Boosting Life Satisfaction through Psychological Capital in the Presence of Job Security: A Case Study of Turkey

Abstract

The COVID-19 pandemic brought about drastic changes all across the world, causing the loss of thousands of lives and negatively affecting many industries, owing to the health measures taken by authorities in this period. The difficulties engendered by the pandemic have led to excessive anxiety and made people vulnerable to psychological problems. Moreover, many people have lost their jobs or experienced anxiety of losing their jobs. Turkish business is one of the prominent markets that have been severely affected by the pandemic. Thus, we considered it crucial to examine how life satisfaction levels of individuals working in the Turkish business sector can be increased through psychological capital. We also aimed to test whether a sense of job security has a mediator effect in the relationship between life satisfaction and psychological capital. In order to test the assumed relationship, we collected data from Turkish professionals working in the Marmara region. The collected data were analyzed using SPSS AMOS and the results revealed that psychological capital has a positive effect on life satisfaction levels of individuals. Moreover, our study is novel in that it revealed the mediator role of job security in the relationship between psychological capital and life satisfaction.

Struggling and Thriving: Effectuation in Social and Economic Stress

“…Optimism is an important element of the psychological capital of an individual, which, in broad terms, refers to who I am and who I want to become [9,29]. Effectuation theory considers who I am as one of the central means of every decision-maker.…”

“…This study falls within the developmental sustainability school of thought and contributes to sustainability research by applying effectuation theory to understand resilient citizens decision-making under the uncertainty of their daily lives [5] and the outcome in terms of satisfaction with life, unlike the abundance of research on the negative impacts of economic sanctions on society [8]. We also contribute to effectuation theory by extending its application to individual and collective social sustainability indicators, namely satisfaction with life, optimism, and self-efficacy [5,9]. Our third contribution is contextual.…”