Marx's theory of alienation

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19th-century German intellectual Karl Marx (1818–1883) identified and described four types of Entfremdung (social alienation) that afflict the worker under capitalism.

 

Karl Marx's theory of alienation describes the estrangement (Entfremdung) of people from aspects of their Gattungswesen ("species-essence") as a consequence of living in a society of stratified social classes. The alienation from the self is a consequence of being a mechanistic part of a social class, the condition of which estranges a person from their humanity.

The theoretical basis of alienation within the capitalist mode of production is that the worker invariably loses the ability to determine life and destiny when deprived of the right to think (conceive) of themselves as the director of their own actions; to determine the character of said actions; to define relationships with other people; and to own those items of value from goods and services, produced by their own labor. Although the worker is an autonomous, self-realized human being, as an economic entity this worker is directed to goals and diverted to activities that are dictated by the bourgeoisie—who own the means of production—in order to extract from the worker the maximum amount of surplus value in the course of business competition among industrialists.

In the Economic and Philosophic Manuscripts of 1844 (1932), Karl Marx expressed the Entfremdung theory—of estrangement from the self. Philosophically, the theory of Entfremdung relies upon The Essence of Christianity (1841) by Ludwig Feuerbach which states that the idea of a supernatural god has alienated the natural characteristics of the human being. Moreover, Max Stirner extended Feuerbach's analysis in The Ego and its Own (1845) that even the idea of "humanity" is an alienating concept for individuals to intellectually consider in its full philosophic implication. Marx and Friedrich Engels responded to these philosophic propositions in The German Ideology (1845).

Types of alienation

In a capitalist society, the worker's alienation from their humanity occurs because the worker can only express labour—a fundamental social aspect of personal individuality—through a private system of industrial production in which each worker is an instrument, a thing and not a person. In the "Comment on James Mill" (1844), Marx explained alienation thus:

Let us suppose that we had carried out production as human beings. Each of us would have, in two ways, affirmed himself, and the other person. (i) In my production I would have objectified my individuality, its specific character, and, therefore, enjoyed not only an individual manifestation of my life during the activity, but also, when looking at the object, I would have the individual pleasure of knowing my personality to be objective, visible to the senses, and, hence, a power beyond all doubt. (ii) In your enjoyment, or use, of my product I would have the direct enjoyment both of being conscious of having satisfied a human need by my work, that is, of having objectified man's essential nature, and of having thus created an object corresponding to the need of another man's essential nature [...] Our products would be so many mirrors in which we saw reflected our essential nature.

In the Economic and Philosophic Manuscripts of 1844 (1932), Marx identified four types of alienation that occur to the worker laboring under a capitalist system of industrial production.

Alienation of the worker from their product

The design of the product and how it is produced are determined, not by the producers who make it (the workers), nor by the consumers of the product (the buyers), but by the capitalist class who besides accommodating the worker's manual labor also accommodate the intellectual labor of the engineer and the industrial designer who create the product in order to shape the taste of the consumer to buy the goods and services at a price that yields a maximal profit. Aside from the workers having no control over the design-and-production protocol, alienation (Entfremdung) broadly describes the conversion of labor (work as an activity), which is performed to generate a use value (the product), into a commodity, which—like products—can be assigned an exchange value. That is, the capitalist gains control of the manual and intellectual workers and the benefits of their labour, with a system of industrial production that converts said labor into concrete products (goods and services) that benefit the consumer. Moreover, the capitalist production system also reifies labour into the "concrete" concept of "work" (a job), for which the worker is paid wages—at the lowest-possible rate—that maintain a maximum rate of return on the capitalist's investment capital; this is an aspect of exploitation. Furthermore, with such a reified system of industrial production, the profit (exchange value) generated by the sale of the goods and services (products) that could be paid to the workers is instead paid to the capitalist classes: the functional capitalist, who manages the means of production; and the rentier capitalist, who owns the means of production. 

In the capitalist mode of production, the manual labor of the employed carpenter yields wages, but not profits or losses

 

In the capitalist mode of production, the intellectual labor of the employed engineer yields a salary, but not profits or losses

 

Strikers confronted by soldiers during the 1912 textile factory strike in Lawrence, Massachusetts, United States called when owners reduced wages after a state law reduced the work week from 56 to 54 hours

Alienation of the worker from the act of production

In the capitalist mode of production, the generation of products (goods and services) is accomplished with an endless sequence of discrete, repetitive motions that offer the worker little psychological satisfaction for "a job well done". By means of commodification, the labor power of the worker is reduced to wages (an exchange value); the psychological estrangement (Entfremdung) of the worker results from the unmediated relation between his productive labor and the wages paid to him for the labor. The worker is alienated from the means of production via two forms; wage compulsion and the imposed production content. The worker is bound to unwanted labor as a means of survival, labour is not "voluntary but coerced" (forced labor). The worker is only able to reject wage compulsion at the expense of their life and that of their family. The distribution of private property in the hands of wealth owners, combined with government enforced taxes compel workers to labor. In a capitalist world, our means of survival is based on monetary exchange, therefore we have no other choice than to sell our labor power and consequently be bound to the demands of the capitalist. The worker "[d]oes not feel content but unhappy, does not develop freely his physical and mental energy but mortifies his body and ruins his mind. The worker therefore only feels himself outside his work, and in his work feels outside himself"; "[l]abor is external to the worker" (p. 74), it is not a part of their essential being. During work, the worker is miserable, unhappy and drained of their energy, work "mortifies his body and ruins his mind". The production content, direction and form are imposed by the capitalist. The worker is being controlled and told what to do since they do not own the means of production they have no say in production, "labor is external to the worker, i.e. it does not belong to his essential being (p. 74). A person's mind should be free and conscious, instead it is controlled and directed by the capitalist, "the external character of labor for the worker appears in the fact that it is not his own but someone else's, that it does not belong to him, that in it he belongs, not to himself, but to another" (p. 74). This means he cannot freely and spontaneously create according to his own directive as labor's form and direction belong to someone else.

