Social Welfare: Interdisciplinary Approach eISSN 2424-3876
2024, vol. 14, pp. 38–53 DOI: https://doi.org/10.15388/SW.2024.14.3

The Psychological Characteristics of People with High and Low Levels of Professional Well-Being

Ingrida Baranauskienė
Klaipeda University, Lithuania
https://orcid.org/0000-0002-2011-7957

Alla Kovalenko
Taras Shevchenko National University of Kyiv, Ukraine
https://orcid.org/0000-0001-6458-5325

Borys Pakhol
Head of the “Ukraine Alive” Charity Organization
https://orcid.org/0000-0002-8678-316X

Abstract. The article presents a comparative analysis of the psychological characteristics of people having high and low levels of professional well-being. There were significant differences for all studied indicators between groups with high and low professional well-being. The widest differences between the two groups were found for average values of professional commitment, job satisfaction, autonomous motivation, in-demand profession, and professional psychological well-being; the smallest differences were determined for average values of life satisfaction, climate in a team and controlled motivation.

Significant differences depending on a level of professional well-being were revealed and professional well-being correlations with the studied indicators in groups with its high and low levels were analyzed. A high level of professional well-being correlated strongly with many indicators of professional work: professional commitment, in demand in profession, psychological capital, professional self-attitude, meaningfulness of life, job satisfaction, professional psychological well-being, autonomous motivation and climate in a team. A low level of professional well-being correlated with the examined indicators with medium to weak strength. This confirms the integral nature of the phenomenon of professional well-being.

The regression models for factors of high and low levels of professional well-being were similar. In both groups, the most important factors of professional well-being were: professional commitment, in demand in profession, climate in a team, subjective social well-being and meaningfulness of life. The differences were revealed only for the signs of coefficients applied to subjective social well-being and meaningfulness of life.

Key words: professional well-being, psychological well-being, subjective social well-being, professional commitment, professional motivation, in demand in profession, socio-psychological climate, meaningfulness of life.

Recieved: 2023-12-06. Accepted: 2024-03-29.
Copyright © 2024 Ingrida Baranauskienė, Alla Kovalenko, Borys Pakhol. Published by Vilnius University Press. This is an Open Access journal distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited.

Introduction

Professional work occupies a central place in the identity of most people. More than half of the adult population spends a significant part of their conscious life in professional activities. Therefore, the study on general psychological well-being cannot be complete without considering psychological well-being specifically in the professional sphere.

The phenomenon of professional well-being, as a state of a person’s optimal functioning in the context of his/her professional duties, is relatively new for the psychological science, although relation between professional health and emotional states was determined as early as the beginning of the 20th century within occupational therapy (Barton, 1915). The development of this problem was significantly influenced by the experiments of George Elton Mayo (1927–1932). These experiments proved that the socio-psychological climate had a greater influence on labor productivity than the technical aspects of production processes (Mayo, 1949). E. Mayo’s hypothesis that “happy” employees demonstrated better productivity was operationalized in many studies correlating self-reported job satisfaction and productivity.

Currently, most proposed theoretical models have many limitations, primarily related to the narrow definitions of professional well-being due to differences in approaches to the study of this phenomenon (for example, subjective well-being in professional activity (Dreer, 2021; Dugan, Ubal & Scot, 2023; Pankovets, 2004; Pidbutska, 2014); job satisfaction (Kouhsari, Chen & Baniasad, 2023; Spector, 1997); quality of working life (Manira et al., 2018; Sirgy, 2001; Ellis, 2002), professional well-being (Pakhol, 2018; Voitenko, Myronets, Osodlo, Pozdnyshev, & Hordynia, 2022; Van Horn, 2004; Warr, 2013; Schultz, 2009 and others) and insufficient psychometric reliability of the obtained data (nonreproducibility of most of authors’ factor models).

For example, the followers of “occupational health” consider professional well-being from the point of view of reducing negative mental states of workers (Danna & Griffin, 1999; Pankovets, 2004; Fritz & Sonnentag, 2006), however, reducing the level of stress and burnout does not necessarily lead to professional well-being (Ryff & Keyes, 1995).

