Industrial/Organizational Psychology (Aamodt)

Michael G. Aamodt's "Industrial/Organizational Psychology: An Applied Approach" applies psychological principles to the workplace to enhance the dignity and performance of human beings and their organizations. This textbook balances research, theory, and practical applications, providing real-world examples and tools for functions like writing resumes, conducting interviews, and motivating employees.

Industrial/Organizational Psychology

A branch of psychology that applies the principles of psychology to the workplace, aiming to enhance the dignity and performance of human beings and their organizations by advancing the science and knowledge of human behavior.

Doctoral Programs (in I/O Psychology)

Graduate programs where the first two years involve a wide variety of psychology courses, with I/O courses concentrated in the third and fourth years; students must complete a thesis and a dissertation, in addition to comprehensive exams that are more extensive than those in a master’s program.

Hypothesis

An educated prediction about the answer to a research question, usually based on a theory, previous research, or logic.

Meta-Analysis

A statistical method for reaching conclusions based on previous research, where a researcher determines the effect size for each article and then finds a statistical average of effect sizes across all articles.

Effect Size

A statistic used in meta-analysis that indicates the amount of change caused by an experimental manipulation, resulting in a single number called the mean effect size, which indicates the effectiveness of some variable.

Correlation

A statistical procedure that enables a researcher to determine the relationship between two variables.

Job Analysis

The process of identifying how a job is performed, the conditions under which it is performed, and the personal requirements it takes to perform the job. This is a legally acceptable way to determine job relatedness for employment decisions.

Job Description

A written summary of the tasks performed in a job, the conditions under which the job is performed, and the requirements needed to perform the job.

KSAOs (Knowledge, Skills, Abilities, and Other Characteristics)

The knowledge, skills, abilities, and other characteristics (such as interest, personality, training, licenses, degrees, and years of experience) that are necessary to be successful on the job; also commonly referred to as competencies or job specifications.

Knowledge

A body of information needed to perform a task.

Skill

The proficiency to perform a learned task.

Ability

A basic capacity for performing a wide range of different tasks, acquiring a knowledge, or developing a skill.

Task Statement

A statement that, at minimum, must contain an action (what is done) and an object (to which the action is done), and often includes where, how, why, and when the task is done. Well-written task statements include one action per object, are understandable to the incumbent, are written in the same tense, include tools/equipment used, are not competencies or policies, and make sense by themselves.

Critical Incident Technique (CIT)

A job analysis method used to discover actual incidents of job behavior that make the difference between a job's successful or unsuccessful performance.

Functional Job Analysis (FJA)

A job analysis method designed by Fine to analyze and compare thousands of jobs by breaking them down into the percentage of time the incumbent spends on three functions: data (information and ideas), people (clients, customers, and coworkers), and things (machines, tools, and equipment).

Position Analysis Questionnaire (PAQ)

A standardized job analysis method containing 194 items organized into six main dimensions: information input, mental processes, work output, relationships with other persons, job context, and other job-related variables (like work schedule, pay, and responsibility).

Job Evaluation

The process of determining the monetary worth of a job, by deciding on compensable factors and their levels.

Job Fair

A recruitment method used by organizations to provide information in a personal fashion to as many applicants as possible, typically involving many organizations or organizations in the same field with booths, or an organization holding its own event.

Realistic Job Preview (RJP)

A method of recruitment in which job applicants are told both the positive and the negative aspects of a job, leading to lower turnover, higher job satisfaction, and better performance.

Structured Interview

An interview in which the questions are derived from a job analysis, all applicants are asked the same questions, and there is a standardized scoring key to evaluate each answer.

Unstructured Interview

An interview in which interviewers are free to ask anything they want, are not required to maintain consistency in their questions across applicants, and may assign points at their own discretion.

Clarifiers (Interview Questions)

Questions that allow the interviewer to clarify information found in the résumé, cover letter, and application, to fill in gaps, and to obtain other necessary information.

Disqualifiers (Interview Questions)

Questions that must be answered in a particular way, otherwise the applicant is immediately disqualified from further consideration for the job.

