ABSTRACT
Occupational devotion is a special orientation that some people hold toward their livelihood and, more particularly, toward the routine activities constituting its core. The term occupational devotion tends to mask the fact that, for devotees, the positive side of their occupations is so intensely appealing that it overrides the negative side. Occupational devotees turn up chiefly, though not exclusively, in four areas of the economy, providing their work there is, at most, only lightly bureaucratized: certain small businesses, the skilled trades, the consulting and counseling occupations, and the public-centered professions and client-centered professions. The intensity with which occupational devotees approach their work suggests that they may at times be in psychological flow there. The liberal professions constitute one set of occupations where occupational devotion is noticeably and famously high. Occupational devotion is best observed among full-time consultants, in that part-timers and moonlighters have less time to experience the high fulfillment available in such work.
