Many parents work hard to help their kids find careers they will enjoy, dragging them to skills and aptitudes testing, encouraging them to land internships or enrolling them in colleges aligned with their interests. Fueling these efforts is often the hope that our kids will be happier on the job than we are.
But a new study in the Journal of Applied Psychology suggests such efforts may be futile: A tendency to hate your job runs in families.
Being born with certain genes sparks an inclination to be happier at work, while other genes are linked to lower job satisfaction, says the study by Zhaoli Song, Wendong Li and Richard Arvey at the National University of Singapore
. This counters conventional thinking, that misery on the job can be blamed on lousy working conditions, low pay, mistreatment by the boss or a poor career fit.
In the study of 1,772 people, researchers found that two genetic markers, a dopamine receptor gene and a serotonin transporter gene, are linked with job satisfaction.
