The Moderating Role of Social Support BetweenRole Stressors and Job Attitudes Among

Roman Catholic Priests1

Michael J. Zickar,2 William K. Balzer, Shahnaz Aziz, andJohn M. Wryobeck

Bowling Green State University

This study examined the relations role stressors and job attitudinal variables, as wellas the potential moderating effects of social support in a sample of 190 RomanCatholic priests. The priesthood is an important occupation to study because thework priests do can be considered a vocation instead of a job. Role stressors werenegatively correlated with job attitudes (e.g., job satisfaction, turnover intention).Consistent with a buffering hypothesis, several sources of social support (parishio-ners, staff, fellow priests) consistently moderated this relationship, in that the rela-tionship attenuated as social support increased. The implications of these resultsare discussed with respect to the role of the priest, as well as with other types ofwork-based vocations.

The general construct of role stressors, including measures of role conflict,role ambiguity, and role overload, has consistently been found to influenceimportant work-related outcomes such as job satisfaction and intentions toquit (e.g., Fried, Ben-David, Tiegs, Avital, & Yeverechyahu, 1998; House &Rizzo, 1972; Jackson & Schuler, 1985; Tubre & Collins, 2000). A relatedbody of research has found that social support (e.g., having coworkers andfriends who are willing to discuss work-related problems) can alleviate thenegative work-related outcomes (e.g., strain, turnover) associated with rolestressors (e.g., Beehr & Drexler, 1986; Beehr, Jex, Stacy, & Murray, 2000;Viswesvaran, Sanchez, & Fisher, 1999). Although these findings have beeninvestigated in a wide variety of jobs, we investigate the applicability of thesefindings to a population of individuals for whom the experience of socialsupport—and even the nature of work itself—is fundamentally different fromthe general working population. In this study, we investigate the role of social

1The authors thank Sister Janet Doyle for her assistance throughout this study. ShahnazAziz is now affiliated with East Carolina University, and John Wryobeck is now affiliated withthe University of Michigan.

2Correspondence concerning this article should be addressed to Michael J. Zickar, Depart-ment of Psychology, Bowling Green State University, Bowling Green, OH 43403. E-mail:mzickar@bgsu.edu

2903

Journal of Applied Social Psychology, 2008, 38, 12, pp. 2903–2923.© 2008 Copyright the AuthorsJournal compilation © 2008 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.

support and role stressors among Roman Catholic priests, a population thatdiffers in several important ways from the occupational groups studied mostoften by applied psychologists.

In this introduction, we first discuss general research investigating rolestressors and social support on job attitudes and intention to quit. Next, weoutline the unique characteristics of the “job” of the Roman Catholic priestand highlight the importance of testing role-stressor/social-support hypoth-eses in this population. Finally, we specify the hypotheses and researchquestions that guide this research.

Previous Role Theory Research

Role theory posits that through both a formal and informal process ofsocialization, workers assume roles that influence how they behave at theworkplace. Roles have been described as expected patterns of behaviors thatare often accompanied with a particular job (Biddle, 1979). For example, therole of priest may include expectations of conducting Sunday Mass, hearingconfessions throughout the week, balancing the parish budget, supervisingparish staff, and conducting ceremonies (e.g., funerals, marriages) as needed.Most jobs, as with this example of priests, have multiple roles (e.g., priest asmanager, priest as spiritual director) that must be assumed for the successfulperformance of duties.

Research on stress associated with enacting role-related behavior hasidentified three primary types of role stressors, each of which have beenfound to have negative consequences for workers (Katz & Kahn, 1978).Role ambiguity refers to role sets that have ill-defined and unclear expecta-tions; for example, a newcomer who does not fully understand his or her jobduties. Role conflict refers to the situation in which two or more roles areincompatible and have competing expectations; for example, a workingparent who is forced to make choices between family and work responsi-bilities. Finally, role overload refers to the situation in which role expecta-tions are so high that the scope of work is greater than the role incumbentcan possibly handle.

A considerable amount of empirical research, summarized in a meta-analysis by Jackson and Schuler (1985), has found that role conflict and roleambiguity are inversely correlated with job satisfaction, workplace tension,organizational commitment, and propensity to leave. Other research hassuggested that role overload has similar negative correlates (e.g., Beehr &Drexler, 1986). It appears that role stressors are related to negative attitudesand behaviors across organizational levels (see Beehr & Drexler, 1986) andcultures (Peterson et al., 1995).

