Is career satisfaction contingent upon personality profile?

Pages: 614-619
Ankita Budhiraja and Punam Midha (Department of Psychology, MD University, Rohtak, Haryana)

The choice of career is no doubt a crucial phase in one’s life. Though it is quite apparent that career satisfaction is dependent upon one’s aptitude/ skills and potentials, yet there is an invincible quest to explore the intrinsic personological basis of such satisfaction. Thus the present research work is an attempt to explore the relationship between personality traits and career satisfaction among lawyers. A purposive sample of 150 lawyers both male and female, aged 30 to 60 years practicing in trial courts (district courts), Punjab and Haryana High Court, and Delhi High Court was drawn with minimum of 5 years experience. Descriptive statistics, correlation and regression analyses were computed. The findings revealed that lawyers were having above average tendency in four domains of personality (i.e., extraversion, honesty, conscientiousness & openness to experience) followed by average level in the traits of agreeableness and emotionality. Further correlation analysis revealed that honesty, extraversion, openness to experience and conscientiousness were positively significantly correlated with career satisfaction whereas emotionality and agreeableness were negatively significantly correlated with career satisfaction. Further stepwise multiple regression revealed that emotionality and agreeableness emerged as negative predictors of overall career satisfaction whereas extraversion and conscientiousness as positive predictors of overall career satisfaction. The current findings have highlighted the role of personality traits in determining the satisfaction with career among lawyers.