Introduction to Industrial/Organizational Psychology

1. INTRODUCTION
TO I/O
PSYCHOLOGY
CHAPTER 1

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LEARNING OBJECTIVES
Be able to describe I/O psychology and what I/O psychologists do
Learn about the history of I/O psychology
Understand the importance of conducting research
Understand how to conduct research
Be able to differentiate various research methods

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Industrial Psychology is a branch of
psychology that applies the principles of
psychology in the workplace.
Purpose: “to enhance the dignity and
performance of human beings, and the
organizations they work in, by advancing the
science and knowledge of human behavior” (Rucci,
2008).
Goal: to increase the productivity and well-
being of employees.

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Industrial
psychologists
work in a variety
of settings
including industry,
government,
education, and
consulting firms.

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MAJOR FIELDS OF I/O PSYCHOLOGY
 The industrial approach (the “I” in I/O psychology) focuses on
determining the competencies needed to perform job, staffing the
organization with employees who have competencies, and increasing
those competencies through training.
 The organizational approach (the “O” in I/O psychology) creates an
organizational structure and culture that will motivate employees to
perform well, give them the necessary information to do their jobs, and
provide working conditions that are safe and result in an enjoyable and
satisfying work/life environment.

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Personnel Psychology
is the field of study that
concentrates on the
selection and
evaluation of
employees. (analyzing
jobs, recruiting
applicants, selecting
employees, determining
salary levels, training
employees, and
evaluating employee
performance.)
Human
Factors/Ergonomics
is a field of study
concentrating on the
interaction between
humans and
machines. (workplace
design, human machine
interaction,
ergonomics, and
physical fatigue and
stress.)
Organizational
Psychology is the field
of study that investigates
the behavior of
employees within the
context of an
organization. (issues of
leadership, job satisfaction,
employee motivation,
organizational
communication, conflict
management,
organizational change, and
group processes within an
organization.)

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BRIEF HISTORY OF I/O PSYCHOLOGY
 The field of I/O psychology began in early 1900’s
 1903 - Walter Dill Scott wrote TheTheory of Advertising in which psychology was
first applied to business
 1910 - Hugo Münsterberg wrote Psychology and Industrial Efficiency. Considered as
the “Father of Industrial Psychology”. Münsterberg was primarily interested in
personnel selection and psychological testing.
 1911 - Walter Dill Scott wrote the book Increasing Human Efficiency in Business
which pioneered in applying the principles of psychology in the workplace (Kazi,
2012).

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BRIEF HISTORY OF I/O PSYCHOLOGY
 The term “industrial psychology” was seldom used beforeWorld War I. Instead, the
common terms for the field were “economic psychology,” “business psychology,”
and “employment psychology” (Koppes & Pickren, 2007).
 I/O psychology made its first impact and established itself during World
War I. I/O psychologists were employed to test soldier recruits and then place them
in appropriate positions.
 Army Alpha is an intelligence test developed duringWorldWar I and used by the army
for soldiers who can read.
 Army Beta is an intelligence test developed duringWorldWar I and used by the army for
soldiers who cannot read.

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BRIEF HISTORY OF I/O PSYCHOLOGY
 The more intelligent recruits were assigned to officer training, and the less intelligent
to the infantry.
 James McKeen Cattell. Edited several psychological journals and founded The
Psychological Corporation in 1921 (Landy, 1997).The Psychological Corporation
has been instrumental in maintaining the integrity and credibility of psychologists
who serve in companies. It is also one of the largest publishers of psychological tests
(McCarthy, 2002).

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BRIEF HISTORY OF I/O PSYCHOLOGY
 Walter Bingham. Is also a prominent figure in the field of industrial psychology.
Bingham started the Division of Applied Psychology, the first academic program in
industrial psychology (Krumm, 2001). He also spearheaded the Personal Research
Federation and served as director of The Psychological Corporation. Bingham
made an important and lasting contribution to the field as he acted as spokesperson
for psychology to be recognized and to achieve the respect it rightly deserved.
 1920s - doctoral degrees in industrial psychology were offered in American
universities.
 During the 1920s and 1930s, Rensis Likert and Louis LeonThurstone became well-
known in the measurement of attitudes.

