O Psychologists Work example essay topic

-I / O psychology is the psychology applied to work-The behavior of an individual in the work place-Motivation to work and feelings about work Psychology- scientific study of the behavior of people-I / O is made up of two parts: 1) Research methodology used to discover things about work 2) Put them into work; apply-Three major sub fields: personnel, organizational and human factors / ergonomics 1) Personnel Psychology - deals with the selection of personnel-Performance appraisal, job analysis (backbone of I / O psychology) -Training: understanding the job well enough to know who to hire and how well they are doing. -Job attitudes: whether or not the employees are satisfied and committed. 2) Organizational Psychology-Deals with leadership and work motivation-Divide into teams and see how the group affects individuals. 3) Human Factors / Ergonomics Psychology-Human Ergonomics- study of the work place fitting the human-studies the workplace and job designs, the safety and the usability of equipment. -Where do I / O psychologists work? -Academia (scientists) doing research and teaching-Production such as a teacher producing knowledge-Researchers publish projects in journals-Important to get research seen by the people who it would benefit.

-Industry (practitioners) -Government is the largest employer-Office of personnel management is staffed with I / O psychologists to determine who to hire. -The military, consulting firms (go to clients) and in-house consultants are employers. -Salary: for PhD I / O psychologist $40-$50 k a yr; Industry Master or PhD $35-65 k a yr; PhD for higher level makes $50-$80 k a yr. HISTORY 1900-1917 (about 10 I / O psychologists in the U.S.) -Topics of interest in psychology: 1) Skill acquisition - how do people learn to be quick and efficient at their job 2) Personnel selection- what might individual indifference's mean when it comes time to hiring people (interests).

3) Important Job design - efficiency maximization (most frequently studied). Two parties studied this area early on: 1) Frank and Lillian Gilberts-Wanted to find most efficiency with activity-Pioneered time and motion studies. -Called units of time " " (their last name backwards). 2) Fredrick Taylor-Focused more about productivity (showed how taking breaks is important) -Wrote Scientific Management. -Scientific management is the breaking down of jobs into smaller and smaller parts. -Bad results from small jobs: boredom, injury and fatigue-Good results from small jobs: increased productivity-At this time all psychologists were working in academic settings.

WWI - 1929 (about 50 I / O psychologists working in the U.S.) -Two separate groups of psychologists approached the military. -Selection of officers using psychological intelligence tests (Alpha and Beta units). -Psychoanalysis of recruits. -Selection tests are not totally effective (only educated people show intelligence) -Minorities are hurt by the test (and uneducated people) -Two main groups formed: 1) The Scott Company: formed by Walter Dill Scott and focused on selection testing. 2) The Psychological Corporation: formed by J. McKean Cat tell-Publishes tests such as 16 PF (personality test) -Most I / O psychologists were still in academia. 1930 - WWII (100 I / O psychologists in the field) -Hawthorne studies conducted at Western Electric Company.

-Studies tried to determine if amount of illumination affected productivity. -No effective lighting found; work productivity increased everywhere. -Hawthorne effect is when people do better because they know they are being studied or watched. -Psychologists realized that they needed to do field studies (in actual environment) -Companies began to focus on employee morale. World events helped to change the I / O field WWII - 1960 (756 I / O psychologists in U.S.) -Military hired a lot of psychologists-Looked at performance appraisal techniques (do a good job?) -Find most efficient methods of training.

-Women and minorities in the workplace while men at war. -When war over the minorities and women wanted to keep jobs (integrated workplace). -During 1950's, I / O psychologists became involved in both academia and the workplace. 1960-1980 (2000 I / O psychologists in U.S.) -Civil rights movement lead to an even more integrated workplace. -Changes in workplace, making employees happy with jobs.

-Good mix of academia and practitioner I / O psychologists. 1980-present (3000+ I / O psychologists in U.S.) -Refinement: choosing best methods that have been thought of over the years. -New area development: globalization of companies, work / life balance, careers vs. jobs. -Most people go through 4-5 jobs over a lifetime. Future Changes-Technology: jobs lost to technology but also gained to check up on computers. -Work at home.

-Skill level is changing (diminished) -Literacy and math ability have diminished; train in the basics. -Language: Spanish is becoming dominant language-Age: large work force makes it tough to find jobs-lots of times companies lay off older employees first, or are more reluctant to hire older employees. Research Methods-How we get information (3 goals) 1) Describe something 2) Explain; reasons 3) Predict; use past data to extrapolate-I / O psychologists use a variety of research methods: Lab experiment: conducted in a laboratory environment with a control group, controlled setting and a manipulated variable. Field experiment: in a natural environment; can't control all of the variables; sometimes it is unethical.

Questionnaire studies: uses individual's self-report to obtain information-Most commonly surveys (pen / pencil ); can be interviews or computer surveys. -Disadvantages: people lie, difficult to get back, limited answer selection-Advantages: cheap, easy, collect a lot of data-Typical response rate is 30% (which is an adequate representation) Observational studies: conducted in a natural setting without interference-See how things are done in the workplace (get info). -Advantages: More natural-Disadvantages: Hawthorne effect, can't isolate a variable (person has a cold), lot of time, money and effort, not always obtrusive (sometimes interfere). Simulation Studies: model of workplace (not natural) such as a computer simulation.

-Advantages: person practices on it and becomes an expert, can control the variables and settings. -Disadvantages: Not real work place, costs a lot of money, Hawthorne effect. Variables-Must be accurately defined otherwise results are questionable. -Describing variables: Quantitative or Qualitative-Quantitative are numerical variables (age, time, # of, $) -Qualitative are variables broken into categories (gender, race, job title) Independent variable: variable that is controlled / manipulated by the researcher Dependant variable: is measured and occurs as a result of the independent variable Predictors- used to hopefully predict the outcome Criterion- tells how the predictor will tell the outcome. -Together the predictor and the criterion are used when we want to examine relationships, especially when we want to determine someone's status on one variable (criterion) by another variable (predictor).

-Mostly seen in selection or hiring-A quantitative test: math test to perform basic job functions. -Predictor test (performance is criterion).