INDUSTRIAL PSYCHOLOGY

• Industrial/Organizational Psychology


  A branch of psychology that applies the principles of psychology to the workplace
• Purpose of I/O Psychology


  To enhance the dignity & performance of human beings and the organization they work in
• Differences between I/O Psychology and Business Programs


  • Research Method
  • Quantitative Methods
  • Employee Selection
  • Organizational Psychology/Behavior
  • Psychometrics/Test Construction
  • Training and Development
  • Performance Appraisal
  • Finance
  • Marketing
  • Corporate Strategies and Policies
  • Accounting
  • Information Systems
  • Economics
  • Operations Management
  • Culture/Global/International Business
  • Ethics
• Major Fields of I/O Psychology


  • Personnel Psychology
  • Organizational Psychology
  • Human Factors/Ergonomics
• Personnel Psychology


  • Analyzing Jobs
  • Recruiting Applicants
  • Selecting Employees
  • Determining Salary Levels
  • Training Employees
  • Evaluating Employee's Performance
• Organizational Psychology


  • Leadership Styles
  • Job Satisfaction
  • Employee Motivation
  • Organizational Communication
  • Conflict Management
  • Organizational Change
  • Group processes
• Human Factors/Ergonomics


  • Workplace design
  • Human-Machine interaction
  • Ergonomics
  • Physical Fatigue
  • Stress
• Brief History of I/O Psychology


  • 1900-1920
  • 1918-World War 1
  • 1920-1940
  • 1960s
  • 1970s
  • 1980s and 1990s
  • 2000s
• Walter Dill Scott publishes The Theory of Advertising in 1903
• Hugo Munsterberg publishes Psychology and Industrial Efficiency in 1913
• Journal of Applied Psychology first published in 1917
• John Watson (behaviorism) developed tests (perceptual and motor tests) for potential pilots during World War I
• Thomas Edison's 163-item knowledge test (tested 900 applicants, only 5% passed)
• First Ph.D. in I/O Psychology awarded to Bruce Moore and Merrill Ream at Carnegie Tech in 1921
• First I/O textbook written by Morris Viteles in 1932
• Hawthorne Studies published in 1933
• American Association for Applied Psychology Established in 1937
• Passage of civil rights legislation in the 1960s
• Increased use of sophisticated statistical techniques & analytical methods in the 1980s and 1990s
• Rapid advances in technology in the 2000s
• Changing demographic makeup of the workforce in the 2000s
• Employment Settings of I/O Psychologists


  • Education
  • Private Sector
  • Public Sector
  • Consulting
  • Other
• Educational Requirements and Types of Programs


  • Bachelor's Degree
  • Master's Degree
  • Doctoral Degree
• Why Conduct Research?


  • Answering questions and making decisions
  • Research and Everyday Life
  • Common Sense is often wrong
• Considerations in Conducting Research


  • Ideas, hypotheses, and theories
  • Literature reviews
  • The locations of the study
  • The research method to be used
  • Subject samples
  • Data collection procedures & statistical analysis
• Idea


  A question or suggestion about what to research
• Hypothesis


  A well thought-out suggestion or idea about what will happen
• Theory


  A systematic set of assumptions regarding the nature and cause of particular events
• Social Loafing Example


  • Idea: People don't work as hard in a group as when they are alone
  • Hypothesis: When pulling on a rope, a person working by himself will exert more force than a person working in a group
  • Theory: 1. Sucker effect, 2. Free-rider, 3. Individual effort will not be noticed
• Noise Example


  • Idea: Does all this noise affect my employees' performance?
  • Hypothesis: High levels of noise will increase the number of errors made in assembling electronic components
  • Theory: Noise causes a distraction making it difficult to concentrate
• Recruitment Example


  • Idea: What employee recruitment source is best?
  • Hypothesis: Employee referrals will result in employees who stay with the company longer than will the other recruitment methods
  • Theory: 1. Realistic job preview, 2. Differential source, 3. Personality similarity, 4. Socialization
• Where to Find Previous Research


  • Written sources (Journals, Trade Magazines, Bridge publications, Magazines, Books)
  • Electronic Resources (PsychINFO, Infotrac, Web of science, The Internet)
• Where to Conduct Research


  • Laboratory
  • Field
  • Office
• Research Methods


  • Experiment
  • Quasi-experiment
  • Case study
  • Correlation
  • Survey
  • Interview
  • Natural observation
• Experiment


  Independent variable is manipulated and subjects are randomly assigned to conditions
• Quasi-experiment


  Independent variable is not manipulated or subjects are not randomly assigned to conditions
• Considerations for Subjects


  • Size
  • Students vs. "real world"
  • Inducements to Participate (Extra credit, Money, Intrinsic reasons, Ordered to participate)
• If investigating whether the length of time it took for an employee to report sexual harassment influenced jurors' decisions, students as subjects would be different from having people from the community
• The inducement used to get subjects to participate could affect the type of person agreeing to participate