Being afraid of the 'other'

It's hard to avoid those harrowing images of those thousands of people fleeing war and destruction.  The pictures are everywhere and the effects of these massive movements of people are wide and far-reaching.  Post-World War Two, many psychologists turned their research to examining how we establish differences between 'Us' and 'Them'.  Turns out it is disturbingly easy to form what are called 'in groups' and 'out groups', often on the most arbitrary of criteria, and with lasting consequences.  (When you read some of the research, it's tempting to conclude that you, personally, would never do some of these things that dehumanise others, but the uncomfortable truth is that we are all prone to this kind of thinking).

The September issue (2015,  Vol 28 No 9) of The Psychologist carried two articles on current research into how and why we dehumanise others.  Often we do it because we are afraid, and the latest research suggests that in times when we feel particularly under threat our propensity to de-humanise is increased.  The extent to which we hold an 'out-group' as less-than-human acts as a predictor of our other attitudes.  For example, there was more dehumanising of Arabs by US citizens immediately following the Boston Marathon bombing, which showed up in how this group, in general, should be treated as a consequence.

Philip Zimbardo (he, of the famous Stanford Prison Experiments) argues that dehumanisation is a form of evil and that we are all capable of it if the situational context is supportive of such.  The process of dehumanisation diffuses responsibility - it allows us to take actions that would otherwise be highly uncomfortable, and possibly do things to others that we would never dream of doing in other circumstances.

However, he also pointed to something that he called 'heroism' - something that requires the courage to act in a different way.  This can be learned and he has established the Heroic Imagination Project to teach school children how to challenge mindsets, question peer group pressure and overcome stereotype threat.

http://heroicimagination.org/

Coaching in the workplace as a way of developing employees has been around for a number of years now, although the research into its effectiveness is still an emerging area of study.  So it is helpful to see the latest meta-analysis, by Jones, Woods and Guillaume*.

The analysis covers some 17 different studies, all work-based, covering over 2000 staff, mainly in management positions. 

Most encouragingly, Jones and colleagues found consistent evidence that coaching works and there are benefits in affect (eg improvements in self-efficacy or stress reduction), skill development and individual results.  It is thus, a powerful tool in the kit-bag of any HR professional charged with the responsibility of developing the staff in his/her organisation. In particular, it enables training and development to be tailored to each individual.

However, when looking in greater detail at what actually makes coaching work most effectively, their survey has yielded some surprising results:

• Perhaps most surprisingly, they found that effects of coaching were stronger when a coach internal to the organisation was deployed, rather than using an external professional.  Although the researchers stress some caution about this result (due to the low number of studies that used internal coaches), this is a finding that should not be ignored and has implications for the role of the external coach.
• The number of sessions and/or the length of the coaching contract did not affect results, although there may be some influence from the exact nature of the coaching conversation (ie more complex problems may require more time to work through, but there is also a case for a one-off coaching intervention).
• Face-to-face coaching and blended approaches seem to work equally well.  This has direct implications for driving arguments about the return on investment of coaching compared with other development activities.
• The use of multi-source feedback (eg 360 degree reports) in a coaching context actually had a weaker effect than coaching alone.  This is quite a surprising result and it is a common practice that multi-session coaching relationships often start with some kind of discussion around the results of such a report.  The researchers call for more investigation into this area, but postulate that the nature of the feedback given may direct the coachee's attention away from the session itself, thus reducing its effectiveness.

*  The full paper provides a very insightful analysis and is well worth a read if you are a HR professional or working as an external coach.  Currently you can purchase it online from Wiley (www.wileyonlinelibrary.com) although it is also due to be published in the Journal of Occupational and Organizational Psychology (2015).  It is called:

Jones RJ, Woods SA and Guillaume YRF (2015)  The effectiveness of workplace coaching:  A meta-analysis of learning and performance outcomes from coaching.

Resilience in the workplace - a review of the evidence for resilience training

Resilience, Mental Toughness, 'bounce-back-ability', hardiness.  These terms are now hot topics in organisations.  How do we help staff cope with the increasing demands and pressures of today's workplace?  And do current initiatives to help people cope actually work?  Professor Cary Cooper and his colleagues have attempted to find out by conducting a survey of the latest research papers.*

Resilience - it's one of those funny psychological concepts.  We all know when we see it, we use it as an every day term, perhaps when discussing the latest sporting achievement or amazing comeback we have witnessed on the TV.  But when you actually come to define it, it becomes a bit more elusive.

In conducting their review, Cooper and his colleagues found many different definitions in the 14 studies, plus a range of other terms for similar characteristics (such as the ones in the opening paragraph).  They were keen to differentiate 'resilience' from these other terms and settled on the definition that suggests that it is something which is malleable and therefore, can change over time and of course, be learned.

Four areas of measurement were used as showing evidence for the benefits of resilience training; 1) mental health and subjective well-being outcomes, 2) physical/biological outcomes, 3) psychosocial outcomes and 4) performance outcomes.  Interestingly, only six of the 14 studies included in the survey actually measured changes in resilience itself and in only three of these studies were there statistically significant increases in resilience.  This might seem like a athletics coach training a runner in various sprinting techniques but forgetting to actually check that he can actually run faster as a result.  But, the researchers do point to the wide range of training interventions, ranging from Cognitive/Behaviour techniques to mind/body to the spiritual.  As with many areas of psychological study that are in their infancy, a lack of randomised trials, variations in methodology and a range of populations makes interpretation difficult, and it is not yet clear what types of resilience training work best, with whom and by what mechanism.  It may be that resilience training helps to moderate certain psychological aspects, and hence works best with people who, for example, are prone to stress.  It may also mean that there is no one way of building resilience that works across contexts and populations.

That said, virtually all the studies reported improvements in outcomes as a result of resilience training, with impressive results in the area of mental health and well-being outcomes, such as stress, depression, anxiety, and negative mood.  However, there is no one single variable that consistently shows improvement across all the 14 studies and more research is required to discover exactly what methods produce the best results and by what mechanisms.

So, the latest signs are that resilience training can have positive effects, but more research is called for and Cooper and his colleagues conclude their paper with recommendations for taking the research area forward.

*This is only a brief summary of their work and the full paper is definitely worth a read, as it does provide a useful summary of the latest progress in an area that is of concern to HR practitioners working with overloaded people in the workplace.

You can find it at:

Roberston IT, Cooper CL, Sarkar M, Curran T (2015)  'Resilience training in the workplace from 2003 to 2014: a systematic review', Journal of Occupational and Organizational Psychology, 88, 533-562.