18.1 Industrial/Organizational Psychology

• Applied psychology: The use of psychological principles and research methods to solve practical problems.

• Industrial/organizational (I/O) psychology: A field that focuses on the psychology of work and on behavior within organizations.

Organizational Culture

• Organizational culture: The blend of customs, beliefs, values, attitudes, and rituals within an organization.

• Organizational citizenship: Making positive contributions to the success of an organization in ways that go beyond one’s job description.

Personnel Psychology

• Personnel psychology: A branch of industrial/organizational psychology concerned with testing, selection, placement, and promotion of employees.

• Job analysis: A detailed description of the skills, knowledge, and activities required by a particular job.

• Critical incidents: Situations that arise in a job with which a competent worker must be able to cope.

• Biodata: Detailed biographical information about a job applicant.

• Personal interview: Formal or informal questioning of job applicants to learn their qualifications to gain an impression of their personalities.

• Vocational interest test: A paper-and-pencil test that assesses a person’s interest and matches them to interest found among successful workers in various occupations.

• Aptitude test: An evaluation that rates a person’s potential to learn skills required by various occupations.

• Assessment center: A program set up within an organization to conduct in-depth evaluations of job candidates.

• Situational judgement test: Presenting realistic work situations to applicants in order to observe their skills and reactions.

• In-basket test: A testing procedure that simulates the individual decision-making challenges that executives face.

• Leaderless group discussion: A test of leadership that simulates group decision-making and problem solving.

  Performance Appraisal

• 360° feedback: Evaluation of employee performance, mainly anonymous numerical ratings, collected from different perspectives.

• Job Satisfaction

• Job satisfaction: The degree to which a person is comfortable with or satisfied with his or her work.

• Job enrichment: Making a job more personally rewarding, interesting, or intrinsically motivating; typically involves increasing worker knowledge.

  Flexible Working Conditions

• Flextime: A work schedule that allows flexible starting and quitting times.

• Flexplace (telecommuting): An approach to flexible work that involves working at a location away from the office, but using a computer to stay connected throughout the workday.

  Leadership

  Theory X Leadership

• Theory X Leadership (scientific management): An approach to leadership that emphasizes work efficiency.

• Work efficiency: Maximum output (productivity) at lowest cost.

• Theory Y Leadership

• Psychological efficiency: Maintenance of good morale, labor relations, employee satisfaction, and similar aspects of work behavior.

• Theory Y leadership: A leadership style that emphasizes human relations at work and that views people as industrious, responsible, and interested in challenging work.

  Transformational Leadership

• Transformational leadership: Leadership aimed at transforming employees to exceed expectations and look beyond self-interest to help the organization better compete.

• Shared leadership (participative management): A leadership approach that allows employees at all levels to participate in decision-making.

• Management by objectives: A management technique in which employees are given specific goals to meet in their work.

• Self-managed team: A work group that has a high degree of freedom with respect to how it achieves its goals.

• Quality circle: An employee discussion group that makes suggestions for improving quality and solving business problems.

  18.2 Environmental Psychology

• Environmental psychology: The formal study of how environments affect behavior.

• Social environment: An environment defined by a group of people and their activities or interrelationships (such as a parade, revival meeting, or sports event).

• Physical environments: Natural settings, such as forests and beaches, as well as environments built by humans, such as buildings, ships, and cities.

• Behavioral setting: A smaller area within an environment whose use is well defined, such as a bus depot, waiting room, or lounge.

• Ecological footprint: The amount of land and water area required to replenish the resources that a human population consumes.

  Environmental Influences on Behavior

• Crowding: A subjective feeling of being overstimulated by a loss of privacy or by the nearness of others (especially when social contact with them is unavoidable).

• Density: The number of people in a given space or, inversely, the amount of space available to each person.

  Overstimulation and Noise

• Attentional overload: A stressful condition caused when sensory stimulation, information, and social contacts make excessive demands on attention.

• Noise pollution: Stressful and intrusive noise, usually artificially generated by machinery, but also includes sounds made by animals and humans.

  Managing Environmental Stressors

• Environmental assessment: The measurement and analysis of the effects an environment has on the behavior and perceptions of people within that environment.

• Architectural psychology: The study of the effects that building have on behavior and the design of buildings using behavioral principles.

