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Proactive Personality and Job Satisfaction: the Mediating Effects of Self-Efficacy and Work Engagement in Teachers

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Abstract

Proactive personality has been demonstrated to be positively correlated with individual’s job satisfaction in addition to big five traits. However, what is less clear are the intervening mechanisms underlying this relationship, the present study examined the mediating effects of self-efficacy and work engagement on the association between proactive personality and job satisfaction. Three hundred and fifty-two (194 females and 158 males) primary and middle school teachers completed the proactive personality scale, the teachers’ self-efficacy scale, the work engagement scale and the short-form Minnesota job satisfaction questionnaire. Results revealed that proactive personality was positively related to teachers’ job satisfaction. In addition, mediation analyses showed that the relation between proactive personality and teachers’ job satisfaction was simple mediated by self-efficacy and work engagement and sequentially mediated by self-efficacy–work engagement. These findings contribute to the complex nature of the relationship between proactive personality and job satisfaction. The possible explanations and limitations are briefly discussed.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. School of Psychology, Shaanxi Normal University, 199 South Chang’an Road, Xi’an, 710062, China

    Mingjun Li, Zhenhong Wang & Xuqun You

  2. Faculty of Education, Shaanxi XueQian Normal University, 69 Xing Shan Temple Street, Xi’an, 710061, China

    Mingjun Li & Jie Gao

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  1. Mingjun Li
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Correspondence to Zhenhong Wang.

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Funding

This study was funded by The Ministry of Education Research of Social Sciences Youth Funded Projects, PRC (grant number 14YJC190011), and The Key Projects of Philosophy and Social Sciences Research, Ministry of Education, PRC (grant number 11JZD044).

Conflict of Interest

Author Mingjun Li has received research grants from The Ministry of Education Research of Social Sciences Youth Funded Projects, PRC (grant number 14YJC190011). Author Xuqun You has received grants from The Key Projects of Philosophy and Social Sciences Research, Ministry of Education, PRC (grant number 11JZD044). Author Mingjun Li declares that he has no conflict of interest. Author Zhenhon Wang declares that she has no conflict of interest. Author Jie Gao declares that he has no conflict of interest. Author Xuqun You declares that he has no conflict of interest.

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All procedures performed in studies involving human participants were in accordance with the ethical standards of the institutional and/or national research committee and with the 1964 Helsinki declaration and its later amendments or comparable ethical standards.

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Informed consent was obtained from all individual participants included in the study.

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All authors confirm to submit the manuscript to Current Psychology. We confirm that this manuscript has not been published previously, and it is not under consideration for publication elsewhere.

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Li, M., Wang, Z., Gao, J. et al. Proactive Personality and Job Satisfaction: the Mediating Effects of Self-Efficacy and Work Engagement in Teachers. Curr Psychol 36, 48–55 (2017). https://doi.org/10.1007/s12144-015-9383-1

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