larger salary increases (Pa5 = .54), and felt more satisfied

CAREER ROLES, PSYCHOLOGICAL SUCCESS, JOB A’I-ITTUDES 105

TABLE 2 Path Coefficients Implied to Be Zero by Career Role Path Models

Path Partialled Actual standardized path coefficients

coefficienta B Research Teaching Administrative

PlZ PM PI5 PI7 PI8 P23 P26 PZ? PZS P34 P36 P37 P38 P45 P47 P4S PSS PW

12.345678 .02 .08 14.35678 .13 .I1 15.3678 -.I3 -.16 17.3568 .04 .04 18.3567 .02 .03 23.45678 .07 .lI 26.4578 .12 .03 27.4568 -.OS -.04 28.4567 .OS -.14 34.5678 .lO .20 36.578 -.06 -.03 37.58 .09 - .07 38.5 -.Ol .06 45.678 .I3 34 47.6 .20 .lS 48.67 -.09 .OS 56.78 .I7 .14 68.7 .08 -.07

.09

.12 -.18

.02 -

.I1

.I2 -.16

- .I9 .03 .OS -

.09

.07 - .07 -

a 1 = Satisfaction with promotion opportunities, 2 = job involvement, 3 = salary change, 4 = satisfaction with work, 5 = superior rating, 6 = psychological success, 7 = peer nominations, 8 = manuscripts or instructional ratings.

.93 7 ,997 .90 --\ ,607

PE&

.27 (66) A I,.,,,OL~~~ Klq

IENT

.(71 (.37) .“\ (5) .2~~.oa~ .27 t.24) (,I

(‘I MANUSCRIPTS .27 t.251 SUPERIOR .54 t.24) SALARY ) RATING-R - CHAffiE

FIG. 1. Path model relating research role variables to job attitudes. Note: Standardized path coefficients (B) and unstandardized path coefficients (B, in parentheses) are reported above. Path coefficients (B) greater than .20 are significant at p s .OS.

106 STEPHEN A. STUMPF

with their promotional opportunities (P,, = .27). The linkages of research performance to job involvement and salary change to satisfaction with promotional opportunities were as strong as the linkages of research performance to psychological success to job attitudes.

Teaching career role. The path model for the teaching career role is shown in Fig. 2. Similar sets of path relationships exist among instruc- tional evaluations, peer nominations for teaching excellence, and superior ratings for teaching. However, the relationship between peer nominations and psychological success in teaching is small and not significant (p6, = .09). None of the four performance indices relate to psychological success in teaching.

Psychological success in teaching does relate significantly with both work satisfaction and satisfaction with promotional opportunities, and work satisfaction relates positively with job involvement (Pz4 = .3 1, p 6 .Ol). A second path which affects job involvement and satisfaction with promotional opportunities is via superior ratings and salary change. As with the research path model, the linkages of superior-rated performance to job attitudes are as strong as the linkages of peer nominations for performance to psychological success to job attitudes.

Administrative career role. The administrative role path model (Fig. 3) generally parallels both the research and teaching models. The relation- ship of peer nominations to psychological success to work satisfaction is moderate and significant. Job involvement and satisfaction with promo- tional opportunities are again indirectly affected by peer nominations via two distinct paths, one by way of psychological success, and one by way of superior ratings and salary change.

.92

27 t.20)

.,,_\ (1)

SATISFACTION WITH w PROMOTIONAL

OPPORTUNITIES

RATINGS * RATING-T p CHANGE

FIG. 2. Path model relating teaching role variables to job attitudes. Note: Standardized path coefficients (p) and unstandardized path coefficients (p, in parentheses) are reported above. Path coefficients (p) greater than .20 are significant at p s .05.

CAREER ROLES, PSYCHOLOGICAL SUCCESS, JOB ATTITUDES 107

.96 .QO .,,\ (1)

FIG. 3. Path model relating administrative role variables to job attitudes. Note: Stan- dardized path coefficients (B) and unstandardized path coefficients (f3, in parentheses) are reported above. Path coefficients (p) greater than .20 are significant at p G .05.

The overall consistency of relationships across the three career roles, given the low relationships among the roles shown in Table 1, suggests that the psychological success model provides a reasonable explanation of the career development process. The existence of a fairly consistent set of relationships which contribute unique information regarding job at- titudes via superior and organizational performance indices indicates a parallel path may also be operative in addition to the psychological suc- cess path.

