My opinion
 

By Dr. Deepak Gupta , Dr. Sarwan Kumar
Corresponding Author Dr. Deepak Gupta
Wayne State University, - United States of America 48201
Submitting Author Dr. Deepak Gupta
Other Authors Dr. Sarwan Kumar
Wayne State University, Internal Medicine, - United States of America

PSYCHOLOGY

Workplace Safety, Innate Attraction, Occupational Health

Gupta D, Kumar S. Subtraction of Attraction for Saner Workplaces. WebmedCentral PSYCHOLOGY 2020;11(1):WMC005598

This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License(CC-BY), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited.
No
Submitted on: 12 Jan 2020 04:13:32 PM GMT
Published on: 18 Jan 2020 09:00:45 AM GMT

Abstract


Occupational health practitioners may acknowledge attraction as natural and innate instinct but must regulate it when difficulty in separating personal and professional lives is endangering sanity and survival of modern workplaces.

My Opinion


The existential question is why attraction exists. Evolutionarily, it can be called a precursor to procreation that essentially helps individual organisms survive through generations (Ryan, 2018). Moreover, attraction supplements with non-procreation benefits facilitating sharing of attained power for individual organisms’ survival (De Waal, 2006). Therefore, we can agree that attraction is a natural and innate instinct in individual organisms.      

Thence the question is why workplaces have boundaries because in modern workplaces, the open debates about rampant attraction and its consequences are often missing despite its known obvious association with expanding work hours cutting into personal time (Byrne, & Neuman, 1992; Elsesser, 2019; Gautier, 2015). It becomes obvious when one considers that evolutionarily survival has not precluded but rather perpetuated the creation of boundaries within the species, families and societies. Henceforth, modern living revolving mostly around modern workplaces as “unofficial-families” is required to define workplace boundaries for its survival (Gupta, 2019). Ironically, the core goal of living is survival of most resilient selfish genes replicating within, even when it may paradoxically seem that survival instincts are favoring larger organisms like species, families and societies (and now workplaces) over smaller organisms like individual beings (Dawkins, 1976).

Finally, while modern workplaces value purity and predictability in professionalism and productivity, the scorching question remains that how to subtract attraction to keep workplaces healthier by overcoming the universal law of blurring and blinding attraction (Eyler, & Baridon, 1992; Six Sigma Online, 2013). Repressed or confessed feelings may go wrong. Conversation with supervisors/peers may fail. Assistance by family/friends may not help. Counselors/physicians may seem distant.

Fundamentally, the ideal scenario will be modern workplaces allowing their workers sufficient home-time devoid of all workplace-responsibilities so that their natural and innate instinctual needs can be physically-psychologically-socioeconomically-spiritually met far away from their workplaces. However, workhours’ restrictions like six-hours-workday or four-workdays-week may not succeed due to limited resources (Glaveski, 2018; Graham-McLay, 2018). Alternatively, work-from-home may be impossible at most workplaces; and wherever possible, it may paradoxically keep workers more connected to workplaces as compared to homes. Even non-rescue/non-emergency workers’ jobs are evolving unrealistic time-sensitive work-profiles secondary to breathless connectivity via emails/texts/calls. Although workplaces can officially ban work-related emails/texts/calls during after-hours, workplaces may seem helpless if workers choose to remain more connected to their coworkers than to their families and friends (Anderson, 2017). Essentially, although investment in social relationships may keep workers happy and contain their burnout, workplace safety warrants cost-efficient strategies to separate dysfunctionally attracted coworkers (Achor, 2010).

Summarily, it is important to understand “what if everybody did that” in modern workplaces so that modern beings can understand why attraction must be subtracted for the sanity of modern workplaces (Javernick, 1990; Stover, 1960). Herein lays the role of occupational health practitioners who may acknowledge attraction as natural and innate instinct but must regulate it when difficulty in separating personal and professional lives is endangering sanity and survival of modern workplaces.

Reference(s)


Achor, S. (2010). The happiness advantage: The seven principles of positive psychology that fuel success and performance at work. New York, NY: Random House, Inc.

 

Anderson, J. (2017, January 3). How to enjoy France’s right-to-disconnect law without living in France. Retrieved from https://qz.com/876892/france-passed-a-law-banning-work-emails-after-work-but-you-can-do-it-y ourself/

 

Byrne, D., & Neuman, J. H. (1992). The implications of attraction research for organizational issues. In K. Kelley (Ed.), Advances in psychology, 82. Issues, theory, and research in industrial/organizational psychology (pp. 29-70). Oxford, England: North-Holland. http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/S0166-4115(08)62598 -4

 

Dawkins, R. (1976). The selfish gene. Oxford: Oxford University Press.

 

De Waal, F.B.M. (2006, June 1). Bonobo sex and society. Retrieved from https://www.scient ificamerican.com/article/bonobo-sex-and-society-2006-06/

 

Elsesser, K. (2019, February 14). These 6 surprising office romance stats should be a wake-up call for organizations. Retrieved from https://www.forbes.com/sites/kimelsesser/2019 /02/14/these-6-surprising-office-romance-stats-should-be-a-wake-up-call-to-organizations/#3c99f3ad23 a2

 

Eyler, D.R., & Baridon, A.P. (1992, May 1). More than just friends. Retrieved from https://www.psychologyto day.com/us/articles/199205/more-just-friends

 

Gautier, C. (2015). The psychology of work: Insights into successful working practices. London, United Kingdom: Kogan Page Limited.

 

Glaveski, S. (2018, December 11). The case for the 6-hour workday. Retrieved from https://hbr.org/2018/12/the-case-for- the-6-hour-workday

 

Graham-McLay, C. (2018, July 19). A 4-day workweek? A test run shows a surprising result. Retrieved from https://www. nytimes.com/2018/07/19/world/asia/four-day-workweek-new-zealand.html

 

Gupta, D. (2019). Is workplace kin? Workplace Health Saf, 67(6), 312. doi:10.1177/2165079919836438

 

Javernick, E. (1990). What if everybody did that. Danbury, CT: Children’s Press. 

 

Ryan, M.J. (2018). A taste for the beautiful: The evolution of attraction. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press.

 

Six Sigma Online. (2013, September 28). 10 ways to fight attraction in the workplace. Retrieved from https://www.workitdaily.com/workplace- attraction-fight

 

Stover, J.A. (1960). If everybody did. Philadelphia, PA: D. McKay.

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