2904 ZICKAR ET AL.

Previous Social Support Research

One of the factors that lessens the effects of role stressors is the presenceof social support. Social support can be categorized on several dimensions,such as providing emotional support (listening and consoling after a trau-matic event) or instrumental support (resolving a work crisis by interveningwith a manager; see House, 1981). Having friends, coworkers, and supervi-sors who are willing to listen to work-related concerns, who are able toprovide suggestions about work-related issues, and who are generally willingto provide friendship and support appears to attenuate some of the negativeeffects of role stressors.

There are two separate explanatory mechanisms that have been proposed.The first hypothesis (i.e., direct effects model; Viswesvaran et al., 1999) positsthat social support has an independent and direct effect on job attitudes andbehaviors, regardless of existing levels of role stressors. According to thishypothesis, employees with strong support systems should have more posi-tive job outcomes, as compared to those with poor support systems, inde-pendent of the levels of stressors they may be experiencing. The secondhypothesis (i.e., buffering hypothesis; Kirmeyer & Dougherty, 1988) positsthat social support buffers the negative effects of role stressors on job atti-tudes and behavior. According to this hypothesis, support systems will notincrease job outcomes, but rather will attenuate the negative effects of stres-sors on existing levels of job outcomes. In multiple regression nomenclature,the former hypothesis conceptualizes social support as a main effect, whereasthe latter conceptualizes social support as a moderator that interacts withstressors.

Although there is consensus that social support contributes to positivework-related outcomes (for exceptions, see Deelstra et al., 2003, Zellars &Perrewé, 2001), research has been mixed on whether the direct effects hypoth-esis or the buffering hypothesis is correct. A recent meta-analysis on thistopic, however, suggests that social support may function as both a maineffect and a buffer (Viswesvaran et al., 1999). Specifically, these data showthat strong social support is associated with positive work-related outcomesand that social support moderates the relation between role stressors andwork-related outcomes.

A related research issue concerns the differential effectiveness of differentsupport sources for reducing problems as a result of work-related stressors.For example, it may be plausible that supervisors would be the most impor-tant source of support because they are most capable of providing formalassistance in alleviating work-related stressors (e.g., clarifying ambiguouswork roles). Alternatively, coworkers, family, and friends might help toremove role stressors in situations in which supervisors might be a source of

ROLE STRESSORS AND ROMAN CATHOLIC PRIESTS 2905

stress. Viswesvaran et al. (1999) found little differential effectiveness amongthe three most researched sources of support: coworkers, supervisors, andfamily and friends. Their results, however, noted considerable variabilityaround mean effect sizes, suggesting that the effectiveness of a particularsource of support might differ across different jobs and situations.

Job of the Roman Catholic Priest

The unique features of the Roman Catholic priesthood make this groupan interesting population for further investigation of role theory. The typesof workers in previous studies of role theory and social support, although indiverse occupations, are different from priests in several key regards. First,for most occupations, there is a well-defined delineation between work lifeand nonwork life. For most workers, life activities can be categorized with afair degree of accuracy as either work activities or non-work activities (seeSully, 1997). For Roman Catholic priests, however, the delineation is lessdistinct. Many priests who participated in this project lamented that theywere never able to “remove their collars” (i.e., step outside of their role aspriest). For example, a priest may see a parishioner in the grocery store whileshopping; the parishioner might still act deferential, even though the priestmay wish to engage in light banter.

This lack of distinction between work and nonwork activities is alsoimplied in the distinction between vocation and job. The word vocation isbased on the Latin word vocatio, which means a summons or calling(Dawson, 2005). Sears (1982) defined vocation as “an occupation with com-mitment, distinguished primarily by its psychological, as contrasted with itseconomic, meaning” (p. 141). Homan (1986) described vocation as an inte-gration of work, personal identity, and life goals. It could be argued thatpeople who have most often been studied in applied psychology treat theirwork as a job, instead of as a vocation.

In contrast to vocations, jobs are organization focused and are distin-guished by their primary economic focus (Sears, 1982). As will be argued,because Roman Catholic priests generally treat their work roles as a vocationinstead of a job, they provide a unique and important sample for which togeneralize role theory research.

In addition to the notion that the conceptualization of work is fundamen-tally different for priests, the idea of social support is also different for them.As previously mentioned, because priests often have heightened social dis-tance between themselves and others (especially laity) who might typically belooked to for social support, it is important to examine the role of socialsupport in this new context.

2906 ZICKAR ET AL.

Role Stressors and Social Support Among Priests

Our study investigates several propositions regarding role stressors andsocial support in a sample that seems to be experiencing increases in theirlevels of role stressors: priests in the Roman Catholic Church. There havebeen substantial changes in the American priesthood since the SecondVatican Council in 1966. One of the most important changes is the increasein laity involvement with liturgical and organizational duties that were pre-viously reserved for clergy (e.g., administrative duties, secondary roles duringMass). Historically, priests have been viewed as spiritual teachers, professors,writers, and counselors (Hebblethwaite, 1978), and the laity have beenviewed as followers and financial contributors (Kane, 1967). The role of thepriest today has expanded beyond spiritual teacher and counselor to includeadministrator of services and supervisor of lay staff. The addition of thesenew roles—in addition to increasing role ambiguity, overload, and conflict—may decrease the morale of priests who originally entered priesthood forspiritual reasons.

