Psychological Development of Adults: A Comment
评论Richard Schott关于成人心理发展与工作满意度关系的文章，指出其理论缺陷和潜在问题，提醒公共管理者谨慎对待其建议。
recent PAR article, The Psychological Development of Adults, by Richard Schott [vol. 46 (November/December 1986), pp. 657-667] presents an interesting picture of the relationship of life stages to job satisfaction. Schott concludes that public managers can improve their effectiveness through developing understanding and awareness of subordinates' psychological development. Unfortunately, this latest contribution to the nature-nurture debate contains ominous overtones, has serious theoretical flaws, and should be approached judiciously, if at all, by public managers concerned with equity and organizational effectiveness. Criticism of this approach can be developed on at least three factors: (1) the basic assumptions of the studies on which the article is developed; (2) variations related to deviations from the assumptions; and (3) the use of the information to promote organizational effectiveness. Schott traces the theory of adult development from Carl Jung to Gail Sheehy's popular Passages, which was generally based on the work of Erik Erikson. He then focuses attention on the work of Manfred Kets de Vries, George E. Vaillant, and Daniel J. Levinson and proposes a link between life stage and job satisfaction. parallels are striking and seem to suggest that job satisfaction, and thus organizational effectiveness, is inextricably entwined with psychological age. One concludes that remarkably little change can be anticipated as the result of various managerial interventions to improve employee motivation. Schott makes several recommendations for managers to utilize this new information. ambition of youth should be nurtured and harnessed, the mid-life person should be given new opportunities, and those who cannot weather the storms of mid-life passage should be shown the door. Schott further proposes that the measure of executive fitness should be the extent to which the mid-life transition has been successfully achieved, the primary criterion of measurement being working out a satisfactory relationship with one's adolescent children. A closer look is warranted before public, or any, managers embrace this advice wholeheartedly. In the first place, the assumptions of the studies on which the article is based are limited and unrealistic in terms of