PSY 3510 Exam 3 Study Guide

Corporate Downsizing

Individual response: affects mid-level managers/professional staff & blue colllar workers

Terminated personnel are most directly affected (little time to search for new job, Marienthal case study)

Psychological effects: headaches, stomach problems, HBP

• Learned helplessness, lower self-wowrth, inc in depression, feelings of betrayal, demoralization & cynicism

Survivng personnel has reduced trust & commitment b/c of violation of psychological contract (demotion, job-sharing, part-time/reduced hrs)

Organization may hire temporary workers (commonly young, female, minority); anti-social behavior

Psychology of Mergers & Acquisitions

Organizational merger - joining of 2 organizatons of equal status/power

Acquisition: procurement of property by another organization (dominance/hostile takeover)

Phases

• Precombination: focus on financial issues: worth, taxes, return

• Combination

• Postcombination: potential culture clash, decline of employee morale & customer satisfaction

75% of mergers fail

Reactions to acquisitions are similar to bereavement (grief process)

Examples: Daimler-Benz & Chrysler, Google & Motorola

Antisocial Behavior in the Workplace

Types

• Verbal, physical, sabotage, work-directed, workplace homicide

Frequency and severity of violence are escalating
Starting point to understanding violence is aggression
Three types of strategies in dealing with violence in the workplace

• Display of sensitivity & concern; tolerate organizational violations of justice

Environmental Influences on Mental Health

Nine determinants (how the environment affects mental health)

1. Oppportunity for control: opportunity to choose own behavior/understanding relationship btwn behavior & consequences

2. Opportunity for skill use: environmental capacity to facilitate/inhibit skill use; lack of opportunity to use acquired skills/develop new ones

3. Externally generated goals: environment that creates challenges & goals; enhances mental health; non-stimulating environments lead to apathy

4. Envrionmental variety: environment provides choices & options; lack leads to reduction of skills & repetition leads to monotony/poorer health

5. Enviornmental clarity: how clear are the demands of the environment?

   1. Unambiguous rules/standards for acceptable behavior

   2. Accurate feedback regarding exhibited behavior

6. Availability of money: absence of $ leads to inc. mental, physical, & emotional impairment

7. Physical security: difficult to be mentally healthy if physically in danger; threat-free environment

8. Opportunity for personal contact: forming relationships for social/emotional fulfillment; isolation can cause mental/physical harm

9. Valued social postion: position in society held in high esteem; self esteem is derived from societal contribution; job loss associated w/ feelings of diminished role & poorer mental health

The Concept of Mental Health

1. Affective well-being: pleasure/arousal; two-factorial model

2. Competence: success in various factors of life (relationship, employment, adaptability)

3. Autonomy: freedom to choose path of one’s own behavior based off of values; more emphasis in Western cultures

4. Aspiration: striving to achieve a more desirable outcome; low levels associated w/ resignation/acceptance

5. Integrated functioning: personal balance, harmoney, & inner relatedness; love/work; most difficult to achieve

Work Stress

No agreed-upon definition - good stress v. bad stress

• Workplace stress among 10 work-related diseases/injuries in the US

• Research focuses on caues, symptoms, consequences, & interventions

• Physical, task-related, role, social, work-schedule, career-related, traumatic events, stressful change processes

Eustress (good stress)

Distress (bad stress)

A Model of Stress

Organizational antecedents to stress

• Relationship btwn economic conditions & social indicators of health

• Unemployment related to inc in psychosocial illness & absences

Stressors in organizational life (lead to ill health)

• Types of tasks performed at job: simple-complex; repetitive-varied

• Role properties

Other stressors related to ill health

• AC buildings, sensory irritation; neurotoxic effects

• Role conflicts; between-people & internal

Perception and cognition

1. The (stress) appraisal process

• Primary appraisal - initial assessment to whether stimulus is helpful, harmful, or no consequence

• Secondary appraisal - determination of action taken to inc benefit or decrease potential harm

2. Response to stress

• Physiological - BP, cholesterol, biochemical levels, gastrointestinal cond.

