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Calling in the United States: prevalence and the role of source

Date

2018

Authors

White, Micah, author
Dik, Bryan, advisor
Beseler, Cheryl, committee member
Peila-Shuster, Jackie, committee member

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Abstract

Research on calling as a construct in vocational psychology has grown substantially in the past decade. However, questions pertaining to the prevalence of calling and role of source of calling remain unanswered. The present study used data from Wave 2 of the Portraits of American Life Study: a nationally stratified panel study of religion in the United States. Part One of this study sought to estimate the prevalence of calling in the United States while Part Two investigated whether or not participants' source of calling affected relationships between living a calling, job satisfaction, and well-being correlates. In general, estimates in this study suggest that calling is a relevant concept for many adults throughout the United States, with significant differences in presence of and search for calling being found for age, employment status, and the importance of God or spirituality. Additionally, results demonstrated that source of calling moderated the relationship between living a calling and job satisfaction such that, for those citing an external source of calling, living a calling was not predictive of job satisfaction. Furthermore, importance of God or spirituality was found to be an important predictor of living a calling, purpose in life, and hope for the future. These findings represent the first known population estimates of calling in the United States and extend the existing literature on calling by providing further information pertaining to the relative importance of source of calling and spirituality in predicting relevant work and well-being outcomes.

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Subject

job satisfaction
source of calling
calling
spirituality
prevalence

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