Coupled with changes imposed by the Second Vatican Council, there hasbeen a steep decline in the number of priests available to serve a risingnumber of practicing Catholics. The number of Catholic priests based in theUnited States in 1995 (24,467 active priests) was 10,603 fewer than in 1966(Young, 1998). Under the pressure of this shortage of priests, the number ofroles and the amount of work that priests are expected to perform hasincreased dramatically. For example, some priests must serve multiple par-ishes, presiding over Sunday Mass in one parish and then traveling to anotherparish to preside over Sunday Mass there. Other priests must serve consoli-dated parishes that include more culturally diverse groups. Given thesechanges, concerns about role overload would seem justified. Even with theincreased role of the laity, priests must juggle many different roles.

Previous research, mostly qualitative, has suggested that priests are espe-cially susceptible to the effects of role stressors (Kay, 2000; Kunst, 1993;Reilly, 1978). Based on her review of the literature, Reilly concluded that “thefact that the Roman Catholic priest has been exposed to role conflict in thepast decade seems amply documented” (p. 78). Role stressors seem to beespecially prevalent for priests because of the rapidly changing nature of thepriesthood and the difficulties that priests have in securing social supportfrom sources that are available to people in other types of professions.

The Present Study

The unique nature of the vocation of the Roman Catholic priest allowsus to test role theory findings in a population neglected by industrial–

ROLE STRESSORS AND ROMAN CATHOLIC PRIESTS 2907

organizational psychologists in general, and role theory researchersspecifically. Priests have a deep religious vocational commitment to the priest-hood that is not present in many other occupations. Testimonials of priestsabout how they made the decision to enter the priesthood generally includestatements about how God inspired them (e.g., Lawrence, 2000; Pope JohnPaul II, 1987). In addition, recruitment materials that promote the priesthoodtypically emphasize the intrinsic benefits of the job (e.g., helping others,closeness to God) and de-emphasize the extrinsic benefits (e.g., salary, ben-efits). Joining the priesthood is not only a vocational choice, but has asignificant impact on the individual’s entire life and lifestyle. In support of thisnotion, priests whom we interviewed for this research had difficulty concep-tualizing their work as a job and used terms such as vocation and calling.

Because of this near total commitment to the priesthood and church,priests might be more immune to the effects of role stressors. Difficulties forpriests as a result of role stressors might be tolerated at a higher level than forother jobs. Job stressors might be viewed as inevitable obstacles to pursuingGod’s work (i.e., crosses to bear), rather than reasons to search for otherjobs. Alternatively, because it is difficult or undesirable to leave a vocation, ascompared to a job, the effects of role stressors might manifest themselves indifferent ways. Unlike quitting other jobs, the decision to leave the priest-hood is generally irrevocable. Role stressors might be manifested in otherways, such as decreased commitment to the diocese (the local hierarchywithin the Roman Catholic Church).

A second way in which priests differ from more typical samples is thelimited opportunities priests have for obtaining social support from tradi-tional sources of support, such as coworkers (i.e., fellow priests) and supervi-sors (i.e., bishop, vicar of priests; Bricker & Fleischer, 1993). Most priests arenot required to interact with fellow priests on a frequent basis. In interviewsconducted during our research, priests complained that they needed more timeto fraternize with other priests. In addition, most priests have limited oppor-tunities to interact on a regular and personal basis with their bishop or thevicar of priests because of their location and their parish responsibilities.

Finally, there are often informal barriers between priests and other poten-tial sources of support (e.g., parishioners, lay staff) with whom they havefrequent contact. The psychological distance between the religious staff andthe laity, because of socially prescribed roles, may make it difficult for prieststo obtain needed social support from these sources. As a result, priests mayencounter more challenges in developing a strong system of social support forcoping with role stressors. Overall, because of the unique characteristics ofthe priesthood, as compared with other employee samples typically studiedby applied psychologists, the present study provides a valuable extension ofrole theory to a neglected population.

2908 ZICKAR ET AL.

Research Questions

We expect to find a negative relation between role stressors and the jobattitudinal variables of organizational commitment, job satisfaction, andintention to remain priests. Increased role conflict, increased role ambiguity,and increased role overload3 have been shown to negatively correlate with jobattitudes and behaviors (Jackson & Schuler, 1985). We expect these relation-ships to be negative, and we propose the following:

Hypothesis 1. Role conflict, role overload, and role ambiguitywill be negatively related to organizational commitment, jobsatisfaction, and intentions to remain a priest.

