Responses to the Post of Students about Psychology of Employees - Essay Example

?Response to the post Brandon Burton Brandon makes an important point in saying that by teaching employees the emotional side of prejudice, it may be easier to convince them to act on the basis of intellectual argument (Leyens, et al., 2000). But this statement has to be qualified, I think, with the condition that the employees must be willing to change. Emotions defy reason, and we feel a certain way about things even without having any reason to (Berntson & Cacioppo, 2009:731). Therefore, using reason to change an emotional behavior is a long shot, unless the person has the emotional readiness to open his mind and let the intellect take over. In other words, the desire for emotional transformation should precede the intellectual instruction; without the change of heart preceding the instruction, however, the prejudice remains. This is unfortunate, because most people who are prejudiced know that they are, and have strong desires to nurture and feed this emotion, in the name of conviction or righteous principle. In such cases, intellectual arguments have little effect. I find it doubtful, however, that managers will be able to correctly predict employee behavior sans prejudice, in the same way that teachers can accurately assess student performance (Jussim & Haber, 2005). I believe that managers and employees act in a more intimate way than do teachers and students. In fact, managers’ own performance assessments are tied in with their subordinates’ performance, because of the principle of “command responsibility.” Therefore, managers become subjectively involved with their subordinates’ behavior, and when the latter goes badly, the manager tends to become frustrated and impatient with the employee. When a student fails, the teacher gives him an ”F” and he repeats the course. When an employee fails, the manager is expected to correct it because failure is not an option. That is why I believe managers may tend to less accurate and more subjective in assessing employees’ performance. References: Berntson, G.G. & Cacioppo, J.T. (2009) Handbook of Neuroscience for the Behavioural Sciences: Volume 2. Hoboken, New Jersey: John Wiley & Sons, Inc. Jussim, L., & Harber, K. D. (2005). “Teacher expectations and self-fulfilling prophecies: Knowns and unknowns, resolved and unresolved controversies.” Personality and Social Psychology Review, 9, 131-155 Leyens, J.-P., Paladino, P. M., Rodriguez-Torres, R., Vaes, J., Demoulin, S., Rodriguez-Perez, A., & Gaunt, R. (2000). “The emotional side of prejudice: The attribution of secondary emotions to ingroups and outgroups.” Personality and Social Psychology Review, 4, 186-197. Response to the post of Student 2: Christopher Gilbert Christopher’s post raises interesting and provocative questions about the usefulness of secondary emotions as a tool to advance diversity and inclusion. The implications are that casting members of the outgroup in a more humane context (i.e., humanizing the outgroup) aids in expanding the ingroup to include those formerly perceived as members of the outgroup (Leyens, et al., 2000). The question is how far diversity efforts should be pursued and where the line should be drawn: “If an employee has a child, who I have grown to know and care about because of my secondary emotions, and that child happen to be sick one day, should I excuse the employee’s absence to take care of the child?  Would I show prejudice toward those employees who do not have children?  Are secondary emotions even allowed in a manager/subordinate employee?” asks the post. Of course these questions are rhetorical, but I think answers are not difficult to come by. First, employees should be excused, whether the employee is in the ingroup or outgroup, if the seriousness of the illness so warrants – parental obligations require it by law, and precede employee obligations. Prejudice against those without children does not necessarily follow if a manager develops personal closeness with an employee’s child, so there should be no dilemma here. And certainly, secondary emotions are allowed and even urged by management theory. To become transformational leaders, managers must engage their employees and inspire them, by “demonstrating appropriate concern for the contributions and well-being of their employees” (Sarlak, 2011:102). The questions posed are not serious problems because they are addressed logically and intellectually, not emotionally, since they involve a manager’s rational choice. The usefulness of employing secondary emotions to expand ingroups would be as a tool to develop ingroups among team members in relation to each other, which the manager may explore. References: Leyens, J. P., Paladino, P. M., Rodriquez-Torres, R., Vaes, J., Demoulin, S., Rodrigues-Perez, A., & Gaunt, R. (2000). “The emotional side of prejudice: The attribution of secondary emotions to ingroups and outgroups.” Personality and Social Psychology Review, 4(2), 186-197. Sarlak, M.A. (2011) The New Faces of Organizations in the 21st Century, Vol. 1. Canada: NAISIT Publishers Response to the post of Student 3: Leslie Gaines Leslie’s post is about the particular circumstances that women “on the family way” so to speak, are given favorable or unfavorable treatment because of their condition. The post explains that treating pregnant women differently, whether in a hostile or special manner, is undesirable and therefore, a pregnant woman should be treated in the same manner as a non-pregnant woman. This calls to mind the lesson in week 2, describing two approaches to diversity: multiculturalism, and “color-blindness” or minimization of differences (Plaut, Thomas & Goren, 2009). The first approach emphasized and celebrated differences, while the second overlooked these differences and stressed the majority. These approaches applied to cultural issues may likewise be applied to gender discrimination. In other words, women in general may be either deferentially treated because of their gender, or treated exactly like the men who comprise the majority in the work force. As with culture issues, neither is entirely favorable when exclusively applied; the ideal response is to apply one or the