Sunday, October 26, 2008
Personality.
In almost all management studies, probably the easiest of them all is the topic on personality. Unlike most classical theorists like Henri Fayol and Max Weber that emphasised on the issues of efficiency,profits and bureaucratization, many of the new schools of thought in both management studies and sociology have emphasised on the human factor within an organisation. Most importantly, as we move on in time, the issue here is no longer concerned with the efficiency of the production line itself, but on a more "human-approach" basis.
Question is: How do we make the most out of the people under us?
Mankind have the unprecedented advantage of technology within its grasp and for that, it has done wonders to the evolutionary of men. But in most cases, a machine will remain a useless item if its not being properly cropped up and used. Thus, there is always the cliche of finding the best man for the best job and in most cases, managers only look out for one thing--Personality.
A very sound definition of personality. A man's personality is his psychological patterns of behaviour, his organisational dynamics and how he responds or behaves in a particular situation. His personality affects how he interact with others. To simplify the idea of personality, it is actually the personal characteristics that determines his behaviour.
To distinguish personality between individuals, an interesting aspect is to look what really shapes one's personality. One of the 4 personality determinants is heredity. The issue on heredity, while emphasising on its importance as it has links to nature, cannot fully explain an indivdual's personality. Scientists have known for years that traits such as eye color and hair color are determined by specific genes encoded in each human cell. The Nature Theory takes things a step further to say that more abstract traits such as intelligence, personality, aggression, and sexual orientation are also encoded in an individual's DNA.
While not discounting that genetic tendencies may exist, supporters of the nurture theory believe they ultimately don't matter - that our behavioral aspects originate only from the environmental factors of our upbringing. Studies on infant and child temperament have revealed the most crucial evidence for nurture theories. American psychologist John Watson, best known for his
controversial experiments with a young orphan named Albert, demonstrated that the acquisition of a phobia could be explained by classical conditioning. Harvard psychologist B. F. Skinner's early experiments produced pigeons that could dance, do figure eights, and play tennis. Today known as the father of behavioural science, he eventually went on to prove that
human behavior could be conditioned in much the same way as animals.
So, was the way we behave engrained in us before we were born? Or has it developed over time in response to our experiences? Researchers on all sides of the nature vs nurture debate agree that the link between a gene and a behaviour is not the same as cause and effect. While a gene may increase the likelihood that you'll behave in a particular way, it does not make people do things. Which means that we still get to choose who we'll be when we grow up.
The other essential factor linked to the construction of an individual's personality is mass media. Mass media is a potent instrument in this new millennium where its influences stretch from biased newspaper reports to superficial magazine issues and from the internet to even propaganda podcasts on ipods. Its most astounding aspect bears from its ability to make believe nifty tabloid celebrities into important political figures in society. Just take a look at Paris Hilton, Britney Spears, Christina Aguilera to name a few. The way most of these celebrities are dressed and their lifestyles were well potrayed by tabloid journalists like the Papparazzis. Mass media drains society. It promotes the idea of "new materialism" in society. The new human race is all about being a fashionista and getting them expensive handbags or shoes.
But, let us not leave out the good side of mass media. Some media in fact makes the society think and engage in a constant debate. For instance, the road to the US presidential election have cropped up issues like gay marriage and restructuring the tax system within the country itself. Harvard Bussiness Review, Herald Tribune and British Broadcasting Channel are just some incredibly important sources in when it comes to reports in the bussiness world.
In conclusion, personality is a socially constructed agenda and it is constantly changing, depending mainly on our environment, culture and influences. Our peer groups, could well affect our personality as well. Hence, the need to look out for and adapt to new social groups is enormously important.
p.s---this thread is hanging, thus there is a need to redraft it. At the moment, I shall just post it.
Posted at » 2:15 AM
Thursday, October 23, 2008
theories and theorising
Positivism and positivists.Positivist, created by August Comte(father of sociology), argued that the natural world and the scientific world have distinct similarities. Hence, it is due to the framework of positivism that the early sociological studies is based scientifically. Positivist aims to be objective and value free in their research. Their main research design is based on empiricism. In other words, empiricism is a systematic collection of evidence which promotes transparency and reliability. Durkheim's famous study on suicide is widely regarded as the best example to show the study of empiricism. He used official statistics and compared the suicide rates of different country before formulating a theoretical approach on his study. His study is important becauseBesides that, positivist do embark to explain the patterns of society through social causation and from a deterministic point of view. "Social causation" refers to the idea that a change in one aspect of a society could affect other parts of the society. Positivism sees the social word as--like the NATURAL WORLD, as compromising phenomenon that are causally related. For example, during an economic recession, the inevitable outcome is increasing unemployment and economic deprivation which leads to crimes and social disorder. In the case of determinism, positivists believes that the individual has no free will or choice and that society actually shapes the mindset and the way we think.Like all theories, positivism have had its fair share of criticisms and limitations. As sociology develops into a major discipline, many sociologist feels that the study of society could be theorised in other intellectual ways. For example, Max Weber, a German sociologists, argued that the principle and methods of natural sciences have little or no application the study of society. His other view is that people are reflexive in nature and try to make sense of the situation they are in. Most importantly, nature and society are completely different from each other and sociologist in fact studies people/individuals, unlike the matter studied by scientists.Such views brought about a new school of thought-----interpretivism. Interpretivism essentially determines to find the subjective views of each social action theory. Recall that the ontological position of Max Weber. Unlike other classical sociologists, Weber preaches on the concept of social action. This will be discussed later in this essay. Studying human beings, however, is different from observing events in the physical world and sociology should not be seen as directly as natural science. Unlike objects in nature, humans are self aware beings who confer sense and purpose on what they do. We can't even describe social life accurately unless we first grasp the concepts that people apply in their behaviour. For instance, to describe a death as a suicide means knowing what the person in question was intending when he died. Suicide can only occur when an individual actively has self destruction in mind. If he accidentally steps in front of a car and is killed, he cannot be said to have committed suicide.
The fact that we cannot study human beings in the exactly same way as objects in nature is in some ways an advantage to sociology. Sociological researchers profit from being able to pose questions directly to those who study--other human beings.----(Giddens 2005)
The yardstick used by intrepretivists is the fundamental difference between the natural world and social world. Their description of the the social world is that it is a meaningful one, and that human societies are essentially subjective realities. Weber further reiterated the point that "natural science' and "social science" are two very different enterprises requiring a different logic and different methods.
Interpretivisits sociologists argue that different meanings require different explanations. A tool used, created by Weber himself, by interpretivists sociologist is VERSTEHEN which refers to the empathetic understanding and as quantitive measure to the social phenomena. Researchers, as far as possible, placed themselves in the position of those they are studying and asked how they see the world and what ends they believe are served by their actions. Weber noted that behaviour that seems the same "from the outside" can have very different meanings when examined from the inside.
For instance, when it comes to the study of crimes, sociologists approach
would begin by understanding criminal from the criminal point of view.
Next topic: Realism, Emile Durkheim and Karl Marx
