Behavioral economics and neuroscientific research
The world is changing faster and faster, and so is the environment of a company. The time of permanent changes and the resulting complexity cause various transformation processes, which lead an organization to constant adjustments. A future-oriented company must face these adjustments and carry them out. The relevance of the adjustments is determined by the quality and quantity of their interactions with elements from the environment. These, in turn, must be adapted primarily to the leading individuals of a company, who then introduce strategic personnel development measures, primarily to promote personal development in the interests of the company. The working world in Germany has so far been performance- and results-oriented. The ever increasing digitization and speed of development is forcing companies to adapt and change more quickly. This is especially true on the cultural-personal level of a company’s internal process.
This paper is primarily concerned with the assumption that the findings of neuroscience on human motivation can have a positive impact on the change processes of a company.
The aim is to highlight the psychological findings and methods used in personnel development measures, taking neuroscientific research into account.
What is motivation from the point of view of neuroscience and what are the new approaches to motivation compared to psychological theories are the questions to be examined.
Personnel development is becoming increasingly important. Differences in performance between companies are increasingly decided at the personnel level [1]. How personnel development is to be understood, where it is classified and which interventions and approaches to the behavior modification, straight for change processes is to be explained more near. What is personnel development and what does it comprise? These questions are dealt with diversely in the scientific literature.
“The term personnel development characterizes the promotion of professionally relevant knowledge, skills, attitudes, etc. through measures of continuing education, counseling, systematic feedback and work design. In this context, the goals and contents of personnel development should be based on corporate strategy, i.e., focus on competencies that are needed to achieve strategic corporate goals…” [2]. There are varying definitions in broad and deep of what human resource development means, as well as ambiguity about what interventions it encompasses. However, there is one commonality: “to enhance performance and improve collaboration“ [2, 3]. Personnel development is one of the most important parts in personnel psychology and can be equated with job and organization related learning. Accordingly, it is measures to promote professional qualification both in terms of specialized knowledge and behavioral learning appropriate to the requirements. This can follow not only planned and systematic forms, but also as Schuler [3] calls it, a”learning by osmosis”. He understands this to mean, among other things, the integration of employees, inclusion of implicit and explicit rules in the behavioral repertoire, development of commitment, shared values, etc. “However, there is no one-sided shaping of the individual in the image of the organization; rather, the organization is also shaped by its members. Thus it comes about that intensive personnel development also becomes organizational development (and vice versa) and that in a free labor market organizations and their employees”fit together” [4]. Consequently, the focus shifts to organization-related learning that concentrates on systematically planned behavior that meets requirements. What does this mean for planned interventions in the change process? The starting points for action in organizational development are many and varied [5]. In the context of a company-internal change process, attention is focused less on knowledge-oriented and more on behavior-oriented procedures, self-management and the promotion of innovation. Innovation alone is very complex and multifaceted and at the same time is already finding its way into corporate structures with Design Thinking. In order to keep the focus of this work nevertheless, only the “…relevance of the group composition is singled out and the differentiated address in: Individual, Team and Organization. Self-management, the effort”…to influence one’s own behavior in a goal-oriented manner”, is obviously gaining in importance; with a popular-scientific large advice market. In contrast, personnel psychology has so far devoted itself to this topic rather stepmotherly. And yet, neuroscience-based self-management techniques already exist. For this work of importance, the Zurich Resource Model. Sonntag and Stegmaier give an overview for the behavior-oriented procedures and how behavioral changes and personality development can be initiated. Approaches, intentions, elements, design features, etc. can be differentiated [1, 2]. As different as the approaches of behavior-oriented methods are, they also make use of different settings: individual and/or group settings. As a basis for working with groups, the numerous findings from group dynamics and social psychology are adopted and built upon.
In addition, the considerations of this paper on the setting are supplemented by insights from psychology on model learning according to Bandura and on the role of the role model function (e.g. Hammerl & Grabitz, 2006; Zimbardo & Gerrig, 2004) [2]. Thus, it is about differentiation. On the one hand, into individual and/or group settings. On the other hand, into vertical and/or horizontal group composition. With these considerations, different questions can be derived: Does the choice of setting of interventions in change processes pay off on quality and thus on motivation? Does the composition of the groups (A: fixed, existing teams or motley grouped; B: horizontal or vertical composition) play a role? Motives move us to overcome certain thresholds or resistances. The higher the resistance, the greater the need for motivation. So far so good. This chapter is more concerned with the question of dynamics: What really gets us people moving? Motivational psychology answers this question with affect optimization. This is to express that people strive for events (appetence) that stimulate positive emotional states and avoid those events (aversion) that lead to negative ones. From a neuroscientific perspective, “… positive and negative feelings are lawfully associated with the release of certain substances in the brain…”. In fact, the release of substances and the activity state of the limbic system can be used to reliably infer the state of affect and emotion in people. These inner states become visible via the vegetative system and their physiological symptoms such as heart rate or breathing frequency. Similarly, there is an increased activity of the amygdala, the nucleus accumbens and the prefrontal cortex. On the other hand, endogenous motivation types, connectable to the affect optimization of motivational psychology, are identified. Overview of this is provided by Esch. For an understanding and a possible differentiation of the individual types, their functioning, neurotransmitters, and brain structures which are involved. Which types of motivation can be found in internal company change processes? And which types can be taken into account for intervention measures? The question now is: how do motives arise physiologically? The nucleus accumbens - as part of the limbic system- evaluates what we experience or want to experience according to the pleasure principle. If a thought, an inner state, or an event, an outer state, promises to be pleasurable or pleasing, the neurotransmitter dopamine is released in the ventral tegmental area. This neurotransmitter occupies the receptors of the synapses in the prefrontal cerebral cortex, where consciousness resides. This is also where expectation and conscious decision-making occur. If the cerebral cortex reports an actual positive experience back to the ventral tegmental area, the so-called ventral loop closes and serotonin is released. The neurotransmitter has a calming and satisfying effect, providing harmony and a sense of well-being. The basic principle is therefore that internal or external events are registered by centers of the limbic system, which in turn act on behavior-controlling centers. It is less about pleasure and displeasure. Rather, it is about the pursuit of appetence and aversion. Or put differently: “The more dominant a motive or goal is from the outset, or the more conflict-free it is in relation to other motives or goals, the more readily and unproblematically it can be translated into behavior”. Thus, this approach is very perspective for modeling of human behavior and it will be developed more widely in neuroeconomics.
References
- Kals, E. (2006): „Arbeits- und Organisationspsychologie“, Workbook. Weinheim: Beltz Verlag.
- Mattenklott, A. / Ryschka, J. / Solga, M. (2008), „Personalentwicklung: Gegenstand, Prozessmodell, Erfolgsfaktoren. In J.S. Ryschka und A. Mattenklott (Hrsg.) „Praxishandbuch Personalentwicklung: Instrumente, Konzepte, Beispiele“. , 2.Auflage, Wiesbaden, Gabler Fachverlage, S. 19.
- Schuler, H. (2006): „Lehrbuch der Personalpsychologie“, 2. Überarbeitet und erw. Auflage, Göttingen, Hogrefe Verlag
- Schuler, H. (2006): „Lehrbuch der Personalpsychologie“, Seite 227, 2. Überarbeitete und erweiterte Auflage, Göttingen. Hogrefe Verlag.
- Gebert, D. / Rosenstiel von L., (2002), „Organisationspsychologie“, 5. Auflage, Stuttgart, Kohlhammer Verlag.