Followers of the “job satisfaction” theory define professional well-being as state of personal satisfaction with the characteristics of his/her work (Spector, 1997; Brief, 1998). However, a purely situational “job satisfaction” approach does not take into account individual-professional (professional identity, flow, motivation) and individual-personality (optimism, locus control, self-efficacy) aspects of workers; importance of these aspects was noted by representatives of the eudemonistic approach to study on well-being (Danilchenko, 2016; Pakhol, 2018; Ryan & Deci, 2001; Ryff & Keyes, 1995).

An additional point is that high abstractness of the basic constructs of theories (an absent empirical dependent variable) makes it impossible to produce reliable and valid psychological examining tools. Dependent variables in researches are often purely theoretical (abstract) in its core, being replaced by the measurement of some “generally accepted” factor (job satisfaction, affect balance, life satisfaction, etc.).

Thus, for example, dependent variables were not defined and empirically established within the multidimensional “occupational well-being” approach, that combined the modernized versions of the models of “psychological well-being” (С. Ryff) and “subjective well-being” (Diener, 2005), as well as in the context of professional activity (Schaufeli & Bakker, 2003; Van Horn & Taris, 2002; Warr, 2013). Exactly the same problem had A. Baldchun’s “ecological” model of professional well-being (Baldschun, 2014), which theoretically combined heterogeneous constructs: affective, social, cognitive, professional, personal and psychosomatic well-being.

All the above-mentioned points demonstrate the need and relevance of developing a modern theory of professional well-being that combines aspects of different approaches and is based on an empirically derived dependent variable that has an optimal predictor model with a high percentage of total variance of the professional well-being, explained by the regression model, as well as taking into account the peculiarities of individual-professional, individual-personal and organizational-contextual factors influencing professional well-being.

Regarding the definition of professional well-being, the eudaemonist view on this phenomenon is the most common. Here, professional well-being is understood as an integral indicator of an individual’s optimal functioning in the professional context, related with subjective assessments of various psychological and/or socio-psychological aspects of professional life.

In addition, the today’s issue of professional subjective well-being in various professional groups is very acute. Perhaps that is why the modern vector of the research on professional subjective well-being is aimed at searches for its new eudemonistic models, clarification of its structure and factors, the studies on the peculiarities of professional well-being of people working in various professions (Kang et al., 2020; Melnyk et al., 2018; Voitenko, Myronets, Osodlo, Pozdnyshev, & Hordynia, 2022).

The theoretical analysis of the problem of professional well-being revealed its various interpretations, formed on the basis of the concepts of subjective (hedonistic) and psychological (eudemonistic) well-being. The generalization of approaches distinguishing the structure of professional well-being allowed us to determine its professional-personality, individual-personality, and organizational-contextual components (Kovalenko & Pechyborshch, 2019; Pakhol, 2018).

The study issue is to find out the factors influencing high and low levels of professional well-being and the differences between groups with the high and low levels of it. First of all, it is necessary to find out how professional environment, interactions with colleagues, attitude to own professional work affect people’s professional well-being.

The study object was an individual’s professional well-being.

The study subject was psychological characteristics of people with high and low levels of professional well-being.

The study aim was to compare the psychological characteristics of people with high and low levels of professional well-being and to identify the predictors of low and high levels of professional well-being.

Research Sample and Participants

552 people took part in the study, including 210 men and 342 women. The respondents’ age was from 22 to 65 years. Their work experience was from 2 to 45 years. The respondents represented 12 professional groups. The study was conducted in Ukraine in 2021–2022 (Table 1).

