Transcript What’s the Matter with OB? A Polemic

What’s the Matter with OB?
A Polemic, and Suggestion
Timothy A. Judge
Warrington College
of Business
University of Florida
Texas A&M University
February 26, 2010
What’s the Matter with OB?
• In one sense (or, to many), nothing…
• By many metrics, organizational
behavior (OB) is thriving
– Citation rates of top OB journals
– Professional membership (Academy of
Management)
He who is drowned is not troubled by the rain.
— Chinese Proverb
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AOM Membership
7000
6000
5000
4000
3000
2000
Business Policy & Strategy
Organizational Behavior
TIM
SIM
RM
PNP
ONE
OCIS
OB
OD
OMT
OM
MOC
MSR
MH
MED
MC
IM
HR
HCM
GDO
CMS
CM
CAR
BPS
0
ENT
1000
3
Trends in OB Impact


20
08
20
07
20
06
20
05
20
04
20
03
20
02
20
01

20
00
19
99
7
6
5
4
3
2
1
0
AMJ
JAP
OBHDP
JFIN
AR
JCR
JMR
 OB journals
AMJ=Academy of Management Journal; JAP=Journal of Applied Psychology;
OBHDP=Organizational Behavior & Human Decision Processes; JFIN=Journal of Finance;
4
AR=Accounting Review; JCR=Journal of Consumer Research; JMR=Journal of Marketing Research
So What Is the Matter?
1. OB draws most heavily from
psychology*
2. Psychology’s central and most
prestigious area is social psychology
3. Social psychology is dominated by
focus on situation (context)
4. OB, then, focuses on situation
(context) as well (as do social sciences)
* There are, of course, nuances (conditions and variance in opinions) to
each point, but I believe the general thrust, at least, largely veridical.
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Some Obvious Problems
• Each situation is sui generis
– If each situation is unique, how to predict
behavior outside (unique) context?
• Interactionist (Lewian B=f[P,E])
perspective is nearly a truism, but
– It is a base on which it is difficult to build
substantive scientific knowledge
• How will the performance evaluations (B) made
by a conscientious leader {Murray} (P) be
affected by fairness vs. harmony goals (E)?*
* This draws from Wong and Kwon, Journal of Applied Psychology, 2007,
on goal-setting in performance evaluation contexts.
6
Polemic
• The focus of OB (and of social
psychology to a greater degree) on the
situation is problematic because…
There are reasons to question to what
degree the situation, as construed in
social science, matters
• Obviously, a controversial assertion
• But, first, let us define the situation
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What Is the Situation?
• Situation can be one of three things:
Environment
• An attitude, cognition, or behavior reflects (is a
product of) culture, socialization, influence,
indoctrination, class, upbringing, or social status
Intervention
• An attitude, cognition, or behavior is induced by a
natural or experimental event/manipulation meant
to represent a social context
Change
• An attitude, cognition, or behavior is
unstable/malleable across situations or over time
8
Thus, there are still many in the field who insist on explaining context-driven socially problematic behavior in
largely individualistic, trait-based terms, no matter how much evidence has been amassed to the contrary.
Of course, the latter truth has been widely studied and is well understood within social psychology. Extensive
research on the “fundamental attribution error” demonstrates that the more troublesome or threatening the
behavior, and the more extreme the actions with which they are concerned, the more tempting it is to attribute
primary responsibility to disagreeable or damaged “others” whose bad acts are thought to be the products of
their flawed characters and ill-advised choices. This can occur no matter how powerful the situations, settings, and
structures to which the actors have been exposed and in which they have acted.
Recognizing the causal role of broad, destructive social forces in the genesis of socially problematic behavior
implicates us all at a more direct and unsettling level than the dispositionalism with which it competes. It casts
whatever tacit assent we may have extended to the social contextual status quo (e.g., prisons, poverty, or wars) in
a very different light. Thus, our implicit support for the policies and practices that may have given rise to the
damaging social contexts in question can be seen as part of the problem—a problem we may be expected to
help solve. Conversely, blaming other people for the bad acts in which they have engaged seems to absolve the
rest of us of any responsibility for ignoring these pernicious and destructive environments, or failing to take
steps to ameliorate them. Moreover, it is often difficult for us to acknowledge that the harmful situational forces
to which these “bad actors” have fallen prey are ones to which we ourselves might have succumbed. Among other
things, to do so would frustrate the seemingly natural desire to maintain a stance of moral superiority over
persons whose behavior offends us. Of course, it also blunts any impetus for broad-based social change or
political reform. And it helps to sustain what are, in essence, exclusively medical and legal models of individual
treatment and blame, when a public health model of containment and prevention is often more appropriate.
