Video Summary - OpenStax Psychology 2e Chapter 13 (Reupload with Enhanced Audio) I-O Psychology

Main ideas and lessons (Chapter 13: Industrial-Organizational [I-O] Psychology)

1) What I-O psychology is

Industrial-organizational (I-O) psychology studies:

How human behavior and psychology affect work
And how work affects human behavior and psychology

Where I-O psychologists work (examples):

Academia
Government
Consulting firms
Businesses

2) Industrial vs. organizational psychology (core distinction)

Industrial psychology focuses on:

Job characteristics
Applicant characteristics
Matching people to jobs
Employee training
Performance appraisal
Main emphasis: hiring and maintaining employees

Organizational psychology focuses on:

Interactions among people in organizations
How those interactions affect productivity
Main emphasis: worker satisfaction, motivation, commitment
Also examines:
- Management and leadership styles
- Social norms
- Role expectations

3) Major area: Human factors psychology (and ergonomics)

Human factors psychology studies:

How workers interact with the tools of work
How to design tools to improve:
- Productivity
- Safety
- Health

Ergonomics (called “ergonomics in Europe” in the subtitles) includes tool/workstation design factors such as:

Machine interaction
Workstations
Information displays
Local environment (e.g., lighting)

Historical development (key figures and contributions)

Early 20th-century foundations

The chapter references early psychologists connected to broader psychology schools of thought:

Wilhelm Wundt (as “father of psychology”)
William Titchener and structuralism (focused on consciousness / human experience)

I-O related pioneers

Carl (L.) Cattell
- Founded the Psychological Corporation (consulting)
Hugo Münsterberg
- Published Psychology and Industrial Efficiency (1913)
- Covered:
  - Employee selection
  - Employee training
  - Effective advertising
Walter Dill Scott
- Applied psychology to advertising management and personnel selection
Robert Yerkes (World War I era)
- Organized methods for screening/selecting enlisted men
- Developed the Army Alpha test to measure mental abilities
Walter Bingham
- Developed selection methods for officers
Elton Mayo (Hawthorne studies, 1929–1932; Western Electric)
- Studied interpersonal relations, motivation, organizational dynamics
- Found that productivity changed as variables changed (as described)
- Presented as an origin of organizational psychology

Hawthorne effect

Hawthorne effect:

Employees perform better when they know they are being observed by researchers/supervisors
Creates performance bias because behavior shifts toward what people think observers want
Example behaviors described:
- Working harder
- Following rules more closely
- Avoiding shortcuts

Additional management and engineering influences

Kurt Lewin
- Researched effects of:
  - Leadership styles
  - Team structure
  - Team dynamics
- Coined/credited with group dynamics
Frederick Taylor
- Scientific Management concept (1911)
- Created Principles of Scientific Management
- Focused on:
  - Management styles
  - Personnel selection
  - Training
- Goal: engineer workplaces to increase productivity
Lillian Gilbreth
- “Mother of modern management”
- Studied ways to increase productivity by reducing motions
- Workplace/productivity innovations mentioned:
  - Refrigerator door shelves “on the inside”
  - Foot-pedal operated garbage cans (movement reduction idea)
- Also studied:
  - Employee fatigue
  - Time management
  - Stress
- Linked motivation to:
  - Money
  - Job satisfaction
  - (Also discussed autonomy/control over job)

Industrial psychology: selecting and evaluating employees (instructional content)

A) Selecting employees (hiring-related topics)

Candidate analysis and testing may include:

Testing
Interviews
Work samples / exercises
Personality tests to match traits to job performance
IQ tests
Other tests, including:
- Physical tests (e.g., drug test, physical fitness)

Interview influences (social factors / nonverbal cues):

Interviews can be affected by:
- Similarity between applicant and interviewer
- Nonverbal behavior
Research cited in subtitles:
- Lack of eye contact and smiling can lead to lower applicant ratings

Interview formats contrasted:

Unstructured interview
- Different questions for different candidates
- Questions not specified in advance
Structured interview (preferred/typical standard here)
- Same questions for every candidate
- Prepared in advance
- Uses a standardized rating system
- More effective at predicting later job performance

B) Job advertising and job analysis

Job analysis is integral to selection:

Accurately describe job tasks and responsibilities
Ensure job description matches what the person will actually do

Task-oriented vs. worker-oriented:

Task-oriented
- Lists tasks the job holder will perform in detail
Worker-oriented
- Describes required worker characteristics for success

C) Training employees (instructional content)

Training typically includes:

Orientation
- New employee learns company policies, practices, and culture
Mentoring
- Experienced employee guides the new employee (“shows you the ropes”)
- Mentors may be:
  - Formally assigned
  - Developed informally (who the new employee naturally latches onto)

Effects of mentoring described:

Positively associated with:
- Protege compensation
- Number of promotions
- Job satisfaction / career satisfaction

D) Evaluating employees (performance appraisal)

I-O psychologists may help design performance appraisal systems to:

Be fair
Be positive
Reduce subjectivity and reduce evaluator bias

Performance appraisal:

Evaluates an employee’s success in performing job duties
Used to motivate improvement and broaden competence

“360-degree feedback” appraisal (presented as 350-degree in subtitles):

Includes input from:
- Supervisors
- Customers
- Direct supports
- Peers
- The employee’s own performance
Strength:
- Provides multiple perspectives
Difficulty:
- Often fails if used incorrectly

Bias, discrimination, and legal protections (hiring-related)

Selecting based on group membership may be discriminatory.
Subtitles emphasize:
- Many laws exist to prevent hiring discrimination (examples mentioned include religion, pregnancy, age, etc.)
- Employers should not ask for certain medical/health disclosure (subtitles mention not being legal to know “your Aid”—likely referring to HIV/AIDS)

