Workers scale back job conceptions to close the gap between capability and goals.

Evidence

Just as organizations confronted with difficulties in achieving objectives may retreat on objectives in order to obtain a better fit between their capabilities and gOalS, 7 so too workers can and do modify their conceptions of the job in order to close the psychological gap between capabilities and objectives. Thus judges may be oriented toward punishment and deterrence or corrections and rehabilitation. Teachers may be uriented toward classroom control or toward cognitive and personality development. — Michael Lipsky, Street-Level Bureaucracy, 1069

Categorization

• XREF: Mirrors organizational goal-displacement theory (Merton) and cognitive-dissonance reduction—compares mechanisms of change across admin and psych domains. — connects to: Scarce effort forces workers to invent conceptual divisions that justify their jobs. — Michael Lipsky, Street-Level Bureaucracy: Dilemmas of…, 1121; Workers concede innate differences justify their lower occupational position — John T. Jost and Jim Sidanius, Political Psychology, 2200

Broader Connections

• Scarce effort forces workers to invent conceptual divisions that justify their jobs. #expands (0.85) — Michael Lipsky, Street-Level Bureaucracy, 1121
• Workers concede innate differences justify their lower occupational position #corroborates (0.75) — John T. Jost and Jim Sidanius, Political Psychology, 2200