– Haney and Zimbardo, “Persistent Dispositionalism…”, Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin, 2009
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Effects of Environment
Comparisons of Heredity vs. Environment
• Socially desirable behaviors
Diet/weight
Exercise/fitness
Altruism/prosocial behavior
• Socially undesirable behaviors
Drug use
Smoking
Antisocial/criminal behavior
Before we examine the evidence of genes and environment as
influences on behavior, let’s very briefly review behavioral genetics
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Studying Environment v. Genes
Behavioral Genetics Primer
• Studies monozygotic (identical [MZ])
and dizygotic (fraternal [DZ]) twins
reared apart and those reared together
– For MZ/DZ twins reared together:
a=additive genetic effect (broad heritability)
c=common or shared environment effect, and
e=error or unique (or non-shared) environment effect
rMZ = a2 + c2
{similarity in MZ is variance in genes + environ}
rDZ = (0.5  a2) + c2
1
Note:
= a2 + c2 + e2
{DZ share half as many genes}
total
shared shared
{variance is genes + environ + unique}
MZ twins=100% genetically similar (identical genes);
DZ twins=50% genetically similar (share 50% genes)
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Studying Environment v. Genes
Behavioral Genetics Primer
• The aforementioned formulae can be
recast as follows
Shared genes variability:
a2 = (rMZ – rDZ)  2
Shared environment variability:
c2 = rMZ – a2
Non-shared environment variability: e2 = 1 – rMZ
• There are variations of this formula that
accommodate twins reared apart and
reared together, effects of
measurement error, and so on
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Environment 
Genes and Body Mass Index (BMI)
Heritability
of Body
Mass Index
(BMI)
Hjelmborg et
al. (2008)
Shared
genes
Shared
Non-shared
environment environment
M
F
M
F
M
F
80%
82%
7%
4%
13%
14%
82%
87%
0%
0%
18%
13%
65%
61%
5%
8%
30%
31%
10,556 Finn twins
Hur (2007)
888 Korean twins
Schousbo et
al. (2004)
624 Danish twins
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Environment 
Summary: Variance in Body Mass Index
Average sources of
variability in BMI
Interestingly, weight gain
also shows high heritabilities
so even change may be
genetic
Genes
Environment
Error
14
Environment 
Behavioral Genetic Studies of Exercise
Sample
Genes
Environment
Unique
Australia (males)
22.9
20.6
56.6
Australia (females)
31.1
16.4
52.5
Denmark (males)
44.4
4.7
51.0
Denmark (females)
50.1
3.1
46.8
Finland (males)
55.8
6.2
38.0
Finland (females)
61.0
0.0
39.0
Netherlands (males)
68.1
2.7
29.2
Netherlands (females)
50.3
13.3
36.5
Norway (males)
33.6
31.1
35.4
Norway (females)
56.6
0.0
43.4
Sweden (males)
63.9
0.0
36.1
UK (females)
70.5
0.0
29.5
MEAN
51.4
7.5
41.1
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Environment 
Altruism
As measured by parents’ and teachers’
rating of degree to which child*:
•Often volunteers
to help others
•Will try to help
someone who has
been hurt
30%
•Shares treats
with friends
67%
3%
Shared genes
Shared
environment
Unique
* When child was age 7.
Source: Knafo & Plomin, Developmental Psychology, 2006.
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Environment 
Drug Use
Drug
Shared
genes
Shared
Non-shared
environment environment
Any
77%
0%
23%
Cannabis
76%
0%
24%
Stimulants
76%
0%
24%
Psychedelics
81%
0%
19%
Opiates
44%
33%
23%
Cocaine
44%
13%
43%
Mean
66%
8%
26%
Source: Kendler et al. (2006) study of 1,386 Norwegian twin pairs.