We also expect that priests who report higher levels of social support willreport more positive job attitudes. These relations are predicted based onprevious findings from studies of social support and job stressors in otheroccupations (see Viswesvaran et al., 1999). Thus, we propose the following:

Hypothesis 2. Social support will be positively related to orga-nizational commitment, job satisfaction, and intentions toremain a priest.

Based on previous research (Viswesvaran et al., 1999), we hypothesizethat social support will moderate the relation between role stressors and joboutcomes. Specifically, we expect there to be little or no relation between rolestressors and attitudinal measures for priests who have high levels of socialsupport. For priests with little or no social support, however, we expect astrong negative relation between role stressors and job outcomes. Thus, wepropose the following:

Hypothesis 3. Social support will moderate the relation betweenrole stressor variables and organizational commitment, jobsatisfaction, and intentions to remain a priest. Specifically,when social support is high, there will be little relation betweenrole stressors and job attitudes. When social support is low,however, there will be a strong negative relation between rolestressors and job attitudes.

Finally, we hypothesize that different sources of social support will bedifferentially effective in alleviating and buffering the effects of role stressors

3We also included a measure of role underload in our survey. This type of potential stressor,however, did not seem to be a serious problem for the priests in the study. Including roleunderload in the role stressor composite variable substantially reduced its internal consistency.The role underload results are available from the first author upon request.

ROLE STRESSORS AND ROMAN CATHOLIC PRIESTS 2909

on job attitudes. We assess five types of social support (the bishop; parish-ioners; family and friends; priests; and lay staff). Of those sources of support,four (the bishop; parishioners; fellow priests; and lay staff) are types of socialsupport in which the priest has work-related interactions. These sources ofsupport should be more important in ameliorating the effects of stressors onwork-related criteria (e.g., job satisfaction, intentions to remain in the priest-hood, organizational commitment) than family and friends, which mayprovide important support for nonwork-related stressors. Thus, we proposethe following:

Hypothesis 4. Work-related sources of support (the Bishop;parishioners; fellow priests; lay staff) will be more valuable (i.e.,stronger main and interactive effects) in ameliorating the effectsof stressors on work-related outcomes, as compared to non-work-related sources of support (friends and family).

Method

Participants

Surveys were mailed to all 278 Roman Catholic priests from a medium-sized, midwestern diocese. Of those 278 surveys, 190 were returned (responserate = 68.4%). The mean age of priests in this sample was 57.9 years, and themajority had been priests for over 25 years.

Measures

Role theory constructs. Role theory constructs of ambiguity and conflictwere assessed using Harris and Bladen’s (1994) modified version of Rizzo,House, and Lirtzman’s (1970) role ambiguity and role conflict scales. The roleambiguity scale contains six items. Sample items include “I’m not sure whatmy responsibilities are,” and “Explanation is clear of what has to be done onthis job.” A few of the items needed to be altered to correspond better to thework experience of a priest (e.g., the word “ministry” was substituted for“job”). This scale had a coefficient alpha of .79 in the present sample.

The role conflict scale contains eight items. Sample items include “Ireceive assignments without adequate resources and materials to completethem,” and “I work on unnecessary things.” This scale had a coefficient alphaof .63 in the present sample. This alpha was lower than commonly observedfor this scale, but still was marginally acceptable for research purposes.

2910 ZICKAR ET AL.

Harris and Bladen’s (1994) six-item role overload scale was also admin-istered in this sample. A sample item is “I have too much work to doeverything well.” The role overload scale had a coefficient alpha of .93 in thepresent sample.

Perceived social support. We adapted Winefield, Winefield, and Tigge-mann’s (1992) Multidimensional Support Scale for use in our survey. Theoriginal scale was designed to assess social support among various sources.The scale assesses the frequency of supportive behaviors toward priests onthe part of five support groups: family, fellow priests, the bishop, the lay staff,and parishioners. We chose to assess these sources because pilot interviewsindicated that priests often turn to these five sources for support. The samequestions were asked for each of the five sources. A sample item is “Howoften do they help you out?” For the present sample, the coefficient alphaswere .87, .92, .93, .90, and .82 for family, fellow priests, the bishop, staff, andparishioners, respectively.

Commitment to the diocese. We administered 12 items from Mowday,Steers, and Porter’s (1979) Organizational Commitment Questionnaire(OCQ). Some of the wording was altered to better represent the experienceof a priest (e.g., the word “diocese” was used in place of “organization”).A sample item is “I find that my values and the diocese’s values arevery similar.” Scale coefficient alpha reliability was .86 for the presentsample.