Table 1
Distribution of respondents by professional groups

Professional groups

Total

Women

Men

medical personnel

41

28

13

architect

30

10

20

manager

103

64

39

marketer

35

21

14

programmer

31

7

24

engineer

33

16

17

shop assistant

46

35

11

economist

32

26

6

auxiliary worker

55

47

8

chef-confectioner

74

70

4

police investigator

35

8

27

police inspector

37

10

27

Totally

552

342

210

Methods of the research

Study design stipulated the use of the following psychological examining tools:

• Subjective Economic Well-being questionnaire (Khashchenko, 2012);

• Professional well-being estimation questionnaire (PWQ) (Ruth, 2016);

• Professional self-attitude questionnaire (Karpinsky, 2010);

• Being in professional demand by a person (Kharitonova, 2009);

• Professional motivation questionnaire (PM) (Gorbunova, Osin, & Ivanova, 2017);

• Work Engagement Scale (UWES) (Schaufeli & Bakker, 2003, adaptation by Kutuzova, 2006);

• The Satisfaction with Life Scale (SWLS) (Diener, Emmons, Larsen & Griffin, 1985, adaptation Leontiev & Osin, 2003);

• Subjective social well-being questionnaire (Danilchenko, 2016);

• Level of Social Frustration Questionnaire by Wasserman (modification by Boyko, 1995);

• Hall Emotional Intelligence Test (Fetiskin, Kozlov& Manuilov, 2002);

• Thomas–Kilmann Conflict Mode Instrument (Thomas & Kilmann, 1974);

• Test of meaningful life orientations (Leontiev, 2000);

• Portrait Values Questionnaire (PVQ) (Schwartz, 2004);

• Psychological Capital Questionnaire (PsyCap) (Luthans, 2004);

• Psychodynamic characteristics of a personality (Fetiskin, V. V. Kozlov & G. M. Manuilov, 2002);

• Job Satisfaction Questionnaire (JSQ) (Ivanova, Rasskazova & Osin, 2012);

• Psychological climate in a small production group (Shpalinsky & Shelest, 2002).

In addition, a questionnaire for participants was created that included various questions related to the respondents’ socio-demographic characteristics and direct self-assessments of their current level of professional well-being (a potential dependent variable of research).

Procedure. The dependent variable of our research was obtained on the basis of the respondents’ answers to a direct question about their professional well-being. This question in the survey was asked of respondents twice (with a considerable time interval).

The used methods of mathematical and statistical processing of empirical data: descriptive statistics, the Kolmogorov–Smirnov test and Shapiro–Wilkie statistics, the Cronbach’s alpha coefficient, correlation, factor and regression analyses, the criterion comparing average values (U-criterion Mann–Whitney). Statistical processing of data was performed using the standardized package of programs IBM SPSS Statistics 23 and Microsoft Office Excel 2010.

The strong direct correlation of two variables associated with direct subjective assessment of professional well-being (r=0,819, (2-tailed) p<0,01) not only indicates the unity and sustainability of the studied “professional well-being” phenomenon in the respondents’ consciousness, but also made it possible to merge both variables into one to obtain a more reliable dependent variable of “Professional well-being” (PWB) for our research.

Examination of the dependent variable for normality of distribution has shown that the Kolmogorov–Smirnov and Shapiro–Wilk statistics were significant (p<0,001), which in turn indicated the normal distribution of the dependent variable (PWB).

Analysis of the research results

In order to understand the differences between respondents with high and low levels of professional well-being, the entire data set was divided according to a standardized rating scale of professional well-being (from –3 to +3) into two groups: group 1 (from 0 to +3) included respondents with high professional well-being (n = 294) and group 2 (from –3 to 0) included respondents with low professional well-being (n = 258). Both groups were sufficiently full: group 1 consisted of 58.5% women and 41.5% men; group 2 consisted of 65.9% of women and 34.1% of men.

Kolmogorov–Smirnov (0.139) and Shapiro–Wilkie (0.912) statistics were significant (p<0.05); this means that the value distribution of general indicators in each group did not meet the requirements of a normal distribution and so that nonparametric methods were applied for hypothesis testing.

Comparison of groups with different levels of professional well-being using the Mann–Whitney U-test revealed significant differences for all general indicators (Table 2).