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Environment 
Smoking
Shared
genes
Shared
environment
Non-shared
environment
659 American
male twins
64%
19%
17%
434 American
female twins
77%
0%
23%
1063 Australian
female twins
74%
3%
23%
851 American
female twins
78%
7%
15%
1979 Australian
female twins
70%
18%
12%
Study
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Environment 
Aggressive Antisocial Behavior
Aggressive antisocial behavior was rated by parents using items such as:
• destroys one’s own and others’ belongings
• fights with other children
• attacks others
• threatens others
Shared genes
25%
60%
15%
Shared
environment
Unique
Sample:
1,480 pairs of
Swedish twins
Source: Eley, Lichtenstein, & Moffitt, Development & Psychopathology, 2003.
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Environment 
Criminal Behavior
Meta-analysis of behavioral genetics studies of mono-zygotic and di-zygotic
twins reared together and reared apart
Stimuli
48%
0%
52%
25%
Records
Error
Environment
Genes
42%
33%
25%
22%
Other-reports
53%
55%
Self-report
6%
39%
0%
20%
40%
60%
Source: Rhee and Waldman, Psychological Bulletin, 2002.
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Summary on Environment
• Relative to differences in genes,
differences in environment appear to
play a minor role in variability in
socially desirable (weight, exercise,
altruism, etc.) and undesirable (drug
use, criminality, infidelity) behaviors
• Now, we turn to the second aspect of
the situation: Intervention
21
What Is the Situation?
• Situation can be one of three things:
Environment
• An attitude, cognition, or behavior reflects (is a
product of) culture, socialization, influence,
indoctrination, class, upbringing, or social status
Intervention
• An attitude, cognition, or behavior is induced by a
natural or experimental event/manipulation meant
to represent a social context
Change
• An attitude, cognition, or behavior is
unstable/malleable across situations or over time
22
Intervention
• Society
Sexual abuse
Winning lottery
Marriage (and divorce, widowhood)
• Organizational behavior
Stress management
Self-efficacy and performance
Education and work success
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Intervention 
Meta-Analysis: Childhood Sexual Abuse & Adult Adjustment
Symptom
k
N
r
Alcohol
8
1,645
.07
Anxiety
18
7,365
.13
Depression
23
7,949
.12
Eating disorders
10
2,998
.06
Obsessive – compulsive
7
1,934
.10
Paranoia
10
2,052
.11
Self-esteem
16
3,630
.04
Sexual adjustment
20
7,723
.09
Social adjustment
17
4,332
.07
Somatization
19
4,376
.09
Suicide
9
5,425
.09
Childhood sexual
abuse was coded,
r
across studies, as
either dichotomy
(yes-no) or frequency
degree to which
individual was victim
of one of four types
of sexual abuse (no
strong differences by
type of abuse).
Rind, B., Tromovitch, P., & Bauserman, R. (1998). A meta-analytic examination of assumed
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properties of child sexual abuse using college samples. Psychological Bulletin, 124, 22-53.
Intervention 
Winning Lottery
Sample: Winners of
Illinois State Lottery
Average Prize
$480,000 ($1.58M
2009 USD).
5.0
4.0
3.0
Winners
Control
2.0
1.0
General
Happiness
Everyday
Pleasures
Source: Brinkman, Coates, & Janoff-Bulmann, JPSP, 1979.
Size of prize was not
related to happiness.
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Intervention 
Marital Events
Individuals are tracked
on within-person basis
Life Satisfaction
8.0
7.5
Marriage
Divorce
Widowed
7.0
6.5
6.0
Life satisfaction rated
on 1-10 scale
5.5
-5 -4 -3 -2 -1 0 1 2
Year of Event
3 4
5
Source: Diener, Lucas, & Scollon, American Psychologist, 2006.
26
Intervention 
Stress Management Program
Source: Le Blanc et al., Journal of Applied Psychology, 2007.
