Maximizing as a predictor of job satisfaction and performance: A tale of three scales

Research on individual differences in maximizing (versus satisficing) has recently proliferated in the Judgment and Decision Making literature, and high scores on this construct have been linked to lower life satisfaction as well as, in some cases, to worse decision-making performance. The current study exported this construct to the organizational domain and evaluated the utility of the three most widely used measures of maximizing in predicting several criteria of interest to organizational researchers: job satisfaction, intentions to quit the organization, performance in the job role, and income. Moreover, this study used relative weight analyses to determine the relative importance of maximizing and two dispositional variables (conscientiousness and core self-evaluations) that are traditionally used to predict these criteria in the organizational literature. Results indicate that relationships between maximizing and these criteria are influenced by the way in which maximizing is measured. Yet, regardless of how it is measured, maximizing is not a particularly strong predictor of these criteria compared to traditional organizational predictors. Limitations and future research directions are discussed.