A psychometric investigation of harmonious and obsessive work passion

Abstract

Despite widespread belief that passion is important for workplace success, research has failed to keep pace with theorizing in this domain, particularly as it pertains to measurement. The Dualistic Model of Passion, which is composed of harmonious passion (HP) and obsessive passion (OP), has been frequently adapted by management researchers. Two different versions of its measure, the Passion Scale, are concurrently in use. Therefore, we collected three samples of working adults (total N = 1497) to conduct a comprehensive psychometric evaluation and comparison of the 14-item and 12-item versions of the Passion Scale adapted to work. Despite sharing only five items, both versions demonstrated acceptable internal consistency and incremental validity over other work attitudes. However, the positive correlation between HP and OP is much smaller in magnitude in the 12-item version, which may account for the wide credibility interval reported by meta-analysis. Additionally, item response theory analysis revealed that neither version can assess very high or low levels of HP or OP, indicating that the Passion Scale may be best suited to measuring mid-range levels of passion. We leverage these conclusions to offer future research directions and best practices for passion research using this measure.

How Passion for Work Shapes Work-Family Interactions: A Conceptual Framework Exploring the Roles of Psychological Capital and Self-Regulation Failure

“…The dualistic model of passion (Vallerand et al, 2003), which research conducted over the last decade (e.g., Landay et al, 2021) has supported, divides the notion into two types: harmonious and obsessive work passion, each with its own set of antecedents and consequences. Harmonious work passion emerges on account of an autonomous internalization process.…”

Organizational compassion and employee adversarial growth under various job control

“…They proposed that work passion can be divided into two types: harmonious passion (HP) and obsessive passion (OP); Obsessive passion refers to a controlled internalization in one's identity that can create internal pressure to engage in the activity. Harmonious passion refers to an autonomous internalization that leads individuals to engage in the activity they like (Landay et al, 2022 ). Cooperation among employees, fair evaluation within the organization, and open and transparent procedures are all conducive to employee work passion (Zigarmi et al, 2011 ; Breu and Yasseri, 2023 ).…”

Passion for work passion research: Taming breadth and promoting depth

“…The paper by Landay et al (2022) provides a comprehensive psychometric evaluation and comparison of two versions of the DMP scale at work (a 14‐item [Vallerand et al, 2003] and a 12‐item version (Marsh et al, 2013)). This study goes beyond prior scale validation attempts conducted at the factor level to perform the first item‐response theory (IRT) analysis of the work passion scale.…”