The Use of Psychological Motivational Theories in Explaining Behavior in Organizations - Essay Example

THE USE OF PSYCHOLOGICAL MOTIVATIONAL THEORIES IN EXPLAINING BEHAVIOR IN ORGANIZATIONS Introduction People in an organization have different behavioral patterns. These patterns are either in groups or individually and do greatly affect the overall performance of the organization. Therefore understanding why people behave in whichever way they do in organizational environments, is key. The best method to apply to achieve this desire is using psychological theories of motivation. These theories will help a great deal since psychology is the study of the human mind and behavior. One thing that combines the use of psychological theories of motivation to explanation of people’s behavior in organization is the fact that all human behavior has one kind of motivation. Psychological motivation theories provide the insight necessary to explain why some people in the organization tend to be successful, highly motivated while others are just simply unmotivated. These theories will assist in understanding where the energy, drive and direction of motivated employees and employers come from. This is because the success, drive and direction of the organization are of paramount importance and those people in the organization greatly affect this. This essay will go a long way to try to explain the relevance and importance of using psychological theories of motivation to explain behavior in organization. It will also explain how this method can assist in the success of organizations. The main topics that will be covered are the types of organizational behaviors people project, some psychological motivation theories and how they can be applied in explaining organizational behaviors. In general, the essay will look at applied industrial psychology in human resource management. Organizational behavior is the study and application of knowledge about how different people act or behave in organization. This could be either as individuals or as groups. It aims at building better relationships by achieving the objectives of the person, the organization and other social objectives (Horwitz et al 2003, p.23). Body Many factors affect job performance, employee interactions, job commitment, leadership and management in organizations. Human behavior in organizations needs to be examined. Its impact on the job structure and performance should also be determined. The behavior of different people in the organization is based on their personal feelings, interactions with others at the workplace, their own thoughts and general experiences of day-to-day. This is the internal perspective of trying to explain organizational behavior. Another way is where the events and the general environment of the organization affect how individuals behave at the organization. This is the external perspective of explaining organizational behavior. Psychology has many motivational theories (Leonard 1999, p.974). There are three psychological processes involved in motivation, which are arousal, direction and intensity. Arousal is the part that causes action mostly motivated by the individual’s desire for something that he or she lacks in their lives. Finally, direction is the path, which is taken to attain the goals, and objectives one has set which can be either taken with high or low intensity depending on how important an objective is. Some of psychological motivation theories are biological in nature while the rest are above concrete explanations. Some of those to be discussed in this essay are the instinct theory, the drive reduction theory, arousal theory, psychoanalytic theory and lastly and most importantly, the humanistic theory. These shall be discussed with a vision to explain behaviors in organizations. The instinct theory explains that biology motivates all human behavior. These are the innate instincts of humans to preserve life developed since birth. People in an organization will always want to preserve themselves and this is usually one of the main reasons why individuals seek employment in the first place. The drive reduction theory states that humans have internal biological needs motivating them to perform in various ways. They are internal states of arousal or tension, which aim at being reduced such as hunger or thirst. Well it is clear why people work, they want to provide for their loved ones and for themselves with the basic needs of food, shelter, clothing and education. The arousal theory states that individuals are driven to maintain certain levels of arousal in order to be comfortable or content with their own lives. The arousal at the organization is mostly intellectual where people want to feel needed and better than the others in terms of the value they contribute to the organization. Psychoanalytic theorists explain that there are only two drives; the life and death instincts. These explain every action done by individuals is either to help us survive or to destroy us. Nevertheless, it is important to understand that these drives are in the unconscious parts of our brains. People attend school in order that they may be assured of their survival in terms of better finances resulting in better healthcare and improved ability to find a spouse when they join the organizations they will work for. The humanistic theory of motivation is one of the most deeply explained theories (Rinehard 2006, p.234). According to this theory, people are driven to achieve their maximum potential and they will always under all circumstances aim for this. The only time this is not the case is when they face hindrances along their paths. Individuals have specific needs that must be met which are all arranged in a hierarchically. The lowest needs are the basic needs food, sleep, safety among others. With these achieved the individual can go forward in search of respect, education and recognition. Individuals