Future-Focused Questions (Situational Questions)

A type of structured interview question that asks applicants what they would do in a particular situation, often derived from critical incidents.

Past-Focused Questions (Patterned Behavior Description Interviews - PBDIs)

Interview questions that ask applicants to describe what they did in previous job situations.

Typical-Answer Approach (Interview Scoring)

A method of scoring interview answers by creating a list of all possible answers to each question, having subject-matter experts (SMEs) rate the favorableness of each answer, and then using these ratings as benchmarks for a scoring scale.

Key-Issues Approach (Interview Scoring)

A method of scoring interview answers where subject-matter experts (SMEs) create a list of key issues that should be included in a perfect answer; the interviewee receives a point for each key issue included, with important issues potentially weighted more.

Résumé

A summary of an applicant's professional and educational background, which can be viewed as either a history of one's life or an advertisement of one's skills.

Chronological Résumé

A type of résumé that lists previous jobs in order from the most to the least recent, useful for applicants with related work histories without gaps.

Functional Résumé

A résumé format that organizes jobs based on the skills required to perform them rather than the chronological order in which they were worked, useful for career changes or work history gaps, but less popular with employers due to comprehension time.

Job Knowledge Test

A test designed to measure how much a person knows about a job, commonly used in the public sector for promotions or by state licensing boards.

Cognitive Ability

Abilities involving the knowledge and use of information, such as oral and written comprehension, numerical facility, originality, memorization, and reasoning; important for professional, clerical, and supervisory jobs.

Wonderlic Personnel Test

One of the most widely used cognitive ability tests in industry, popular due to its short administration time (12 minutes) and suitability for group settings.

Perceptual Ability

A dimension of ability that includes vision (near, far, night, peripheral), color discrimination, depth perception, glare sensitivity, and hearing (clarity, recognition, sensitivity, auditory attention, sound localization); useful for occupations like machinist and cabinet maker.

Psychomotor Ability

A dimension of ability that includes finger dexterity, manual dexterity, control precision, multilimb coordination, reaction time, and arm-hand steadiness; useful for jobs like carpenter, police officer, and truck driver.

Work Samples

Excellent employee selection tools that involve applicants performing tasks directly related to the job, offering high content and criterion validity, good face validity, and lower racial differences compared to cognitive ability tests.

Assessment Center

A series of job simulations or exercises (e.g., in-basket technique, simulations, work samples, leaderless group discussions) that require candidates to perform skills necessary for the job, typically lasting two to three days and costing about $2,000 per applicant.

Leaderless Group Discussions

An assessment center exercise where applicants meet in small groups to solve a job-related problem or discuss an issue without a designated leader, allowing assessors to rate them on dimensions like cooperativeness and leadership.

Biodata

A selection method that gathers information about an applicant's life, school, and work experience, typically through questionnaires or by reviewing employee files.

Strong Interest Inventory (SII)

The most commonly used interest inventory, which asks individuals to indicate likes or dislikes for various items to provide a profile showing similarity to people employed in specific occupations, useful for vocational counseling.

Medical Exam (pre-employment)

An exam typically required after a conditional offer of hire for jobs requiring physical exertion, where a physician determines if any medical conditions will prevent the employee from safely performing the job, based on the job description.

Reliability

The extent to which a score from a test or an evaluation is consistent and free from error.

Internal Reliability (Internal Consistency)

The consistency with which an applicant responds to items measuring a similar dimension or construct (e.g., personality trait, ability, or area of knowledge), measuring item stability and influenced by test length and item homogeneity.

Scorer Reliability

The extent to which two people scoring a test agree on the test score, or the extent to which a test is scored correctly, particularly relevant for subjective or projective tests but also applicable to objective tests with scoring keys.

Validity

The degree to which inferences from scores on tests or assessments are justified by the evidence.

Content Validity

The extent to which test items sample the content they are supposed to measure, determined in industry by the job analysis, ensuring all important job dimensions are covered in the selection process.

Criterion Validity

The extent to which a test score is related to some measure of job performance (the criterion), established using either concurrent or predictive validity designs.

