Why do individuals find their work meaningful and what is the role of worthwhile contributions in this experience? We undertake an analysis of accounts related by individuals working as nurses, creative artists and lawyers in which they explain why they find their work meaningful. Drawing on the traditions of critical discourse and narrative analysis, and informed by French pragmatic sociology, we move beyond a focus on what is said to consider how accounts are structured in explanations of meaningfulness. We find meaningfulness to be discursively constituted in the judgement that work makes a worthwhile contribution to others or wider society. We add theoretically to the literature on meaningful work, first, by revealing worthwhile contributions to be a complex, three-fold evaluation comprising the value attached by the individual to their contribution, validation from others that aligns with the individual’s own evaluation concerning the worth of the contribution and the individual’s self-efficacy belief that they are able to make the contribution. Second, we build bridges between hitherto disconnected branches of the meaningful work literature grounded in positive psychology on the one hand and moral worth on the other by showing how judgements of worth are fundamental to the experience of meaningfulness.

中文翻译：

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通过有价值的贡献体验有意义的工作：批判性话语分析


为什么个人觉得他们的工作有意义？在这种经历中有价值的贡献有何作用？我们对护士、创意艺术家和律师相关的账户进行了分析，他们在其中解释了为什么他们认为自己的工作有意义。借鉴批判性话语和叙事分析的传统，并受到法国实用社会学的启发，我们不再关注所谓的内容，而是考虑如何在意义解释中构建叙述。我们发现意义是在判断工作对他人或更广泛的社会做出有价值的贡献时以话语方式构成的。我们在理论上对有意义的工作的文献进行了补充，首先，通过将有价值的贡献揭示为一种复杂的、三重评估，包括个人对其贡献所赋予的价值、来自他人的验证，这些验证与个人自己对工作价值的评估相一致。贡献以及个人相信自己能够做出贡献的自我效能感。其次，我们通过展示价值判断如何成为意义体验的基础，在一方面基于积极心理学的有意义工作文献和另一方面基于道德价值的迄今为止互不相关的分支之间建立桥梁。