Belief Systems and Attitudes toward the Workplace

Abstract

Belief systems as discussed by Harvey and colleagues provide a summary description of individual differences across a variety of psychological characteristics in combination with people's assumptions as to how the world operates. Here we provide a brief report as to how individuals' belief systems related to their attitudes toward workplace issues which were defined in the course of the study. The data on which these conclusions were based were collected in two stages of a pilot study. The second stage used a refinement of the inventory which measured attitudes toward the workplace in the first stage, both stages used the same inventory for measuring belief systems. People with different belief systems had divergent concerns in the workplace. The most prominent finding was that “cynics” tend to express negative attitudes toward the same issues which “extrapersonalists” (who are more likely to be managers) tend to favor.