27
Intervention 
Self-Efficacy Intervention
Difference (d-score) in accountants’ job performance between control
group and treatment (self-efficacy program) group
0.6
0.5
0.57
0.4
0.3
d-score
0.2
0.07
0.04
Time 2
Time 3
0.1
0
Time 1
Intervention
Booster
Booster
Source: McNatt, D. B., & Judge, T. A. (2004). Boundary conditions of the Galatea effect:
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A field experiment and constructive replication. Academy of Management Journal, 47, 550-565.
Intervention 
Self-Efficacy Intervention
• Sources of self-efficacy (Bandura, 1997)
1 Mastery (successful experience)
2 Vicarious modeling (observing others)
3 Social persuasion (encouragement)
4 Physiology (stress reactions)
• Three points
– These sources are social cognitive
– As a result, self-efficacy is induced
– Traits are irrelevant
29
Intervention 
Self-Efficacy Intervention
• “Efficacy beliefs are linked to domains of
functioning rather than conforming to an
undifferentiated trait” – Bandura, Caprara, and
Barbaranelli (2001)
• “Given the highly conditional nature of human
functioning, it is unrealistic to expect personality
measures cast in nonconditional generalities to
shed much light on the contribution of personal
factors to psychosocial functioning in different
task domains under diverse circumstances
across all situations” – Bandura (1999)
30
Intervention 
Self-Efficacy Intervention
General Mental Ability
Conscientiousness
Agreeableness
SelfEfficacy
Extraversion
Openness
Emotional Stability
Work-Related
Performance
Experience
Source: Judge, Jackson, Shaw, Scott, and Rich (JAP, 2007)
31
Intervention 
Self-efficacy
βs
Self-Efficacy Intervention Job performance
βs
.17**
General Mental Ability
.19**
Conscientiousness
-.05
.29**
.11
.21**
.26**
Agreeableness
.52**
SelfEfficacy
.13**
.37
Extraversion
Openness
Emotional Stability
.26**
.05
.09
-.04
Work-Related
Performance
Experience
Source: Judge, Jackson, Shaw, Scott, and Rich (JAP, 2007)
-.04
.26**
32
Intervention 
Education and Work Success
•
Is there any intervention that better
improves “life’s chances”?
No matter what you want to do with your life, I guarantee that you'll
need an education to do it. You want to be a doctor or a teacher or a
police officer, you want to be a nurse or an architect, a lawyer or a
member of our military, you're going to need a good education for
every single one of those careers…And this isn't just important for
your own life and your own future. What you make of your education
will decide nothing less than the future of this country. The future of
America depends on you.
— President Barack Obama (September 8, 2009)
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Intervention 
Education and Work Success
• Forbes 10 most admired professions:
1.
2.
3.
4.
5.
6.
7.
8.
9.
10.
Firefighter
Doctor
Nurse
Scientist
Teacher
Military officer
Police officer
Clergy
Farmer
Engineer
34
Intervention 
Education and Work Success
• Indictment of education may be
misplaced
– In recent round of the National
Assessment of Educational Progress
(NAEP), 36% of all fourth-graders were
below the NAEP's "basic achievement"
score in reading
– Is that a terrible record?
• From a normal distribution of IQ scores, 36% of
fourth-graders also have IQs lower than 95
35
Intervention 
Education and Work Success
8th Grade Math Scores by Nation
650
600
550
500
450
400
Source: U.S. Department of Education (Williams et al., 2009).
36
Qatar
Saudi Arabia
Kuwait
Palestine
Colombia
Egypt
Indonesia
Iran
Tunisia
Turkey
Lebanon
Romania
Israel
Norway
Italy
Scotland
Sweden
Armenia
Czech Rep.
USA
England
Taiwan
300
Japan
350
Intervention 
•
Education and Work Success
Sociologist’s Charles Murray (2008)
articulates four education “truths”:
1. Ability varies
2. Half of individuals are below average
3. Too many people are going to college
4. America’s future depends on how we
treat the academically gifted
•
“Truths” #3 and #4 raise question
How much difference does education
really make?
