Organizational Psychology

Purpose. To investigate differences in life satisfaction, degree of frustration, as well as neuroticism and personal anxiety among employees with and without vertical career growth. Methodology. The study was conducted in two stages: at the first stage, 447 employees of Russian enterprises engaged in various fields of activity were interviewed. When determining the type of careerdevelopment, the instructions of the manager and the employee’s self-esteem, promotion through the service hierarchy, the increase in the level of responsibility and salary were considered. The final sample consisted of 276 employees aged 25 to 55 years with at least three years of work experience, divided into two groups: employees with horizontal career development (n = 168) and employees with verticalcareer development (n = 108). At the second stage, the following methods were used: E. Diener’s life satisfaction scale (SWLS); L. I. Wasserman’s method of diagnosing the level of neuroticism, modified by V. V. Boyko; V. V. Boyko’s method of “Determining the state of frustration”; the method of “Personal Anxiety Scale” by Spielberger, Russian-language adaptation by Yu. L. Khanin. The obtained data were checked for the normality of the distribution by the Kolmogorov — Smirnov criterion in groups. To identify significant differences in the groups, the data were processed using the Mann — Whitney U-test in the IBM SPSS Statistics 23.0 program. Results. Significant differences were identified in the emotional and personal characteristics of employees with and without vertical career growth. Employees with vertical career growth have higher life satisfaction, and the degree of frustration, anxiety, and neuroticism is lower than employees without vertical career growth. Findings. The results can be used for consulting on career choice, secondary professionalization, professional burnout, professional deformation, professional image. It is important for an employee to develop his own criteria for professional growth; determinethe speed of development and understand whether it is carried out in principle.