Intentions to remain in the priesthood. Intention to remain a priest wasassessed using a six-item scale adapted from Kim, Price, Mueller, andWatson (1996). A sample item is “I have often considered leaving the priest-hood” (reverse-scored). Scale coefficient alpha reliability was .72 for thepresent sample.

Job satisfaction. The abridged Job Descriptive Index (JDI; Stanton et al.,2002), a 15-item scale containing measures of satisfaction with work, pay,and coworkers was used to measure satisfaction with specific facets of thejob. The Job in General (JIG) scale was used to assess global job satisfaction(Stanton et al., 2002). The JIG scale contains items such as pleasant, inad-equate, poor, and ideal. For each item, priests responded Yes, No, or Unsureas to whether the item describes their work. For the present sample, coeffi-cient alpha was .88 for the JIG measure.

Procedure

The initial survey was pilot-tested on a small sample of priests. The surveywas mailed to all priests in the diocese as part of an ongoing project tounderstand better the problems that priests are experiencing. A reminder

ROLE STRESSORS AND ROMAN CATHOLIC PRIESTS 2911

postcard was mailed 2 weeks after the initial mailing. Completed surveyswere returned directly to the researchers via U.S. mail. No identifying infor-mation was collected on the surveys.

Results

Correlations among scales are reported in Table 1. Although conceptu-ally different, role conflict, role ambiguity, and role overload were positivelycorrelated, a finding often reported in previous research. Each of these rolestressors was also significantly negatively correlated with job satisfaction,organizational commitment, and intentions to remain in the priesthood, thusproviding support for Hypothesis 1.

The correlations among the different sources of support were all positive(range = .20–.53). As found in previous research, virtually all sources ofsocial support were significantly and positively correlated with job attitudes(e.g., intentions to remain a priest, job satisfaction, organizational commit-ment). Especially noteworthy was perceived support of the bishop, which wasstrongly related to commitment to the organization (r = .53, p < .001).Overall, the pattern of correlations is consistent with Hypothesis 2, indicatingthat social support was positively correlated with job attitudes. Althoughthese findings support our hypothesis, the following regression analysis pro-vides a more stringent test of Hypothesis 2.

To study the effects of social support (both main effects and interactions),we decided to collapse the standardized role stressors (i.e., ambiguity, over-load, and conflict) into an overall role stressor variable, a practice that isconsistent with previous research (Beehr et al., 2000; Ganster, Fusilier, &Mayes, 1986). This was done to reduce the number of potential interactionsto consider in hierarchical regression analyses. Because of the positive mani-fold between these three variables, this collapsing seemed statistically justi-fied. The internal consistency alpha reliability of the role stressor compositevariable was .86.

Hierarchical regressions were computed using organizational commit-ment, job satisfaction, and intentions to remain a priest as criterion variables.In the first step, the main effect for the role stressor composite variable wasentered. In the second step, the social support variable was added. Finally, inthe third step, the interaction between the main effects for role stressors withthe social support variable was entered. At each step, we tested whether thevariable(s) entered at that step accounted for a statistically significant incre-ment in explained variance. A total of 15 regression analyses was computed,with 1 for each of the 5 sources of social support with each of the 3 criterionvariables.

2912 ZICKAR ET AL.

Tab

le1

Mea

nsan

dC

orre

lati

ons

ofS

tudy

Var

iabl

es

Var

iabl

eM

SD

12

34

56

78

910

11

1.R

ole

ambi

guit

y2.

390.

87(.

79)

2.R

ole

confl

ict

2.69

0.71

.44*

**(.

63)

3.R

ole

over

load

2.99

1.11

.37*

**.5

2***

(.93

)4.

Com

mit

men

tto

dioc

ese

3.94

0.76

-.23

**-.

20**

-.15

*(.

86)

5.Jo

bsa

tisf

acti

on43

.70

10.9

6-.

41**

*-.

22**

-.28

***

.23*

*(.

88)

6.Su

ppor

tof

fam

ilyan

dfr

iend

s3.

260.

59-.

24**

-.24

**-.

14.1

4.1

9*(.

87)

7.Su

ppor

tof

staf

f2.

930.

62-.

39**

*-.

30**

*-.

27**

*.2

0**

.29*

**.3

8***

(.90

)8.

Supp

ort

ofpa

rish

ione

rs2.

810.

59-.

31**

*-.

41**

*-.

36**

*.1

1.3

1***

.34*

**.5

3***

(.87

)

9.Su

ppor

tof

prie

sts

2.72

0.66

-.27

***

-.33

***

-.29

***

.32*

**.1

8*.4

1***

.43*

**.4

5***

(.92

)10

.Su

ppor

tof

bish

op2.

