Research has suggested there is an important distinction between perceiving a calling and living a calling. With a sample of 542 working adults, the current study examined (a) the degree to which perceiving a calling and living a calling differed according to yearly income and level of educational attainment and (b) potential mediators that may explain the link between perceiving a calling and living a calling. Adults with higher yearly incomes and more education were significantly more likely to endorse living a calling, but no significant group differences were found for perceiving a calling. Additionally, using structural equation modeling, work volition was found to be a significant mediator in the link between perceiving a calling and living a calling, and organizational support was found to be a significant mediator in the link between work volition and living a calling. The strength and significance of these indirect effects were supported by bootstrapping techniques. We suggest that part of the reason people with a calling feel more able to live out that calling is because of increased feelings of control in their career decision making. Implications for research and practice are discussed.
Stored only when both papers are in the corpus — 144 citations exist upstream.
Imported from OpenAlex (CC0) — nothing here is generated.