Genetics and Industrial and Organizational Psychology

The idea that genetics may play a determining role in work behavior and work-related phenomena does not have a particularly long past in terms of actual research activity among industrial and organizational (I-O) psychologists. Whereas research in other domains of psychology has shown convincingly that human behavior is influenced by genetic and biological characteristics of individuals, it was only within the past 10 years or so that researchers in the organizational domain have developed evidence that traits, attitudes, and behaviors relevant to the workplace also have a genetic component. There are essentially two streams of research that have pursued this issue. The first stream stems from I-O psychologists writing in the area of evolutionary psychology, where arguments are made that certain differences between individuals or ...