950.

82-.

33**

*-.

22**

-.26

***

.57*

**.1

6*.2

0**

.27*

**.2

3**

.36*

**(.

93)

11.

Inte

ntio

nto

rem

ain

apr

iest

4.58

0.61

-.22

**-.

33**

*-.

30**

*.1

6*.3

2***

.07

.19*

.32*

**.4

0***

.18*

(.72

)

Not

e.C

oeffi

cien

tal

phas

appe

aron

the

diag

onal

.*p

<.0

5.**

p<

.01.

***p

<.0

01.

ROLE STRESSORS AND ROMAN CATHOLIC PRIESTS 2913

As can be seen in Table 2, for all 15 regression equations, the role stressorcomposite variable predicted a significant amount of variance for all threedependent variables, with the change in R2 ranging from .04 to .20 for theprediction of organizational commitment and job satisfaction, respectively.Of the 15 regressions, 8 had a significant increase in R2 at the second stage,providing mixed support for Hypothesis 2.

Hierarchical regression analysis provided a stronger test of Hypothesis 2than did the examination of zero-order correlations, given that it tested theeffects of social support after controlling for role stressors. At the third andfinal stage, 6 of the 15 regressions had a significant increase in R2, whichsupported the notion that social support functions as an interaction (orbuffer) variable. None of the regressions predicting commitment to thediocese had significant buffering effects, although there were some significantmain effects found for social support. Social support did not buffer rolestressors for commitment to the diocese. For the remaining 10 regressions (5for intentions to remain, and 5 for job satisfaction), 6 of those regressionswere significant. Overall, Hypothesis 3 received modest support, limited totwo of the three criterion variables studied.

A plot of the pattern of the interactions, however, demonstrates that thesignificant interactions follow the pattern suggested by the buffering hypoth-esis. Consistent with Hypothesis 3, priests who reported high levels of socialsupport showed little negative effects as a result of role stressors. However,for priests who reported lower levels of social support, a significant negativerelationship between role stressors and job outcomes was generally found.

Figure 1 presents an example demonstrating the buffering effect of socialsupport of parishioners on the relation between role stressors and job satis-faction. When low levels of role stressors are reported, job satisfactionappears to be high, regardless of social support. When role stressors are high(1 SD above the mean), however, priests with high social support (1 SDabove the mean) reported little decrease in job satisfaction; in contrast,priests reporting low levels of social support (1 SD below the mean) had anappreciably lower level of job satisfaction. Thus, social support of parishio-ners appears to buffer the effects of role stressors on job satisfaction forpriests. Similar patterns of results were observed for the other five regressionsthat had significant interactions between social support and role stressors.4

As predicted by Hypothesis 4, there were differences among the sources ofsocial support in effectiveness. Zero-order correlations between supportsources and the three outcome variables differed across work and nonworksources. The correlation between the nonwork source of support (i.e.,

4Graphs of the other interactions, as well as the regression weights for all analyses areavailable from the first author upon request.

2914 ZICKAR ET AL.

Tab

le2

Reg

ress

ion

Ana

lyse

s

Sour

ceof

supp

ort

Dep

ende

ntva

riab

les

Com

mit

men

tIn

tent

ions

tore

mai

nJo

bsa

tisf

acti

on

Step

1St

ep2

Step

3St

ep1

Step

2St

ep3

Step

1St

ep2

Step

3

R2

DR2

R2

DR2

R2

DR2

R2

DR2

R2

DR2

R2

DR2

R2

DR2

R2

DR2

R2

DR2

Par

ishi

oner

.04*

.05*

.00

.05*

.01

.13*

.16*

.04*

.21*

.05*

.20*

.24*

.03*

.28*

.05*

Staf

f.0

5*.0

7*.0

3*.0

7*.0

0.1

3*.1

3*.0

1.1

6*.0

3*.1

9*.2

2*.0

3*.2

4*.0

3*B

isho

p.0

6*.3

3*.2

7*.3

3*.0

0.1

5*.1

5*.0

0.1

5*.0

0.1

4*.1

5*.0

2.1

6*.0

1F

ello

wpr

iest

s.0

6*.1

3*.0

7*.1

3*.0

0.1

4*.2

2*.0

8*.2

5*.0

3*.1

4*.1

6*.0

3*.2

0*.0

4*F

rien

dsan

dfa

mily

.05*

.06*

.01

.07*

.00

.14*

.14*

.00

.15*

.01

.19*

.20*

.01

.20*

.00

Not

e.R

ole

stre

ssor

sen

tere

dat

Step

1;m

ain

effe

ctof

soci

alsu

ppor

tat

Step

2;R

ole

Stre

ssor

s¥

Soci

alSu

ppor

tin

tera

ctio

nen

tere

dat

Step

3.*p

<.0

5.

