ERIC PALMA

By SARAH KERSHAW


The office joker. The mother hen. The king. The rebel. The gossip. The peacekeeper. Anyone who has ever been part of a workplace culture can probably recognize at least one of those characters in the next cubicle.

But workplace roles and the dynamics among colleagues can go much deeper than those somewhat superficial stereotypes, especially in an era when many people spend as much time with colleagues as they do with their families, where the office so often mirrors the family.

A boss is not just a boss, in the view of some psychologists who study workplace roles; he can be a stand-in for a disapproving and distant father. An unpredictable, easily angered manager can be a thinly veiled rejecting mother. Colleagues competing for the boss’s attention - or merit raises and bonuses - are siblings in rivalry.

The employees of a company acquired by another in a hostile merger- They can experience seething resentment toward what they feel is an unwelcome stepparent, according to psychologists working with companies to manage emotional fallout during a merger.

Given all the stress and uncertainty driven by the economic crisis, some companies, with the help of business and organizational psychologists, are plumbing the depths of these feelings and roles .

“Work is nothing more than an entirely complex set of relationships,” said Michael W.Norris, a clinical psychologist in Los Angeles, who runs monthly leadership coaching groups and individual sessions with senior executives.“You have partners that are your equals, subordinates, superiors,” Mr.Norris said.“It’s parents and siblings. All of these dynamics that are exactly the same in the workplace, just the titles are different.”

A number of character typology studies have sought to define the roles office workers play. In one recent study that T-Mobile in Britain commissioned to gain insight into how its employees interact, a psychologist interviewed workers and came up with eight character types.

When times are difficult economically, a workplace character identified as the “mother hen” - with a comforting voice of reason and empathy - may help raise the group’s spirit, Honey Langcaster-James, a psychologist, concluded. The“office joker,”by contrast,“may decide that wisecracking” is “no longer appropriate in such dire times.”

Heather Amber Anderson, a management consultant based in Stowe, Vermont, who speaks regularly to chief executives of small and mediumsize companies, said she has been telling these executives for the last few months that examining their own and their employees’ roles and behavior at work is especially important now.

“This is more critical than ever,” she said she has advised.“People are watching you right now to set the emotional tenor of the organization. This is one of the most important conversations you need to have with yourself right now.”