Concurrent Validity

A research design for criterion validity where a test is given to current employees, and their test scores are correlated with a measure of their current job performance.

Predictive Validity Design

A research design for criterion validity where a test is administered to job applicants, and their test scores are later compared with a future measure of their job performance.

Face Validity

The extent to which a test appears to be job-related, which is important for test-taker and administrator confidence, but does not alone guarantee actual validity due to the presence of Barnum statements.

Mental Measurements Yearbook (MMY)

A common source of test information containing details about thousands of psychological tests and reviews by test experts.

Computer-Adaptive Testing (CAT)

A type of computer testing where the computer adapts the difficulty level of subsequent questions based on the test-taker's responses to previous questions, reducing test time and allowing for finer distinctions in ability.

Selection Ratio

The percentage of people an organization must hire, calculated as the number hired divided by the total number of applicants; a lower ratio generally indicates greater potential usefulness of a test.

Adverse Impact

An employment practice that results in members of a protected class being negatively affected at a higher rate than members of the majority class, typically determined by the four-fifths rule.

Banding Definition

A statistical technique based on the standard error of measurement that allows similar test scores to be grouped together, providing flexibility in hiring decisions while considering statistical equivalence.

Passing Scores Definition

A method for making hiring decisions where an organization determines the lowest score on a test that is associated with acceptable job performance, allowing for flexibility (e.g., to meet affirmative action goals) but potentially leading to lower overall performance than top-down selection.

Multiple-Cutoff Approach

A selection strategy in which an applicant must score higher than a predetermined passing score on more than one selection test to be considered for employment.

Multiple-Hurdle Approach

A selection strategy where applicants are administered tests one at a time, usually starting with the least expensive, and those who fail a test are eliminated from further consideration, leading to cost savings.

Behavioral Checklists

A performance appraisal method consisting of a list of behaviors, expectations, or results for each job dimension, used to force supervisors to focus on relevant behaviors and convert task statements into performance statements.

Behaviorally Anchored Rating Scales (BARS)

A performance appraisal method developed by Smith and Kendall that uses critical incidents (samples of behavior) to formally provide meaning to the numbers on a rating scale.

Forced-Choice Rating Scales

A method of performance appraisal where a supervisor is given several behaviors and forced to choose which is most typical (or least typical) of the employee, with a secret scoring key to prevent faking ratings.

Organizational Analysis (Training Needs Assessment)

The process of determining the organizational factors that will either facilitate or inhibit training effectiveness, such as the organization's goals, climate, attitudes, and resources.

Task Analysis (Training Needs Assessment)

The process of using job analysis methods to identify the tasks performed by employees, the conditions under which they are performed, and the competencies (knowledge, skills, abilities) needed to perform them, to determine specific training needs.

Person Analysis (Training Needs Assessment)

The process of determining which specific employees need training and in what areas, often identified through performance appraisals, surveys, interviews, or skill/knowledge tests.

Distributed Learning

A training approach where material is presented in small, easily remembered chunks distributed over a period of time, leading to higher levels of learning than massed learning.

Massed Learning

A training approach where material is learned all at once, which is less effective for high levels of learning compared to distributed learning.

Overlearning

Practicing a task even after it has been successfully learned, which helps in retaining the learning.

Pretest-Posttest Design

A simple and practical research design for evaluating training effectiveness, involving measuring performance or job knowledge twice: once before (pretest) and once after (posttest) the training program.

Motivation

The force that drives an employee to perform well.

SMART Goals

An acronym representing the qualities of properly set goals: Specific, Measurable, Attainable (or Difficult but Attainable), Relevant, and Time-bound.

Self-Regulation Theory

A theory positing that employees monitor their own progress toward attaining goals and then make the necessary adjustments to their behavior; they self-regulate.

Premack Principle

A principle of reinforcement stating that reinforcement is relative, meaning a supervisor can reinforce an employee with something that, on the surface, may not appear to be a reinforcer (e.g., a less preferred task can reinforce a more preferred one).