ROLE STRESSORS AND ROMAN CATHOLIC PRIESTS 2915

friends and family) and organizational commitment (r = .14, ns) was substan-tially lower than the mean correlation for the four sources of work-relatedsupport (mean r = .30). The correlation between the nonwork source ofsupport and intentions to remain in the priesthood (r = .07, ns) was substan-tially lower than the mean correlation of work-related support (meanr = .27). The correlation between the nonwork source of support and jobsatisfaction (r = .19, p < .05) did not appear to be substantially lower inmagnitude than the mean correlation of work-related support (mean r = .24).

Although zero-order correlations between the different sources of socialsupport and the criterion variables were largely supportive of Hypothesis 4,the hierarchical regression analyses provide further support. These resultssuggest that parishioners, staff, and fellow priests were more effective inreducing and buffering the effects of role stressors on the criterion variables;whereas friends and family were not important buffers. As predicted, thesocial support of family and friends was not a significant main effect or bufferfor any of the three dependent variables. Social support of the bishop was nota significant main effect predictor or buffer for job satisfaction or intentionsto remain in the priesthood. Social support from the bishop, however, was asignificant main effect predictor of organizational commitment.

The remaining social support sources (i.e., staff, parishioners, otherpriests) were significant buffers for job satisfaction and intentions to remain

Role Strain

HighAverageLow

Jo

b S

ati

sfa

cti

on

51.00

48.00

45.00

42.00

39.00

High

Average

LowSupport

Figure 1. Job satisfaction as a function of parishioner support and role stressors.

2916 ZICKAR ET AL.

in the priesthood. These sources were also significant main effects for all buttwo of those six regressions (i.e., support of other priests for job satisfaction,and support of staff for intentions to remain in the priesthood were notsignificant main effects). The source of work-related social support appearedto be important in alleviating the effects of role stressors.

Discussion

Overall, the pattern of results suggests that a role theory framework wasuseful in understanding the work stressors of Roman Catholic priests. Con-sistent with previous research, role stressors were negatively related to jobattitudes and turnover intentions among Roman Catholic priests, thus sup-porting Hypothesis 1. Also, as predicted by Hypothesis 2, social supporttended to be positively related to job outcome variables. Finally, somesources of social support appeared to moderate or buffer the negative effectsof role stressors on selected job outcomes (Hypothesis 3). All three of thesefindings are consistent with previous research and generally support our firstthree hypotheses.

As predicted by Hypothesis 4, the source of social support made a largedifference in alleviating the effects of stressors. Family and friends appearto have had no effect on alleviating the effects of role stressors on thework-related outcomes investigated in the current study. Perhaps this isbecause interactions with family and friends are not relevant to the workrole of the priest and, therefore, would not influence job-related outcomes.For nonwork-related outcomes (e.g., life satisfaction), however, supportfrom family and friends may be important in buffering the effects of rolestressors.

The other source of support that did not buffer outcomes was the bishop.Previous research has suggested that supervisor support influences job-related outcomes (Cohen & Willis, 1985; Kirmeyer & Dougherty, 1988;Kobasa & Puccetti, 1983). Unlike most occupations, however, RomanCatholic priests have little day-to-day contact with their immediate supervi-sors (i.e., the bishop) and have a great deal of autonomy when makingdecisions about the functioning of their parishes or departments. The bishopworks at the diocesan level, implementing policy from the Vatican and orga-nizing the local churches.

Although functionally similar to other corporate supervisory structures,the relationship between the bishop and the priest is fundamentally different.The bishop (along with the Pope) is seen as successor to the original apostles,with the primary role being that of spiritual leader and guide, and defender ofthe faith. Because the primary relationship between the bishop and priest is

ROLE STRESSORS AND ROMAN CATHOLIC PRIESTS 2917

more spiritual than supervisory, this may explain why the bishop was noteffective in alleviating the effects of role stressors. Alternatively, the onecriterion variable in which social support of the bishop appears to have astrong relationship is commitment to the diocese. The correlation betweensupport by the bishop and commitment to the diocese was quite high(r = .57). This makes sense because the bishop is the titular head of thediocese. Priests who do not feel that the bishop has been supportive werelikely to feel less committed to the diocese. In addition, the significant cor-relation between support of the bishop and role ambiguity (r = -.33) suggeststhat the bishop is important in delineating the various roles of parish priests.These correlations suggest that although perceived support by the bishopmight not work as a buffer, it is still an important factor in the life of priests.Future research might examine other occupations in which frequency ofcontact with supervisors is minimal (e.g., higher education faculty and theirdepartmental chairs) to see if similar results are found.

