Introduction
Organizational behavior is an important branch of science that explores people’s relationships in the workplace and can help leaders and employees organize the working process better. Several psychological theories discuss and explain organizational behavior. Note on Workplace Psychology Theories, an article by Karen MacMillan published in 2018, briefly overviews several topic-related theories that the author regards as belonging to the most relevant ones (MacMillan 1). The purpose of this paper is to give a summary of the work described above.
Main body
The first theoretical question raised in the article is the difference between how people judge themselves and others. We tend to explain our own failures with external factors and mistakes of someone else – with internal ones. It is vice versa with successes; these phenomena are called fundamental attribution error and self-serving bias (MacMillan 1). The next theory touches on people’s personal beliefs and values. Managers and leaders need to know that when they ask employees to do something that contradicts the workers’ personal opinion, it might cause discomfort or cognitive dissonance.
One more issue discussed is the influence of expectations on a person’s work. In fact, most people live and act according to the expectations of others; this concept is called self-fulfilling prophecy (MacMillan 2). Hence, if a manager regards his or her team as capable of performing excellently, the employees will show great results regardless of their talents. Another significant problem analyzed by the author is organizational justice which consists of three parts (MacMillan 2). They are distributive justice (the fairness of an outcome), procedural justice (the fairness of a process), and interactional justice (the degree of respect given by employers) (MacMillan 2). To provide a feeling of justice in workers, sometimes, just one of the aspects is enough, for example, respect towards them. The next concept explored is learned helplessness: workers that lose control over the environment begin to think that they can change nothing (MacMillan 2). Furthermore, MacMillan describes types of power in the workplace; they are a coercive, reward, and legitimate powers with the latter one being most effective for people tend to obey a person they like.
Another important question as per the article is what factors prevent people from making rational decisions. They include stereotypes, confirmation bias (ignoring the information that does not correspond to pre-made choices), escalation of commitment (fear to change something because it has become habitual), overconfidence bias, and availability bias. The latter means that people are likely to focus on available or recent information. Then, MacMillan discusses envy arising among colleagues and the ways to tackle the problem. Less successful employees often develop tall poppy syndrome and begin preventing a high achiever from new progress (MacMillan 5). Those who envy shall consider the reasons for being envious and focus on their own accomplishments; an overachiever might show humility to eliminate the problem.
In her paper, MacMillan also gives attention to the influence of personality on people’s work behavior. The most popular framework is the Big Five Personality Model which is composed of five aspects with conscientiousness being the most important one for work. In addition, it is people’s nature to respond in accordance with how they are treated; hence, if an employer supports workers, they will help the company to achieve its goals. Besides, employees who are satisfied with working conditions tend to do tasks beyond the ones required. The working relationships are influenced by the psychological contract which refers to expectations and responsibilities that are not stated but implied.
Conclusion
In conclusion, the above theories are the most popular ones and can help leaders and managers in their work. The last issue considered in the article is theories of motivation. The expectancy theory states that for a person to be motivated, the relations between his or her effort, performance, reward, and personal need should be positive (MacMillan 7). According to equity theory, an employee is satisfied when they find out that their effort to reward ratio is not lower than that of other workers.
References
MacMillan, Karen. Note on Workplace Psychology Theories. 2018. Web.