Alienation of the worker from their Gattungswesen (species-essence)

The Gattungswesen (species-essence), human nature of individuals is not discrete (separate and apart) from their activity as a worker and as such species-essence also comprises all of innate human potential as a person. Conceptually, in the term "species-essence" the word "species" describes the intrinsic human mental essence that is characterized by a "plurality of interests" and "psychological dynamism", whereby every individual has the desire and the tendency to engage in the many activities that promote mutual human survival and psychological well-being, by means of emotional connections with other people, with society. The psychic value of a human consists in being able to conceive (think) of the ends of their actions as purposeful ideas, which are distinct from the actions required to realize a given idea. That is, humans are able to objectify their intentions by means of an idea of themselves as "the subject" and an idea of the thing that they produce, "the object". Conversely, unlike a human being an animal does not objectify itself as "the subject" nor its products as ideas, "the object", because an animal engages in directly self-sustaining actions that have neither a future intention, nor a conscious intention. Whereas a person's Gattungswesen (human nature) does not exist independently of specific, historically conditioned activities, the essential nature of a human being is actualized when an individual—within their given historical circumstance—is free to subordinate their will to the internal demands they have imposed upon themselves by their imagination and not the external demands imposed upon individuals by other people.

Relations of production

Whatever the character of a person's consciousness (will and imagination), societal existence is conditioned by their relationships with the people and things that facilitate survival, which is fundamentally dependent upon co-operation with others, thus, a person's consciousness is determined inter-subjectively (collectively), not subjectively (individually), because humans are a social animal. In the course of history, to ensure individual survival societies have organized themselves into groups who have different, basic relationships to the means of production. One societal group (class) owned and controlled the means of production while another societal class worked the means of production and in the relations of production of that status quo the goal of the owner-class was to economically benefit as much as possible from the labour of the working class. In the course of economic development when a new type of economy displaced an old type of economy—agrarian feudalism superseded by mercantilism, in turn superseded by the Industrial Revolution—the rearranged economic order of the social classes favored the social class who controlled the technologies (the means of production) that made possible the change in the relations of production. Likewise, there occurred a corresponding rearrangement of the human nature (Gattungswesen) and the system of values of the owner-class and of the working-class, which allowed each group of people to accept and to function in the rearranged status quo of production-relations.

Despite the ideological promise of industrialization—that the mechanization of industrial production would raise the mass of the workers from a brutish life of subsistence existence to honorable work—the division of labor inherent to the capitalist mode of production thwarted the human nature (Gattungswesen) of the worker and so rendered each individual into a mechanistic part of an industrialized system of production, from being a person capable of defining their value through direct, purposeful activity. Moreover, the near-total mechanization and automation of the industrial production system would allow the (newly) dominant bourgeois capitalist social class to exploit the working class to the degree that the value obtained from their labor would diminish the ability of the worker to materially survive. Hence, when the proletarian working-class become a sufficiently developed political force, they will effect a revolution and re-orient the relations of production to the means of production—from a capitalist mode of production to a communist mode of production. In the resultant communist society, the fundamental relation of the workers to the means of production would be equal and non-conflictual because there would be no artificial distinctions about the value of a worker's labor; the worker's humanity (species-essence) thus respected, men and women would not become alienated. 

In the communist socio-economic organization, the relations of production would operate the mode of production and employ each worker according to their abilities and benefit each worker according to their needs. Hence, each worker could direct their labor to productive work suitable to their own innate abilities, rather than be forced into a narrowly defined, minimal-wage "job" meant to extract maximal profit from individual labor as determined by and dictated under the capitalist mode of production. In the classless, collectively-managed communist society, the exchange of value between the objectified productive labor of one worker and the consumption benefit derived from that production will not be determined by or directed to the narrow interests of a bourgeois capitalist class, but instead will be directed to meet the needs of each producer and consumer. Although production will be differentiated by the degree of each worker's abilities, the purpose of the communist system of industrial production will be determined by the collective requirements of society, not by the profit-oriented demands of a capitalist social class who live at the expense of the greater society. Under the collective ownership of the means of production, the relation of each worker to the mode of production will be identical and will assume the character that corresponds to the universal interests of the communist society. The direct distribution of the fruits of the labour of each worker to fulfill the interests of the working class—and thus to an individuals own interest and benefit—will constitute an un-alienated state of labor conditions, which restores to the worker the fullest exercise and determination of their human nature.

Alienation of the worker from other workers

Capitalism reduces the labour of the worker to a commercial commodity that can be traded in the competitive labor market, rather than as a constructive socio-economic activity that is part of the collective common effort performed for personal survival and the betterment of society. In a capitalist economy, the businesses who own the means of production establish a competitive labor market meant to extract from the worker as much labour (value) as possible in the form of capital. The capitalist economy's arrangement of the relations of production provokes social conflict by pitting worker against worker in a competition for "higher wages", thereby alienating them from their mutual economic interests; the effect is a false consciousness, which is a form of ideological control exercised by the capitalist bourgeoisie through its cultural hegemony. Furthermore, in the capitalist mode of production the philosophic collusion of religion in justifying the relations of production facilitates the realization and then worsens the alienation (Entfremdung) of the worker from their humanity; it is a socio-economic role independent of religion being "the opiate of the masses".

Philosophical significance

Philosopher Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel (1770–1831) postulated the idealism that Marx countered with dialectical materialism

 

Philosopher Ludwig Feuerbach (1804–1872) analysed religion from a psychological perspective in The Essence of Christianity (1841) and according to him divinity is humanity's projection of their human nature

Influences: Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel and Ludwig Feuerbach

In Marxist theory, Entfremdung (alienation) is a foundational proposition about man's progress towards self-actualisation. In the Oxford Companion to Philosophy (2005), Ted Honderich described the influences of Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel and Ludwig Feuerbach upon Karl Marx:

For Hegel, the unhappy consciousness is divided against itself, separated from its "essence", which it has placed in a "beyond".

As used by the philosophers Hegel and Marx, the reflexive German verbs entäussern ("to divest one's self of") and entfremden ("to become estranged") indicate that the term "alienation" denotes self-alienation: to be estranged from one's essential nature. Therefore, alienation is a lack of self-worth, the absence of meaning in one's life, consequent to being coerced to lead a life without opportunity for self-fulfillment, without the opportunity to become actualized, to become one's self.

In The Phenomenology of Spirit (1807), Hegel described the stages in the development of the human Geist ("Spirit"), by which men and women progress from ignorance to knowledge, of the self and of the world. Developing Hegel's human-spirit proposition, Marx said that those poles of idealism—"spiritual ignorance" and "self-understanding"—are replaced with material categories, whereby "spiritual ignorance" becomes "alienation" and "self-understanding" becomes man's realisation of his Gattungswesen (species-essence).