37
Intervention 
Education and Work Success
Job Performance
• Objective
• Subjective
Educational Attainment
General Mental Ability
• Quantity
• Quality
Career Success
• Extrinsic
• Intrinsic
Source: Judge, Halvorsen-Ganepola, Knippen, Long, & Simon (in progress)
38
Intervention 
Education and Work Success
• Education
– Quantity
• Years of education
• Degree
– Quality
• College
• GPA
• Major/degree area
• Job performance
– Ratings
– Objective measures
– Task vs. contextual
• Career Success
– Extrinsic
• Earnings/Income
• Job prestige
• Occupational status
– Intrinsic
• Career satisfaction
• Job satisfaction
• Life satisfaction
Source: Judge, Halvorsen-Ganepola, Knippen, Long, & Simon (in progress)
39
Summary on Interventions
• Interventions suffer from many
limitations
– Often only short-term effects studied
– Manipulations often artificially strong (or,
artificial and strong)
– Naturalistic (field) interventions often
suffer from a “situational fallacy”
• A correlation between a putative external
variable and behavior—or between a treatment
and behavior—reflects the effects of
environment on behavior
40
“Situational Fallacy”
Contagious Effect of Job Insecurity
Parental feelings of distress, concerns, and worries about money matters do
cross over to affect their children, either directly or indirectly through
communications or children’s observations of interactions within the families.
This study contributes to the stream of research on family and economic
socialization by focusing on the crossover effects of parental money anxiety on
youths’ beliefs about money and work.
Paternal
Job
Insecurity
Maternal
Job
Insecurity
.10*
.06
Paternal
Money
Anxiety
Maternal
Money
Anxiety
.21**
Youths’
Money
Anxiety
-.29**
Youths’
Intrinsic
Motivation
.23**
Source: Lim and Sng, Journal of Applied Psychology, 2006.
41
What Is the Situation?
• Situation can be one of three things:
Environment
• An attitude, cognition, or behavior reflects (is a
product of) culture, socialization, influence,
indoctrination, class, upbringing, or social status
Intervention
• An attitude, cognition, or behavior is induced by a
natural or experimental event/manipulation meant
to represent a social context
Change
• An attitude, cognition, or behavior is
unstable/malleable across situations or over time
42
Change
Population Level
Sample questions:
20
NPI range: 0-40
18
16
◘ I like having authority
over other people.
◘ I like to look at my
body.
◘ I am going to be a
great person.
Narcissism
14
12
10
1986
1996
2000
2003
2006
Source: Roberts, Edmonds, and Grijalva, PSPB, 2010.
43
Change
Individual Level
Ave. test-retest r over 7.5-year period
60-73
.72
50-59
.75
40-49
.59
30-39
.62
.57
22-29
College
.51
Teen
.49
.45
Under 12
.00 .25
• Personality is highly
but not perfectly
stable (either rankorder or mean-level
change)
• Of course, change
may well be a
heritable individual
difference as well
.50 .75 1.00
Source: Roberts & Del Vecchio, Psychological Bulletin, 2000.
44
Change
“Best Predictor of Future Behavior Is…”
Percent of individuals released from prison who have
been charged with another crime three years later
66.7%
Drug
50.4%
73.1%
68.1%
Property
61.7%
59.6%
Violent
67.5%
62.5%
All
Baseline
0%
25%
50%
75%
Crime rate (per cap):
St. Louis, MO=2.1%
Oakland, CA=1.9%
Memphis, TN=1.8%
Detroit, MI=1.9%
1994
1983
Crime rate (per cap):
Irvine, CA=0.1%
Cary, NC=0.1%
Provo, UT=0.2%
Peoria, IL=0.2%
100%
College Station, TX=0.3%; Gainesville, FL=0.9%; Houston, TX=1.1%; Dallas, TX=0.9%
Source: Bureau of Justice Statistics, U.S. Department of Justice
45
Summary
• Reasons for skepticism regarding the
degree to which the situation or context
explains attitudes and behaviors
– Environment: Shared genes 5-10 times
more important than shared environments
– Intervention: Contrived interventions
produce short-term effects; natural
interventions are rarely tabula rasa and
generally have modest effects
– Change: Change happens, but is not
dramatic and itself may be endogenous 46
Attribution Errors
• Fundamental Attribution Error
– Tendency to over-value dispositional or
personality-based explanations for
behaviors while under-valuing situational
explanations for those behaviors
• Is this really Fundamental? What of:
– Tendency to over-value situational or
external causes of behaviors while undervaluing natural/universal or dispositional
explanations for those behaviors
47
So What Does Matter?
