Neoliberal ideology in work and organizational psychology

This paper explores the role of neoliberal ideology in workplace practices and in work and organizational psychology (WOP) research. It analyses how neoliberal ideology manifests in these two domains by using a prominent framework from the field of political theory to understand ideology through three different logics: political, social and fantasmatic logics. We explore the main neoliberal assumptions underlying existing practices in the workplace as well as in WOP research, how individuals are gripped by such practices, and how the status quo is maintained. The paper analyses how individuals in the contemporary workplace are henceforth influenced by neoliberalism, and how this is reflected in the practices and dominant paradigms within WOP. In particular, we focus on three ways neoliberalism affects workplaces and individual experiences of the workplace: through instrumentality, individualism and competition. The paper finishes with practical recommendations for researchers and practitioners alike on how to devote more attention to the, often implicit, role of neoliberal ideology in their work and research. The discussion elaborates on how alternative paradigms in the workplace can be developed which address the downsides of neoliberalism.     

Ideology in work and organizational psychology: the responsibility of the researcher

This is a rejoinder to the commentaries on our paper on neoliberalism in work and organizational psychology. In this rejoinder, we provide a summarized response to the commentaries, thereby highlighting three main points: (1) when, where and how does neoliberalism manifest in society and our work as Work and Organizational Psychologists, (2) what is our duty as work and organizational psychologists towards society and our own work, and (3) what do we recommend on the basis of the exchange with the commentators on our paper?     

Every Breath You Take,Every Move You Make

Slow Reckoning: The Ecology of a Divided Planet by Tom Athanasiou, published by Seeker &; Warburg, London, 1997, 385 pp., £12.99 (published in the United States as Divided Planet: The Ecology of Rich and Poor, by Little, Brown &; Company, New York, 1996, $25).     

When prevention promotes creativity: the role of mood, regulatory focus, and regulatory closure

Promotion-focused states generally boost creativity because they associate with enhanced activation and cognitive flexibility. With regard to prevention-focused states, research evidence is less consistent, with some findings suggesting prevention-focused states promote creativity and other findings pointing to no or even negative effects. We proposed and tested the hypothesis that whether prevention-focused states boost creativity depends on regulatory closure (whether a goal is fulfilled or not). We predicted that prevention-focused states that activate the individual (unfulfilled prevention goals, fear) would lead to similar levels of creativity as promotion-focused states but that prevention-focused states that deactivate (closed prevention goals, relief) would lead to lower levels of creativity. Moreover, we predicted that this effect would be mediated by feelings of activation. Predictions were tested in 3 studies on creative insights and 1 on original ideation. Results supported predictions. Implications for self-regulation, motivation, mood, and creativity are discussed.     

The role of future time perspective in psychological contracts: A study among older workers

Using a sample of post-retirement workers (N = 176), this study investigated the role of future time perspective (FTP) in psychological contracts. The study aimed to test: (i) whether future time perspective is related to employer psychological contract fulfillment and (ii) whether it moderates relations between psychological contract fulfillment and employee obligations. Based on previous work, three types of employer psychological contract fulfillment are examined: economic, socio-emotional, and developmental fulfillment. FTP was expected to relate positively to developmental fulfillment. Moreover, people with limited future time perspective were hypothesized to manifest a stronger relationship between economic and socio-emotional fulfillment and employee obligations. Results showed that future time perspective is indeed significantly related to developmental fulfillment, and also moderated the relations between contract fulfillment and employee obligations. More specifically, economic and socio-emotional fulfillments were significantly stronger related to obligations among older workers with high FTP.     

Dominant achievement goals of older workers and their relationship with motivation-related outcomes

The aim of this study was to increase our insight into older employees' achievement motivation by examining the prevalence of dominant achievement goals among a “unique” group of 172 Dutch workers who remained active after their post-statutory retirement age. Moreover, we investigated how their dominant achievement goals were linked to motivation-related outcomes (i.e., work engagement and meaning of work). Our results showed that, relative to younger workers, a significantly higher amount of older workers endorsed dominant mastery-avoidance goals. In addition, as expected, older workers with dominant mastery-approach goals scored highest, while the workers with dominant mastery-avoidance goals scored lowest in work engagement, social and personal meaning of work. Theoretical as well as practical implications of these results are discussed.     