Entfremdung and the theory of history

In Part I: "Feuerbach – Opposition of the Materialist and Idealist Outlook" of The German Ideology (1846), Karl Marx said the following:

Things have now come to such a pass that the individuals must appropriate the existing totality of productive forces, not only to achieve self-activity, but also, merely, to safeguard their very existence.

That humans psychologically require the life activities that lead to their self-actualization as persons remains a consideration of secondary historical relevance because the capitalist mode of production eventually will exploit and impoverish the proletariat until compelling them to social revolution for survival. Yet, social alienation remains a practical concern, especially among the contemporary philosophers of Marxist humanism. In The Marxist-Humanist Theory of State-Capitalism (1992), Raya Dunayevskaya discussed and described the existence of the desire for self-activity and self-actualisation among wage-labour workers struggling to achieve the elementary goals of material life in a capitalist economy.

Entfremdung and social class

In Chapter 4 of The Holy Family (1845), Marx said that capitalists and proletarians are equally alienated, but that each social class experiences alienation in a different form:

The propertied class and the class of the proletariat present the same human self-estrangement. But the former class feels at ease and strengthened in this self-estrangement, it recognizes estrangement as its own power, and has in it the semblance of a human existence. The class of the proletariat feels annihilated, this means that they cease to exist in estrangement; it sees in it its own powerlessness and in the reality of an inhuman existence. It is, to use an expression of Hegel, in its abasement, the indignation at that abasement, an indignation to which it is necessarily driven by the contradiction between its human nature and its condition of life, which is the outright, resolute and comprehensive negation of that nature. Within this antithesis, the private property-owner is therefore the conservative side, and the proletarian the destructive side. From the former arises the action of preserving the antithesis, from the latter the action of annihilating it.

Criticism

In discussion of "random materialism" (matérialisme aléatoire), the French philosopher Louis Althusser criticized such a teleological (goal-oriented) interpretation of Marx's theory of alienation because it rendered the proletariat as the subject of history; an interpretation tainted with the Hegelian idealism of the "philosophy of the subject", which he criticized as the "bourgeois ideology of philosophy" (see History and Class Consciousness [1923] by György Lukács).

Psychopathy in the workplace

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

 

The presence of psychopathy in the workplace—although psychopaths typically represent a relatively small percentage of the staff—can do enormous damage when in senior management roles. Psychopaths are usually most common at higher levels of corporate organizations and their actions often cause a ripple effect throughout an organization, setting the tone for an entire corporate culture. Examples of detrimental effects are increased bullying, conflict, stress, staff turnover and absenteeism; reduction in productivity and in social responsibility. Ethical standards of entire organizations can be badly damaged if a corporate psychopath is in charge. A 2017 UK study found that companies with leaders who show "psychopathic characteristics" destroy shareholder value, tending to have poor future returns on equity.

 

Academics refer to psychopaths in the workplace individually variously as workplace psychopaths, executive psychopaths, corporate psychopaths, business psychopaths, successful psychopaths, office psychopaths, white-collar psychopaths, industrial psychopaths, organizational psychopaths or occupational psychopaths. Criminal psychologist Robert D. Hare coined the term "Snakes in Suits" as a synonym for workplace psychopaths.

General

Oliver James identifies psychopathy as one of the dark triadic personality traits in the workplace, the others being narcissism and Machiavellianism.

Workplace psychopaths are often charming to staff above their level in the workplace hierarchy but abusive to staff below their level.

Workplace psychopaths maintain multiple personas throughout the office, presenting each colleague with a different version of themselves.

Hare considers newspaper tycoon Robert Maxwell to have been a strong candidate as a corporate psychopath.

Differentiation is made between:

• successful psychopaths – corporate climbers involved in irregular crime who tend to have had more privileged background, high IQ, and little risk of legal penalties.
• unsuccessful psychopaths – involved in regular crime who tend to have had less privileged backgrounds, low IQ, and much higher risk of legal penalties.

Incidence

Hare reports that about 1 percent of the general population meets the clinical criteria for psychopathy. Hare further claims that the prevalence of psychopaths is higher in the business world than in the general population. Figures of around 3–4% have been cited for more senior positions in business. A 2011 study of Australian white-collar managers found that 5.76 percent could be classed psychopathic and another 10.42 percent dysfunctional with psychopathic characteristics.

The organizational psychopath

The organizational psychopath craves a god-like feeling of power and control over other people. They prefer to work at the very highest levels of their organizations, allowing them to control the greatest number of people. Psychopaths who are political leaders, managers, and CEOs fall into this category.

Organizational psychopaths generally appear to be intelligent, sincere, powerful, charming, witty, and entertaining communicators. They quickly assess what people want to hear and then create stories that fit those expectations. They will con people into doing their work for them, take credit for other people's work and even assign their work to junior staff members. They have low patience when dealing with others, display shallow emotions, are unpredictable, undependable and fail to take responsibility if something goes wrong that is their fault.

According to a study from the University of Notre Dame published in the Journal of Business Ethics, psychopaths have a natural advantage in workplaces overrun by abusive supervision, and are more likely to thrive under abusive bosses, being more resistant to stress, including interpersonal abuse, and having less of a need for positive relationships than others.

Careers with highest proportion of psychopaths

According to Dutton, the ten careers that have the highest proportion of psychopaths are:

1. CEO
2. Lawyer
3. Media (TV/radio)
4. Salesperson
5. Surgeon
6. Journalist
7. Police officer
8. Clergy
9. Chef
10. Civil servant

Behavioral patterns

The face of suspected psychopath Robert Maxwell. The media proprietor was described by criminal psychologist Robert D. Hare as a man who "sure had psychopathic tendencies".

