Psych 306 IndustrialOrganizational IO Psychology

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Psych 306 Industrial/Organizational (I/O)
Psychology

• Rainer Seitz, MS Adjunct Professor
• Doctoral training in I/O at PSU
• Work experience
• Psychological testing assessment in Milwaukee
  Public Schools
• Employee selection system development _at_ Manpower
• Human factors engineering _at_ Intel
• Organizational management consulting

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Industrial/Organizational Psychology

• Branch of psychology that applies the principles
  of psychology to the workplace
• The scientific study of the relation between man
  and the world of work
• The application of psychological facts to
  problems of humans operating in industry
• The area of psychology concerned with individual
  behavior in work situations

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True or False?

• If you pay someone for doing something they
  already enjoy, they will come to like this task
  even more.
• Unpleasant environmental conditions (e.g. loud
  noise, crowding) produce immediate reductions in
  performance on many tasks.
• It is not possible to measure soft skills such
  as work ethic or creativity
• Most people are much more concerned with the size
  of their own salary than with the size of others
  salaries.
• Most people prefer challenging jobs with a great
  deal of freedom and autonomy.

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Training for I/O Psychologists

• Psychology dept. (both MA PhD level)
• Reliance on
• Research
• Quantitative methods
• Testing techniques

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Employment Settings

• Government EEOC, military
• Industry develop implement programs
• Evaluate training programs
• Develop selection systems
• Develop motivation programs for mgrs.
• Conduct leadership seminars for executives
• Consulting
• Academia primarily teaching research, but
  also consulting

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Major Areas of I/O Psychology

• Personnel Psychology
• Selection testing
• Performance evaluation
• Job analysis and evaluation
• training

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Organizational Psychology

• Leadership
• Motivation
• Job satisfaction
• Conflict management
• Group processes

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Organization Development

• Newest area, least scientific
• Diagnose develop remedies for organizations
• Restructuring
• Downsizing
• Organizational culture change

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Human Factors or Engineering Psychology

• Focus is on people in the man-machine environment
• Creation of work environments compatible with
  human skills, talents, limitations

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Related Areas

• Vocational/Career counseling
• Assist individuals in identifying suitable
  careers based on abilities and interests
• E.g. Strong Interest Inventory asks about likes
  and dislikes

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Related Areas (cont.)

• Industrial Relations
• Focus is on employee-management relations
• Collective bargaining, negotiation, dispute
  resolution, grievance systems
• Requires an in-depth knowledge of employment law

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History of I/O PsychologySome major milestones

• Origins date back to early 1900s first
  application of psychology to business
• WWI (1917-1918) assessment selection of
  recruits
• Hawthorne Studies (1930s) impact of work
  environment interpersonal interactions on work
  behavior
• Emergence of employment legislation (1960s)
  Civil Rights Act of 1964

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Hawthorne Studies

• Conducted at Hawthorne plant of Western Electric
• Purpose was to determine effect of changes in
  lighting on productivity
• Hawthorne Effect tendency for people to to
  behave differently when they receive attention
  because they respond to the demands of the
  situation

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Key Findings

• Economic incentives less important than generally
  believed for high productivity
• No simple cause-effect relationship for
  individual work behavior
• Management communication and employee
  participation are critical to managerial success
• Workplace behavior is embedded in a social system

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Limitations of Hawthorne Studies

• Lacking in scientific rigor
• No random assignment of participants to
  conditions
• Lack of standardization between experimental
  conditions
• Other factors may have affected productivity
• Increased supervisory discipline
• Increased pay with increases in performance
• Concerns about being laid off

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Current Trends in I/O Psychology

• Cognitive Revolution
• concern with how people perceive, interpret,
  store, retrieve, evaluate, and act upon
  information

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Trends (cont.)

• Multiple levels of analysis Systems Perspective
• Early emphasis on individual in I/O field
• Shift to emphasis on interrelationships and
  multiple levels

• Organization
• Social/ economic environment

- Dyad - Group - Department
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Trends (cont.)