• Human Influences on the Natural Environment

• Social dilemma: A social situation that tends to provide immediate rewards for actions that will have undesired effects in the long run.

• Tragedy of the commons: A social dilemma in which individuals, each acting in his or her immediate self-interest, overuse a scarce group resource.

• Social norms marketing: A persuasion technique that seeks to change attitudes by making explicit relevant social norms in order to foster compliance.

• Personalized normative feedback: A persuasion technique that seeks to change attitudes by comparing feedback about individual performance with relevant social norms in order to foster compliance.

• Carbon footprint: The volume of greenhouse gases individual consumption adds to the atmosphere.

18.3 Legal, Community, and Sports Psychology

Legal Psychology

• Legal psychology: The study of the psychological and behavioral dimensions of the legal system.

• Forensic Psychology: The study of clinical aspects of the law.

  Jury Selection

• Scientific jury selection: Using social science principles to choose members of a jury.

  Jury Behavior

• Mock jury: A group that realistically simulates a courtroom jury.

  Community Psychology

• Community psychology: A branch of psychology that goes beyond an individual focus and integrates social, cultural, economic, political, environmental, and international influences to promote positive change, health, and empowerment at individual and systemic levels.

  Sports Psychology

• Sports psychology: The study of the psychological and behavioral dimensions of sports performance.

• Task analysis: Breaking complex sills into their subparts.

• Motor skill: A series of actions molded into a smooth and efficient performance.

• Motor program: A mental plan or model that guides skilled movement.

• Mental practice: Imagining a skilled performance to aid learning.

• Peak performance: A performance during which physical, mental, and emotional states are harmonious and optimal.

  18.4 Psychology and Your Skill Set: Career Preparation

• Portfolio: A collection of printed examples of a person’s accomplishments and work.

• e-Portfolio: A digital, rather than hardcopy, collection of printed examples of a person’s accomplishments and work.

Chapter In Review:

18.1 Industrial/Organizational Psychology

18.1.1 Explain the role of industrial/organizational psychologists

industrial/organizational psychologists enhance quality of work and job satisfaction by studying such topics organizational structures and culture, personnel issues (e.g., hiring and performance evaluation), and effective leadership.

18.1.2 Define organizational culture, and how it is impacted by hostility in the workplace

Organizational culture refers to the beliefs and values that characterize an organization. It is compromised by hostile actions such as “desk rage” and harassment which can stem from personality traits (such as hostility and paranoia), job-related stresses or parentheses such as that feeling that one has been treated unfairly), perceived threats to one self-esteem, work related conflicts with others, and economic pressures that organizations face.

18.1.3 Describe how personnel psychologists work to ensure a good fit between people and jobs

To match people with jobs, personnel psychologists combined job analysis with selection procedures, such as gathering biodata, interviewing, giving standardized psychological tests (including intelligence tests and personality tests), and using assessment centers.

18.1.4 Outline two ways in which job satisfaction can be promoted

Job satisfaction influences productivity, absenteeism, morale, employee turnover, and other factors that affect business efficiency period two factors that promote job satisfaction are good relationships with coworkers and a good fit between work and a person's interests, abilities, needs, and expectations. Job enrichment and flexible working conditions often improve the fit between work and people's needs and expectations, and consequently enhance job satisfaction.

18.1.5 Distinguish between Theory X, Theory Y, and transformational leadership

Theory X leadership (scientific management) is mostly concerned with work efficiency and assumes workers have little motivation, other than wages to meet basic needs, to complete their work period theory why leadership (human relations approach follows parentheses emphasizes psychological efficiency and assumes that people will have some intrinsic motivation to work because the job meets their higher level needs for personal growth period transformational leadership seeks to “transform” workers to exceed expectations and look beyond their own self-interest to help the organization compete. Verify and transformational methods include shared leadership of parentheses participative management), management by objectives, self-managed teams, and quality circles.

18.2 Environmental Psychology

18.2.1 Explain the role of environmental psychologists

Environmental psychologists are interested in the relationship between people and the environment (both physical and social environments), including environmental influences on human behavior and vice versa.