 

The workplace psychopath may show a high number of the following behavioral patterns. The individual behaviours themselves are not exclusive to the workplace psychopath; though the higher number of patterns exhibited the more likely he or she will conform to the psychopath's characteristic profile:

• Public humiliation of others (high propensity of having temper tantrums or ridiculing work performance)
• Malicious spreading of lies (intentionally deceitful)
• Remorseless, or devoid of guilt
• Frequently lies to push his/her point
• Produces exaggerated bodily expressions (yawning, sneezing, etc.) as a means of gaining attention
• Rapidly shifts between emotions – used to manipulate people or cause high anxiety
• Intentionally isolates persons from organizational resources
• Quick to blame others for mistakes or for incomplete work even though he/she is guilty
• Encourages co-workers to torment, alienate, harass, and/or humiliate other peers
• Takes credit for other people's accomplishments
• Steals and/or sabotages other persons' works
• Refuses to take responsibility for misjudgements and/or errors
• Responds inappropriately to stimuli, such as with a high-pitched and forced laugh
• Threatens any perceived enemy with discipline and/or job loss in order to taint employee file
• Sets unrealistic and unachievable job expectations to set employees up for failure
• Refuses or is reluctant to attend meetings with more than one person
• Refuses to provide adequate training and/or instructions to singled out victim
• Invades personal privacy of others
• Has multiple sexual encounters with other employees
• Develops new ideas without real follow through
• Very self-centered and extremely egotistical (often conversation revolves around them – great deal of self-importance)
• Often "borrows" money and/or other material objects without any intentions of giving it back
• Will do whatever it takes to close the deal (no regard for ethics or legality).

How a typical workplace psychopath climbs to and maintains power

The authors of the book Snakes in Suits: When Psychopaths Go to Work describe a five-phase model of how a typical workplace psychopath climbs to and maintains power:

1. Entry – psychopaths may use highly developed social skills and charm to obtain employment into an organisation. At this stage it will be difficult to spot anything which is indicative of psychopathic behaviour, and as a new employee one might perceive the psychopath to be helpful and even benevolent.
2. Assessment – psychopaths will weigh one up according to one's usefulness, and one could be recognised as either a pawn (who has some informal influence and will be easily manipulated) or a patron (who has formal power and will be used by the psychopath to protect against attacks)
3. Manipulation – psychopath will create a scenario of “psychopathic fiction” where positive information about themselves and negative disinformation about others will be created, where one's role as a part of a network of pawns or patrons will be utilised and will be groomed into accepting the psychopath's agenda.
4. Confrontation – the psychopath will use techniques of character assassination to maintain their agenda, and one will be either discarded as a pawn or used as a patron
5. Ascension – one's role as a patron in the psychopath's quest for power will be discarded, and the psychopath will take for himself/herself a position of power and prestige from anyone who once supported them.

Why psychopaths readily get hired

Leading commentators on psychopathy have said that companies inadvertently attract employees who are psychopaths because of the wording of their job advertisements and their desire to engage people who are prepared to do whatever it takes to be successful in business. However, in one case at least, an advert explicitly asked for a sales executive with psychopathic tendencies. The advert title read "Psychopathic New Business Media Sales Executive Superstar! £50k - £110k".

Corporate psychopaths are readily recruited into organizations because they make a distinctly positive impression at interviews. They appear to be alert, friendly and easy to get along with and talk to. They look like they are of good ability, emotionally well adjusted and reasonable, and these traits make them attractive to those in charge of hiring staff within organizations. Unlike narcissists, psychopaths are better able to create long-lasting favorable first impressions, though people may still eventually see through their facades. Psychopaths’ undesirable personality traits may be easily misperceived by even skilled interviewers. For instance, their irresponsibility may be misconstrued by employers as risk-taking or entrepreneurial spirit. Their thrill-seeking tendencies may be conveyed as high energy and enthusiasm for the job or work. Their superficial charm may be misinterpreted by interviewers as charisma. It is worth noting that psychopaths are not only accomplished liars, they are also more likely to lie in interviews. For instance, psychopaths may create fictitious work experiences or resumes. They may also fabricate credentials such as diplomas, certifications, or awards. Thus, in addition to seeming competent and likable in interviews, psychopaths are also more likely to outright make-up information during interviews than non-psychopaths.

Why psychopaths readily get promoted

Corporate psychopaths within organizations may be singled out for rapid promotion because of their polish, charm, and cool decisiveness. They are also helped by their manipulative and bullying skills. They create confusion around them (divide and rule etc.) using instrumental bullying to promote their own agenda.

Bad consequences

Boddy identifies the following bad consequences of workplace psychopathy (with additional cites in some cases):

• Workplace bullying of employees
• Employees lose their jobs
• Legal liabilities
• Shareholders lose their investments
• Wasted employee time
• Suboptimal employee performance
• Increased workload
• Difficult working conditions
• Poor levels of job satisfaction
• Lower perceived levels of corporate social responsibility
• Raised staff turnover
• Absenteeism
• Heightened level of workplace conflict – arguments, yelling, rudeness, divide and conquer
• Counterproductive work behavior

Counterproductive work behavior

Boddy suggests that because of abusive supervision by corporate psychopaths, large amounts of anti-company feeling will be generated among the employees of the organizations that corporate psychopaths work in. This should result in high levels of counterproductive behavior as employees give vent to their anger with the corporation, which they perceive to be acting through its corporate psychopathic managers in a way that is eminently unfair to them.

According to a 2017 UK study, a high ranking corporate psychopath could trigger lower ranked staff to become workplace bullies as a manifestation of counterproductive work behavior.

Corporate psychopath theory of the global financial crisis

Boddy makes the case that corporate psychopaths were instrumental in causing the 2007–08 global financial crisis. He claims that the same corporate psychopaths who probably caused the crisis by greed and avarice are now advising government on how to get out of the crisis.

Psychologist Oliver James has described the credit crunch as a “mass outbreak of corporate psychopathy which resulted in something that very nearly crashed the whole world economy.”

For example, during the financial crisis, the behavior of some key people at the top of the world's largest banks came under scrutiny. At the time of its collapse in 2008 the Royal Bank of Scotland was the world's fifth largest bank by market capitalization. CEO Fred "the Shred" Goodwin was known for taking excessive risks and showing little concern for his mismanagement, which led to the bank's collapse. Goodwin's demeanor toward colleagues was unpredictable and he is said to have lived a luxury lifestyle while fostering a culture of fear, such that "colleagues suspected he was a psychopath".

