Cognitive and Affective Job Insecurity: A Meta-Analysis and a Primary Study

Abstract

Job insecurity is one of the most common stressors in contemporary working life. Although research indicates that the job insecurity construct has cognitive (i.e., the perceived negative change to one’s job) and affective (i.e., the emotional reactions to the potential change to one’s job) components, scholars rarely apply this distinction between cognitive and affective job insecurity in their conceptualization and theory development. On the basis of 535 independent samples, a meta-analysis in Study 1 found that (1) job insecurity was significantly related to 51 out of 56 outcomes and correlates; (2) affective job insecurity had stronger relations with the majority of outcomes and correlates than did cognitive job insecurity as well as explained valid, unique variance in outcomes and correlates above and beyond cognitive job insecurity; and (3) in most cases, affective job insecurity mediated the relationships between cognitive job insecurity and its outcomes. Furthermore, Study 2 examines a moderator that may explain why individuals with the same level of cognitive job insecurity may display different levels of affective job insecurity. Specifically, we found a stronger relationship between cognitive job insecurity and affective job insecurity among individuals with high work centrality with two samples. Overall, results demonstrate that it is empirically meaningful to treat cognitive job insecurity and affective job insecurity as two separate constructs and that affective job insecurity is more closely related to employee outcomes than is cognitive job insecurity. Future research could further assess affective job insecurity and continue to explore moderators and mediators in the cognitive job insecurity–affective job insecurity relationship.