ABSTRACT
Industrial and Organizational (I-O) Psychology, to a greater extent than any other field of behavioral science, is concerned with one of the few fundamental elements of the life of an individual in our world. In the United States and other nations in the industrialized world, our work defines us. You are what you do. To do nothing is to be nothing. Just as doing nothing negates our humanity, we are defined privately and socially by our work.
Work, whether pleasant or painful, helps define individual identity. Strangers ask, “What do you do?” We reply to casual or ideological queries by naming skills or places of employment. We relate occupation to race, ethnicity, gender, region, and religion in struggling to comprehend the essential reality of self or community. Our daily tasks give lives coherence; by contrast, the lack of work denies our basic humanity. Workers uncomfortable with abstract discourse assert, “I am a workaholic” or “Hard work’s my middle name.” Philosophers may translate such vernacular lines into “I work, therefore I am.”
(Green, 1993)