Preferences for changing power positions and power distances: a social value orientations approach

Participants were asked to put themselves in the position of one of three persons who differed in the amount of power they had in a small work unit. Subsequently, they could allocate points on a power scale to themselves and the two others, and thus, change the power positions and the power distances between the positions. The least powerful individuals had the strongest tendency to increase their power. They wanted to reduce the power distance to the person in the higher position more than the power distance to the person in the middle position. The most powerful wanted to increase the power distance to the person in the middle position but not the power distance to the least powerful. Most results were consistent with social comparison theory and contrary to power distance theory. Because the dependent measures were derived from the social value orientations model, the scope of this model has been expanded. Copyright © 2002 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Strategic and automatic components in the processing of linguistic spatial relations

The objective of the present study was to determine the extent to which strategies influence the representational format of a linguistic spatial relation. The propositional model assumes that a sentence describing a spatial relation is always represented as a set of propositions, whereas the strategic model claims that a spatial sentence can be represented either as a set of propositions or as a mental image, depending on the strategy (verbal or visual-spatial) an individual follows. Participants read a sentence (spatial or non-spatial) followed by a picture or sentence, which did or did not exemplify the information of the first sentence. In order to examine the involvement of strategic and automatic components the probability (20% or 80%) of the nature (sentence or picture) of the second stimulus was varied. Participants had slower verification RTs for unexpected stimuli than for expected stimuli, but this cost was significantly larger for an unexpected picture than an unexpected sentence. Furthermore, this asymmetric cost for the unexpected visual-spatial stimulus only occurred with spatial sentences and not with non-spatial sentences. Surprisingly, these data do not support a strictly propositional or a strategic model. Instead, we propose a third option: a dual representational model, in which people automatically represent the spatial sentence propositionally. In addition, depending on the context, a pictorial strategy is employed, which results in a supplementary visual-spatial representation.     

What is the link between language and spatial images? Behavioral and neural findings in blind and sighted individuals

In order to find objects or places in the world, multiple sources of information, such as visual input, auditory input and asking for directions, can help you. These different sources of information can be converged into a spatial image, which represents configurational characteristics of the world. This paper discusses the findings on the nature of spatial images and the role of spatial language in generating these spatial images in both blind and sighted individuals. Congenitally blind individuals have never experienced visual input, yet they are able to perform several tasks traditionally associated with spatial imagery, such as mental scanning, mental pathway completions and mental clock time comparison, though perhaps not always in a similar manner as sighted. Therefore, they offer invaluable insights into the exact nature of spatial images. We will argue that spatial imagery exceeds the input from different input modalities to form an abstract mental representation while maintaining connections with the input modalities. This suggests that the nature of spatial images is supramodal, which can explain functional equivalent results from verbal and perceptual inputs for spatial situations and subtle to moderate behavioral differences between the blind and sighted.     

Risk-adaptation theory

An introduction is given to our psychophysical response and valence theory of choice behaviour, since the risk-adaptation theory derives from that theory as an application. Risk-adaptation theory assumes that road users implicitly evaluate their risks by oppositely oriented, single-peaked valence functions of arousal and fear sensations as dependent aspects of risks in road traffic. Due to this dependence and the adaptation to changing risk levels, these single-peaked valence functions combine additively to a dynamic shifting interval of ambivalent risk indifference, where above and below the risk evaluation is increasingly negative. Risk-adaptation theory contains the zero-risk, threat-avoidance, and risk-homeostasis theories as special cases and predicts that: (1) fatality risks decay exponentially, (2) the slope parameter for the exponential fatality risk decay is 1½ larger than for the traffic growth function, (3) a safety measure with a very large effect will be initially compensated to a lesser low risk level than otherwise expected, and (4) the contributions of a road safety measure to danger perception and arousal level determines whether its expected safety effect will be reinforced or adversely compensated. Each prediction is tentatively verified by some research.