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BRIEF HISTORY OF I/O PSYCHOLOGY
 Frank and Lilian Gilbreth.The husband-and-wife team who pioneered the field of
"time and motion study" significantly contributed to improving productivity and
reducing worker fatigue by analyzing and optimizing the movements workers used
during tasks, famously reducing the number of motions required to lay a brick from
18 to 4.5 per brick.
 1933 - Elton Mayo published his Hawthorne studies.
 The Hawthorne studies, conducted at the Western Electric Company in Hawthorne,
Illinois, demonstrated that employee behavior was complex and that the
interpersonal interactions between managers and employees played a tremendous
role in employee behavior.

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BRIEF HISTORY OF I/O PSYCHOLOGY
 Hawthorne effect, when employees change their behavior due solely to the fact that
they are receiving attention or are being observed. Hawthorne studies inspired
psychologists to increase their focus of human relations in the workplace and to
explore the effects of employee attitudes (Olson,Verley, Santos, & Salas, 2004).
 1939 - Kurt Lewin was the first to come up with a study on the effects of leadership
styles and his work led to the use of participative management techniques.
 1945 - Society for Industrial and Business Psychology established as Division 14 of the
American Psychological Association (APA) with 130 members
 The 1960s saw the need for human resource professionals to develop selection
techniques based on the passage of several civil rights governing equal employment
opportunities.

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BRIEF HISTORY OF I/O PSYCHOLOGY
 In 1970s, theories on employee satisfaction and motivation were developed. Theories
on human behavior in organizations were also recognized.
 1982 - Division 14 was renamed Society for Industrial and Organizational Psychology
(SIOP). Currently SIOP has more than 8,000 members.
 In the 1980s and 1990s industrial psychology went through four major changes.
 (1) The use of more sophisticated statistical techniques and analysis increased.
 (2) There was an increased interest in the application of cognitive psychology to the
industry.
 (3) The clamor to determine the effects of work on family life and leisure activities
surfaces, highlighting how work stress affects the personal life of individuals (McMarthy, 1998).
 (4) The efforts in improving employee selection significantly increase (Aamodt, 2013).

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BRIEF HISTORY OF I/O PSYCHOLOGY
 In the new millennium, industrial psychology further developed through technological
innovations. Psychological tests can now be administered and checked on the
Internet. Recruitment of employees can also be done online.Training can likewise be
conducted online through computer-mediated tools or social media such as
Facebook and Twitter, as more and more people take advantage of distance education
to study and learn through the Internet. Managers can hold meetings through video
conferencing (Kaazi, 2012).

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EMPLOYMENT OF I/O PSYCHOLOGISTS
I/O psychologists typically work in four settings:
Colleges and Universities (teach, conduct
research; some work as administrators)
Consulting Firms (selecting hiring workforce,
designing systems that will motivate employees,
training employees, makes sure that organizations
treat applicants and employees in a legal and ethical
manner)
Public Sector (consultant for local, state, or
government agency)
Private Sector (consultant for single company
such as IBM, Microsoft, and FedEx)
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16. JOBTITLES OF I/O
PSYCHOLOGISTS
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 Chairman and CEO
 City manager
 Compensation analyst
 Compensation manager
 Consultant
 Director of assessment and selection
 Director of organizational effectiveness
 Director of training and development
 Director of workforce planning
 Employee Relations Manager
 HR Director

17. JOBTITLES OF I/O
PSYCHOLOGISTS
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 HR generalist
 HR representative
 HR specialist
 HR supervisor
 Industrial-organization psychologist
 Manager of leadership and development
 Personnel manager
 President
 Professor
 Recruiter
 Research psychologist

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I/O SALARY
 In 2012, the starting
salary was $65,000 for
master’s-level positions
and $81,000 for
doctoral-level positions
(2025 American Psychological
Association)
 The top 10% of I/O
psychologists with
doctoral degrees
earned more than
$200,000.

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20. EDUCATIONAL
REQUIREMENTS AND
TYPES OF PROGRAMS
• Bachelor’s degrees can find
employment in the HRM
field, but having master’s or
doctoral degree increases
employment and career
opportunities.
Types of Graduate Programs:
1. Master’s Program
2. Doctoral Program
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21. RESEARCH IN I/O
PSYCHOLOGY
Why conduct research?
 Answering questions
and Making the right
Decisions
 Research and Everyday
Life
 Common Sense is
Often Wrong
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22. CONSIDERATIONS IN CONDUCTING RESEARCH
Ideas
Hypotheses
Theories
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“what to research?”
“I wonder…”

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Hypothesis an
educated prediction
about the answer to a
question.
Theory a systematic
set of assumptions
regarding the cause
and nature of behavior.