Renowned psychotherapist Professor Manfred F. R. Kets de Vries singled out Goodwin and former Barclays CEO Bob Diamond as exhibiting psychopathic behaviors in his working paper on the SOB, "seductive operational bully - or psychopath lite"

Screening

From an organizational perspective, organizations can insulate themselves from the organizational psychopath by taking the following steps when recruiting:

• conduct behavioral type interview
• verify information contained in the curriculum vitae
• conduct reference checks
• obtain work samples
• carry out criminal reference checks.

The following tests could be used to screen psychopaths:

• Psychopathy Checklist: Screening Version (PCL:SV)
• Psychopathy Measure – Management Research Version (PM-MRV)
• Business-Scan (B-SCAN) test.

There have been anecdotal reports that at least one UK bank was using a psychopathy measure to actively recruit psychopaths.

Workplace bullying overlap

Narcissism, lack of self-regulation, lack of remorse, and lack of conscience have been identified as traits displayed by bullies. These traits are shared with psychopaths, indicating that there is some theoretical cross-over between bullies and psychopaths. Bullying is used by corporate psychopaths as a tactic to humiliate subordinates. Bullying is also used as a tactic to scare, confuse and disorient those who may be a threat to the activities of the corporate psychopath. Using meta data analysis on hundred of UK research papers, Boddy concluded that 36% of bullying incidents was caused by the presence of corporate psychopaths. According to Boddy, there are two types of bullying:

• Predatory bullying – the bully just enjoys bullying and tormenting vulnerable people for the sake of it
• Instrumental bullying – the bullying is for a purpose, helping the bully achieve his or her goals.

A corporate psychopath uses instrumental bullying to further his goals of promotion and power as the result of causing confusion and divide and rule. 

People with high scores on a psychopathy rating scale are more likely to engage in bullying, crime, and drug use than other people. Hare and Babiak noted that about 29 per cent of corporate psychopaths are also bullies. Other research has also shown that people with high scores on a psychopathy rating scale were more likely to engage in bullying, again indicating that psychopaths tend to be bullies in the workplace.

A workplace bully or abuser will often have issues with social functioning. These types of people often have psychopathic traits that are difficult to identify in the hiring and promotion process. These individuals often lack anger management skills and have a distorted sense of reality. Consequently, when confronted with the accusation of abuse, the abuser is not aware that any harm was done.

In fiction

• Gordon Gekko in the 1987 film Wall Street and its sequel
• Patrick Bateman in the 1991 novel American Psycho and its 2000 film adaptation American Psycho (film)
• Dave Matthews, the star character in the 2009 film Freefall
• Lou Bloom in the 2014 film Nightcrawler
• Cyril Magnus in the novel, The Tyranny of Psychopaths, a satire

Occupational health psychology

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

 

Occupational health psychology (OHP) is an interdisciplinary area of psychology that is concerned with the health and safety of workers. OHP addresses a number of major topic areas including the impact of occupational stressors on physical and mental health, the impact of involuntary unemployment on physical and mental health, work-family balance, workplace violence and other forms of mistreatment, accidents and safety, and interventions designed to improve/protect worker health. OHP emerged from two distinct disciplines within applied psychology, namely, health psychology and industrial and organizational psychology, as well as occupational medicine. OHP has also been informed by other disciplines including industrial sociology, industrial engineering, and economics, as well as preventive medicine and public health. OHP is concerned with the relationship of psychosocial workplace factors to the development, maintenance, and promotion of workers' health and that of their families. Thus the field's focus is work-related factors that can lead to injury, disease, and distress.

Historical overview

Origins

The Industrial Revolution prompted thinkers, such as Karl Marx with his theory of alienation, to concern themselves with the nature of work and its impact on workers. Taylor's (1911) Principles of Scientific Management as well as Mayo’s research in the late 1920s and early 1930s on workers at the Hawthorne Western Electric plant helped to inject the impact of work on workers into the subject matter psychology addresses. About the time Taylorism arose, Hartness reconsidered worker-machine interaction and its impact on worker psychology. The creation in 1948 of the Institute for Social Research (ISR) at the University of Michigan was important because of its research on occupational stress and employee health.

Research in the U.K. by Trist and Bamforth (1951) suggested the reduction in autonomy that accompanied organizational changes in English coal mining operations adversely affected worker morale. Arthur Kornhauser’s work in the early 1960s on the mental health of automobile workers in Michigan also contributed to the development of the field. A 1971 study by Gardell examined the impact of work organization on mental health in Swedish pulp and paper mill workers and engineers. Research on the impact of unemployment on mental health was conducted at the University of Sheffield’s Institute of Work Psychology. In 1970 Kasl and Cobb documented the impact of unemployment on blood pressure in U.S. factory workers.

Recognition as a field of study

A number of individuals are associated with the creation of the term “occupational health psychology” or "occupational health psychologist." They include Ferguson (1977), Feldman (1985), Everly (1986), and Raymond, Wood, and Patrick (1990). In 1988, in response to a dramatic increase in the number of stress-related worker compensation claims in the U.S., the National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health (NIOSH) "recognized stress-related psychological disorders as a leading occupational health risk" (p. 201). When this change was coupled with an increased recognition of the impact of stress on a range of problems in the workplace, NIOSH found that their stress-related programs were significantly increasing in prominence. In 1990, Raymond et al. argued that the time has come for doctoral-level psychologists to get interdisciplinary OHP training, integrating health psychology with public health, because creating healthy workplaces should be a goal for the field.

Emergence as a discipline

Established in 1987, Work & Stress is the first and "longest established journal in the fast developing discipline that is occupational health psychology" (p. 1). Three years later, the American Psychological Association (APA) and NIOSH jointly organized the first international Work, Stress, and Health conference in Washington, DC. The conference has since become a biannual OHP meeting. In 1996, the first issue of the Journal of Occupational Health Psychology was published by APA. That same year, the International Commission on Occupational Health created the Work Organisation and Psychosocial Factors (ICOH-WOPS) scientific committee, which focused primarily on OHP. In 1999, the European Academy of Occupational Health Psychology (EA-OHP) was established at the first European Workshop on Occupational Health Psychology in Lund, Sweden.^[31] That workshop is considered to be the first EA-OHP conference, the first of a continuing series of conferences EA-OHP organizes and devotes to OHP research and practice.