other, or a blend of both, depending upon the circumstances. As the post said, some women physically suffer through pregnancy while others do not. It would therefore be unfair to treat women with difficult pregnancies in the same manner as women who do not suffer as much. Nor should other issues of family and children be a condition generalized over all employees, as if a norm were made to operate outside of which “special” arrangements may not be allowed. The issue should be seen broadly from the perspective of “quality of work life” – “an individual’s perception of their position in life in the context of the culture and value systems in which they live and in relation to their goals, expectations, standards and concerns.” It is affected by the person’s physical health, psychological state, and social relationships (Earl-Slater, 2002:275). People’s needs should be individually addressed, not made to conform to generalized norms which, in itself, embodies intolerance to diverse individuals. References: Earl-Slater, A (2002) The Handbook of Clinical Trials and Other Research. Abingdon, Oxon: Radcliffe Publishing Plaut, V.C.; Thomas, K.M.; & Goren, M.J. (2009) “Is Multiculturalism or Color Blindness Better for Minorities?” Psychological Science. 20(4), 444-446 Response to the post of Student 4: Meghan Clarke Meghan’s post makes an explicit point about the unfairness of ambivalent sexism towards pregnant women in the workplace, that the deferential treatment shown towards customers is due to others’ perception of them as fulfilling their traditional roles, while hostile treatment towards pregnant co-workers is due to their being perceived as breaking away from traditional gender roles (Hebl et al., 2007). This makes a clear point about attitudes towards pregnant women as prejudicial. Beyond this, however, the post does not make a stand on how pregnant women should be treated. By categorizing both favorable and unfavorable treatment as prejudicial, the post leaves no options as to what “non-prejudicial” treatment of pregnant women is exactly. In this case, therefore, prejudice becomes a necessity, unless a specific type of treatment is justified, because “being more sensitive and conscious” is a passive, not active, undertaking, and “being able to “recognize the root of the situation” does not specifically state what to do with that realization. I believe that the proper course of action depends upon the context of the society the pregnant woman is working in. There are some developing countries where women work laboriously (such as planting ricefields and carrying water fetched from a distance) even throughout their entire pregnancy. While these are traditional roles, the transition from rice paddies to office or store jobs is a small one. People’s overriding concern is survival in a tough economic environment, and pregnancy is not prejudiced in the workplace because families normally rely on two incomes. On the other hand, there are some developed countries where the growth rate has turned negative, and couples are encouraged by the state to have more children. In these places, working women and their families are even given incentives and subsidies to get pregnant and have more children (Lutz, 2006). These countries include Sweden, Russia, Australia, France, Italy, Japan, Germany, Poland, Singapore, and others References: Hebl, M. R., King, E. B., Glick, P., Singletary, S. L., & Kazama, S. (2007). “Hostile and benevolent reactions toward pregnant women: Complementary interpersonal punishments and rewards that maintain traditional roles.” Journal of Applied Psychology, 92, 1499-1511. Lutz, W. (2006) “Fertility rates and future population trends: will Europe's birth rate recover or continue to decline?” International Journal Of Andrology, 29 (1), 25-33 Response to the post of Student 5: David Butler David’s post mentioned that the idea he found most striking was that people tended to attribute the “human essence” to the members of his/her ingroup and deny it to members of the outgroup. Only members of the ingroup were “allowed” to be thought of as having secondary emotions, because it is secondary emotions that help us view other people as human beings, capable of more profound thoughts and discernments. At the same time, the people tend to deny that members of the outgroup (i.e., all those who are not in the ingroup) are capable of secondary emotions, and only have the basic, instinctual emotions that all beings, human and animal included, are capable of. (Leyen, et al., 2000: 195). This is a most profound concept, because it explains the hundreds of years of slavery of the whites against the blacks, because although it was evident that blacks captured in the jungles of Africa were also humans biologically, they were considered infrahumans because they were thought to be unable to feel with the depth and understanding of the whites. Another thing David said that struck deep was his reference to his experiences as Army Officer, where the enemy’s death or destruction was morally acceptable because they were subhumans, while the death of their comrades was a tragedy because what was taken was human life. It makes little wonder, then that prisoners of war were tortured and killed in Abu Ghraib prison in Iraq, and the soldiers did not see anything wrong with it while they were doing it (Leung, 2009). Understanding that people tend to deny secondary emotions to the discriminated group explains the behavior, but does not make it moral or just. To eliminate or minimize these tendencies, management should take an active form in “humanizing” the face of the enemy as the first step towards diversity. This is actually an actionable idea, a direction which management can take and measure their results against. Reference: Leung, R (2009) “Abuse of Iraqi POWs by GIs Probed.” CBS News, February 11, 2009. Available at http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2004/04/27/60ii/main614063.shtml Leyens, J.-P., Paladino, P. M., Rodriguez-Torres, R., Vaes, J., Demoulin, S., Rodriguez-Perez, A., & Gaunt, R. (2000). “The emotional side of prejudice: The attribution of secondary emotions to ingroups and outgroups.” Personality and Social Psychology Review, 4, 186-197 Read More