Table 2
Comparison of average values in groups with different levels of professional well-being

General indicators

Group 1

Group 2

Mann–Whitney
U-test

p

Professional well-being

0.762

-0.871

0

<0.01

Professional-personality component

In demand in profession

0.394

-0.449

18987

<0.01

Professional self-attitude

0.359

-0.410

21118

<0.01

Professional psychological well-being

0.399

-0.454

18708.5

<0.01

Individual-personality component

Professional commitment

0.444

-0.506

16296

<0.01

Autonomous motivation

0.408

-0.465

18730

<0.01

Controlled motivation

-0.268

0.306

25128

<0.01

Psychological capital

0.367

-0.418

20487

<0.01

Meaningfulness of life

0.352

-0.401

21259

<0.01

Organizational-contextual component

Job satisfaction

0.415

-0.473

17732.5

<0.01

Climate in a team

0.267

-0.304

25240

<0.01

Subjective economic well-being

0.301

-0.343

23405

<0.01

Subjective social well-being

0.313

-0.356

22991.5

<0.01

Life satisfaction

0.201

-0.229

28595.5

<0.01

Compared to group 2, the respondents with high professional well-being had significantly higher indicators of professional commitment, they were more internally motivated, felt less pressure from circumstances and coercion from management (controlled motivation), they felt more in demand professionally and had professionally important psychological resources, higher indicators of professional well-being and professional self-attitude, had life goals and more clearly understood the meaning of their lives, considered themselves economically more prosperous, highly evaluated their social integration and quality of their social interactions, they were also satisfied with life, an organization where they work, and assessed higher the socio-psychological climate in their work team.

According to the performed comparison of both groups, group 1 had significantly (p <0.01) higher average values for all investigated indicators. The widest differences between both groups were found for professional commitment, job satisfaction, autonomous motivation, in demand in profession and professional well-being, the smallest differences were for life satisfaction, climate in a team and controlled motivation.

Analysis of correlation among general indicators in groups with different levels of professional well-being. To further test the hypothesis about existing significant differences between groups with high and low levels of professional well-being in terms of the strength of correlations between general indicators and professional well-being, Spearman’s correlation analysis was used (Table 3).

Table 3
Correlation coefficients between professional well-being and the studied indicators in groups with different levels of professional well-being

Indicators

Professional well-being

Group 1 (n = 294)

Group 2 (n = 258)

Professional-personality component

In demand in profession

.393**

.235**

Professional self-attitude

.353**

.176**

Professional psychological well-being

.348**

0.118

Individual-personality component 

Professional commitment

.401**

.299**

Autonomous motivation

.347**

.340**

Controlled motivation

-0.102

-0.150*

Psychological capital

.373**

.127*

Meaningfulness of life

.353**

.292**

Organizational-contextual component 

Job satisfaction

.344**

.291**

Climate in a team

.312**

.123*

Subjective economic well-being

.241**

.286**

Subjective social well-being

.229**

.158*

Life satisfaction

.158**

.275**

* A correlation significant at the 0.05 level (two-sided).
** A correlation significant at the 0.01 level (two-sided). Rs. Spearman’s sample rank correlation coefficient (“Ро” or “Rs”).

Both groups had certain differences regarding the strength of correlations between professional well-being and the studied indicators. In group 1, relatively strong, positive significant correlations were obtained between professional well-being and indicators: professional commitment (Rs = 0.401; p<0.01) and in demand in profession (Rs = 0.393; p<0.01). Also, there were medium-strength positive significant correlations with other indicators, except for subjective economic well-being, subjective social well-being and life satisfaction, which had moderate to weak positive significant correlations with professional well-being.

The signs for correlation coefficients correspond to the essence of each indicator, that is, it was negative for controlled motivation, but unlike other indicators, the correlation between controlled motivation and professional well-being was insignificant; all other indicators correlated positively with professional well-being.

In group 2, professional well-being correlated positively and with medium strength with indicators of autonomous motivation (Rs = 0.340; p<0.01), professional commitment (Rs = 0.299; p<0.01), meaningfulness of life (Rs = 0.292; p <0.01), job satisfaction (Rs = 0.291; p<0.01), subjective economic well-being (Rs = 0.286; p<0.01), life satisfaction (Rs = 0.275; p<0.01) and in demand in profession (Rs = 0.235; p<0.01). The other indicators showed weak correlations with professional well-being, and professional psychological well-being correlated weakly and at an insignificant level with professional well-being.