In 2000 the informal International Coordinating Group for Occupational Health Psychology (ICGOHP) was founded for the purpose of facilitating OHP-related research, education, and practice as well as coordinating international conference scheduling. Also in 2000, Work & Stress became associated with the EA-OHP. In 2005, the Society for Occupational Health Psychology (SOHP) was established in the United States. In 2008, SOHP joined with APA and NIOSH in co-sponsoring the Work, Stress, and Health conferences. In addition, EA-OHP and SOHP began to coordinate biennial conferences schedules such that the organizations' conferences would take place on alternate years, minimizing scheduling conflicts. In 2017, SOHP and Springer began to publish an OHP-related journal Occupational Health Science.

Research methods

The main purpose of OHP research is to understand how working conditions affect worker health, use that knowledge to design interventions to protect and improve worker health, and evaluate the effectiveness of such interventions. The research methods used in OHP are similar to those used in other branches of psychology.

Standard research designs

Self-report survey methodology is the most used approach in OHP research. Cross-sectional designs are commonly used; case-control designs have been employed much less frequently. Longitudinal designs including prospective cohort studies and experience sampling studies can examine relationships over time. OHP-related research devoted to evaluating health-promoting workplace interventions has relied on quasi-experimental designs and, less commonly, experimental approaches.

Quantitative methods

Statistical methods commonly used in other areas of psychology are also used in OHP-related research. Statistical methods used include structural equation modeling and hierarchical linear modeling (HLM; also known as multilevel modeling). HLM can better adjust for similarities between employees and is especially well suited to evaluating the lagged impact of work stressors on health outcomes; in this research context HLM can help minimize censoring and is well-suited to experience sampling studies. Meta-analyses have been used to aggregate data (modern approaches to meta-analyses rely on HLM), and draw conclusions across multiple studies.

Qualitative research methods

Qualitative research methods include interviews, focus groups, and self-reported, written descriptions of stressful incidents at work. First-hand observation of workers on the job has also been used, as has participant observation.

Research topics

Important theoretical models in OHP research

Three influential theoretical models in OHP research are the demand-control-support, demand-resources, and effort-reward imbalance models.

Demand-control-support model

The most influential model in OHP research has been the original demand-control model. According to the model, the combination of low levels of work-related decision latitude (i.e., autonomy and control over the job) combined with high workloads (high levels of work demands) can be particularly harmful to workers (they can lead to "job strain," a term representing the combination of low decision latitude and high workload leading to poorer mental or physical health). The model suggests not only that these two job factors are related to poorer health but that high levels of decision latitude on the job will buffer or reduce the adverse health impact of high levels of demands. Research has clearly supported the idea that decision latitude and demands relate to strains, but research findings about buffering have been mixed with only some studies providing support. The demand-control model asserts that job control can come in two broad forms: ‘skill discretion’ and ‘decision authority’. Skill discretion refers to the level of skill and creativity required on the job and the flexibility an employee is permitted in deciding what skills to use (e.g. opportunity to use skills, similar to job variety). Decision authority refers to employees being able to make decisions about their work (e.g., having autonomy). These two forms of job control are traditionally assessed together in a composite measure of decision latitude; there is, however, some evidence that the two types of job control may not be similarly related to health outcomes.

About a decade after Karasek first introduced the demand-control model, Johnson, Hall, and Theorell (1989), in the context of research on heart disease, extended the model to include social isolation. Johnson et al. labeled the combination of high levels of demands, low levels of control, and low levels of coworker support “iso-strain.” The resulting expanded model has been labeled the demand–control–support (DCS) model. Research that followed the development of this model has suggested that one or more of the components of the DCS model (high psychological workload, low control, and lack of social support), if not the exact combination represented by iso-strain, have adverse effects of physical and mental health.

Job demands-resources model

An alternative model, the job demands-resources (JD-R) model, grew out of the DCS model. In the JD-R model, the category of demands (workload) remains more or less the same as in the DCS model although the JD-R model more specifically includes physical demands. Resources, however, are defined as job-relevant features that help workers achieve work-related goals, lessen job demands, or stimulate personal growth. Control and support as per the DCS model are subsumed under resources. Resources can be external (provided by the organization) or internal (part of a worker's personal make-up). In addition to control and support, resources encompassed by the model can also include physical equipment, software, performance feedback from supervisors, the worker's own coping strategies, etc. There has not, however, been as much research on the JD-R model as there has been on the constituents of the DC or DCS model.

Effort-reward imbalance model

After the DCS model, the, perhaps, second most influential model in OHP research has been the effort-reward imbalance (ERI) model. It links job demands to the rewards employees receive for the job. That model holds that high work-related effort coupled with low control over job-related intrinsic (e.g., recognition) and extrinsic (e.g., pay) rewards triggers high levels of activation in neurohormonal pathways that, cumulatively, are thought to exert adverse effects on mental and physical health.

Occupational stress and physical health

A number of work-related, psychosocial factors have been linked to cardiovascular disease (CVD).

Cardiovascular disease

Research has identified health-behavioral and biological factors that are related to increased risk for CVD. These risk factors include smoking, obesity, low density lipoprotein (the "bad" cholesterol), lack of exercise, and blood pressure. Psychosocial working conditions are also risk factors for CVD. In a case-control study involving two large U.S. data sets, Murphy (1991) found that hazardous work situations, jobs that required vigilance and responsibility for others, and work that required attention to devices were related to increased risk for cardiovascular disability. These included jobs in transportation (e.g., air traffic controllers, airline pilots, bus drivers, locomotive engineers, truck drivers), preschool teachers, and craftsmen. Among 30 studies involving men and women, most have found an association between workplace stressors and CVD. 

Fredikson, Sundin, and Frankenhaeuser (1985) found that reactions to psychological stressors include increased activity in the brain axes which play an important role in the regulation of blood pressure, particularly ambulatory blood pressure. A meta-analysis and systematic review involving 29 samples linked job strain to elevated ambulatory blood pressure. Belkić et al. (2000) found that many of the 30 studies covered in their review revealed that decision latitude and psychological workload exerted independent effects on CVD; two studies found synergistic effects, consistent with the strictest version of the demand-control model. A review of 17 longitudinal studies having reasonably high internal validity found that 8 showed a significant relation between the combination of low levels of decision latitude and high workload (the job strain condition) and CVD and 3 more showed a nonsignificant relation. The findings, however, were clearer for men than for women, on whom data were more sparse. Fishta and Backé's review-of-reviews also links work-related psychosocial stress to elevated risk of CVD in men. In a massive (n > 197,000) longitudinal study that combined data from 13 independent studies, Kivimäki et al. (2012) found that, controlling for other risk factors, the combination of high levels of demands and low control at baseline increased the risk of CVD in initially healthy workers by between 20 and 30% over a follow-up period that averaged 7.5 years. In this study the effects were similar for men and women. Meta-analytic research also links job strain (the combination of high demands and low control) to stroke.

