Introduction to Psychology for Business - Essay Example

Introduction to Psychology for Business Introduction Business Psychology is essentially an applied science taking clue from several established and proven theories that have a basis in human psychology. The ultimate objective is to create productive environment and healthy relationship among people based on the basic understanding that renowned psychologists such as Sigmund Freud, Watson, Skinner, Abraham Maslow, Carl Rogers have proposed through their insight and experiments in the last one hundred years or so. The paper aims at exploring various psychological theories that are being applied in the business world to improve productivity and overall success of the firms. The Psychoanalytic Theory Sigmund Freud’s psychoanalytic theory extends a significant influence on myriads of disciplines that includes anthropology, sociology, art, psychology, literature. According to Freud, human mind is made of two parts – conscious and unconscious. Whatever one is aware of can be classified under the conscious mind. For example, memory is an integral part of one’s conscious mind that can be retrieved as per need for daily tasks. One’s logical or rational mental thinking process is also a part of conscious mind; however, the instincts such as feelings, urges, or dreams are the part of unconscious mind and surprisingly, the unconscious mind influences the most in one’s life (Cherry 2012b). Id, Ego, and Super-ego Freud divides human personality in three parts – Id, Ego, and Super-ego. All primitive urges such as hunger, sex, pleasure have been classified by him under ‘id’. Early age in humans revolves around id. Child cries when he or she feels hungry. That is how infants satisfy their basic needs. The id simply thinks about own needs without giving any importance to others. With the growth of child and interactions with others, ‘ego’ starts developing gradually. Ego takes into account the real-life situation when need of the ‘id’ is to be fulfilled. The ‘superego’ tries to resolve the moral aspect of one’s thinking process. It deciphers things into rights and wrongs; many people know them as conscience. According to Freud, usually, the ego is the most governing or dominating element in one’s personality regulating and controlling ‘id’ and ‘superego’. Obviously, the person with dominating superego would emphasise on ethics and morals during interaction with others. Such person will be unbending while dealing with others (AllPsych 2011). Correctly, the paramount job of ‘ego’ is to find a balance between two other elements – ‘id’ and ‘superego’. It means that in an attempt to satisfy the ‘id’, the ‘superego’ of the person should not get hurt. Freud also stresses that human being has two primary drives: sex and aggression. Sex and aggression are the principal motivating factors. Sex as life force drives humans to survive, and flourish. The purpose of aggression is to counter any threats to existence. When ‘ego’ fails to find a balance between ‘id’ and ‘superego’, it resorts to several defense mechanisms known as repression, regression, suppression, rationalization, or sublimation. Freud also argues that these mechanisms should not be assumed unhealthy but one’s inability to use these mechanisms in a prudent way may cause problems in life (AllPsych 2011). The strength of this theory lies in knowing about how unconscious behaviours are in root of several issues that mankind faces; the theory emphasises on converting unconscious behaviours into conscious behaviours (Corey, 2005). Strengthening ones ego is of paramount importance to get rid of irrational decision making. Self-awareness is necessary to develop effective relationships with others and therefore the theory can be applied in a variety of business settings that relates to the field of vocational training and career decisions. Even consumer buying behaviour can also be explained to a certain extent with the help of this theory (Corey, 2005). Behaviourism or Learning Theory Watson and Skinner, the renowned psychologists devised this theory. The theory emphasises on conditioning influences on learning. According to behaviourism, environment is a chief component that works as a stimulus to develop effect. People learn through their association or through consequences of their behaviour in a given environment. Controlled experiments also known as scientific methodology is the basis to study behaviourism and measuring the psychological aspects of people. The doctrine of ‘free will’ is discarded by the proponents of behaviourism; instead, they consider environment as a sole stimulus for generating a specific behaviour outcomes. This belief gave way to behaviour shaping techniques such as punishment, positive reinforcement or negative reinforcement in the subsequent years (Cherry, 2011). Fisher (2011) argues "the human though processes cannot be observed, thus the only thing we should be concerned about are people’s actions". Thus, it can be argued that behaviourism treats human beings as machines that tend to react to the environment rather than acting thoughtfully. This theory is widely used in therapeutic settings for learning new skills. Classical conditioning as devised by Ivan Pavlov is being applied in many therapies to desensitize people from phobias. Behaviourism gave birth to a therapy known as behaviour therapy. The therapy is used for the management of schizophrenics and the children suffering from autism (Behaviourism 2010). In business settings, behaviourism has several applications. The theory is applied to study workplace-safety aspects aimed at changing employees’ behaviour to reduce injuries (Fisher, 2011). Humanistic Theory Abraham Maslow and Carl Rogers are considered two early proponents of Humanistic theories. They considered goodness factors in humans as a basis to this theory. According to this theory, self-image and inner feelings drive individual behaviour and that is why each person gets influenced by his or her free will for a transformation or changed behaviour in life. Humanistic theory suggests that happiness and well being of a person is one’s own making and one has innate capacity to self-actualize, known as culmination of one’s potential as a human being. Therefore, any process or scientific ways to study individual behaviour will not be successful (Mcleod, 2007). Carl Rogers further refined humanistic approach and allowed people to achieve their own recovery by observing "unconditional positive regard" (Humanistic Approach, 2013). Nevertheless, humanistic perspective too has its fair share of therapeutic application in developing motivational theories. Abraham Maslow emphasises on knowing about the human needs that can be described in the form of pyramid where most elementary needs are located at the bottom of pyramid while the complex ones are found at the top of pyramid. Whenever a person gets an opportunity to fulfill his or her basic needs they get motivated to work. The theory recognises the very basic fact that human motivation is complex. The theory has wide application in the businesses where workers are provided incentives in the form of monetary rewards for achieving pre-decided productivity or sales targets, year-end bonus for performing to a targeted level. Further to this, the theory gives recognition to the fact that businesses flourish through successful relationships and for a sales person that is the most important element to forge ahead in their career. Rodriguez (2013) argues a successful sales person is the one who is successful in selling himself or herself before selling their product. She suggests "a humanistic approach to create successful relationships in business". The Humanistic theory is thus, greatly applied in industries since 1960s across most part of the world (Cherry, 2012). Conclusion All above discussed psychological theories though surfaced during different time span in 20th century, they continued to evolve overtime getting recognition and application in variety of fields of human interest with the sole aim of improving peoples’ lives. These theories had its fair share of applications in the myriads of business settings too such as enhancing productivity in the industries, managing workforce to reduce conflict situation including interdepartmental conflicts, developing new HR practices, motivating workforce to fulfill organizational goals in terms of growth, or gaining a competitive advantage in the market place through proper sales training and so on. These theories have, undoubtedly, helped shape human lives enormously in the last couple of decades. References Behaviourism (2010). Standard Encyclopedia of philosophy. plato.standford.edu. [Online] Accessed 24 February 2014 Cherry, K. (2012). Psychology Theories. about.com. [Online] Accessed 24 February 2014 Corey, G. (2005). The Theory and Practice of Counseling and Psychotherapy. 7th ed. Belmont, Thomson Learning. Fisher, P. (2011). Behaviourism finds fans in management. Budapest Business Journal. [Online] Accessed 24 February 2014 Humanistic Approach (2013). Carl Rogers and Unconditional Positive Regard. [Online] Accessed 24 February 2014 Mcleod, S. (2007). Psychology Perspectives. [Online] Accessed 24 February 2014 Rodriguez, G.D. (2013). Utilizing a Humanistic Approach to Create Successful Relationships in Business. trans4mind.com. [Online] Accessed 25 February 2014 Read More