Investigating the relationship between mental well-being and job performance and quality of life of Shahid Rajaei Port employees

Dissertation for Master's Degree in General Psychology

Abstract

This research was conducted with the aim of investigating the relationship between mental well-being and job performance and quality of life of Shahid Rajaei port employees in the academic year of 2011-2012. The current research method is correlational. Also, due to the fact that in this research the prediction and contribution of each of the factors and variables is discussed, therefore the correlation is of the prediction type. On the other hand, the data collection method in this research is field and using the questionnaire tool. The community studied in this research is the employees of Bandar Shahid Rajaei in Bandar Abbas city.  The sample size of the research was considered to be 200 people using Cochran's formula, and this number was selected using simple random sampling method. The following questionnaires were used in the current research: PANAS mental happiness questionnaires, job performance questionnaire (supervisor evaluation) and World Health Organization quality of life questionnaire. The results of the data analysis showed that: the positive affect component of mental well-being explains approximately 5.2% of the variance of the quality of life, the negative affect component of mental well-being explains approximately 1.9% of the variance of the quality of life, the positive affect component of mental well-being explains approximately 5.9% of the variance of job performance, the negative affect component of mental well-being explains approximately It explains 2.5% of the variance of job performance, the components of mental well-being (positive and negative emotion) can simultaneously explain approximately 6.1% of the variance of quality of life, and the components of mental well-being (negative emotion and positive emotion) can simultaneously explain approximately 7% of the variance of job performance.

Keywords: mental well-being, occupational performance and quality of life.

Introduction

Almost 60 years ago, the World Health Organization defined health as a state of complete physical, mental and social well-being and not merely the absence of disease (World Health Organization, 2004). In the western world, health status indicators are still focused on disease and negative concepts, and the basic concepts of epidemiology deal with mortality rates, not the positive performance of people. Health is a multidimensional concept that, in addition to not being sick and infirm, also includes the feeling of happiness and well-being. Most psychiatrists, psychologists, and mental health researchers ignore the positive aspects of health (Bayani et al., 2008). Happiness, satisfaction with life and subjective feeling of well-being are the words used in today's psychology to express this state. Although these words are different from each other in appearance, they refer to the same thing. Although some people consider social status, money, and access to material resources to be the main factors of mental well-being, researches have not confirmed these attitudes. In most researches, the correlation between income and subjective sense of well-being is reported to be low. In justifying these findings, researchers believe that although social status, wealth, and access to material resources cause happiness, they lose their positive effect little by little due to the mechanism of adaptability until the person reaches the point of establishment, or the initial level of adaptation; Therefore, life situations have a temporary effect on the subjective feeling of well-being (Hadianfard, 2014).

Some people consider the ideal life to benefit from wealth and material gifts as much as possible, some consider it as having meaningful and valuable relationships, and others emphasize the importance of helping and serving fellow humans as the ideal axis. All these people, despite their different wishes, conditions and requirements, have one thing in common, and that is the mental feeling of health (mental well-being). The term mental well-being refers to how people evaluate their own lives. These evaluations include both cognitive judgments (satisfaction with life) and emotional evaluations (positive and negative feelings and emotions). (Diener [1], 2000). Mental well-being means the ability to find all one's talents and it comes from the balance between positive and negative emotions, life satisfaction and job satisfaction. Since mental well-being has been proposed as one of the important indicators of quality of life and many variables such as biological, social, personality and occupational variables and so on. . .They play a role in the level of well-being of people, so it is necessary to provide psychological health to the effective variables in the concept of mental well-being, including the quality of life, job, etc. . . should be noted (Diener, 2005).

Employees' job performance is influenced by various factors. One of these factors is the existence of high level motivations. On the other hand, job performance has various consequences, one of which is job satisfaction, and job satisfaction, in turn, increases job performance. Therefore, efficient performance is a function of the interaction of role clarity, competence, work environment, work values, desires and tastes of the individual and reward (Ghazanfari and Abedi, 2008). is This approach considers its ultimate goal to identify the structures and methods that lead to human well-being and happiness. Mental well-being refers to how people evaluate their lives and includes variables such as life satisfaction, satisfaction with marital status, job satisfaction, lack of depression, anxiety, and the presence of positive emotions and moods. A person's self-evaluation may be cognitive, for example, when a person makes a conscious judgment about his or her life satisfaction in general or aspects of life such as recreation. It is possible to evaluate a person in an emotional way (experience people's unpleasant and pleasant emotions and moods when facing their lives). Therefore, it is said that if a person experiences satisfaction with life and mostly happiness and only occasionally experiences emotions such as sadness and anger, he will have high mental well-being, and on the contrary, if he is dissatisfied with his life and experiences little happiness and interest and constantly feels negative emotions, such as anger and anxiety, he will have low mental well-being (Mozaffari and Hadian Far, 2009). Hence, the impact that mental well-being has on various variables are the most fundamental structures under research in this regard.

Job performance is one of the variables that is affected by this structure. Job performance is defined as the organizational value of the employee's job behaviors in different times and job situations. The meaning of organizational value is the estimate that the organization has of the activities and services of its employees, such as performing job duties or having a good working relationship with other employees. The important point in this definition is that job performance is defined as a specific behavioral characteristic, especially that job performance is considered as an integral characteristic of separate and distinct behaviors that occur over a period of time, and the second point in this definition is that the behavioral characteristic of job performance refers to the expected value of the organization. With this definition, job performance can be considered as a variable between a set of behaviors that are performed by different people (Ajei et al., 2018).

Another variable that affects mental well-being is quality of life. Quality of life is one of the most fundamental concepts in positive psychology. Changing the opinion that only scientific, medical, and technological advances can improve life, to the belief that the well-being of the individual, family, society, and society comes from the combination of this progress along with the individual's values ??and perceptions of well-being and environmental conditions, is one of the primary sources of the trend towards quality of life (Skalak [2] et al., 2002). and the quality of life and know what is the contribution of well-being in each of the variables of job performance and quality of life?

1-3- Importance and necessity of research

Psychology has so far relied on illness more than health, on fear more than courage and on aggression more than love. In other words, psychologists are not interested in helping people to be happier, more complete, more altruistic, etc. . . They haven't had and this is while people all over the world feel more and more happiness in their lives. Engelhart [3] (1990), claims that when basic material needs are fulfilled, people are drawn to a post-material stage that is interested in self-development. Researchers believe that, although mental happiness alone is not enough for a good life, it seems that knowing it can be a step towards a good life (Mozaffari and Hadian Far, 2009).