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Genetic mechanisms explaining how evolution is linked to organizational behavior: The genetic basis of work attitudes and emotions. Zhaoli Song National University of Singapore. Remus Ilies and Nikos Dimotakis Michigan State University. Purpose.
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Genetic mechanisms explaining how evolution is linked to organizational behavior: The genetic basis of work attitudes and emotions. Zhaoli Song National University of Singapore Remus Ilies and Nikos Dimotakis Michigan State University
Purpose • Biology, evolution, and organizational behavior. • Links to behavior via employees’ attitudes and emotional states at work. • Attitudes and emotional states have significant genetic components. • Implications for understanding how individuals behave and how they experience work.
Purpose (cont.) • Evidence of genetic effects is accumulating rapidly. • Organizational research has been slow to integrate genetic effects. • Important implications for practice have also been neglected.
Estimating the magnitude of genetic effects • Estimate variance of the outcome among MZ twins reared apart. • Estimate variance of the outcome among MZ & DZ twins reared apart and together. VA = a2 + c2 + e2 h2= a2 / VA
Evolution, inheritance and behavioral genetics • Dispositions evolved because they contributed to solving specific adaptation problems. • Individual differences as ranges of viable evolutionary strategies (Buss, 1991). • Variation in a characteristic facilitates niche occupation (Lusk et al., 1998). • That an individual characteristic is heritable indicates that it is subject to sexual or natural selection. • Difficult to establish the consequences of traits for fitness.
Genetics, behavior, and attitudes • The role of personality and emotionality. • Big Five (Loehlin, 1992). • Affectivity (Bouchard & Mcgue, 20030. • Relationships with behavior and attitudes Personality Behaviors Genetic Influences Emotion and Affect Attitudes
The case of job satisfaction • The importance of job satisfaction. • Heritability estimates • Mediating role of personality and affectivity
Other satisfaction domains • Substantial heritability of life satisfaction • Moderated effects • General well-being
Work values • Heritability of work values • Heritability of non-work values and attitudes
Work and non-work behaviors • Turnover • Risk taking • Task persistence • Aggression and hostility • Leadership • Entrepreneurial behaviors • Parenting styles
Future research • More sophisticated and comprehensive models. • Integrating organizational behavior, evolutionary psychology, and genetics. • Interactions and correlations between heritability, genes, and the environment – beyond h • hxE, GxE, G-E correlations, Epigenetic Programming (Moffitt et al., 2006). • Personality as strategic traits and environments as distributions of adaptive problems (Buss, 2009). • Emphasis on on-the-job behaviors. • More appropriate samples and methods.
Implications for theory • Integrating genetic influences in models of work behavior. • Drawing upon previous work to detect gene-environment interactions. • Synthesizing viewpoints.
Practical Implications • Organizational • Selection, organizational climate, job design, workplace interventions. • Ethical • “Unhappy consequences” (Turkheimer, 1990, p. 788). • Legal issues • US: Genetic Information Nondiscrimination Act of 2008 • Potential legislation in the EU and elsewhere. • Alternative implications • “Breaking” established correlations (Judge, Ilies, & Dimotakis, 2010).