in organizations will aim at achieving the highest need, which is self-actualization, but need to always move step by step up the ladder of needs. No one has ever attained self actualization since achieving it means the end of one’s life since it would mean that one has experienced all there is about themselves with no more to learn. Authors describe that institutions of higher learning nowadays are obsessed with producing graduates for the labor force. They no longer teach about talent following one’s passion or involvement in subjects about humanity. The labor process ought to promote exciting and creative exercise of personal and communal development. This explains why individuals in organizations behave in very sluggish manners. They are not excited about what they do and come to work only because of their innate instincts of human survival and not to attain self-actualization through what they do. Herzberg on the other hand explains human motivation as a very difficult thing to attain. If the management tries to push employees to do something, this does not help much in motivating, only in making things done. He contends that money and benefits cannot motivate employees rather, continuous job enrichment does. Therefore, work must be enriched in order to motivate the individuals at organizations. This can be done by not controlling them yet keeping them accountable and assigning them more tasks that are challenging continuously. This is teaching them to gain motivation from within themselves and therefore help in their productivity (Herzberg 2003, p.94). Why we need to understand behavior in organizations is because we need to know which ones hurt or help the organization. We also understand the culture of the organization and whether it has positive or negative influences on the people around. Understanding the motives that cause problematic behaviors can help in trying to change those behaviors or even encourage new ones with a positive shift of the organization in general. The management will also find that explaining behavior will assist in predicting the reactions and effects of any changes that might occur in the policies of the institution. If they deem those changes necessary, then they may actually have a fighting chance in mitigating any resistance they may face towards those changes (Horwitz et al 2003, p.24). Understanding motivations of human behavior can also assist managers to foster more of the positive and profitable behavior noted maybe through positive reinforcements or incentives like promotions and rewards as psychologists explain. The process of performance appraisal is vital in the overall decision-making process of an organization. Performance management includes documenting and tracking performance of individuals in the organization. Information gathered during this process of evaluation is used in the determination of job performance dimensions and whether there will be need for training without any biases. The results are used also in giving feedback to the individuals and consult on ways to better the overall organization’s performance. Understanding what motivates an organization’s employees can always be used as a way of helping in the directing of effort and attention towards specific issues or tasks in the organization. It often results in the perseverance of people in whatever goals they have set out to achieve. Task strategies can also be formulated with the knowledge of one’s employees’ motivational levels (Dye et al 2005, p.1380). There is an assumption that individuals always desire to contribute to the organization’s effectiveness and that they can genuinely do so. The responsibility of the organization is to create an environment that makes total use of all the human resources at its disposure. Whenever the employees lack a need, they are driven to attain it resulting in actions directed towards attaining what they desire which obviously will either result in satisfaction once that need is attained or despair and disappointment in case it is not. The employees attain what they want to attain meaning that whatever that they expect drives their behaviors. If they expect more, they work harder and achieve more but if they expect less, they will work less and achieve less for the organization and for themselves in general. Conclusion Human resource management is not an easy task since it involves managing people who have different motivations as to why they show up each morning to the organization. Trying to motivate employees in organization is always easier if there is prior knowledge of motivation theories. Organizations use different styles to achieve this and the different styles have different results (Cullen 1997, p.360). Therefore, one can now understand why the integration of human resource management and psychology is of prime importance. This is throughout the processes of recruitment and selection, training and development, welfare and safety, wage and salary assignment and the general dealing with most administrative issues of organizations. Psychological theories of motivation are therefore very useful in explaining behavior in organizations. References Cullen, D., 1997, Maslow, Monkeys and Motivation Theory. Organization, 4(3), pp.355-373. Dye, K., Mills, A. and Weatherbee, T., 2005, Maslow: man interrupted: reading management theory in context. Management Decision, 43(10), pp.1375-1395. Herzberg, F., 2003, one more time: How do you motivate employees? Harvard Business Review 81(1): 87-96.  Horwitz, F., Heng, C. and Quazi, H., 2003, Finders, keepers? Attracting, motivating and retaining knowledge workers. Human Res Manag J, 13(4), pp.23-44. Leonard, N., 1999, Work Motivation: The Incorporation of Self-Concept-Based Processes. Human Relations, 52(8), pp.969-998. Rinehard, J.W., 2006, The tyranny of work: Alienation and the labour process (4th edition), Scarborough, ON: Nelson Thompson.  Read More