CHAPTER 1 - The Field of I/O
Psychology
Differences Between I/O and Business
Programs
■ Industrial/organizational psychology -
is a branch of psychology that applies
the principles of psychology to the
workplace.
➢ The purpose of I/O psychology is “to
enhance the dignity and performance
of human beings, and the
organizations they work in, by
advancing the science and
knowledge of human behavior”
➢ the main difference between I/O
psychology and business fields is that
I/O psychology examines factors that
affect the people in an organization as
opposed to the broader aspects of
running an organization such as
marketing channels, transportation
networks, and cost accounting
➢ Application of psychological principles
best distinguishes I/O psychology from
similar fields.
➢ I/O psychology relies extensively on
research, quantitative methods, and
testing techniques.
➢ I/O psychologists do not conduct
therapy for workers.
➢ A factor that helps differentiate I/O
psychology from other branches of
psychology is the reliance on the
scientist-practitioner model.
Two Major Approaches
■ The industrial approach (the “I” in I/O
psychology) focuses on determining
the competencies needed to perform a
job, staffing the organization with
employees who have those
competencies, and increasing those
competencies through training.
■ The organizational approach (the “O”
in I/O psychology) creates an
organizational structure and culture
that will motivate employees to perform
well, give them the necessary
information to do their jobs, and provide
working conditions that are safe and
result in an enjoyable and satisfying
work/life environment.
Major Fields of I/O Psychology
1. Personnel Psychology - The field of
study that concentrates on the selection
and evaluation of employees.
- analyzing jobs, recruiting applicants,
selecting employees, determining
salary levels, training employees,
and evaluating employee
performance.
2. Organizational Psychology - field of
study that investigates the behavior of
employees within the context of an
organization.
- concerned with the issues of
leadership, job satisfaction,
employee motivation, organizational
communication, conflict
management, organizational
change, and group processes within
an organization.
3. Human Factors/Ergonomics - A field
of study concentrating on the interaction
between humans and machines.
- concentrate on workplace design,
human-machine interaction,
ergonomics, and physical fatigue
and stress.
Brief History of I/O Psychology
➢ Hugo Munsterberg, Walter Dill Scott,
and James Mckeen Cattel were the
early pioneers of I/O Psychology.
➢ generally thought to have started either
in 1903 when Walter Dill Scott wrote
The Theory of Advertising, in which
psychology was first applied to
business;
➢ 1910 when Hugo Münsterberg wrote
Psychology and Industrial Efficiency,
which was first published in English in
1913;
➢ 1911 when Scott wrote the book
Increasing Human Efficiency in
Business
➢ Regardless of the official starting date,
I/O psychology was born in the early
1900s.
➢ The term “industrial psychology” was
seldom used prior to World War I
(1917-1918). Instead, the common
terms for the field were “economic
psychology,” “business psychology,”
and “employment psychology”
➢ I/O psychology made its first big impact
during World War I. I/O psychologists
were employed to test recruits and then
place them in appropriate positions.
➢ testing was accomplished mainly
through the Army Alpha and Army
Beta tests of mental ability. The Alpha
test was used for recruits who could
read and the Beta test for recruits who
could not read.
➢ John Watson, who is better known as a
pioneer in behaviorism, served as a
major in the U.S. Army in World War I
and developed perceptual and motor
tests for potential pilots
➢ Thomas A. Edison understood the
importance of selecting the right
employees. In 1920, Edison created a
163-item knowledge test that he
administered to over 900 applicants.
The test and passing score were so
difficult that only 5% of the applicants
passed!
➢ Two of the most interesting figures in the
early years of I/O psychology were the
husband and wife team of Frank
Gilbreth and Lillian Moller Gilbreth.
The Gilbreths were among the first
scientists to improve productivity and
reduce fatigue by studying the motions
used by workers.
➢ In World War II (1941-1945), The
Hawthorne studies were published, 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
a change in the environment
■ Hawthorne effect - when
employees change their behavior
due solely to the fact that they are
receiving attention or are being
observed.