The three path models, taken collectively, are generally consistent with previous research on the relationships of performance, job-related satis- faction, and job involvement (e.g., Vroom, 1964; Rabinowitz & Hall, 1977). Small significant bivariate relationships were observed between work satisfaction and performance (r’s =. 25, as shown in Table 1); however, none of the performance variables related significantly with work satisfaction once psychological success was controlled. Salary change was the only performance index to relate significantly with satis- faction with promotional opportunities. The other performance relation- ships with satisfaction with promotional opportunities were small and nonsignificant once intervening variables were controlled. Work satisfac- tion and superior ratings of performance correlated moderately with job involvement.

Indirect wfects Implied by the Path Models

Three “effects” are implied by a path diagram: direct causal effects, indirect effects, and common-cause effects (Kerlinger & Pedhazer, 1973).

108 STEPHEN A. STUMPF

TABLE 3 Indirect Effects Implied by the Path Models Across Roles

Indirect effect via intervening variables

Bivariate relationship Research Teaching Administrative

Sat. prom. opp. with superior rating Sat. prom. opp. with peer nominations Sat. prom. opp. with manuscripts

or instructional rating Job involvement with psy. success Job involvement with peer nominations Job involvement with manuscripts

or instructional rating Salary change with peer nominations Salary change with manuscripts

or instructional rating Sat. with work with peer nominations Sat. with work with manuscripts

or instructional rating Superior rating with manuscripts

or instructional rating Psy. success with manuscripts

or instructional rating

.15

.22

.14 -

.04

.12

.ll - .21 .21 - .05 .03 - .24 -

.I7 -

.I3

.06 -

.09

.Ol

.08 -

.16

.I2 -

.24

.02 -

.Ol -

.16 -

.OS

.15

.15 - -

.09

.22 - - .29 - -

.09 - - - - - -

A direct causal effect is the impact of a variable taken as a cause upon another variable, and it is a standardized regression coefficient (p) as shown in Figs. 1-3. An indirect causal coefficient represents the effects that are interpreted by the intervening variables; it is the product of the path coefficients along an indirect route from cause to effect via traversing arrows in the headed direction only. If more than one indirect path exists, the total indirect effect is their sum (see Table 3). The common-cause coefficient is an indication of the amount of spurious covariation between two variables caused by other variables. The effects not explained by the path model, i.e., the residuals of the simple correlation once all implied effects are removed, should be near zero if the model efficiency captures the relationships contained in the data. Since the effects not explained by the model were uniformly small (“r” c .lO, not shown), the path models shown effectively reproduce the original correlation matrix.

Many of the indirect effects are consistent across the three roles and account for a substantial portion of the simple correlations. For example, the indirect effect of superior rating on satisfaction with promotional opportunities is .15 for the research role (54 x .27), .I3 for the teaching role, and .15 for the administrative role (see Table 3). This suggests that the importance of superior ratings on one’s feelings about promotional opportunities may be transmitted through one’s salary adjustment.

CAREER ROLES, PSYCHOLOGICAL SUCCESS, JOB ATTITUDES 109

Table 3 indicates that the indirect effect of peer nominations affects satisfaction with promotional opportunities, job involvement, and salary change for the research (.22, .12, .27) and administrative roles (-15, .22, .29), but less so for the teaching role (.06, .08, .12). Individuals may be discounting peer opinion for teaching effectiveness given that peers sel- dom observe teaching performance. In contrast, peer opinion for research and administrative effectiveness indirectly affect outcome variables via the intervening variables of role psychological success, satisfaction with work, and superior ratings.

Finally, the relationships among the performance indices can be further understood by considering their direct and indirect effects. Manuscripts and instructional ratings have substantial direct effects and indirect ef- fects via peer ratings on superior ratings. The direct effect of manuscripts on the superior research rating is .27, the indirect effect .24. For insttuc- tional ratings the direct effect on the superior teaching rating is .46, the indirect effect .16. Manuscripts and instructional rating also indirectly affect salary change via peer and superior ratings (.27 and .24, respec- tively).

Predicting Outcome Variables

Table 4 summarizes the variance accounted for in each path model and indicates the cumulative variance accounted for across the three roles for work satisfaction, job involvement, salary change, and satisfaction with promotional opportunities.

Relatively little variance in work satisfaction was accounted for by either the research or teaching roles (6% each); a significant 11% was accounted for by the administrative role. By combining the three roles in a multiple regression framework, 20% of work satisfaction variance was accounted for, mostly by feelings of role psychological success (15%).

Variance in job involvement was primarily accounted for by work satisfaction, and secondarily by superior ratings. Role perceptions and role performance made minor significant contributions to job involvement variance for the research and administrative roles. The cumulative var- iance in job involvement across the three roles was 22%.

Only superior ratings for each role accounted for unique variance in salary change. While other performance indices had indirect effects, no direct effects were observed. Performance ratings across the three roles accounted for 35% of salary change variance, with the largest proportion related to research performance (31%).

