Work attitudes and their correlates among graduating college seniors

A fourfold framework of work attitudes was developed using importance of self-worth and economic aspects of work as the two dimensions. Subjects were 1859 graduating seniors in 1972 from five universities in Pennsylvania, The data show that these seniors are optomistic about work. They expect work to provide identification and meaning to their lives. Multiple regression analyses using sex, race, socioeconomic status, college major and religion as independent variables were done for each of the four work attitudes. Sex emerged as a primary determinant of work attitude. Men tend to agree with those views in which the economic considerations are foremost, while women consider self-worth and relevancy to be of greater concern. College major also was an important factor with business and engineering majors supporting those work attitudes where monetary aspects are of high importance. Regarding religion, Protestants were found to strongly endorse the Protestant Ethic work attitude.