A Comparative Study of the Personality of the Alienated and Non - Alienated Employees as Measured by 16 Pf

The damaging effects of employment have been discussed for many years. Marx identified several possible forms of alienation. Laborers can be alienated from the product of their labor (Marx, 1963 trans.). They can also be alienated from the process of production, making work external from their nature and not improving their abilities. In Marx’s view capitalists abuse the power of ownership to alienate laborers from their work. Seeman (1975) notes six varieties of alienation: powerlessness, meaningless, normlessness, cultural estrangement, self-estrangement & social isolation. Seeman argues that powerlessness and self-estrangement are the two most common forms in work. Most work has been via surveys of individual attitudes and feelings toward work. Most surveys report generally high levels of satisfaction and morale but high variation across occupations and work levels. High satisfaction tends to be associated with intrinsic interest of work, level of control, level of pay and economic security, and opportunities for social interaction (Special Task Force, 1973). Work and personality measures has best been done by Kohn and associates (Kohn and Schooler 1983). They found that “men in selfdirected jobs become less authoritarian, less self-deprecatory, less fatalistic, and less conformist in their ideas while becoming more self-confident and more responsible to standards of morality (Spenner, 1988, p. 75). Work does seem to have an effect on personality (and vice versa). The impact of these alienation forces also extends beyond work into family and social life. Companies rarely assess or compensate for the negative psychological impact of work, and these costs are often born by society in general. The present study was conducted with sample of 200 male employees (age range 30 to 40 years) and was administered alienation scale and 16 PF to assess the personality differences in alienated an non -alienated employees. The results revealed that the said two groups differ significantly on factor A, B, C, H, I, M and O of 16 PF. Sandeep Kumar* *Dr. Sandeep Kumar, Prof. Tecnia Institute of Advanced Studies, Rohini, Delhi. which refers to a syndrome of powerless, isolation & self estrangement Citing the works of other Psychologist, Fromm-Reichmann consider alienation “the common fate of person in modern society” (Fromm-Reichmann 1959). One of pioneer study is that of Davids (1955) who observed that alienated person has a weak ego structure. McDill (1961) found a direct relationship between anomie and authoritarianism. In an extensive study Tolar (1971)