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25. REVIEW OF RELATED
LITERATURE
Four types of periodicals:
 Journals, written collection of articles describing
the methods and results of new research.
 Bridge publications, designed to “bridge the
gap” between academia and applied world. Usually
written by professors.
 Trade magazines, contain articles usually
written by professional writers who have
expertise in a given field.
 Magazines, an unscientific collection of articles
about a wide range of topics. Good source of
ideas but terrible sources to use in support of a
scientific hypothesis.
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26. LOCATION OF
THE STUDY
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Laboratory Research Field Research

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LABORATORY RESEARCH
 Usually, this done at a university, but research is also conducted in
organizations.
 External validity or generalizability, one of the disadvantage of
laboratory research
 External validity or generalizability, the extent to which research
results can be expected to hold true outside the specific setting in which
they were obtained.

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FIELD RESEARCH
 Research conducted in a natural setting as opposed to laboratory. It could be
the assembly line of an automotive plant, the secretarial pool of a large
insurance company, etc.
 Ethical dilemma: Informed consent
 Informed consent, the formal process by which subjects give permission to
be included in a study.
 Institutional review boards, a committee designated to ensure the ethical
treatment of research subjects.

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RESEARCH
METHODS
Experiments
Quasi-experiments
Archival research
Observations
Surveys
Meta-analyses
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EXPERIMENTS
 A type of research study in which the independent variable is
manipulated by the experimenter.
 The most powerful of all research methods because it is the only one
that can determine cause-and-effect relationships.
 Cause-and-effect relationships, the result of a well-controlled
experiment about which the researcher can confidently state that the
independent variable caused the change in the dependent variable.

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EXPERIMENTS
 Two characteristics define an experiment: (1) manipulation of one or more independent
variables and (2) random assignment of subjects to experimental and control
conditions.
 Independent variable, the manipulated variable in an experiment.
 Dependent variable, the measure of behavior that is expected to change as a result of
changes in the independent variable.
 Experimental group, the group of subjects that receives the experimental treatment of
interest to the experimenter.
 Control group, used to establish a cause-and-effect relationship by isolating the effect of
an independent variable

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EXAMPLE:
A researcher randomly assigned 100 employees to receive
customer service training and 100 employees to receive no
training. Following the training program, the researcher looks at
the change in customer spending.
 In this example, training is the independent variable (what was
manipulated), and customer spending is the dependent variable (what
was expected to change as a result of the independent variable).
 The employees who received the training are collectively called the
experimental group, and the employees who did not receive the
training are collectively called the control group.

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QUASI-EXPERIMENTS
 Research method in which the experimenter either does not manipulate the
independent variable or in which subjects are not randomly assigned to
conditions.
 Quasi-experiments are often used to evaluate the results of a new program
implemented by an organization.
 For example, an organization that instituted a child care center wanted to see
whether the center had any effect on employee absenteeism.To find the answer,
the organization compared absenteeism levels from the year before the center was
introduced with the absenteeism levels for the year following the implementation;
the organization found that both absenteeism and turnover had decreased.

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ARCHIVAL RESEARCH
 Research that involves the use of previously collected data.
 For example, if we want to know what distinguishes good workers from
poor workers, we could look in the personnel files to see whether the
backgrounds of good workers have common characteristics not shared
by poor workers.
 Archival research has many desirable factors, such as not being obtrusive
or expensive, but it also has severe drawbacks (Shultz, Hoffman, & Reiter-
Palmon, 2005). Records in files are not always accurate and are not
always kept up-to-date.

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 Surveys, another method of conducting research is to “ask”
people their opinion on some topic.
 This method can be conducted through an interview, e-mail,
phone, internet, and the like, depending on the size of the sample,
budget, and time allotment.
 Observations, research technique where you observe
participants and phenomena in their most natural settings

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META-ANALYSIS
 A statistical method of reaching conclusions based on previous research.
 Effect size, a statistic that indicates the amount of change caused by an experimental
manipulation.
 Mean effect size, a statistic that is the average of the effect sizes for all studies
included in the analysis.
 Correlation coefficients (r) are used to determine the relationship between two
variables.The common statistical tool used is the Pearson correlation coefficient.
 Difference score (d), a type of effect size used in meta-analysis that indicates how
many standard deviations separate the mean score for the experimental group from
the control group.