18.2.2 Explain how crowding comma overstimulation comma and noise affect human behavior comma and how these environmental stressors can be managed

Environmental problems such as crowding, overstimulation, and noise are major sources of urban stress. Animal experiments indicate that excessive crowding can be unhealthy. However, human research shows that psychological feelings of crowding do not always correspond with density. Overstimulation (attention overload) and noise make excessive demands and attention, and can have effects on health (e.g., blood pressure), and psychological variables (e.g., persistence, learned helplessness) as well as skills (reading). In terms of managing these environmental stressors, and environmental and architectural psychologists often begin with a careful environmental assessment that will allow them to make alterations to interior and exterior spaces that minimize negative effects.

18.2.3 Describe some of the sources of environmental damage, including social dilemmas

Damage to the environment is often caused by governments and corporations, but a great deal of damage is also caused by individuals. In particular, social dilemmas, such as the tragedy of the Commons, arise when individuals are enticed into overuse of scarce, shared resources, leading to a reduction in the availability of that resource, or its degradation. In this way, individual conception has an important influence on the group as a whole.

18.2.4 Outline Four solutions that have been put forward to minimize environmental damage

First, it helps if conservation is seen as a group effort. Second, it may be useful to rearrange rewards and costs, such as levying taxes, offering incentives, and removing barriers to environmentally friendly behavior. Third, people can consider persuasive advertising campaigns and initiatives that are based on self-interest (cost savings), the collective good (protecting one's own children and future generations), or intrinsic motivation to take better care of the planet. Fourth, feedback about people's efforts should be included in the environmental initiative.

18.3 Legal, Community, and Sports Psychology

18.3.1 Explain the role of legal, community, and sports psychologists

Legal psychologists apply psychological science to a legal system and investigate the relationship between people and the law. Community psychologists focus on the communities rather than the individuals, particularly the health of groups such as organizations, neighborhoods, and societies. Sports psychologists seek to enhance sports performance and the benefits of sports participation.

18.3.2 Outline four techniques that may be used in scientific jury selection

In scientific jury selection, jurors' demographic information (E. G., age, sex, race, occupation, education, political affiliation, religion) can be helpful in predicting their behavior during a court trial period a second technique is to carry out a community survey to find out how local citizens feel about the case. Third, psychological is watch for authoritarian personality traits and potential journals. A fourth strategy is to observe potential jurors' nonverbal behavior.

18.3.3 Describe four factors that impair jurors’ ability to reach an impartial verdict

Research from mock jury shows that jury decisions are far from impartial. Four challenges to reaching a fair verdict include the fact that jurors are rarely able to put aside their biases, attitudes, and values while making this decision, they are not very good at separating evidence from the perceptions of the people involved in the trial, they tend to inappropriately incorporate information from pretrial publicity into the deliberations, and they usually cannot suspend judgment until all the evidence is presented.

18.3.4 Explain the central ideas that underlie community psychology

Community psychologists emphasize the cultural, economic, and political forces that shape our health. A community psychology approach to health empowers people to bring about the change they want to see, rather than waiting for experts to step in and help. Community psychology emphasizes the need to be proactive in preventing health problems rather than trying to manage them after-the-fact.

18.3.5 Explain what sports psychologists have learned about the development of motor skills and achieving peak performance

a motor skill is a nonverbal response chamber settled into a smooth performance. Motor skills are guided by internal mental models called motor programs. Motor skills are refined by observing and imitating a skilled model, learning verbal rules to backup motor learning, practicing under lifelike conditions, getting feedback (from a mirror, videotape, coach, or observer), practicing natural units rather than breaking the task into artificial parts, and engaging in mental practice (imagining a skilled performance).

Peak performance is more likely when athletes go through a fixed routine before each event, use imagery and relaxation techniques to optimize arousal, use cognitive behavioral strategies to guide their efforts in a supportive, positive way, and use self-regulation strategies to evaluate performance and make adjustments to keep it at optimum levels.

18.4 Psychology and Your Skill Set: Career Preparation

18.4.1 Create a plan that will allow you to begin the process of preparing for a rewarding career

Begin the process of researching careers early in your degree, making use of resources such as your campus career service office, career-related sites on the Internet, and informational interviewing. Determine the skills that are necessary for jobs that interest you and assess yourself on these skills. If you believe that you need to develop any of them further to make yourself competitive, consider what types of experience would help you to do so. Begin to document your skills by building a performer portfolio or e-portfolio. Manage your digital footprint carefully. Remove any web-based material about you that you would not want a potential employer to find, and work to create additional content that is professional (e.g., LinkedIn profile, e-portfolio).