People who are passionate about their work, but then become less engaged in it, may stay at the job due to an exaggerated fear that others will judge them harshly for quitting.
But new research out of the ILR School reveals that others actually see the benefit of quitting a job because it may free up time to pursue a different, more engaging professional passion in a different workplace.
“If you’re considering giving up on your passion at work, it probably feels very bad for you, creating a myopia where you think about the present and not the future,” said Brian J. Lucas, associate professor of organizational behavior in the ILR School.
“Other people see the big picture; they recognize that quitting work you used to love is the first step to pivoting to something else.
This is important because, to pursue your passions at work over time, you may need to quit every once in a while and try a new direction.”
“People Overestimate How Harshly They Are Evaluated for Disengaging From Passion Pursuit” published June 9 in the Journal of Personality and Social Psychology.
The study was co-authored by Zachariah Berry, M.A. ’20, Ph.D. ’24, assistant professor of management and organization at the University of Southern California, and Jon M. Jachimowicz, assistant professor of business administration at Harvard Business School.
The team conducted seven studies for their research.
In addition to examining judgments about quitting a job a worker used to feel passionate about, they asked study participants if a simple intervention could change people’s minds about whether to quit.
“We wanted to know more about how workers can pursue their passions sustainably – getting the benefits of loving your job, but without the exhaustion and burnout that often accompany caring too much,” Lucas said.
One study asked participants to read vignettes about a person who was considering quitting a passion pursuit.
There were two main vignettes, each with three variations of the reason for quitting: financial or family issues, the job was too difficult, and a loss of passion for the work.
Some participants imagined being the person in the scenario and rated how others would judge them for quitting, while other participants judged the person in the vignette for quitting.
The participants who imagined being the person in the scenario overestimated how harshly others would judge their character or competence for quitting.
However, quitting for financial or family reasons was not judged as negatively as quitting because the job was difficult or because the passion was lost.
“People pursuing their passions who are considering quitting often feel like they’ll be a bad person if they do that. Our research shows that other people don’t necessarily see it that way,” Lucas said.
Another study determined that it was only when quitting a passion-pursuit job that people overestimated how much others would judge them negatively. When considering quitting a job mainly for financial gain or career advancement, people did not make this overestimation.
A final study asked if a simple intervention could change attitudes, emotions, intentions or behaviors around quitting. The study included 243 teachers who had considered leaving their job in the past 12 months. These teachers were divided into a control group and a treatment group.
The treatment group read a message about how they were likely overestimating how negatively they would be judged for quitting. All participants were surveyed one and two weeks after the message was sent to learn if anything had changed.
Compared to the control group, the treatment group felt better about how harshly others might judge them and had greater comfort with talking to others about leaving, exploring career options and planning to quit.
“People care about being in jobs they love,” Lucas said. “The more we know about the psychology of pursuing your passion, the more likely we can help people pursue them sustainably.”
For anyone considering leaving a passion pursuit, Lucas has this advice: “If the reason you aren’t leaving is concern about how others will judge you, that fear is likely overblown,” he said. “That should not be the reason that holds you back.”
Written by Tonya Engst ILR School/ Cornell University.