Pay-for-Performance Plans (Earnings-at-Risk - EAR)

Individual incentive plans that pay employees according to how much they individually produce, such as commission or piecework.

Equity Theory

A theory of job satisfaction stating that employees will be satisfied if their ratio of outputs (what they receive from their jobs) to inputs (what they put into their jobs) is similar to that of other employees; dissatisfaction arises when this ratio is lower.

Job Characteristics Theory

A theory stating that employees desire jobs that are meaningful, provide personal responsibility for outcomes (autonomy), and offer feedback on their efforts, with motivating potential enhanced by skill variety, task identification, and task significance.

Job Rotation

A system in which employees are given the opportunity to perform several different jobs in an organization, often involving the same number of tasks but changing over time.

Job Enlargement

A system in which employees are given more tasks to perform at the same time.

Job Enrichment

A system in which employees are given more responsibility over the tasks and decisions related to their job.

Job Satisfaction

The attitude employees have toward their jobs.

Organizational Commitment

The extent to which an employee identifies with and is involved with an organization, often categorized into affective, continuance, and normative commitment.

Turnover Cost

The estimated cost of losing an employee, which can be as high as 1.5 times the employee's salary, including visible costs (e.g., advertising, agency fees) and hidden costs (e.g., loss of productivity, training new employees).

Communication Overload

A situation that occurs when an employee receives more communication than they can handle, leading to stress and various coping responses like omission, error, queuing, escape, using a gatekeeper, or using multiple channels.

Queuing (Communication Overload Response)

A method of dealing with communication overload by placing incoming work or messages into a queue or waiting line, prioritizing based on factors like importance or timeliness.

Gatekeeper (Communication)

A person who screens potential communication for someone else and allows only the most important information to pass through, common examples being receptionists and secretaries.

Fry Readability Graph

A method of determining the readability level of written material by analyzing the average number of syllables per word and the average length of sentences.

Flesch Index

A method of determining the readability level of written material using the average sentence length and number of syllables per 100 words.

FOG Index

A method of determining the readability level of written material by analyzing the number of words per sentence and the number of three-syllable words per 100.

Group

A collection of people who perceive themselves as a unit, receive rewards from the group, experience corresponding effects from members' actions, and share a common goal.

Work Teams

Groups of employees who manage themselves, assign jobs, plan and schedule work, make work-related decisions, and solve work-related problems, typically formed to produce goods, provide service, or increase quality/cost-effectiveness.

Conflict

The psychological and behavioral reaction to a perception that another person is either preventing one from reaching a goal, taking away a right to behave in a particular way, or violating relationship expectancies.

Sacred Cow Hunt

An organizational development strategy that involves questioning and challenging a company's products, services, or habits that are believed to be untouchable by employees but are in fact open to change.

Speed Cow

An unnecessary deadline that causes employees to work at a faster-than-optimal pace, leading to decreased quality, increased stress, and health problems.

Empowerment Charts

Charts developed by organizations to reduce confusion by illustrating the specific level of employee input and control (e.g., following, ownership, advisory, participative, absolute) allowed for each task, varying by employee and task.

Flextime

A work schedule that allows employees to choose their own work hours, typically involving bandwidth (total available hours), core hours (mandatory work times), and flexible hours (employee's choice).

Stress

The psychological and physical reaction to certain life events or situations (stressors), which, if prolonged, can lead to negative physical and psychological consequences (strains)

Stressors

Life events or situations that cause stress, such as weddings, job interviews, deadlines, or traffic jams.

Strains (Stress)

The negative physical and psychological consequences that can occur if stress reactions persist for periods longer than the body can tolerate.

Eustress

A desirable outcome of stress where stressors result in feelings of challenge or achievement, converting stress into positive and motivating energy.

Inverted-U Theory (Optimal Level of Arousal)

A theory stating that both too little and too much arousal result in poor performance, while a moderate level of arousal leads to the highest levels of performance.

Type A Personalities

Individuals characterized by achievement striving, impatience and time urgency, and anger and hostility, who tend to multitask and place work before pleasure, with these characteristics becoming exaggerated under stress.