Choosing Money Over Meaningful Work: Examining Relative Job Preferences for High Compensation Versus Meaningful Work

People sometimes must choose between prioritizing meaningful work or high compensation. Eight studies (N = 4,177; 7 preregistered) examined the relative importance of meaningful work and salary in evaluations of actual and hypothetical jobs. Although meaningful work and high salaries are both perceived as highly important job attributes when evaluated independently, when presented with tradeoffs between these job attributes, participants consistently preferred high-salary jobs with low meaningfulness over low-salary jobs with high meaningfulness (Studies 1-5). Forecasts of happiness and meaning outside of work helped explain condition differences in job interest (Studies 4 and 5). Extending the investigation toward actual jobs, Studies 6a and 6b showed that people express stronger preferences for higher pay (vs. more meaningful work) in their current jobs. Although meaningful work is a strongly valued job attribute, it may be less influential than salary to evaluations of hypothetical and current jobs.