EEOC (U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission)

The EEOC enforces federal laws prohibiting discrimination regarding:

Race, color
Religion
Sex
National origin
Age
Disability
Creed
Genetic information

Laws summarized in subtitles

Equal Pay Act
- Equal pay for men and women doing equal work
Title VII of Civil Rights Act of 1964
- Prohibits unfavorable treatment based on race/color
Pregnancy Discrimination Act (1978)
- Prohibits discrimination due to pregnancy if the employee can perform required work
Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA)
- Employers can’t discriminate based on disability
- Disability defined as physical/mental impairment limiting major life activities
- Expanded to include alcoholism, former drug use, obesity, psychiatric disabilities (as stated)

Bona fide occupational qualification (BFOQ)

Some job requirements can legally limit employment when necessary for certain roles (examples mentioned include sometimes religion/sex/national origin/age)

Organizational psychology: social dimension, job satisfaction, and workplace factors

1) Key topics listed

Social dimension of work
Job satisfaction
Work-family balance
Management and organizational structure
Goals
Teamwork and work teams
Organizational culture
Violence in the workplace

2) Job satisfaction (Affect + Cognition model)

Job satisfaction results from:

Cognition (thoughts about work)
Affect (feelings about work)

Measured via questionnaires; can be assessed generally or by factors.

Factors associated with higher job satisfaction (as described):

Autonomy (responsibility and control)
- Less micromanagement; more decision involvement
Individual responsibility/control
Work content
- Variety
- Challenge
- Role clarity (presented as strongly predictive)
Communication and feedback
Financial rewards
- Described as a weak correlation, with notes about adaptation/lifestyle inflation
Growth and development
- Training/education opportunities
- Promotion and career advancement
Co-worker relationships
Supervision and feedback quality
Workload conditions
- Time pressure, stress, tediousness, extra demands

3) Job stress and its contributors

Job stress can lead to:

Poor health over time
Impact on family life

Contributing factors listed:

Filling multiple roles (“Swiss army knife”)
Role ambiguity
Lack of career progress (terminal state)
Lack of job security
Isolation
Work overload
Discrimination/harassment
Bullying

4) Threats to job security

Examples described:

Downsizing
- Organizations reduce employees to improve efficiency
- I-O psychologists may help with delivery of news and support for laid-off and retained employees
Mergers
- Joining of organizations
Acquisitions
- One organization purchases another
- Often leads to “cuts” through duplication (sales, accounting, HR)

5) Work-family balance and work-family conflict

Work-family balance: juggling work demands with family demands.

Three sources of work-family conflict (as attributed to “Greenhouse and Battel” in subtitles):

Time-based conflict
- Time devoted to work makes it hard to meet family requirements (or vice versa)
Strain-based conflict
- Stress/strain from participation in one domain makes the other domain harder
Behavior-based conflict
- Behaviors required in one domain don’t transfer well to the other domain

Ways to decrease work-family conflict mentioned:

Support in the home
- Emotional and practical support; practical support described as most effective
Workplace support
- Understanding supervisors
- Flex time, leave with pay, telecommuting
Telecommuting
- Employees set their own hours and work from home at different parts of the day

Management, leadership, culture, teams, diversity, harassment, and safety

1) Management and organizational structure

Referenced frameworks:

Douglas McGregor (1960)
- Two theories of managers:
  - Theory X
    - Workers are inherently lazy/unproductive
    - Managers must use control and punishments
  - Theory Y
    - Workers want to work hard/productively
    - Creative problem-solving without excessive control/punishment
Donald Clifton
- Strength-based management: use employees’ strengths to help the organization
Bass (1985) leadership styles:
- Transactional leadership
  - Emphasis on supervision
  - Rewards and punishment
  - Maintains status quo
- Transformational leadership
  - Charismatic role model behaviors
  - Inspirational, intellectually stimulating
  - Individually considerate
  - Aims to change the organization

2) Teamwork and work teams

Work teams: groups organized to achieve specific goals together; diverse skills can be beneficial.
Why teams don’t always improve productivity:
- Social loafing: individuals exert less effort when group responsibility is shared
- Poor communication and decision-making
- Conformity effects
- Group conflict

Effects described:

Team halo effect
- Team successes credited to the team
- Team failures blamed on individuals

3) Diversity in teams (pros/cons)

Potential downsides:
- Communication and interpersonal relationship problems
Potential benefits:
- Increased team skill set overall
Claim mentioned:
- In 2013, gender-balanced teams performed better than male-dominant teams (mechanism not specified in subtitles)

4) Types of teams (categorized)

Problem resolution teams: solve specific problems
Creative teams: develop innovative solutions
Tactical teams: execute a well-defined plan/objective

5) Organizational culture (three-layer model)

Organizational culture: values, visions, hierarchies, norms, interactions—how an organization is run and decides.

Three layers:

Observable artifacts
- Symbols, language narratives, practices
Espoused values
- Concepts, beliefs endorsed by management/organization
Basic assumptions
- Unobservable, unquestioned

6) Diversity training

Aims to:

Educate participants about cultural differences
Improve teamwork
Reduce prejudiced or preconceived notions

7) Sexual harassment

Defined as:

Sexually based behavior that is knowingly unwanted
Adversely affects employment status
Interferes with job performance
Creates a hostile or intimidating work environment

Types described:

Quid pro quo
- Rewards offered in exchange for sexual favors; threat of withholding reward if refused
Hostile environment
- Workplace conditions hostile/intimidating (offensive language or sexually explicit images)

8) Workplace violence