The accumulation of person‐environment congruences and well‐being

The impact of the additivity of three aspects of person‐environment congruence — vocational, avocational and skill utilization — to well‐being was assessed by four measures: occupational satisfaction, work satisfaction, somatic complaints and anxiety. Subjects were 74 female teachers. Findings showed: (a) the three congruence aspects were not interrelated; (b) all congruence aspects were correlated with all well‐being measures in the expected direction; and (c) combinations of the three congruence aspects had an additive effect: the higher the number of congruence aspects the higher the well‐being. The implications of congruence additivity to stress research and to vocational counselling was discussed.