• Shift in Outcome Focus
• Traditional outcome Bottom line
• Non-traditional Outcomes
• Stress, strain, burnout
• Physical psychological health
• Interface between work family

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Research Methods Statistics in I/O Psychology
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The Empirical Research Process

• Statement of Problem
• Design of Research Study
• Measurement of Variables
• Analysis of Data
• Draw Conclusions

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Two Research Approaches

• Inductive
• data culminates in theory
• Deductive
• theory leads to development of experiments
• theory then supported or rejected

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I/O Psychology and Theory

• Personnel Psychology
• lots of data little theory
• Bastion of dustbowl empiricism
• Organizational Psychology
• lot of theory little data
• Engineering Psychology
• almost no theory
• OD
• lots of theory little hard data

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Conflicting Research Goals

• Generalizability with respect to populations
• Control of Variables
• Realism of Research Setting
• Cannot completely achieve all three in one study

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Validity Concerns

• Internal Validity
• the degree to which causal relationships between
  variables can be inferred from a study
• control groups and randomization are usually
  necessary for internal validity
• External Validity
• the degree to which results can be generalized to
  and across persons, settings, and times

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Major Research Methods

• Laboratory Experiment
• Field Experiment
• Field Study
• Survey/Questionnaire

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Laboratory Experiment

• Advantages
• inference of causation
• precision of measurement and control of
  extraneous variable
• can be easily replicated

• Disadvantages
• Lacks realism
• Some phenomena cant be studied in the lab
• Some variables have weaker impact in lab

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Field Experiment

• Advantages
• manipulate IV in natural setting
• realistic
• results are more generalizable
• can suggest causality
• real workers real setting

• Disadvantages
• less control over extraneous variables
• resistance by employees
• lack of access
• some phenomena cant ethically be manipulated in
  real settings

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Field Study (Correlational)

• Advantages
• very realistic setting
• can get lot of data in short time
• good for raising questions/ hypotheses/ideas for
  new research

• Disadvantages
• no manipulation of variables, so no inference of
  causality
• little control over extraneous variables

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Survey

• Advantages
• lots of info in natural setting
• unobtrusive experimenter

• Disadvantages
• self-report data
• difficult to measure all variables that might be
  influencing responses

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Conclusions

• No one research strategy is best
• Cannot conduct flawless research
• I/O psychology will only progress if multiple
  methods are used to examine phenomena
• compensates for shortcomings in any given
  strategy

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Measurement of Variables

• Independent Variable
• variable that experimenter controls for or
  manipulates in order to assess differences
  between groups
• examples
• male-female differences
• training programs
• cultures
• personnel selection methods

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Variables (cont.)

• Dependent Variable
• usually focus of researchers interest
• that which is measured
• examples
• productivity
• stress
• motivation
• job satisfaction
• turnover
• absenteeism

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Other Variables of Interest in I/O Psychology

• Predictor Variables
• Similar to independent variables (but measured
  not manipulated)
• Criterion Variables
• similar to dependent variables
• what is being predicted by the predictors

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Examples

• Predictors
• Job Tenure
• Job Stress
• Satisfaction
• IQ
• IQ
• Actual Performance

• Criterion
• Satisfaction
• Satisfaction
• Turnover
• Training performance
• Job performance
• Supervisor ratings

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What does one do with data?

• Describe it
• Find tendencies
• Measure variability
• Look for relatedness
• Infer causality

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Finding tendencies

• Mean
• simple average
• Median
• the midpoint of all scores
• Mode
• most frequently occurring score

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Measuring variability

• Standard deviation SD
• measure of dispersion of numbers in a
  distribution
• how variable are the scores?
• average of variability around the mean

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Looking for relatedness r

• How useful is one score in predicting another?
• Correlation the degree and direction of
  association between two variables
• Range -1.00 to 1.00
• Magnitude large correlations mean there is a
  stronger association between the two variables
• -.96 gt .80 gt .40 gt -.20 gt 0.0

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Inferring causality

• Correlation does NOT imply causation
• just because two variables are correlated doesnt
  mean one causes the other
• Direction -- which causes which?
• IQ and income
• job satisfaction and productivity
• productivity and stress

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Inferential Statistics

• Def. means by which one gains confidence that
  different means are significantly different
  from each other
• t-test F-test provide output that tells
  researcher the probability that two means are
  different by chance alone

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Example

• Do two training programs result in significantly
  different performance ratings?
• Training I Goal Setting
• M 70 SD 5 N 25
• Training II Control Group
• M 75 SD 5 N 25
• p lt .001

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Meaning of Statistical Significance

• Beware Statistical Significance ? Practical
  Significance
• can get significant results that arent very
  informative practically-speaking
• example N 200,000 students
• r .03 between GPA and miles walked
• p lt .01