There is evidence that, consistent with the ERI model, high work-related effort coupled with low control over job-related rewards adversely affects cardiovascular health. At least five studies of men have linked effort-reward imbalance with CVD. Another large study links ERI to the incidence of coronary disease.

Job-related burnout and cardiovascular health

There is evidence from a prospective study that job-related burnout, controlling for traditional risk factors, such as smoking and hypertension, increases the risk of coronary heart disease over the course of the next three and a half years in workers who were initially disease-free.

Job loss and physical health

Research has suggested that job loss adversely affects cardiovascular health as well as health in general.

Musculoskeletal disorders

Musculoskeletal disorders (MSDs) involve injury and pain to the joints and muscles of the body. Approximately 2.5 million workers in the US suffer from MSDs, which is the third most common cause of disability and early retirement for American workers. In Europe MSDs are the most often reported workplace health problem. The development of musculoskelelatal problems cannot be solely explained in the basis of biomechanical factors (e.g., repetitive motion) although such factors are important contributors. There has been evidence that psychosocial workplace factors (e.g., job strain) also contribute to the development of musculoskeletal problems. Systematic reviews and meta-analyses of high-quality longitudinal studies have indicated that psychosocial working conditions (e.g., supportive coworkers, monotonous work) are related to the development of MSDs.

Workplace mistreatment

There are many forms of workplace mistreatment ranging from relatively minor discourtesies to serious cases of bullying and violence.

Workplace incivility

Workplace incivility has been defined as "low-intensity deviant behavior with ambiguous intent to harm the target....Uncivil behaviors are characteristically rude and discourteous, displaying a lack of regard for others" (p. 457). Incivility is distinct from violence. Examples of workplace incivility include insulting comments, denigration of the target's work, spreading false rumors, social isolation, etc. A summary of research conducted in Europe suggests that workplace incivility is common there. In research on more than 1000 U.S. civil service workers, more than 70% of the sample experienced workplace incivility in the past five years. Compared to men, women were more exposed to incivility; incivility was associated with psychological distress and reduced job satisfaction.

Abusive supervision

Abusive supervision is the extent to which a supervisor engages in a pattern of behavior that harms subordinates.

Workplace bullying

Although definitions of workplace bullying vary, it involves a repeated pattern of harmful behaviors directed towards an individual by one or more others who have more power than the target. Workplace bullying is sometimes termed mobbing.

Sexual harassment

Sexual harassment is behavior that denigrates or mistreats an individual due to his or her gender, creates an offensive workplace, and interferes with an individual being able to do the job.

Workplace violence

Workplace violence is a significant health hazard for employees, both physically and psychologically.

Nonfatal assault

Most workplace assaults are nonfatal, with an annual physical assault rate of 6% in the U.S. Assaultive behavior in the workplace often produces injury, psychological distress, and economic loss. One study of California workers found a rate of 72.9 non-fatal, officially documented assaults per 100,000 workers per year, with workers in the education, retail, and health care sectors subject to excess risk. A Minnesota workers' compensation study found that women workers had a twofold higher risk of being injured in an assault than men, and health and social service workers, transit workers, and members of the education sector were at high risk for injury compared to workers in other economic sectors. A West Virginia workers' compensation study found that workers in the health care sector and, to a lesser extent, the education sector were at elevated risk for assault-related injury. Another workers' compensation study found that excessively high rates of assault-related injury in schools, healthcare, and, to a lesser extent, banking. In addition to the physical injury that results from being a victim of workplace violence, individuals who witness such violence without being directly victimized are at increased risk for experiencing adverse psychological effects, including high levels of distress and arousal, as found in a study of Los Angeles teachers.

Homicide

In 1996 there were 927 work-associated homicides in the United States, in a labor force that numbered approximately 132,616,000. The rate works out to be about 7 homicides per million workers for the one year. Men are more likely to be victims of workplace homicide than women.

Mental disorder

Research has found that psychosocial workplace factors are among the risk factors for a number of categories of mental disorder.

Alcohol abuse

Workplace factors can contribute to alcohol abuse and dependence of employees. Rates of abuse can vary by occupation, with high rates in the construction and transportation industries as well as among waiters and waitresses. Within the transportation sector, heavy truck drivers and material movers were shown to be at especially high risk. A prospective study of ECA subjects who were followed one year after the initial interviews provided data on newly incident cases of alcohol abuse and dependence. The study found that workers in jobs that combined low control with high physical demands were at increased risk of developing alcohol problems although the findings were confined to men.

Depression

Using data from the ECA study, Eaton, Anthony, Mandel, and Garrison (1990) found that members of three occupational groups, lawyers, secretaries, and special education teachers (but not other types of teachers) showed elevated rates of DSM-III major depression, adjusting for social demographic factors. The ECA study involved representative samples of American adults from five geographical areas, providing relatively unbiased estimates of the risk of mental disorder by occupation; however, because the data were cross-sectional, no conclusions bearing on cause-and-effect relations are warranted. Evidence from a Canadian prospective study indicated that individuals in the highest quartile of occupational stress (high-strain jobs as per the demand-control model) are at increased risk of experiencing an episode of major depression. A literature review and meta-analysis links high demands, low control, and low support to clinical depression. A meta-analysis that pooled the results of 11 well-designed longitudinal studies indicated that a number of facets of the psychosocial work environment (e.g., low decision latitude, high psychological workload, lack of social support at work, effort-reward imbalance, and job insecurity) increase the risk of common mental disorders such as depression.

Personality disorders

Depending on the diagnosis, severity and individual, and the job itself, personality disorders can be associated with difficulty coping with work or the workplace, potentially leading to problems with others by interfering with interpersonal relationships. Indirect effects also play a role; for example, impaired educational progress or complications outside of work, such as substance abuse and co-morbid mental disorders, can plague sufferers. However, personality disorders can also bring about above-average work abilities by increasing competitive drive or causing the sufferer to exploit his or her co-workers.

