Appraches in Business Psychology - Essay Example

Genetics, Gender and Socialization in the Workplace Genetics, gender and socialisation will always emerge as issues in business psychology. An organisation is not a biological organism but it is nevertheless, changing, active and mobile. Whilst the members of the organization are people and the three issues mentioned above will likely affect them if they work together in an organization. Berkeley neuroscientist Marc Breedlove (1994) has deemed that all psychological phenomena—including learning, memory, and motor skills—must be a function of the brain.

However, to say that behaviour is a function of the brain is not to say that behaviour is “innate.” The human brain is extraordinarily plastic. It is influenced by experience. To observe that a brain structure or a brain process is correlated with gender does not necessarily imply that brain differences cause gender differences. Gender differences in brain structure may result from gender differences in learning, experience, and socialization.All the elements of an organisation – the members, functions, rules, governing authority, revenue and ideas – must be regrouped around series of basic political issues.

Thus, it becomes necessary to identify the issues so that politics in an organisation may be examined in dynamic terms. What issues are these? There are several issues, but the concern of this paper is the issue on the gender. Members are associated within the organisation; they must stand in some kind of relation to each other. In fact, the members are the most important element of the organisation. If the organisation is a pyramid then they were the base; therefore, they are the very foundation of the group.

Authorities might be at the top directing and leading the organisation but they should have a thorough understanding of this element to able to run the organisation smoothly. Are all members placed on equal footing? Or are some superior to the rest? The truth is, no matter how bad it seems to be, members would always be categorized according to class in a society where they belong. This fact would tell us that business leaders, in order to interpret their mission and vision, must always conduct class analysis.

Rowe (1994) asserted that “the measures we label as environmental (including such central ones as social class) may hide genetic variation” (p. 5). And how do genes create the environment? To Rowe, The answer is that the genes may construct a nervous system--and that hormones and neurotransmitters may then motivate behaviors resulting in the dramatic redesign of an environment. The way a beaver will restructure its environment is as genetically shaped as its flat tail and keen hearing. (p. 90) One of the greatest issues that will probably emerge in an organisation is “stereotyping”.

This far worse in the basis of gender wherein women will somehow feel that they are the “weaker sex”, in one way or another. At the workplace, in school and in the community, there will always be social classes as prescribed by social stratification. And we all are aware that in any type of stratification, the strong overrules the weak. On the basis of a functionalist perspective, the affirmative assessment of stratification is deemed to be inevitable. As long as there is division of labor in society, and that different societal roles have different degrees of importance, these different role positions must be filled by people.

Furthermore, nobody can fill in any of the potentially available roles - there is the differential scarcity of personnel available, so that there is a need for the society to make sure that the most qualified individuals fill the most appropriate role positions for his or her ability. So long as there are these functional necessities facing the society, then stratification system - by providing for the differential reward for differentially valued role positions - is the functionally necessary mechanism of the society making sure right people fill the right positions.

In other words, stratification system provides for the appropriate motivations for the people to seek to fill certain role positions and desire to perform the appropriate tasks required of that position adequately (Grusky, 1984).The problem with gender stereotypes goes with the issue that many people are somehow unmindful to it. It occurs when we find ourselves making assumptions about members of our own or the opposite sex. For example, in the workplace, male applicants are always preferred by business executives because they could save up because the maternity leave that a woman needs in case she gets pregnant in the duration of her work.

This is the reason why business organisations should formulate gender sensitive guidelines to avoid falling into the “stereotyping” bandwagon. All members in an organisation are vital elements that leaders need to focus on the challenges of their nature, the lack of connection between structural class inequality and class awareness would lead to unproductive workers that might severely affect them as a whole. Thus, human resource professionals should focus on how to maximize the possibility that relationships at work will serve as sites for social and emotional learning that would be fruitful for everyone, despite the members’ differences.

ReferencesBreedlove, S. M. 1994. Sexual differentiation of the human nervous system. Annual Review of Psychology, 45, 389–418.Grusky, D. 1984. Social Stratification. Boulder: Westview Press.Rowe, D. C. 1994. The Limits of Family Influence: Genes, Experience, and Behaviour. New York: Guilford Press.