Psychological success and salary change made unique contributions to one’s satisfaction with one’s promotional opportunities. Overall, 2% of satisfaction with promotional opportunities was accounted for by feelings of psychological success (22%), salary change (4%), and superior ratings.

110 STEPHEN A. STUMPF

TABLE 4 Regressions of Outcome Variables on Other Variables as Specified in the Path Model

R2 change

Roles

Satisfaction with work Psychological success Peer nomination@ Manusctiptslinst. ratings”

Total

Research

.02

.03

.Ol

.06

Administrative Cumulative Teaching work across roles

.04* .11** .15**

.02 .oo .04*

.oo - .Ol

.06 .11** .20*

Job involvement Satisfaction with work Superior rating Psychological succesg Peer nomination* Manuscripts/inst. rating9

Total

.11** .11** .11** .11**

.06** .02 .04* .07*

.Ol .oo .Ol .03

.oo .oo .02 .Ol

.oo .02 - .Ol

.18** .15* .18** .22*

Salary change Superior rating Peer nomination* Manuscripts/inst. rating9

Total

.29** .16** .19** .32**

.oo .Ol .oo .02

.02 .02 - .Ol

.31** .19** .19** .35**

Satisfaction with promotion opportunities

Psychological success Salary change Superior ratit@ Peer nomination* Manuscripts/inst. rating

Total

.17** .07* .03 .22**

.05** .08** .08** .04*

.Ol .Ol .02 .03

.oo .oo .oo .oo

.oo .oo - .oo

.23** .16* .13* .29**

n Indirect effects implied by path model. * p = .os.

** p 5 .Ol.

DISCUSSION

By considering a network of performance indices across three career roles in a field setting, the generalizability of portions of the psychological success model were investigated. The portions of the psychological suc- cess model addressed received moderate support across two or more roles: role performance ---, role psychological success ---, work satisfaction --, job involvement. Each link in Hall’s (1976) psychological success model that was investigated was supported by one direct relationship. Given that other models were examined (e.g., models 2 and 3 posited

CAREER ROLES, PSYCHOLOGICAL SUCCESS, JOB ATTITUDES 111

causal relationships between role performance and job satisfaction and job involvement, respectively) which did not exhibit even moderate rela- tionships across the three career roles, the simple linkage proposed by Hall was supported. The additional linkages that were observed to ac- count for unique variance in outcome variables related to the use of multiple measures of performance and the introduction of another facet of job satisfaction. Specifically, psychological success was positively related to satisfaction with promotional opportunities; superior ratings related positively to job involvement; salary change related positively with satis- faction with promotional opportunities. Interestingly, these additional variables and relationships which reflect aspects of models 4-6 did not alter the simple cause-effect structure of Hall’s model.

While role performance was related to role psychological success, only peer ratings exhibited a direct relationship. This suggests that in- situtionalized indices of performance may need to be socially reinforced before they lead to feelings of success. This hypothesis may also explain the lack of direct or indirect effects of salary change on psychological success. Since salary information was confidential in this organization, peers were unaware of each other’s salary increase. Feelings of psy- chological success may stem from others acknowledging one’s perfor- mance .

The casual inferences suggested by the path models are at best tentative. However, previous research supports a causal interpretation (Hall & Foster, 1977). The general consistency of results across the three career roles and the indirect effects observed suggest that the relationships may be due to specific psychological processes (Hall, 1971, 1976). Since the path coefficients which were not significant for one role but were sig- nificant for others were still close in size and in the same direction, differences may be due to measurement error (Schmidt & Hunter, 1977). Such measurement error may have been increased by the use of single- item psychological success indices for two of the roles. Future research using more highly developed role-related psychological success measures is needed before the small role differences observed herein with respect to psychological success can be assumed to be meaningful differences.

When performance indices and role psychological success were used to predict job attitudes based on the hierarchy suggested by the model, role psychological success accounted for much of the explained variance. One’s feelings of role-related success were generally additive across roles. This suggests that feelings of success in each role may contribute to one’s overall feeling of career success (although not necessarily equally weighted role contributions). Future research which focuses on role ver- sus career feelings of success for a heterogenous sample is needed to further understand the extent to which Hall’s psychological success model is generalizable.

112 STEPHEN A. STUMPF

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REFERENCE NOTE ’ Stumpf, S. A., Freedman, R. D., & Rabinowitz, S. Role perception relationships with

facets of job satisfaction and performance indices as moderated by hierarchical level (Working Paper). New York: New York University, Graduate School of Business Admims- tration, October, 1980.

Received: August 18, 1980.