• Psychological - Job dissatisfaction, inc in neg. emotions/mood; chronic stress associated w/ dec. in self-confidence & self-worth; numbness

• Behavioral - job behavior, flight, antisocial behavior at/off work, self-abuse

3. Consequences of stress

• Stress has impact on overall health & quality of life; non-work stress affects work attitudes & behavior

Properties Of The Person As Stress Moderators

Personalities:

• Type A: walk, talk, eat rapidly, aggressive, competitive, under pressure

• Type B: less concerned about time, play for fun/not to win, relax w/o guilt

• Type A higher resting BPM; 2x as likely to develop heart disease; need for achievement

Locus of control: 

• Internal: belief that people are in control of their lives through skill, knowledge, effort, or decision-making

• External: things happen due to external factors

People w/ high ego resilience endure stress effectively 

Properties Of The Situation As Stress Moderators

Situational factors: social support to reduce stress effects; no relationship to boredom/job satisfaction

Unavoidable stress allows prediction of onset/offset

Prevention and intervention

Stress is preventable, or at least treatable

• Prevention: physical fitness, exercise, meditation, time management

• Intervention: counseling, social support groups, employee assistance programs

Work/family conflict

Understanding this conflict is a major role of I/O psychology
- Three topics that are research targets:

1. Effect of work on family

2. Effect of family on work

3. Family-work interaction

- Three conceptual models offered to explain work-family relationships:

1. Spillover model: similarity btwn work/family environment; work exp has influence over outside work exp; work attitudes spill over to family

2. Compensation model: inverse relationship btwn work & family; individuals make differential investments in these settings

3. Segmentation model: work/non-work are distinct; no influence from one to the other

- Other findings:

• Work & family affect each other; are independent; are intertwined; overlap

• Relationship btwn work & family changes; difference btwn families

• 2/3 of new workers female; ¾ of them eventually pregnant, sandwich generation; men have 60% spouses who work 

- Ways to reduce work-home conflict

• Additional skills besides time management

• Accommodations to workers

• Near-site childcare centers

• Family leave

- Elder care is a growing concern

Dual-career families

Balancing demands of work/family

Mothers w/ young children work average 77 hrs/week

Most dual-career couples have work oriented lifestyle prior to birth of children

More women than men accommodate career to family; work environment does not adjust

Source of marital tension; agree on needed level of work success/family commitment

Lack of temporal control over time

Work schedules

- Shift Work

• Common schedule 8-5 M-F

• Police, physicians, nurses 24-hr services (3 8-hr shifts)

• 25% of working hrs in US are nontraditional

  • Issues in circadian rhythm, social life/relationships, fulfillment

- Flexible work hours

• Variation = flextime 

  • 73% of US employers offer it

• Everyone present during core time

• Latitude in other hours (flexband)

  • Flexible work hrs alleviate outside-work problems

• Mostlly benefits lower-level employees

• Helpful for dual-career families, absenteeism, but inhibits g

- Compressed workweek

• 4 10-hr shifts

• More free time; less costs

• Fatigue, less productivity, accidents

Alcoholism And Drug Abuse In The Workplace

Substance abuse: includes alcohol, illegal and prescription drugs
- Performance impairment: negatively affect basic cognitive processes
- Issues of life-style and culture
- Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA)
- Addressing the problem of drug abuse: Two approaches:

• Permissive norms about alcohold use

• Acceptance by coworkers only by drinking more than them

- Staggering financial costs of $70 billion (based on four factors)

• Costs of treatment

• Lowered work productivity

• Loss of income due to premature death

• Crime-related costs

The Psychological Effects Of Unemployment

Unemployment is psychologically devastating
Research as to consequences of employment:
1. Jahoda: Intended and unintended
- Five latent consequences of employment

• Impostion of time structure

• Regular shared exp & contacts w/ people

• Linking individuals to goals/purposes

• Definition of aspects of personal status & identtiy

• Enforcement of activity

2. Financial problems as the main cause (Fryer and Payne)

• Loss of discrectionary control

• Loss of income

  • Maintaining relationships, uncertainty, less freedom

3. Job-seeking has a negative affect on mental health (Wanberg)

• Dealing w/ harsh judgment & rejection

• Importance on promoting self-esteem, optimism, control

• Less stability/confidence w/ repeated rejection

4. Strong link between employment and mental health (Warr)

• Correlation of r=.54 between gaining employment and
  improved mental well-being

• Correlation of r=.36 between losing employment and
  decreased mental health

Child Labor And Exploitation

Economic activities carried out by persons >15 yrs

Most common in developing countries

Africa, Central America, & Asia

Interferes w/ healthy development & physical/psychological harm

Work Motivation

Defined with components of:
Direction: addresses choice of activities
Intensity: potential to exert various levels of effort
Duration: reflecting motivation over time

Five critical concepts in motivation

1. Behavior - action
2. Performance - some evaluation/appraisal of the behavior
3. Ability - First determinant of behavior, relatively stable: what you can do
4. Situational constraints - Second determinant, beyond individual’s control
5. Motivation - The third determinant of behavior: what you will do

1. Need hierarchy theory: Abraham Maslow:

First Maslow identifies the needs

• Physiological

• Safety

• Social

• Self-esteem

• Self-actualization

Maslow then discusses how the needs relate to each other:

• Behavior is dominated & determined by unfilfilled needs

• Individual will satisfy needs starting w/ the most basic needs

• Basic needs take precedence over all those higher in the hierarchy

Implications for work:

• W/ pay & security being poor employees focus on aspects of work necessary to fulfill basic needs

• With improving conditions social relations become more important (w/ supervisor)

• In a much improved environment work becomes important for self actualization

Evaluation of the theory

• easy to dismiss

• based on clinical insights

• highly abstract about humans & more philosophical rather than empirical

Equity theory (J. S. Adams)

Four parts: (drawn from the principles of social comparison)

1. Person percieves himself compared to others

2. Person compares himself w/ other individual

3. Person’s assets (input)

4. Person derives something from job (output)

Motivation described (it has a social rather than a biological origin)

• Overpayment hourly - reduce inequity by inc input

• Overpayment piece rate - inc effort; higher output; inc feeling of inequality

• Underpayment hourly - decrease of effort to accommodate dec in outcome

• Underpayment piece rate - participants produce more at lower quality

Empirical tests of the theory

• Equity predictions held up best in underpayment conditions

• Results of hourly payment stronger than in piece rate payment

Evaluation of the theory

• financial compensations only one outcome

• inequity → absenteeism & turnover

• overpayment should result in working harder; high threshold

  • lower threshold for underpayment

• extends to status in organization

Expectancy theory (Vroom)

Cognitive theory: person is rational decision maker who perceives relationship
between effort expended and job performance
Five parts:

1. Job outcomes: pay, promotion, fired, transferred

2. Valences: feelings about outcomes (-10 to 10)

3. Instrumentality: degree of relationship btwn performance & outcome

4. Expectancy: perceived relationship btwn effort & performance

5. Force: effort/pressure to be motivated

Force score is a predictor of how motivated a person is (how much effort

Empirical tests of the theory

• Across (btwn) subject design: most/least motivated in group

• Within subject: prediction of effort for each task in set

Evaluation of the theory

• Rational/conscious explanation

• Used in occupation choice & tasks order

Reinforcement Theory (B. F. Skinner)

Operant conditioning; behaviorism

Three key variables

1. stimulus - any variable/condition that elicits behavioral response

2. response - some measure of job behavior

3. reward - something of value given in response to reinforce desired behavior

Motivate by manipulating one of four types of response reward connections

• fixed interval, fixed ratio, variable interval, variable ratio

Empirical tests of the theory

• ratio schedule more productive

• contingent workers passed more than paid-by-hour

Evaluation of the theory

• reinorcement does work but there are limits in organizational settings

Goal-setting theory (Locke and Latham)

Cognitive theory: people behave rationally
Relationship among goals, intentions, and task performance:

• more difficult goals lead to higher performance

Goals (have two purposes)

• basis for motivation

• direct behavior

Goals are intended behaviors the person is consciously trying to attain
Theory’s emphasis is on the direction of behavior

Evaluation of the theory

• effective; lies in the domain of purposefully directed action; improves performance

6. Self-regulation Theory (e.g. Self-efficacy theory and control theory)

• people play an active role in self-monitoring, seeking & responding to feedback, & forming ideas as to success of future actions

Family of theories with the core concept of goals

• Goals at core

• People self-monitor

• People are self-regulating behavior

Evaluation of the theory
General pattern of results is very positive
Research provides rich conceptual basis to understanding how individual
becomes motivated to pursue a goal, and why they persevere
Self-efficacy adds utility to some of the other theories explains how
cognitive processes become activated in behavior; e.g. that people:

Work design theory (Hackman & Oldham)

Locus of control is within environment, not individuals
Proper design of jobs facilitates motivation
This process is called job enrichment
Four part model

1. Job Characteristics

   1. skill variety

   2. task identity

   3. task significance

   4. autonomy

   5. task feedback

2. Critical psychological states

   1. exp meaningfulness of work; responsibility for outcomes of work; knowledge of actual results of work activities

3. Motivating potential score

4. Employee gorwth need strength

Overview and synthesis of work motivation theories

• all include proximity to action

  • Distal constructs - exert indirect influence on behavior

  • Proximal constructs - goals & characteristics of workplace that directly influence behavior

Major Topics in Leadership Research

Positional power

• organizational roles/positions; influence tactics/use of power

The leader

• individual leaders; personality characteristics/leader behavior

The led

• work groups & subordinates; group size/exp of subordinates

The influence process

• superior-subordinate interface; receptivity to influence/nature of influence attempts

The situation

• environment or context of leadership; situational effects/factors defining favorable situations

Leader emergence vs effectiveness

• individual & group; group dynamics/individual characteristics

Theoretical approaches to leadership