Schizophrenia

In a case-control study, Link, Dohrenwend, and Skodol found that, compared to depressed and well control subjects, schizophrenic patients were more likely to have had jobs, prior to their first episode of the disorder, that exposed them to “noisesome” work characteristics (e.g., noise, humidity, heat, cold, etc.). The jobs tended to be of higher status than other blue collar jobs, suggesting that downward drift in already-affected individuals does not account for the finding. One explanation involving a diathesis-stress model suggests that the job-related stressors helped precipitate the first episode in already-vulnerable individuals. There is some supporting evidence from the Epidemiologic Catchment Area (ECA) study.

Psychological distress

Longitudinal studies have suggested adverse working conditions can contribute to the development of psychological distress. Psychological distress refers to negative affect, without the individuals necessarily meeting criteria for a psychiatric disorder. Psychological distress is often expressed in affective (depressive), psychophysical or psychosomatic (e.g., headaches, stomach aches, etc.), and anxiety symptoms. The relation of adverse working conditions to psychological distress is thus an important avenue of research. Job satisfaction is also related to negative health outcomes. A literature review and meta-analysis of high-quality longitudinal studies link high demands, low control, and low support to psychological symptoms.

Psychosocial working conditions

Parkes (1982) studied the relation of working conditions to psychological distress in British student nurses. She found that in this "natural experiment," student nurses experienced higher levels of distress and lower levels of job satisfaction in medical wards than in surgical wards; compared to surgical wards, medical wards make greater affective demands on the nurses. In another study, Frese (1985) concluded that objective working conditions (e.g., noise, ambiguities, conflicts) give rise to subjective stress and psychosomatic symptoms in blue collar German workers. In addition to the above studies, a number of other well-controlled longitudinal studies have implicated work stressors in the development of psychological distress and reduced job satisfaction.

Unemployment

A comprehensive meta-analysis involving 86 studies indicated that involuntary job loss is linked to increased psychological distress. The impact of involuntary unemployment was comparatively weaker in countries that had greater income equality and better social safety nets. The research evidence also indicates that poorer mental health slightly, but significantly, increases the risk of later job loss.

Economic insecurity

Some OHP research is concerned with (a) understanding the impact of economic crises on individuals' physical and mental health and well-being and (b) calling attention to personal and organizational means for ameliorating the impact of the crisis. Economic insecurity contributes, at least partly, to psychological distress and work-family conflict. Ongoing job insecurity, even in the absence of job loss, is related to higher levels of depressive symptoms, psychological distress, and worse overall health.

Work-family balance

Employees must balance their working lives with their home lives. Work–family conflict is a situation in which the demands of work conflict with the demands of family or vice versa, making it difficult to adequately do both, giving rise to distress. Although more research has been conducted on work-family conflict, there is also the phenomenon of work-family enhancement, which occurs when positive effects carry over from one domain into the other.

Workplace interventions

A number of stress management interventions have emerged that have shown demonstrable effects in reducing job stress. Cognitive behavioral interventions have tended to have greatest impact on stress reduction.

Industrial organizations

OHP interventions often concern both the health of the individual and the health of the organization. Adkins (1999) described the development of one such intervention, an organizational health center (OHC) at a California industrial complex. The OHC helped to improve both organizational and individual health as well as help workers manage job stress. Innovations included labor-management partnerships, suicide risk reduction, conflict mediation, and occupational mental health support. OHC practitioners also coordinated their services with previously underutilized local community services in the same city, thus reducing redundancy in service delivery.

Hugentobler, Israel, and Schurman (1992) detailed a different, multi-layered intervention in a mid-sized Michigan manufacturing plant. The hub of the intervention was the Stress and Wellness Committee (SWC) which solicited ideas from workers on ways to improve both their well-being and productivity. Innovations the SWC developed included improvements that ensured two-way communication between workers and management and reduction in stress resulting from diminished conflict over issues of quantity versus quality. Both the interventions described by Adkins and Hugentobler et al. had a positive impact on productivity.

OHP research at the National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health

Currently there are efforts under way at NIOSH to help reduce the incidence of preventable disorders (e.g., sleep apnea) among heavy-truck and tractor-trailer drivers and, concomitantly, the life-threatening accidents to which the disorders lead, improve the health and safety of workers who are assigned to shift work or who work long hours, and reduce the incidence of falls among iron workers.

Military and first responders

The Mental Health Advisory Teams of the United States Army employ OHP-related interventions with combat troops. OHP also has a role to play in interventions aimed at helping first responders.

Modestly scaled interventions

Schmitt (2007) described three different modestly scaled OHP-related interventions that helped workers abstain from smoking, exercise more frequently, and shed weight. Other OHP interventions include a campaign to improve the rates of hand washing, an effort to get workers to walk more often, and a drive to get employees to be more compliant with regard to taking prescribed medicines. The interventions tended reduce organization health-care costs.

Health promotion

Organizations can play a role in the health behavior of employees by providing resources to encourage healthy behavior in areas of exercise, nutrition, and smoking cessation.

Prevention

Although the dimensions of the problem of workplace violence vary by economic sector, one sector, education, has had some limited success in introducing programmatic, psychologically-based efforts to reduce the level of violence. Research suggests that there continue to be difficulties in successfully "screening out applicants [for jobs] who may be prone to engaging in aggressive behavior," suggesting that aggression-prevention training of existing employees may be an alternative to screening. Only a small number of studies evaluating the effectiveness of training programs to reduce workplace violence currently exist.

Total Worker Health™

Because many companies have implemented worker safety and health measures in a fragmented way, a new approach to worker safety and health has emerged in response, driven by efforts advanced by NIOSH. NIOSH trademarked that approach, naming it Total Worker Health. Total Worker Health involves the coordination of evidence-based (a) health promotion practices at the level of the individual worker and (b) umbrella-like health and safety practices at the level of the organizational unit. Research findings indicate that this two-pronged approach is effective in preventing work-related illness and injury.

Accidents and safety

Psychological factors are an important factor in occupational accidents that can lead to injury and death of employees. An important influence on the incidence of accidents is the organization's safety climate that is employees' shared beliefs about how supervisors reward and support safety behavior.