A pairwise comparison of significant correlations of professional well-being and general indicators revealed existing significant differences between the two groups for 4 general indicators: in demand in profession, professional self-attitude, psychological capital, climate in a team. Professional well-being in the group 1 respondents correlated more strongly with these indicators and, accordingly, it reacted more sensitively to changes of these indicators than professional well-being in the group 2 respondents.

As a rule, an increased level of professional well-being in group 1 is associated with: a changed attitude towards oneself as a professional and self-assessment of one’s professional activities (Z = 2.05; p = 0.040); a sense of professional identity and self-acceptance as a subject of professional activities, self-confidence as a professional (Z = 2.22; p = 0.026); increased confidence in positive results of their work and optimism about their professional future (Z = 3.08; p = 0.002); the respondents from group 1 were also more sensitive to changed climate in their teams than the respondents from group 2 (Z = 2.32; p = 0.02). That is, the content of professional well-being in both groups had its own specificity.

No other significant differences between the groups were found regarding correlations between professional well-being and general indicators, i.e., the correlations with other general indicators in both groups were considered the same.

Professional challenge and autonomous motivation in both groups had medium-strength correlations with professional well-being.

As for satisfaction with life, despite the fact that life satisfaction in the total sample correlated moderately with professional well-being (Rs = 0.287; p < 0.01), life satisfaction in group 1 did not practically correlated with professional well-being (Rs = 0.158; p <0.01). Additionally, there were no significant differences between the group with high and low levels of professional well-being as for this indicator. Therefore, it is not always possible to judge on an individual’s professional well-being by his/her life satisfaction.

As for controlled motivation, the respondents in both groups did not associate professional well-being with existing external motives, management control and forcing to work. That is, an external stimulation of employees and external motives does not necessarily lead to deteriorated professional subjective well-being.

The meaningfulness of life, subjective economic well-being and subjective social well-being in both groups correlated positively and significantly with professional well-being with medium strength.

In general, the relatively strong significant correlations of almost all studied general indicators with professional well-being testify to the quality of the previous theoretical research stages, the adequacy of the chosen theoretical structure of professional well-being and the selected methods, which allowed us to use general indicators in further analysis.

The existing differences between groups 1 and 2 regarding the strength of correlations between professional well-being and certain general indicators indicated existing differences in professional well-being content for respondents with its high and low levels and required a more thorough verification of this fact.

Therefore, we decided to find out what general indicators can act as predictors of high or low levels of professional well-being.

The performed regression analysis for two groups with low and high levels of professional well-being based on the general indicators revealed the following predictors of professional well-being in both groups (Table 4).

Table 4
Regression models for general indicators as independent variables in groups with different levels of professional well-being

Nonstandardized coefficients

Standardized coefficients

т

p

B

Standard
error

Beta

Group 1, professional well-being [0;+3), model with 5 independent variables and R²=0.281

(Constant)

-1.424

0.229

 

-6.211

0.000

Professional commitment

0.047

0.011

0.268

4.431

0.000

In demand in profession

0.005

0.001

0.294

4.619

0.000

Climate in a team

0.007

0.003

0.151

2.775

0.006

Subjective social well-being

-0.004

0.001

-0.214

-3.037

0.003

Meaningfulness of life

0.004

0.002

0.151

2.310

0.022

Group 2, professional well-being [-3;0), model with 5 independent variables and R²=0.242

(Constant)

-2.3

0.275

 

-8.37

0.000

Professional commitment

0.047

0.015

0.236

3.201

0.002

In demand in profession

0.008

0.003

0.219

3.261

0.001

Climate in a team

0.127

0.047

0.193

2.736

0.007

Subjective social well-being

0.013

0.003

0.231

4.101

0.000

Meaningfulness of life

-0.256

0.068

-0.275

-3.794

0.000

a. Dependent variable: professional well-being.

In both groups, the following general indicators turned out to be the most important predictors of high and low levels of professional well-being: professional commitment, in demand in profession, climate in a team, subjective social well-being and meaningfulness of life.