• Well, genes, of course
– Personality traits
– Intellectual and physical abilities
– Anthropomorphic characteristics
• “Human universals” (Nettle, 2006)
– Experience
– Maturation
– Adaptation
• Stochastic processes
– Chance
– Fate
Nettle, D. (2006). The evolution of personality variation in humans and other
animals. American Psychologist, 61, 622–631.
48
Way Forward
• More naturalistic theories
• Focus on adaptive / evolutionary /
universal dynamics
• Take endogeneity seriously
• Incorporate stochasm (fate)
• Intersections among these
– How people adapt to unpredictable events
– How traits have temporal paradoxes
49
Trait Paradox
Link Between Evolution and Traits
• Evolutionary theory explains the
existence of traits but not their
variability (NS reduces variance)
– Traits could lack “adaptive significance”
• NS does not reduce variance because traits are
not adaptive (linked to reproduction or survival)
– Traits could have fitness tradeoffs
• Extraverts have higher reproductive fitness (more
mates) but lower survival fitness (more accidents)
• Trait effects may be interactive
50
Trait Paradox
Interactions Among Traits, Traits by Context
I Extraversion
III Conscientiousness
III+
Organized
Precise
Efficient
Conservative
Cautious
Discreet
Silent
IShy
Introverted
Ambitious
Proud
Assertive
Who makes the best:
• Broker?
• Accountant?
• HR manager?
• Mgmt. prof?
• Romantic partner?
Aggressive
Daring I+
Extroverted
Role of context:
• Up/down market?
Vague
Lethargic
Noncommittal
Disorganized
Sloppy
Careless
III-
Unruly
Reckless
Mischievous
51
Trait Paradox
Interactions Among Traits, Traits by Context
High
Extraversion (E)
High E
Low ES
“Volatile”
High E
High ES
“Buoyant”
Low Emotional
Stability (ES)
Low E
Low ES
“Nervous”
High Emotional
Stability (ES)
Who would deliver
the best customer
Low E service?
High ES
“Sedate”
Low
Extraversion (E)
Source: Judge and Erez, Personnel Psychology, 2007.
52
Trait Paradox
Interactions Among Traits, Traits by Context
Trait Predicting Service Performance
Emotional Stability
Extraversion
β
SE
.03
.13
-.03
.10
.27**
Conscientiousness
-.01
Agreeableness
.09
.10
Emotional Stability – Extraversion (IV+/I+)
.25*
.12
R
.38**
.09
R2
.15**
---
∆R2 (IV+/I+)
.06*
---
Sample: 122 employees of regional health and fitness center.
Source: Judge and Erez, Personnel Psychology, 2007.
Performance was evaluated by
two supervisors (ICC-1=.51)
53
Trait Paradox: Big Five Traits
Benefits
Extraversion Greater leadership
emergence; higher job and
life satisfaction
Costs
More impulsive (deviant)
behaviors; more accidents
Agreeableness Higher subjective well-being;
lower interpersonal conflict;
lower deviance and turnover
Lower career success; less
able to cope with conflict;
more lenient in giving ratings
Conscientious Stronger job performance;
-ness higher leadership effectiveness; lower deviance
Reduced adaptability; lower
learning in initial stages of
skill acquisition
Emotional High job/life satisfaction;
stability better job performance; effective leadership; retention
Poorer ability to detect risks
and danger; more risky
behaviors; more realism
Openness Higher creativity; greater
leadership effectiveness;
greater adaptability
More accidents and
counterproductivity; rebelliousness; lower commitment
Source: Judge & LePine, “Bright and Dark Sides…” In Research
Companion to the Dysfunctional Workplace, 2007.