The three sources of support that had a significant effect (i.e., parishio-ners, staff, fellow priests) are sources in which priests are likely to havefrequent and work-relevant communications. It appears that if these sourcesare supportive, priests are more likely to be buffered from the negative effectsof role stressors on job satisfaction and intentions to quit, as compared tothose who do not receive social support from these sources. In addition, thesesources of support have significant bivariate correlations with role conflict,role ambiguity, and role overload, indicating how closely related parishio-ners, staff, and fellow priests are to shaping the job of priests.

Regarding the lack of results for organizational commitment, it mayhave been that the construct as measured in the present sample (i.e., com-mitment toward the diocese) was not meaningful for priests. We comparedthe pattern of correlations of commitment with other variables in thissample to meta-analytically derived correlations from Mathieu and Zajac(1990). The relations between commitment and role stressor variables weresimilar in our sample and Mathieu and Zajac’s meta-analysis. However, therelations between job satisfaction variables and commitment were higher inthe meta-analysis than in the present sample (e.g., job in general, r = .23 inthe present sample vs. r = .53 in Mathieu & Zajac’s meta-analysis). Thesecorrelations suggest that commitment to the diocese may be functioningdifferently for priests than for other occupations. This is not surprisingbecause there is a distinct hierarchy within the church that includes severallevels: the local parish, the diocese, a national council of bishops, and theVatican. Commitment to the diocese might not have been the importantlevel; perhaps commitment to the Roman Catholic church, as a whole,would have provided results similar to previous findings of organizationalcommitment.

2918 ZICKAR ET AL.

Overall, the results from the present sample are consistent with previousresearch showing that social support can act as a main effect, or can interactwith role stressor variables when predicting individuals’ attitudes towardtheir jobs. Although the results were not consistent across all sources ofsupport and psychosocial outcomes, there was consistent support for thebuffering hypothesis when the source of support was a consistent, work-related context, and with intentions to remain a priest or job satisfaction asthe outcomes.

These results suggest that interventions to increase priest morale anddecrease turnover could focus on several aspects. Increasing role-based com-munication (e.g., making explicit role expectations for priests and lay staff)could reduce role ambiguity and role conflict. In addition, finding additionalroles for lay staff may help in alleviating some of the role overload that priestsexperience. Finally, encouraging increased interaction between priests andlay staff and parishioners could be important in alleviating some of thedeleterious effects of role stressors that might be inevitable with the decliningnumber of priests. At the completion of our project, the results were pre-sented to a council of priests, who generated suggestions for addressingproblems. Further fellowship between priests (e.g., weekly dinners, periodicretreats) was suggested as a plausible remedy.

It should be noted that the present study has several limitations thatfollow-up research should attempt to remedy. First, all variables wereassessed via self-report at one time point. Many of these constructsseem best suited for self-report measurement, as concepts such as rolestress, job satisfaction, and organizational commitment are all internalexperiences that might be difficult to assess using additional methodologies,such as other reports. The construct of social support, however, might bewell suited for measurement by assessing the various sources of supportdirectly.

In addition, actual turnover could have been measured, instead of inten-tions to remain in the priesthood. By doing so, we could have avoided manyof the limitations of using self-report measures exclusively (see Burke, Brief,& George, 1993; Spector, 1994). In this case, though, anonymity of responseswas crucial for priests to report candid responses. Matching priest datato others’ reports and to turnover data would have required sacrifice ofanonymity.

Another limitation is that our measure of social support assessed generallevels of support, but did not specifically measure the types of support thatwere being given, though some of the items related to instrumental support(e.g., helping), while others related to emotional support (e.g., listening).Recent research has suggested that social support can vary by type, and theeffectiveness of different types of support varies (see Drach-Zahavy, 2004;

ROLE STRESSORS AND ROMAN CATHOLIC PRIESTS 2919

Zellars & Perrewé, 2001). Our general measure of social support allowedus to measure only the level of support. Future research would benefitfrom more detailed measures of support in this sample. Specifically, bothinstrumental and emotional support should be directly measured.

We believe that it is important to extend traditional research findings intounderstudied or neglected work populations. Very few studies have beenpublished in industrial–organizational psychology and organizational behav-ior journals that use samples of religious workers. The present study demon-strates the utility of role theory in understanding the working life of RomanCatholic priests. Future research on role theory could be extended to otheroccupations in which workers are more likely to consider their work as avocation, rather than a job. Workers in nonprofit organizations, the PeaceCorps, and volunteers could be important populations for future researchattention.

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