General Psychology - Industrial-Organizational Psychology

Industrial-Organization Psychology

A branch of psychology that studies how human behavior and psychology affect work, and vice versa. Often divided into three broad categories: industrial, organizational, and human factors.

Industrial Psychology

A sector of psychology that is concerned with describing job requirements and assessing an individual for their ability to meet those requirements.

Organizational Psychology

a discipline interested in how the relationships among employees affect those employees and the performance of a business.

Human Factors Psychology

The study of how workers interact with the tools of work and how to design these tools to optimize workers’ productivity, safety, and health.

Occupational Health Psychology

A branch of psychology that deals with the stress, diseases, and disorders that can affect employees as a result of the workplace. And how to improve the overall health and well-being of the organization through the individuals.

Humanitarian Work Psychology

A psychology that seeks to help marginalized members of society find work.

KSA

Knowledge, Skills, and Abilities

Hawthorne Effect

The increase in performance of individuals who are aware they are being observed by researchers or supervisors.

Job Analysis

Accurately describing the task or the job. Often broken into two components the: task-oriented side and the worker-oriented side.

Job Description

A feature of the task-oriented side of job analysis, which describes the tasks that will be performed for the job in detail.

Job Sepcification

A feature of the worker-oriented side of job analysis describes the characteristics required of the worker to successfully perform the job.

Job Mentoring

A form of informal training in which an experienced employee guides the work of a new employee.

Assessing Applicants

An organization must decide how to assess the applicants, and the formal hiring process begins. Personnel Selection is used to evaluate job candidates and decide which ones to hire.

Personnel Selection

Usually involves administering a series of instruments, such as tests, or interviews, to job applicants to be used to determine which ones are suitable for hire.

Predictors

selection instruments an organization uses.

Unstructured Interviews

An interview may ask different questions of each different candidate, that are often unspecified beforehand. Responses are also, not usually scored using a standard system.

Structured Interview

The interviewer may ask the same questions of every candidate, the questions are often prepared in advance and are paired with a standardized rating system for each response.

Performance Appraisals

A system or systems designed to evaluate which employee is performing their job satisfactorily. They are documented several times a year often with a formal process and an annual face-to-face brief meeting.

360-Degree Feedback Appraisal

employee appraisal derives form a combination of ratings by supervisors, peers, employees supervised by the employee , and from the employee themselves. The purpose of this appraisal method is to give the employee and supervisor different perspectives of the employee’s job performance.

Job Satisfaction

the degree to which individuals enjoy their jobs. It has both cognitive and affective values but is normally described in terms of affect.

How is Job Satisfaction Measured?

Normally using questionnaires that employees complete. The Likert scale is normally used - to provide 5 possible answers to a statement of the question that allows respondents to indicate their positive-to-negative strength of agreement or strength of feeling regarding the question or statement.

Job Stress

Is causes by specific stressors in an occupation. Stressors as a result of an employee’s perception that the demands placed on them exceed their ability to meet them

Job Insecurity

contributes significantly to job stress. Two increasing threats to job security are downsizing events and corporate mergers.

Work-life Balance

Juggling the demands of work life with the demands of home life.

Work-Family Conflicts

Greenhaus’s and Beutell’s three sources:

1. time devoted to work makes it difficult to fulfill the requirements of the family, or vice versa

2. Strain from participation in work makes it difficult to fulfill the requirements of the family, or vice versa

   1. Specific Behaviors required by work make it difficult to fulfill the requirements of the family, or vice versa.

Scientific Management

A theory of management that analyzes and synthesizes workflows with the main objective of improving economic efficiency, especially labor productivity.

Theory X

an approach to management where managers assume that most people dislike work and are not innately self-directed. The belief that employees prefer to be led and told which tasks to perform and when is coupled with the belief that employees must be closely monitored.

Theory Y

An approach to management where managers assume that most people seek inner satisfaction and fulfillment from their work. The belief that employees function better under leadership that allows them to participate in, and provide input about, setting their personal and work goals.

Transactional Leaderhsip

leadership that focuses on supervision and organizational goals, achieved through a system of rewards and punishments.

Transformational Leadership

leadership that focuses on a person obtaining four attributes:

1. Charisma

2. Inspirational

3. Intellectual stimulation (encourages critical thinking and problem solving)

4. Consideration for others

(Eagly & Johnson) Gender and Leadership style

Found to a slight but significant degree that women tended to practice an interpersonal style of leadership and men practiced a task-oriented style. A later study from Eagly, Johannesen-Schmidt & van Engen found that women tended to exhibit the characteristics of transformational leaders, while men were more transactional leaders.

Problem Resolution Teams

created for the purpose of solving a particular problem or issue.

Creative Teams

used to develop innovative possibilities or solutions

Tactical Teams

used to execute a well-defined plan or objective.

Virtual Teams

groups of geographically disparate people brought together using digital communication technology.

Organizational Culture

the values, visions, hierarchies, norms, and interactions among its employees. How an organization is run, how it operates, and how it makes decisions.

Observable Artifiacts

A part of organizational culture that are the symbols, language, narratives, and practices that represent the underlying cultural assumptions.

Espoused Values

A part of organizational culture that is made up of the concepts or beliefs that the management or entire organization endorses. rules that allow employees the know which actions they should take in different situations and which information they should adhere to.

Basic Assumptions

A part of organizational culture that is generally unobservable and unquestioned, but still dictates the overall dynamics of the workplace

Diversity Training

educating participants about cultural differences with the goal of improving teamwork.

Sexual Harassment

Unwelcome sexual advances, requests, for sexual favors, and other verbal or physical conduct of a sexual nature. Either explicitly or implicitly.

Quid Pro Quo

you give something to get something.

Hostile Environment Sexual Harassment

an employee repeatedly experiencing conditions in the workplace that are considered hostile or intimidating

Workplace Violence

an act or threat of physical violence, harassment, intimidation, or other threatening, disruptive behavior that occurs at the workplace.

Procedural Justice

the fairness of the processes by which outcomes are determined in conflicts with or among employees

U.S Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC)

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, national origin, age, disability, or genetic information.

Immutable Characteristics

traits of an individual that are fundamental to their identity, in hiring, benefits, promotions, or termination of employees.

Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA)

people may not be discriminated against due to the nature of their disability

Bona Fide Occupational Qualifications (BFOQs)

requirements of certain occupations for which denying an individual employment would otherwise violate the law.