CHAPTER I  The field of study that investigates the behavior

of employees within the context of an

Industrial – Organizational Psychology
organization
 A branch of psychology that applies the
principles of psychology to the workplace.
 Examines factors that affect the people in an Industrial Approach (I in IO Psychology)
organization as opposed to the broader aspects
 Focuses on determining the competencies
of running an organization such as marketing
needed to perform a job, staffing the
channels, transportation networks, and cost
organization with employees who have those
accounting (Kimbrough, Durley, & Munoz,
competencies, and increasing those
2005).
competencies through training.
 Relies extensively on research, quantitative
methods, and testing techniques. Organizational Approach (O in IO Psychology)
 Reliance on the scientist-practitioner model.
 Creates an organizational structure and culture
Industrial – Organizational Psychologists that will motivate employees to perform well,
give them necessary information to do their
 Trained to use empirical data and statistics
jobs, and provide working conditions that are
rather than intuition to make decisions.
safe and result in an enjoyable and satisfying
 Act as scientists when they conduct research
work/life environment.
and as practitioners when they work with actual
organizations. Personnel Psychologists
 Act as scientist-practitioners when they apply
 Analyze jobs to obtain a complete picture of
research findings so that the work they perform
what each employee does, often assigning
with organizations will be of high quality and
monetary values to each position.
enhance an organization’s effectiveness.
Organizational Psychologists
Principles of Learning
 Often conduct surveys of employee attitudes to
 Used to develop training programs and
get ideas about what employees believe are an
incentive plans
organization’s strengths and weaknesses.
Principles of Social Psychology  Makes recommendations on ways problem
areas can be improved.
 Used to form work groups and understand
employee conflict Human Factors

Principles of Motivation and Emotion  A field of study concentrating on the interaction

 Used to motivate and satisfy employees
Personnel Psychology
 The field of study that concentrates on the
selection and evaluation of employees
 Study and practice in such areas as analyzing
jobs, recruiting applicants, selecting employees,
determining salary levels, training employees,
and evaluating employee performance.
Organizational Psychology
between humans and machines.
 Concentrate on workplace design, human-
machine interaction, ergonomics, and physical
fatigue and stress.
 Psychologists in this area frequently work with
engineers and other technical professional to
make the workplace safer and more efficient.
Army Alpha
 An intelligence test developed during World
War 1 and used by the army for soldiers who
can read.

Army Beta
  An intelligence test developed during World
War 1 and used by the army for soldiers who
cannot read.
Walter Dill Scott
 1903 – wrote The Theory of Advertising in
which psychology was first applied to business
between managers and employees played a
tremendous role in employee behavior.
 Perhaps the major contribution of the
Hawthorne Studies was that it inspired
psychologists to increase their focus on human
relations in the work-place and to explore the
effects of employee attitudes
Hawthorne Effect

Hugo Munsterberg  When employees change their behavior due

solely to the fact that they are receiving
 1910 – Wrote Psychology and Industrial attention or are being observed.
Efficiency (published in English in 1913

Scott

 1911 – Wrote the book Increasing Human

Efficiency in Business

Other Pioneers of IO Psychology

 James Cattell
 Walter Bingham
 John Watson
 Marion Bills
 Lillian Gilbreth

John Watson

 Pioneer for behaviorism

 Developed perceptual and motor tests for
potential pilots during WWI

Henry Gantt (along with engineers)

 Responsible for increasing the efficiency with

which cargo ships were built, repaired and
loaded.

Frank Gilbreth and Lillian Moller Gilbreth

 Were among the first, if not the first scientists

to improve productivity and reduce fatigue by
studying the motions used by workers.

Hawthorne Studies

 A series of studies, conducted at the Western

Electric plant in Hawthorne Illinois, that have
come to represent any change in behavior
when people react to change in the
environment.
Four Major Changes in IO Psychology in the 1980s and
 Demonstrated that employee behavior was
1990s
complex and that the interpersonal interactions
 1. Increased use of fairly sophisticated statistical  Accommodation of an increasing number of
techniques and methods of analysis. employees with child-care and elder-care
2. A new interest in the application of cognitive responsibilities
psychology to industry.  Flatter organizational structures with fewer
3. Increased interest in the effects of work on management levels
family life and leisure activities (McCarthy,  Population shifts from urban to suburban
1998). locations
4. IO Psychology gists took a renewed interest in  Increasing costs of health-care benefits
developing methods to select employees.  Potential changes in the retirement age for
Social Security > working into late sixties
Other Changes during the 1980s and 1990s
Educational Requirements and Types of Programs
 Massive organizational downsizing
 Greater concern for diversity and gender issues  Graduate Record Exam (GRE)
 An aging workforce  A standardized admission test required
 Increased concern about the effects of stress by most psychology graduate schools.
 Increased emphasis on such organizational  Terminal Master’s Degree Program
development interventions as total quality  Graduate programs that offer a
management (TQM) master’s degree but not a Ph.D.
 Re-engineering  Internship
 Employee empowerment  A situation in which a student works for
an organization, either for pay or as a
2000s
volunteer, to receive practical work
 Greatest influence on IO Psychology is the rapid experience.
advances in technology  Practicum
 Many tests and surveys are now  A paid or unpaid position with an
administered on the Internet organization that gives a student
 Employers recruit and screen applicants practical work experience.
online  Dissertation
 Job seekers use social media outlets to  A formal research paper required of
find jobs most doctoral students in order to
 Employees are being trained using e- graduate.
learning and distance education
Considerations in Conducting Research (Ideas,
 Managers holding meetings in cyber-
Hypotheses, and Theories)
space rather than in person
 Changing demographic make-up of the 1. Decide what to research.
workforce 2. Form a hypothesis (an educated prediction
 Women are increasingly entering the about the answer to a research question.)
workforce and taking on managerial  This prediction is usually based on a
roles theory (a systematic set of
 Global Economy assumptions regarding the cause and
 Manufacturing jobs are shifted to nature of behavior.), previous research,
developing countries with lower wages or logic.
 Increased emphasis on service jobs  It is important to determine why the
requiring human relations skills hypothesis is true despite having a
study support it.
Other factors that are currently impacting IO Psychology
Does all the noise affect High levels of noise Noise causes a
 High unemployment rates my employees’ will increase the distraction, making
performance? number of errors it difficult to
 Movements toward flexible work schedules made in assembling concentrate.
 Family-friendly work policies electronic
 components.  Research is often conducted in
laboratories because
Hypothesis or
prediction researchers can control many
variables that are not of
Idea or question Theory or
explanation interest in the study.
What will happen Why it will happen

Literature Reviews

3. Search the literature for similar research.

 When reviewing the literature, you are
likely to encounter four types of
periodicals: journals (a written
collection of articles describing the
methods and results of new research),
bridge publications, trade magazines
(a collection of articles for those “in
the biz”, about related professional
topics, seldom directly reporting the
methods and results of new research.),
and magazines (an unscientific
collection of articles about a wide
range of topics).

The Location of the Study

4. Once a research ideas has been created and a

hypothesis formed, you must decide whether to
conduct the study in the laboratory or field.
 Laboratory Researches
 32% of IO psychology research
is conducted in a laboratory
(Roch, 2008).
 Usually, this is done at a
university, but research is also
conducted in organizations e.g.,
Microsoft.
 One disadvantage of laboratory
research is external validity
(the extent to which research
results can be expected to hold
true outside the specific setting
which they were obtained.) or
generalizability (like external
validity, the extent to which
research results hold true
outside the specific setting in
which they are obtained.) of
results to organizations in the
“real world”.