Ch 13 Industrial/Organizational Psychology

industrial and organizational (I-O) psychology

field in psychology that applies scientific principles to the study of work and the workplace

Industrial Psychology

branch of psychology that studies job characteristics, applicant characteristics, and how to match them; also studies employee training and performance appraisal

Organizational Psychology

branch of psychology that studies the interactions between people working in organizations and the effects of those interactions on productivity

Human Factors Psychology

branch of psychology that studies how workers interact with the tools of work and how to design those tools to optimize workers’ productivity, safety, and health.

Hawthorne Effect

increase in performance of individuals who are noticed, watched, and paid attention to by researchers or supervisors

Frederick Taylor

an engineer who saw that if one could redesign the workplace there would be an increase in both output for the company and wages for the workers.

Job Analaysis

determining and listing tasks associated with a particular job

Performance Appraisals

evaluation of an employee’s success or lack of success at performing the duties of the job

EEOC- US Equal Employment Opportunity Commission-

responsible for enforcing federal laws that make it illegal to discriminate against a job applicant or an employee because of the person’s race, color, religion, sex (including pregnancy), national origin, age (40 or older), disability, or genetic information

ADA- American Disability Association

employers cannot discriminate against any individual based on a disability

Job Satisfaction

degree of pleasure that employees derive from their job

Job Stress

Stress is the perception and response of an individual to events judged as overwhelming or threatening to the individual’s well-being. . Job stress leads to poor employee health, job performance, and family life

Downsizing

process in which an organization tries to achieve greater overall efficiency by reducing the number of employees

Work-family balance

occurs when people juggle the demands of work life with the demands of family life

telecommuting

employees’ ability to set their own hours allowing them to work from home at different parts of the day

Diversity Training

training employees about cultural differences with the goal of improving teamwork

Sexual Harassment

sexually-based behavior that is knowingly unwanted and has an adverse effect of a person’s employment status, interferes with a person’s job performance, or creates a hostile or intimidating work environment