INTRODUCTION TO PSYCHOLOGY AT WORK

Organizational psychology is a field that utilizes scientific methodology to better understand

the behavior of individuals working in organizational settings. This knowledge is also used,
in a variety of ways, to help make organizations more effective. Effective organizations are
typically more productive, often provide higher-quality services to customers, and are usually
more financially successful than less effective organizations. For private organizations,
financial success often results in greater job security for employees, and increased
shareholder wealth for investors. For public organizations, such as police departments,
municipal governments, and public universities, success means higher-quality services and
cost savings to tax payers.
Organizational psychology is part of the larger field. Psychology is the scientific study of
individual human behavior and mental processes. Organizational psychologists use methods
of scientific inquiry to both study and intervene in organizations. This simply means that
organizational psychologists use a systematic, data-based approach to studying organizational
processes and solving organizational problems. The data used by organizational
psychologists may come in a variety of forms, including survey responses, interviews,
observations, and, in some cases, organizational records.
Katz and Kahn, in their classic work, The Social Psychology of Organizations (1978), stated
that the essence of an organization is patterned human behavior. When behaviour is
patterned, this implies that some structure is imposed on the behaviour of individuals. In
organizations this structure typically comes from things such as job descriptions and
organizational policies.

DIFFERENCES BETWEEN INDUSTRIAL AND ORGANIZATIONAL

PSYCHOLOGY

Industrial psychology is concerned with people at work. Industrial psychology provides

theory and research methods to personnel management. It is also called personnel
psychology. A closely related field is known as organizational psychology.
INDUSTRIAL PSYCHOLOGY ORGANISATIONAL PSYCHOLOGY
Industrial psychologists have assessed Organizational psychologists generally seek
differences among individual workers and to understand how workers function in an
have evaluated individual jobs. organization, and how the organization
functions in society.

Industrial psychologists typically help Organizational psychologists devote much

employers find the best person for a job, time to job satisfaction. They investigate
evaluate job performance, and train factors that have been found to relate to
employees. In developing a system for satisfaction, including employee turnover,
matching an individual to a job, an industrial absenteeism, age, pay, and attitudes toward
psychologist must first determine what unions. Organizational psychologists also
special knowledge, skills, and abilities the study motivation because evidence suggests
job demands. that both motivation and ability are necessary
for employees to succeed in their jobs

Finally, there is no broad line that divides workplace problems into organizational or
industrial ones. For instance, a performance problem that might traditionally be defined
within the industrial domain (the term performance has always been more closely aligned
with industrial psychology) is likely to be caused by attitudinal or motivational factors that
are traditionally associated with organizational psychology.

GOALS-

Leader must be able to describe, understand, predict and control individual behaviour in the
organization. Goals of industrial psychology are:-

(a) Describe: Study of organizational behaviour is based on scientific methods, which have
been applied on human beings. It is a science, that analyses as to how people behave in
different situations in the organization. A manager should be able describe the behaviour of
each of the individuals under his command, identify attitude, and be able to pinpoint his
behaviour so that the situation in the organization is under control.