Week 4 Flashcards
What are the 3 key facets of love according to Sternberg?
ntimacy, passion, and commitment.
Socioemotional selectivity theory
as time horizons shrink, as they typically do with age, people become increasingly selective, investing greater resources in emotionally meaningful goals and activities. According to the theory, motivational shifts also influence cognitive processing. Aging is associated with a relative preference for positive over negative information in attention and memory (called the “positivity effect”).
The Meaning of Work
Occupation doesn’t affect need to derive meaning from work. Four meanings that describe work: Developing self Union with others Expressing self Serving others.
Occupational Choice
Career construction theory:
People build careers from the interface of personal characteristics and the social context
Two theories:
Holland’s personality-type theory
Optimize person-occupation fit
Personality
Investigative, Social, Realistic, Artistic, Conventional, Enterprising
Social cognitive career theory
Career choice is the result of the application of Bandura’s social cognitive theory, especially self-efficacy
Career choice as heavily influenced by interests
Occupational Development
People have expectations about what they want to become and when they hope to get there.
Change as the result of:
Change in interests
Age, race, or sexual discrimination, lack of opportunity, and obsolescence of skills
Reality Shock
The realization that what you learn in the classroom does not always transfer directly into the “real world” and does not represent all that you need to know
Role of Mentors
A mentor or developmental coach is a coworker who teaches a new employee the unwritten rules and fosters occupational development.
Mentor-protégé relationships develop over time, through stages, like other relationships.
Being a mentor helps middle-aged workers achieve generativity.
Women and minorities have an especially important need for mentors.
Higher expectations and perceived better career development
Job Satisfaction
The positive feelings that result from an appraisal of one’s work
Job satisfaction tends to show low to moderate increases with age.
Older workers report higher job satisfaction than younger workers.
This may be partly because of self-selection.
Unhappy workers may quit.
Other reasons include intrinsic satisfaction, good fit, lower importance of work, finding non-work diversions, and life-cycle factors.
Alienation and Burnout
Alienation
Feeling that what one is doing is meaningless, or cannot see the connection between what they do and the final product
Burnout
A depletion of a person’s energy and motivation, the loss of occupational idealism, and the feeling that one is being exploited
Passion
A strong inclination toward an activity individuals like, value, and where they invest time and energy
Two kinds:
Obsessive = makes it difficult to engage in other activities
Harmonious = freely choose to engage in the enjoyable activity
Passion, Satisfaction and Burnout
Harmonious passion > satisfaction at work > less burnout
Obsessive passion > conflict > burnout
Gender Differences in Occupational Choice
Traditionally women were expected to enter secretarial, teaching and social work jobs
Women who do enter nontraditional occupations and are successful are viewed more poorly by both men and women.
Women in traditional female occupations changed jobs less often.
Census 2016
Workforce participation rate 71% men 57% women 940 jobs make up Australian workforce 100 most common jobs = 58% workforce
Women and Occupational Development
Women entrepreneurs are starting small businesses at a faster rate than men
Women who leave their jobs do so for two main reasons:
The organizations are rewarding masculine values of working.
Women may feel disconnected from the workplace.
Bias and Discrimination
Gender discrimination
Denying a job to someone solely on the basis of whether the person is a man or a women
Gender discrimination is a major issue in terms of getting jobs, occupational development, and also in pay.
Glass ceiling
The level to which women may rise in a company, but not go beyond
This is a barrier to promotion women and ethnic minorities often experience.
Glass elevator
In traditionally female occupations, men may rise much faster than female counterparts.
Gender bias in performance reviews
Women are 1.4 times more likely to receivecritical subjectivefeedback
Women get lessconstructive criticalfeedback than men, and
Women’s performance more likely attributed tocharacteristics(e.g., committed, action-oriented, autonomous) rather than actualskillsandabilities.
Example 1. Two employees working with customers:
“[Name] seems to shrink when [they’re] around others and especially around clients; [They] need to be more self-confident.”
“[Name] needs to develop [their] natural ability to work with people.”
Example 2. Two employees overwhelmed by required work.
For employee A, the boss characterized it as “analysis paralysis” and noted, “[Name] seems paralyzed and confused when facing tight deadlines to make decisions.”
For employee B, the boss characterized it as “careful thoughtfulness,” and noted, “[Name] seems hesitant in making decisions, yet [they] are able to work out multiple alternative solutions and determine the most suitable one.”
Ethnic Minority Workers
Vocational identity and vocational goals differ across ethnic groups
If organisation is sensitive to ethnicity issues = strong predictor of satisfaction for ethnic minority employees
Diversity and inclusion
Discrimination
Age Discrimination
Making employment decisions or denying employment solely on the basis of age.
Age discrimination occurs in many ways, such as differential layoff patterns and stereotypical views about older workers.
What about Australia?
https://www.humanrights.gov.au/our-work/disability-rights/projects/willing-work-national-inquiry-employment-discrimination-against
It takes older people longer to find jobs – about 68 weeks.
27% of people older than 50 have faced discrimination in the workplace.
Older Australians can feel they: don’t get the same opportunities and are chosen as the first to go when the organisation needs to make changes.
Retraining Workers
Rapid changes in the nature of work have resulted in the displacement of older workers.
As a result, there is greater career plateauing.
When there is a lack of promotional opportunity in an organization or a person chooses not to seek advancement
Thus, learning new skills is essential to maximize one’s opportunities.
To adapt to the effects of the global economy and an aging work force, many corporations provide retraining opportunities for workers.
Occupational Transitions
Work role centrality, coping resources, cognitive appraisal coping strategies, human capital demo graphic
all feed in to psychological well being
physical wellbeing
The Dependent Care Dilemma
Employed Caregivers
Whether a women returns to work after having a child depends on financial need and how attached she is to her work.
Stepping out of their occupations negatively affects their career paths, even for short leaves.
Many workers must also care for a parent or partner.
Being responsible for dependent care has significant negative effects on caregivers.
Less distress occurs if a women has good support from their partners and average or high control over their jobs.
Backup Care: emergency care for dependent children or adults so the employee does not need to lose a day of work when the usual care is unavailable.
Work and Family
Dividing household chores
Working mothers do most of the housework.
Unequal division of labor is a major cause for arguments and unhappiness.
Husbands and wives view the division of labor differently.
Men are often most satisfied with an equitable division based on number of hours spent.
Women are most satisfied when men perform traditional women’s chores.
Work-Family Conflict
The feeling of being pulled in multiple directions by incompatible demands from one’s job and one’s family
Truly equitable divisions of labor are the exception.
Work-family conflict peaks when there are at least two preschool children in the home.
Dual-earner couples have difficulty finding time for one another, too.
The issues faced by dual-earner couples are global.
In general, women feel work-to-family spillover more than men do, but both genders feel the pressure.
Leisure Activities
Leisure activities can also be considered in terms of the degree of cognitive, emotional, or physical involvement.
People develop a repertoire of preferred leisure activities.
Each activity has a different meaning and importance to every individual.
The activities are determined by perceived competence and psychological comfort.
Changes in Leisure Activities
Developmental Changes in Leisure
Longitudinal research shows that preferences in adulthood reflect those in earlier life.
As people grow older they tend to engage in leisure activities that are less strenuous and more family-oriented.
Consequences of Leisure Activities
Leisure activities promote well-being and can enhance all aspects of people’s lives.
Importantly, it is the amount of satisfaction you derive from your leisure activities; not your level of participation.
Quality rather than quantity of leisure activities.
