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= Affective Job Satisfaction =

Affective job satisfaction is the degree to which individuals have positive feelings about their jobs. Affective job satisfaction is distinct from and should not be confused with cognitive job satisfaction, which is the degree to which individuals assess as satisfactory specific facets of their jobs, such as remuneration, promotion opportunities, hours, vacation, or any other aspect of a job.

Distinction betweeen affective and cognitive job satisfaction
Affective job satisfaction is generally conceived as a unitary concept constituting an overall positive emotional feeling about a job as a whole or in general. Affective job satisfaction is synonymous with what researchers usually mean by the terms general, overall or global job satisfaction, and is appropriately measured with items tapping how much individuals subjectively and emotively like their job as a whole.

Cognitive job satisfaction, on the other hand, is conceptualized as a more logical and rational evaluation of job circumstances and conditions. Cognitive job satisfaction entails reasoned judgments of how various facets of a job compare to those of other jobs or the particular standards individuals may set for themselves regarding those job facets. Unlike affective job satisfaction that is determined by subjective feelings about a job as a whole, cognitive job satisfaction is determined by objective evaluations and comparisons of a range of job facets. Cognitive job satisfaction is appropriately measured with items tapping assessments of remuneration, opportunities, or numerous other discriminable job facets calculable in comparative and other reasonably objective terms.

Confusion between affective and cognitive job satisfaction
The theoretical and empirical relationship between affective and cognitive job satisfaction is an area of considerable debate. One approach simply assumes affective job satisfaction, as an overall feeling about a job as a whole, directly reflects and hence comprises the aggregate of all cognitive job satisfaction facets. However, individual cognitive job satisfaction facets are not always correlated, suggesting they do not reflect a single underlying construct and are thus unlikely to culminate to affective job satisfaction. Which cognitive job facets may or may not validly culminate to affective job satisfaction remains open to conceptual and empirical question.

Affective job satisfaction likely comprises more than just an aggregation of all or a few specific cognitive job satisfaction facets. Only around a fifth to half the variance in affective job satisfaction is explained by cognitive facets, the remainder being accounted for by other factors, such as non-work-related affect and as yet undetermined factors. Affective and cognitive job satisfaction each differentially predict criterion variables, suggesting they are discrete constructs.

Despite affective and cognitive job satisfaction being discrete, although related, constructs, many scholars have noted that much research conceptually describes job satisfaction in affective terms but measures it in solely in cognitive terms.