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Psychology

Psychology is a fascinating topic that helps us analyze why we do what we do. In the workplace this can relate to our personality, how we manage stress or what other people we work best with in a group setting. It can also range into personal development and how to maximize our own potential. In the posts in this blog category we look at both historical and contemporary views of major topics in psychology, with a focus on how they relate to our career search and performance on-the-job.

Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs… and His Big Revision

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This post introduces you to Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs and explains how you can use it for a more fulfilling life, not just via self-actualization but also self-transcendence. Introduced by Abraham Maslow in 1943, the hierarchy proposes that human motivation is a result of attempts to fulfill five very basic hierarchical needs. In order to live a joyful and fulfilling life, we must satisfy all the needs in the hierarchy. But, as the name suggests, we must first satisfy the lower needs before the highest ones are fulfilled. Maslow’s Original 5 Needs The first 4 needs in Maslow’s hierarchy are …

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The Three Viennese Schools of Psychotherapy: What Drives Human Behaviour

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Vienna, the capital city of Austria, was the hometown of three of the most famous psychotherapists who have shaped much of how the modern western world views psychotherapy. Together the theories and work of Freud, Adler and Frankl make up what is referred to as the Three Viennese Schools of Psychotherapy. We’ll analyze and compare each school of thought in a moment.  But first let’s consider the question: what is psychotherapy? What is Pyschotherapy? The term ‘psychotherapy’ covers a wide range of approaches and methods used in therapy. These approaches can use sessions that involve one to one talking. Or, …

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Nature Versus Nurture: How is our personality developed?

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Without a doubt, one of the oldest debates in psychology is the nature versus nurture debate. It is applicable to anything: our intelligence, our mental well-being and our interests, for example. However, it is also widely considered in relation to our personality. Is our personality developed over time, or are we born with it? Personality really is a complicated topic. If you’ve been following along with my posts, you’ll remember that I talked, in quite a lot of detail, about the debate as to whether we have personality traits or personality types. Or, whether our personality is state based or …

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Managing COVID-19 anxiety while at work

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It is undoubtable that coronavirus anxiety has impacted the lives of every single one of us in ways that we could never have imagined.  But with all of the obvious negatives, a worldwide lockdown (with some countries introducing strict curfews and quarantines) has had some positives. We had more time to relax. More time do the things we love. We spent time with our families. And we have increased our skill set, with many of us taking up new hobbies. However, unfortunately this worldwide lockdown has also increased our anxiety levels. In the US, 3 out of 5 Americans are …

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Personality Assessments for the Workplace: a Scientific Review of 13 Top Models

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In this blog post we’ll go through a comprehensive review of 13 of the most popular personality assessments that are being used in the workplace setting. We compare the different models and assess their validity, reliability, cost and overall applicability to both employers and job seekers. Ready? Let’s get into it! “Trait vs. State” Workplace Personality Assessments First a primer on personality assessments in general…  You may recall from my other posts that personality has two key components: trait-based and state-based. Generally speaking (and please don’t take offense to this), state-based personality is far too complex to measure for the …

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Trait Theory vs. State Theory: Why we shouldn’t confuse our personality with our response to situations

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Personality is becoming increasingly more popular, with many corporations looking at personality when it comes to hiring and building culture.  Indeed personality is a hot topic, and individual interest in personality assessment has created an explosion in the volume of both discussion and personality testing online. In recent years, both practitioners and researchers have become obsessed with incorporating our personality and behavior into many elements of the workplace. But before we get much further, let’s first understand what exactly “personality” is in the first place. In his book “The Personality Puzzle”, Dr. David Funder  defined personality as “an individual’s characteristic …

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The Tiny Correlation between Income and Happiness: Money CAN buy you happiness, but only up to a certain amount

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‘Money makes the world go around’, a phrase most of us have believed since we were children. We are all spurred on by the simple fact that we believe that money can buy us happiness… but is the link between how much money we earn and our happiness really just an illusion? Well, it is undeniable that money will make you happier, hence the popular and generations-long belief. In fact, a huge survey in 2010 in the United states found that household income was indeed related to our life satisfaction. However, despite our ingrained belief that we can only be …

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Career Counselors vs. Career Coaches: What’s the difference, and which do you need?

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For most of us, deciding what career we want to do, or changing our career path, is a big thing that requires careful thought, consideration and planning. While some of us are happy to source our help from online resources, such as blog posts like mine (I hope!), others turn to seeking professional help that will aid them in their decision making. Our satisfaction with our job or career (remember, there’s a difference) will rub off onto many other aspects of our lives, such as our satisfaction at home and our well-being. As we typically spend the rest of our …

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Carl Jung

The 8 Jungian Cognitive Functions: Overview & Career Implications

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A Glance into the History of the 8 Jungian Functions Carl Jung, the famous Swiss psychiatrist, proposed his model of the eight (8) functions in his work, Psychological Types (1921). He divided the functions into two groups, extraverted (tethered in the external world) and introverted (unfolded in the inner world). Jung’s work would later be built upon by Isabel Briggs Myers and her mother Katharine Cook Briggs, who created a personality model we know today as the Myers-Briggs Type Indicator (MBTI®). The Myers-Briggs approach used scales for Extraversion-Introversion, Sensing-Intuition and Thinking-Feeling based on Jung’s work and then added a fourth …

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