■ Pygmalion Effect - behavior is
affected by observer’s expectation
■ Rosenthal effect - used in
experimental studies (same as
pygmalion effect)
➢ Division 14 - established by American
Psychological Association (APA) with
130 members; research; changed into
Society for Industrial and
Organizational Psychology
Modern I/O Psych (1980’s onwards)
➢ Statistical techniques and methods of
analysis used
➢ Application of cognitive psychology to
industry
➢ Increased interest in the effects of work
on family life and leisure activities;
Work-Life Integration
➢ Development of methods to select
employees
I/O Psychologists…
➢ Use empirical data and statistics rather
than intuition in making decisions
➢ Increase quality of life by increasing
employee effectiveness
➢ Work in variety of settings
➢ Scientist-practitioners - scientists when
they conduct research and practitioners
when they work in actual organizations.
❖ Employment of I/O Psychologists
● Colleges and universities - teach and
conduct research; administrators
● Consulting firms - designing systems
for productive workforce
● Private sector - similar to consultants
but in single company
● Public sector - similar to consultants
but in local, state, or federal government
agency
Educational Requirements and Types of
Programs
■ Graduate Record Exam (GRE) - A
standardized admission test required by
most psychology graduate schools
■ Terminal master’s degree programs -
Graduate programs that offer a master’s
degree but not a Ph.D
■ Internship - A situation in which a
student works for an organization, either
for pay or as a volunteer, to receive
practical work experience.
■ Practicum - A paid or unpaid position
with an organization that gives a student
practical work experience
■ Dissertation - A formal research paper
required of most doctoral students in
order to graduate
Research in I/O Psychology
Why Conduct Research?
➢ To answer questions and make
intelligent decisions
➢ To simplify life in workplace
➢ Common sense is often WRONG
Considerations in Conducting Research
➢ The first step in conducting research is
to decide what to research.
➢ Ideas are questions being asked
➢ Once a question has been asked, the
next step is to form a hypothesis—an
educated prediction about the answer to
a question
➢ This prediction is usually based on a
theory, previous research, or logic.
➢ Theory is a systematic set of
assumptions regarding the cause and
nature of behavior
➢ Literature reviews can provide some
good ideas on how to conduct your
study
➢ When reviewing the literature, you are
likely to encounter four types of
periodicals: journals, bridge publications,
trade magazines, and magazines.
■ Journals - written collection of
articles describing the methods and
results of new research. Best source
of unbiased and accurate
information.
■ Bridge publications - designed to
“bridge the gap” between academia
and the applied world; not as formal
or statistically complex as articles in
journals
■ Trade magazines - collection of
articles for those “in the biz,” about
related professional topics, seldom
directly reporting the methods and
results of new research;
easy-to-understand format; do not
cover all the research on a topic and
can be somewhat biased
■ Magazines - unscientific collection
of articles about a wide range of
topics; People, Time, and Cat Fancy;
 designed to entertain as well as
inform; good sources of ideas but
not scientific hypotheses.
The Location of the Study
1. Laboratory Research - 32% of I/O
psychology research is conducted in a
laboratory
- Controlled
- issues on external validity or
generalizability
■ External validity - extent to which
research results can be expected to
hold true outside the specific setting
in which they were obtained
■ Generalizability - like external
validity, the extent to which research
results hold true outside the specific
setting in which they were obtained.
2. Field research - conducted in a natural
setting as opposed to a laboratory
- Issue on informed consent and
internal validity (control of
extraneous variables that are not of
interest to the researcher)
■ Informed consent - formal process
by which subjects give permission to
be included in a study
■ Institutional review boards -
committee designated to ensure the
ethical treatment of research
subjects.
Research Methods to Be Used
1. Experiment - type of research study in
which the independent variable is
manipulated by the experimenter
- Can determine cause-and-effect
relationships
- Two characteristics define an
experiment: (1) manipulation of one
or more independent variables and
(2) random assignment of subjects
to experimental and control
conditions.
Why does a correlation coefficient not
indicate a cause-and-effect relationship?
Because a third variable, an intervening
variable, often accounts for the relationship
between two variables.
■ Cause-and-effect relationships -
result of a well-controlled experiment
about which the researcher can
confidently state that the
independent variable caused the
change in the dependent variable.
■ Manipulation - alteration of a
variable by an experimenter in
expectation that the alteration will
result in a change in the dependent
variable.
■ Independent variable - manipulated
variable in an experiment.