54
Characteristic Adaptations
• Another approach is to assume
– Traits express themselves in adaptive
processes
– Leadership is a natural adaptive process
to study because
• Leadership exists as collective activity exists
• Natural development of social structure tells us
much about human universals and individual
differences
• “The right stuff” of leader traits may well
depend on the context
55
Characteristic Adaptations
Leadership Emergence and Effectiveness
Moderators
Traits
ILTs
Traits
Big Five
Core self-evaluations
Other traits
Adaptive processes
Getting along
Getting ahead
Providing meaning
Leader Emergence
Perceived leadership
Leader ascendance
Moderators
Threats
Resources
ILTs=Implicit Leadership Theories
Subjective
Effectiveness
Rated effectiveness
Follower attitudes
Objective
Effectiveness
Unit performance
Unit survival
Based on Judge, Piccolo, and Kosalka, Leadership Quarterly, 2009.
56
What This Talk is Not
• A broadside against all interventions,
all context, or all experiments
– Some (goal-setting) work better than
others
– My own research is fairly criticized by my
own criticisms
• A proscription
– I am more interested in generating certain
kinds of future research than
discouraging past or future inquiries
57
Free Will?
• Genetic predispositions, strong though
they are, are ideologically neutral
– Is there free will?
– Who is responsible?
– Role of volition/choice
• Does it favor Justice and Security over
Punishment and Rehabilitation?
58
Free Will?
A Recent, Tragic Case Study
• Harvard trained neurobiologist
• Fatally shot brother in 1987
– Cleared despite, after
shooting, demanding car at
dealership, gun in hand, and
covering up hole in wall
• Subject of 1993 investigation of
pipe bomb sent to advisor
• In 2002, assaulted woman at
IHOP who took last booster
seat (“I am Dr. Amy Bishop”)
• On 2-12, shot and killed faculty
members Gopi Podila, Maria
Davis, and Adriel Johnson and
critically injured two others
59
Free Will?
Amy Bishop, • neuroscientist,
Clearly, extreme behavior
inventor, murder suspect, has
limited
relevance to
become bigger thanof
life,
a symbol
organizational
for those who thinkmost
that genius
is
behavior—but…
close to madness, or
that women
cannot get ahead in– science,
Does itorshow how
that
tenure
systems
in
situationalist
we as an
universities are brutalizing — or
academy
even that progress against
fatal have
become?
diseases is so important
that
someone like Dr.
• Bishop
Do ourshould
management
be set free to pursue cures.
theories need deep-level
inspection
G. Kolata, “A Murder Suspect’s
Worth toin light of
Science,” New York Times
(February
23,
latest
models/evidence?
2010), p. D4.
60
A Final Note
• OB is a relatively healthy discipline
within the limits of the social sciences
(Kuhn; Simonton)
• My polemic applies to other social
science areas (e.g., behavioral economics)
• Still, IMHO, our collective knowledge,
from the literature, fails to appreciate
dominant causes of human behavior
– Those would be: genes, evolution, chance
61
A Final, Final Note
• We would be wise to avoid the “isought” problem (Hume)
The author…makes observations concerning human affairs; when all
of a sudden I am surpriz'd to find, that instead of the usual
copulations of propositions, is, and is not, I meet with no proposition
that is not connected with an ought, or an ought not.
– Translation: The world in which we do
live is (is) not necessarily the one in
which we would wish to live (ought)
– If OB is a science, it is concerned
with predicting and understanding;
ideology is not its concern
62
Speaking of Ideology…
The American public increasingly has been told that terrorism is the
product of “evil” people, that insurgencies are incited by nothing more
than a handful of “thugs” or “dead enders,” and that when some
members of our own armies of predominately “good” people commit
atrocities, it is because they represent the few “rotten apples” in an
otherwise properly designed and well run “barrel.”
It is often difficult for us to acknowledge that the harmful situational
forces to which these “bad actors” have fallen prey are ones to which we
ourselves might have succumbed.
We readily concede that there may be some differences in the
backgrounds or characteristics of persons…With all due respect,
however, this is a modest point.
— Haney and Zimbardo, Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin, 2009.
63
Thank you!
For copies of
slides, visit…
http://www.ufstudies.net/tim/VITA/index.htm
Texas A&M University
February 26, 2010