Organizational Psychology: Good Intentions and False Promises

Abstract

Theory and practice within organizational psychology have been greatly influenced by humanistic psychology in general and theories of self-actualization in particular. Yet the concept of self-actualization is problematic, and may encourage a misguided view of people as exploiting each other and their environments in a hedonistic quest for satisfaction. Applied in an organizational context such an interpretation of the human condition would demean human interactions. Further, organizational psychologists have employed the humanistic paradigm in a search for effective ways of managing organizations while giving insufficient attention to a study of the wider effects that organizations have upon people in society. Coupled with an inadequate model of man such limited horizons may have led them to play an essentially conservative role in their work and to support institutional structures which could be seriously debilitating psychologically. A review of implicit assumptions within the discipline is required.