Anthropology Organizational Theory and Behavior

Anthropology

ORGANIZATIONAL THEORY and BEHAVIOR (three answers out of 10 possible):

Four types of reinforcement are: one, "positive reinforcement" (praising someone for doing a good job); two, "negative reinforcement" (taking away a privilege from a teenager to stimulate him to meet agree-upon responsibilities); three, "punishment" (in order to lessen a behavior there are sanctions); and four, "extinction" (taking something away).

Organization rewards give employees incentive to go the extra mile. Employee Benefits Magazine (January 16, 2007) mentions "engagement" as a reward category. Engagement amounts to giving employees more benefits if they show enthusiasm for the product they are sharing with guests. Another example of organizational rewards is "discretionary empowerment" in the workplace; employees are trained to use their own discretion in making customer service decisions and for their good work they receive benefits.

SIX: Burnout is the long-term and unfortunate result of unmanaged stress in the workplace, and it causes fatigue, depression, and a person suffering from burnout needs either a sabbatical or to find a less-stressful job. Stress is the psychological and physiological pressure on experiences to get tasks done within certain time frames and with a pre-ordained degree of competence. Occupational pressures and personal fears are said to be the most significant causes of stress at work. Burnout is worse because it can destroy a career and it also reflects poorly on management because the workplace, no matter how stressful, should have built in to the structure of the Human Resources department a strategy to relieve stressful conditions at key times so the harried employee or manager can get away to relax or be moved to a different department when stress is overwhelming.

INTRODUCTION to the HUMANITIES

ONE: The ancient beliefs about death and the life after are very interesting (even fascinating) because even today, religions differ dramatically on what happens when humans die. In ancient Egypt, the belief was that a person would be judged ethically, and there were several different parts to the afterlife based on one's body parts. The "akh" was like a ghost that lived near the tomb of the deceased; the "ka" was believed to be a spirit that looked precisely like the person looked prior to death; the "ba" was similar to what Christians believe to be the "soul" and the ba was capable of doing bodily functions for the deceased in the afterlife. The ancient Egyptians believed that Ra, the sun god, transported the ba and the ka across the sky. The Aztec civilization believed there were four different places (or realms) where the soul could go. The warriors, tradesmen and those who had been sacrificed were cremated and went to the Eastern Paradise to become companions of the sun. Women who died during childbirth went to the west and also were companions of the sun. If a person died by anything to do with water, like drowning, they were buried and went to a southern paradise. The final realm is Mictlan, very much like "Hell" in the Christian belief.

THREE: The Gothic Cathedral was indeed a place where worshippers were moved in poignant spiritual ways because of the beautiful art. According to the Dictionary of the Middle Ages (Galenet Research) the "...growing secularization of life and thought in the Gothic period," due in large part to the growth of cities and the "flourishing of trade" widened the patronage of the arts in churches. People attended universities and literacy expanded so there was a commensurate appreciation for aesthetics in general, and cathedral art in particular. Secular themes appearing in religious paintings brought a genre to the attentive eye that had not previously been presented.

FIVE: Three heroes in the romantic genre include Jean-Jacques Rousseau (historical), who was a hero leading up to the French Revolution, and many of his ideas of liberty were embraced after the revolution. Also, Byron's "Manfred" (literature) was a hero of a different sort as he wandered among the mountains and stayed far away from society. In the world of art, heroes were portrayed by Eugene Delacroix (he made Arabs heroes in "The Lion Hunt") and Jacques-Louis David who painted heroes from Greek mythology, and he painted Socrates ("The Death of Socrates") certainly an historic hero.

INTRODUCTION to CULTURAL ANTHROPOLOGY: ONE: European Colonialism is the seizing of land on foreign soil and the natural resources and people; the English, for example in Africa and the French in Asia attempted to colonize by forcing their cultures on indigenous peoples and neutralizing their ethnicities (Christianizing as well).

TWO: Forensic Anthropology is the science of using technology to closely identify evidence in solving crimes. Police count on forensic anthropologists such as Dr. Bill Bass (the Body Farm) to determine the time of death, the means of death, and other critical details.

SIX: Body art is commonly referred to in contemporary culture as piercings and tattoos; its affect on society is mainly aesthetic as many people (notably young people and pro-athletes) chose to use decorative tattoos as a way of self-expression.