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SUBJECT SAMPLES
Random sample a
sample in which every
member of the relevant
population had an equal
chance of being chosen
to participate in the
study.
Convenience sample
a nonrandom research
sample that is used
because it is easily
available.
Random assignment
the random, nonbiased
assignment of subjects in
a research sample to the
various experimental
and control conditions.

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Random sampling:
If you are studying the effects of a new teaching method on
student learning, you might use random sampling to select 100
students from a large school district to participate in your study.
Random assignment:
Once you have those 100 students, you would then randomly
assign half of them to the new teaching method group and the
other half to the traditional teaching method group (the control
group).

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RUNNINGTHE STUDY
 To ensure that all data are collected in an unbiased fashion, it is
important that all instructions to the subjects be stated in a standardized
fashion and at a level that is understandable. Once the subject is finished
with her participation, she should be debriefed, or told the purpose of
the experiment and be given a chance to ask questions about her
participation.

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STATISTICAL ANALYSIS
 Statistical analysis helps us
determine how confident we are
that our results are real and did
not occur by chance alone.
 Correlation is a statistical
procedure that enables a
researcher to determine the
relationship between two variables.

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ETHICS IN INDUSTRIAL/ORGANIZATIONAL PSYCHOLOGY
• Ethical dilemmas are ambiguous situations that require a personal judgment of
what is right or wrong because there are no rules, policies, or laws guiding such
decisions. Individuals often rely on their morals and personal values, which often
leads to different decisions by different people in similar situations.
• Type A dilemma, there is a high level of uncertainty as to what is right or wrong,
there appears to be no best solutions, and there are both positive and negative
consequences to a decision.
• Example: Many people would say that drug research that uses animals to test new
drugs is unethical because it is morally wrong to hurt any living creature. Others
would say that new drugs could save millions of lives and that it would be morally
wrong not to make and test drugs that could potentially save human lives.

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ETHICS IN INDUSTRIAL/ORGANIZATIONAL PSYCHOLOGY
• Type B dilemma, also called rationalizing dilemmas.The difference between
right and wrong is much clearer than in Type A. Usually, individuals know what is
right but choose the solution that is most advantageous to themselves.
• Example: Many students will say that they have cheated at least one time on a
test. Most of those students would agree that it is morally wrong to cheat. So,
why have so many done it? They rationalize that “for just this one time” it is okay
and that it is not hurting anyone.And they convince themselves that because
everyone else is doing it, it must be okay.

43. THANKYOU!

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CASE STUDY: CONDUCTING RESEARCH ATTHEVANCOUVER (BRITISH
COLUMBIA) INTERNATIONAL AIRPORT AUTHORITY, CANADA
 TheVancouver International Airport located in Richmond, British Columbia, is
Canada’s second-busiest airport, serving over 17.9 million passengers in 2013.
It has twice been named the top airport in North American for overall
customer satisfaction.Thus, it takes great pride in its employees and their
performance.
 The Airport Authority oversees more than 300 employees in such areas as
project management, finance, human resources, engineering, communications,
and emergency preparedness. Employees working for the airlines, stores, and
restaurants are not part of the Airport Authority, as they are employees of
private companies.

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CASE STUDY: CONDUCTING RESEARCH ATTHEVANCOUVER (BRITISH
COLUMBIA) INTERNATIONAL AIRPORT AUTHORITY, CANADA
 To reduce costs and increase productivity, theVancouver Airport Authority
designed a wellness program for its employees.The program, called Fitness
and Balance, comprised may components, including seminars on such
topics as smoking cessation and stress management; health-related
newsletters and announcements; outdoor-activity days in which employees
and their families could hike, skate, or walk; and discounts at fitness
facilities.To determine the effectiveness of this program, the Airport
Authority collected data and found that absenteeism dropped from 4.07%
to 2.55% and that the number of annual injuries dropped from 22 to 6.

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CASE STUDY: CONDUCTING RESEARCH ATTHEVANCOUVER (BRITISH
COLUMBIA) INTERNATIONAL AIRPORT AUTHORITY, CANADA
 How would you have designed the study to determine the
effectiveness of the wellness program?
 What outcome measures other than absenteeism and injuries
might you use?
 What ethical or practical considerations need to be considered
when collecting and reporting data in a study such as this one?