Despite similarity of the obtained regression models based on the examined general indicators for two groups, some differences still exist. In particular, subjective social well-being factor has a negative coefficient for group 1, but a positive one for group 2. That is, in group 1, an increase of subjective social well-being leads to decreased professional well-being, and in group 2, the trend is opposite. The nonlinear relation between this indicator and professional well-being has already been noted above, but it is now possible to give an interpretation of this phenomenon.

Indeed, low indicators of subjective social well-being for the respondents with high professional well-being may be related to the effect of a certain social stereotype: a strong professional in high demand and with strong professional commitment experiences decreased support from family and friends, participates less in social activities and public events, feels more distanced from others, treats people more realistically, understanding the relativity of trust, kindness and honesty of others, and, on the contrary, people with low professional well-being feel more support from family and friends, are more often engaged in public activities, are more trusting and thus try to compensate for the lack of professionally important qualities and a sense of professional well-being.

We also note differences between the groups related to the meaningfulness of life factor, which had a negative coefficient for group 2. The inconsistency of professional requirements and one’s own meaning in life greatly affects one’s assessment of his/her professional well-being: the higher the meaningfulness of life is, the stronger one feels inconsistency of his/her professional life, professional level and professional requirements with one’s own desires, the meaning of one’s life and vocation.

This contradiction is felt as an internal tension associated with the contradiction of an individual’s professional requirements (qualification or environmental) and his/her opportunities, abilities, other psychological traits and resources; so he/she start to feel professional insignificance and uselessness, futility of spending time at work, distrust in oneself as a professional, inadequacy of a chosen profession. That is, the sense of crisis associated with professional maladjustment is characteristic for people with high meaningfulness in life but low professional well-being.

No other differences between the groups regarding the predictors of professional well-being were found.

Discussion

There are many approaches and models of professional well-being in the scientific literature that try to single out its factors. In particular, there is a model of job characteristics within the situational approach proving that professional well-being is determined by external factors: a variety of skills; understanding task complexity, an ability to see one’s work from its start to finish; task significance; autonomy of used execution methods; internal or external feedback (Judge & Klinger, 2008). However, this model does not take personal factors into account and cannot explain why, under the same working conditions, different employees have different motivations and levels of job satisfaction. In other studies, it has been found that relationships with colleagues and management play a significant role in job satisfaction: existing small conflicts with management or work colleagues, despite a positive attitude at work and long-term professional success, can strongly influence an individual’s subjective assessment of satisfaction with work (Thoresen, Kaplan, Barsky, Warren & Chermont, 2003).

Representatives of the dispositional approach assume that people differ in their propensity to be satisfied with their work, that is, job satisfaction to some extent is an individual trait (Staw & Cohen–Charash, 2005). They have showed that job satisfaction is stable even if an employee changes several employers. The nuclear self-esteem model (Judge, Locke & Durham, 1997) tried to specify these individual traits and determine an employee’s own disposition regarding job satisfaction: self-esteem, general self-efficacy, locus of control, neuroticism. Higher self-esteem and general self-efficacy, as well as an internal locus of control and lower neuroticism led to higher job satisfaction.

L. Moynihan and colleagues investigated the influence of intrapersonal factors on job satisfaction, in the sense of satisfaction with an organization and working conditions (Moynihan, Boswell, & Boudreau, 2000). They found relations between job satisfaction and other aspects of organizational commitment (emotional, cognitive and behavioral) with various factors, such as: intention to leave a job, job search activity, work productivity and leadership effectiveness. The researchers suggested that an organization’s ability to achieve its goals depends partly on intrapersonal factors (talents and efforts of its executive staff) and also proved the existing strong direct relations between job satisfaction and productivity and leadership.