■ Dependent variable - measure of
behavior that is expected to change
as a result of changes in the
independent variable
■ Experimental group - group of
subjects that receives the
experimental treatment of interest to
the experimenter.
■ Control group - group of employees
who do not receive a particular type
of training so that their performance
can be compared with that of
employees who do receive training.
■ Intervening variable - third variable
that can often explain the
relationship between two other
variables
2. Quasi-experiments - Research method
in which the experimenter either does
not manipulate the independent variable
 or in which subjects are not randomly
assigned to conditions
3. Archival research - involves the use of
previously collected data.
- commonly used in I/O psychology
4. Surveys - method of conducting
research is to ask people their opinion
on some topic.
5. Meta-analysis - statistical method of
reaching conclusions based on previous
research
- With meta-analysis, the researcher
goes through each article,
determines the effect size for each
article, and then finds a statistical
average of effect sizes across all
articles.
- A meta-analysis results in one
number, called the mean effect
size, which indicates the
effectiveness of some variable.
- the actual practical significance of
an effect size depends on many
factors and even a small effect size
can result in great monetary savings
for an organization
- The average effect size for an
organizational intervention is .44
■ Effect size - a statistic that indicates
the amount of change caused by an
experimental manipulation.
■ Mean effect size - a statistic that is
the average of the effect sizes for all
studies included in the analysis.
■ Correlation coefficients - resulting
from performing a correlation, that
indicates the magnitude and
direction of a relationship; are used
as the effect size when researchers
are interested in the relationship
between two variables
■ Difference score - type of effect
size used in meta-analysis that is
signified by the letter d and indicates
how many standard deviations
separate the mean score for the
experimental group from the control
group.
■ Practical significance - extent to
which the results of a study have
actual impact on human behavior
Subject Samples
➢ The method of selecting the sample is
certainly dependent on the nature of the
organization.
➢ To obtain the best research results, it is
essential to use a random sample so
that the sample will be as representative
as possible.
➢ Because obtaining random samples is
very difficult, especially in industry, many
studies use a convenience sample and
then randomly assign subjects to the
various experimental conditions.
➢ With random assignment, each subject
in a nonrandom sample is randomly
assigned to a particular experimental
condition
➢ Once the subject is finished with her
participation, she should be debriefed,
or told the purpose of the experiment
and be given a chance to ask questions
about her participation
■ Random sample - sample in which
every member of the relevant
population had an equal chance of
being chosen to participate in the
study.
■ Convenience sample - nonrandom
research sample that is used
because it is easily available.
■ Random assignment - random,
unbiased assignment of subjects in
a research sample to the various
experimental and control conditions
■ Debriefed - Informing the subject in
an experiment about the purpose of
 the study in which he or she was a
participant and providing any other
relevant information
Statistical Analysis
➢ After all data have been collected, the
results are statistically analyzed.
➢ Statistical analysis helps us determine
how confident we are that our results
are real and did not occur by chance
alone.
Ethics in Industrial/Organizational
Psychology
Type A dilemma: high level of uncertainty
as to what is right or wrong, there appears
to be no best solution, and there are both
positive and negative consequences to a
decision
Type B dilemma: also called rationalizing
dilemmas, the difference between right and
wrong is much clearer than in a Type A
dilemma; individuals know what is right but
choose the solution that is most
advantageous to themselves
➢ At least a master’s degree is required to
find employment in the field, and median
salaries currently are around $80,750 at
the master’s level and $103,200 at the
Ph.D. level.
➢ Research is important so that I/O
psychologists can make the best
decisions
➢ Decisions must be made regarding what
to research, the location of the research
(laboratory or field), the research
method that will be used (experimental
method, nonexperimental method,
survey, archival research,
meta-analysis), the sample that will be
used, and the statistics that will be
selected to analyze the research data.

Chapter Summary
➢ The field of I/O psychology consists of
three major subfields: personnel
psychology, organizational psychology,
and human factors. Industrial
psychologists work in a variety of
settings including industry, government,
education, and consulting firms.
➢ The field of I/O psychology began in the
early 1900s and has grown rapidly since
then: Division 14 of the APA began in
1945 with 130 members and now has
over 8,000 members.
➢ World War I, World War II, the
Hawthorne studies, civil rights
legislation, new technology, and
changing demographics have had
important impacts on I/O psychology.