PSYCH 338 Lecture Notes - Lecture 1: Protestant Work Ethic, Homo Economicus, Social Mobility

• School: University of Waterloo
• Department: Psychology
• Course: PSYCH 338
• Professor: Franki Kung

Document Summary

A brief history of work, workers, and workplace: ancient, medieval, and middle ages. Emerging from smaller communiies where people took care of themselves as society grew larger, it was not as beneicial to work on your own, but it became beter to organize work. People started to specialize in what they were doing, divided tasks, and started to build tools and systems to ensure that work was done efecively. Plato believed that the reason why people were working was because only the minority (elite) had the capacity to engage in pure exercises of the mind. Only a few people did not need to work people that were working were inferior". You need to labour to get what you need since the majority was not elite . Work was degrading, labor or a chore, and was called ponos : this meant pain and sufering. Workers were seen to be inferior, demonstrated by slaves, servants and peasants.