Within the personal-situational approach, E. T. Higgins’ self-discrepancy theory should be singled out. The self-discrepancy theory explains the source of anxiety and depression. An employee who does not fulfil his/her obligations feels anxious and guilty, as well as depressed because he/she is not able to achieve his/her professional aspirations. If an employee fulfils his/her duties, then the reward can be emotional (praise or love). When a person does not receive an emotional reward, he/she begins to experience hopelessness, frustration or even depression (Adriaenssens, De Gucht, & Maes, 2015). K. Hulin and T. Judge noted that the modern definition of job satisfaction included multidimensional psychological responses about work and that these personal responses had cognitive (value), affective (emotional) and behavioral components (Hulin & Judge, 2003).

Some researchers claim that components of the quality of working life can vary depending on a profession (Bearfield, 2003). The study on the quality of working life and differences between the causes of dissatisfaction of representatives from different professional groups revealed that different groups had their own specific problems (Adriaenssens, De Gucht, & Maes, 2015; Kouhsari, Chen, & Baniasad, 2023; Dreer, 2021;  Kang et al., 2020; Kouhsari, Chen & Baniasad, 2023; Kovalenko, Hryschuk, & Rohal, 2020; Voitenko, Myronets, Osodlo, Pozdnyshev, & Hordynia, 2022).

In our research, we tried to take into account a certain one-sidedness of existing approaches and models, so included three components into the structure of professional well-being: professional-personality, individual-personality and organizational-contextual. In addition, representatives of 13 professions participated in our study, starting from the least regulated (architects, medical representatives, programmers) to the most regulated (investigators and police inspectors).

Conclusion

The performed theoretical analysis of professional well-being revealed various interpretations of this phenomenon, developed on the basis of the concepts of subjective (hedonistic) and psychological (eudemonistic) well-being. Professional identity, professional ideas, professional psychological well-being, in demand in profession, professional self-attitude, professional fatigue, professional motivation, subjective economic well-being, subjective social well-being were associated with professional well-being. But each of the listed aspects is not enough to explain the phenomenon of professional well-being.

Professional well-being is understood as an integral indicator of an individual’s optimal functioning in a professional context, associated with a subjective assessment of various psychological and socio-psychological aspects of his/her professional life. We have generalized approaches to distinguish the structure of professional well-being that included professional-personality, individual-personality and organizational-contextual components.

There were significant differences for all studied indicators between groups with high and a low professional well-being. The widest differences between the two groups were found for average values of professional commitment, job satisfaction, autonomous motivation, in demand in profession, and professional psychological well-being; the smallest differences were determined for average values of life satisfaction, climate in a team and controlled motivation.

The performed comparisons of both groups revealed significant differences in the strength of correlation between professional well-being and only 4 general indicators: in demand in profession, professional self-attitude, psychological capital, climate in a team. Professional well-being in respondents with its high level related more closely to these indicators and, accordingly, these people reacted more sensitively to their changes than the respondents in the group with low professional subjective well-being.

The most important factors of professional well-being in both groups were: professional commitment, in demand in profession, climate in a team, subjective social well-being and meaningfulness of life. The differences between the two groups relate to the direction of the influence of subjective social well-being and meaningfulness of life on professional well-being.

There were significant differences in average values of all studied indicators between groups with high and low levels of professional well-being. A high level of professional well-being correlated strongly with many indicators of professional activities: professional commitment, in demand in profession, psychological capital, professional self-attitude, meaningfulness of life, job satisfaction, psychological well-being, autonomous motivation and climate in a team. A low level of professional well-being has medium to weak correlation with the listed indicators. This confirms the integral nature of the phenomenon of professional well-being.

The similarity of regression models of predictors for high and low levels of professional well-being is shown. In both groups, the most important predictors of professional well-being were: professional commitment, in demand in profession, climate in a team, subjective social well-being and meaningfulness of life. The differences were revealed only for the signs of coefficients applied to subjective social well-being and meaningfulness of life. Subjective social well-being had a negative coefficient in the group with high professional well-being and a positive one in the group with low professional well-being; and meaningfulness of life had a positive coefficient in the group with high and a negative one in the group with low well-being.

The obtained results indicated that the factors of professional well-being lie not only in the plane of professional aspects, but in individual psychological and personal traits. An in-depth study of the impact of the latter on professional well-being also can become prospects for further research.

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