1.2 — the history of I-O psychology

Question 1

what is the timeline of history of I-O psychology?

Answer 1

Question 2

when & who developed the first mental test?

Answer 2

Cattell developed the first mental test in 1890

Question 3

what is the definition of a mental test?

Answer 3

an instrument designed to measure intelligence (ability to reason, plan, solve problems)

Question 4

when was the APA founded?

Answer 4

1892

Question 5

how many divisions does the APA have?

Answer 5

50 divisions that represent different types of psychologists

Question 6

when were the Hawthorne studies publicised?

Answer 6

1930 by Elton Mayo

Question 7

what occurred in 1917-1919 with relevance to I-O psychology today?

Answer 7

US psychologists Scott & Bingham volunteered to help with testing + placement of more than a million army recruits

→ they adapted the Standford-Binet test to make it suitable for mass group testing (this new form was called Army Alpha)

Question 8

what was the Army Beta test?

Answer 8

it was comparable to the Army Alpha—Scott & Bingham’s adaption of the Standford-Binet— but was nonverbal & administered to illiterate recruits

Question 9

when was the Equal Pay Act passed?

Answer 9

1963

Question 10

when was the Tittle VII of Civil Rights Act passed?

Answer 10

1964

Question 11

what was the Tittle VII of Civil Rights Act?

Answer 11

written in sections (each section detailing a specific area of possible discrimination (ie. voting, education, work, housing)

→ employment discrimination (Title VII) require employers to justify the use of tests for selection

Question 12

what did the Tittle VII of Civil Rights Act require employers to do when administering tests for selection?

Answer 12

justify their use ; revolutionised selection testing

• if a protected group tended to score lower on them on average compared to non-protected group
• if test could not be shown to be related to job performance
  = they could be considered illegal

Question 13

when was Division 14 of the APA renamed SIOP?

Answer 13

1982

Question 14

when does the popularisation of commercial tests date back to?

Answer 14

by 1950 employers realised that interests & attitudes & personality might contribute to desirable outcomes (ie. productivity, workforce stability) → tests entered the market

Question 15

who is considered the founder of psychology?

Answer 15

Wihlem Wundt founded the first psychological laboratory in 1876

Question 16

who are the two influential psychologists in the emergence of I-O psychology that trained under Wilhem Wundt?

Answer 16

Munsterberg & Cattell

Question 17

what was Munsterberg the first to do?

Answer 17

one of the first to measure abilities in workers and link them to performance

Question 18

why was I-O psychology known as economic psychology around 1916?

Answer 18

only concerned with increasing productivity + only ‘industrial’

Question 19

what is Cattell recognised for?

Answer 19

being among the first to realise the importance of differences among individuals as a way of predicting their behaviour

Question 20

what were individual differences at the time considered as?

Answer 20

errors that served to complicate and muddy results from how individuals respond to external stimuli

Question 21

what happened after WW1 in the private industry?

Answer 21

it set out to emulate the successful testing of army personal during WW1 → mental ability testing soon became commonplace in the work setting

Question 22

what was scientific management based on?

Answer 22

based on the principles of time and motion studies

Question 23

what are the Gilbreth couple known for in I-O psychology?

Answer 23

for applying scientific management principles to educational institutions

→ they became well-known human engineering practitioners and management consultants

<aside>
💡 They were time and motion specialists, like Frederik W. Taylor as well

</aside>

Question 24

when did the field of human engineering emerge?

Answer 24

as America entered WW2

Question 25

what was the field of human engineering before WW2?

Answer 25

it was barely more than the study of time and motion

Question 26

when did Coca-Cola first hire Hollingsworth to prove that caffeine did not impair motor performance or mental efficiency?

Answer 26

in 1911

→ Hollingsworth conducted lab studies that found that in normal amounts, caffeine actually enhanced performance contrary to government contentions that it impaired performance

Question 27

what aspect of the worker did Elton Mayo focus on?

Answer 27

began studying the emotions of the workers

→ he was interested in the ways work could ‘cause’ workers to act in pathological ways (revery obsession)

Question 28

what is the Stanford-Binet test?

Answer 28

famous intelligence test designed for testing individuals one at a time

Question 29

what is scientific management?

Answer 29

movement based on F. Taylor — who suggested that there was one best and most efficient way to perform various jobs

Question 30

what are time and motion studies?

Answer 30

studies that broke down every action into its constituent parts + timed each movements = developed new movements to reduce fatigue and increase productivity

Question 31

what is revery obsession (Elton Mayo)?

Answer 31

this mental state resulted from the repetitive, difficult and mind-numbing work of early 20th century

→ Mayo proposed that because workers were not solicited intellectually, their minds would wander and eventually paranoid thoughts would arise

= leading to unhappiness, resisting management attempts to increase productivity, more sympathy for labor unions

Question 32

when were the Hawthorne studies published?

Answer 32

1930

Question 33

what were the Hawthorne studies?

Answer 33

began as attempts to increase productivity by manipulating lighting, instilling breaks, and work hours

→ puzzling results ; through interviewing they found that it was the worker’s attitudes that played a role

= researchers showing interest in the workers was enough to change behaviour → resulted in Hawthorne effect

Question 34

what did Hawthorne studies show?

Answer 34

it showed the important role that worker’s attitudes played in productivity— more than that it showed that external consideration / attention to workers impacts / changes behaviour

Question 35

before the Hawthorne studies, what was the only generally accepted motivator for work?

Answer 35

money

Question 36

what is the Human Relations movement?

Answer 36

movement ushered in by the Hawthorne studies, focusing on work attitudes and new considerations for worker’s emotions + complex theories of motivation

Question 37

what kind of studies became more common with the human relations movement?

Answer 37

studies of job satisfaction

Question 38

what movement resulted from the findings of Hawthorne studies?

Answer 38

human relations movement → + studies of job satisfaction became more common

Question 39

what problems did Air Force of WW2 bring + how were these solved?

Answer 39

different controls & display configurations in cockpits between aircrafts meant that as pilots moved from one plane to another → make mistakes leading to crashes

→ applied psychologists (human engineering) suggested standardisation of cockpits (of placements displays + controls)

= when these were implemented it resulted in immediate reduction in accidents

<aside>
💡 this assured human engineering a place as a sub-area of I-O psychology

</aside>

Question 40

what event led to the establishment of human engineering as a sub-area of I-O psychology?

Answer 40

solution proposed by applied psychologists to standardise cockpit displays and controls to reduce chance of accidents

Question 41

what government department created a test week in a secluded farm to test candidates for a spy network to anticipate military intelligence?

Answer 41

Office of Strategic Services (OSS) — they were sent to a farm for extensive testing (incl. interviews, physical exercises to determine how well they withstood stress & rigours

personality attributes were core to assessment exercises because a personality theorist (Henry Murray) was in charge of the assessment centre

Question 42

when can a demarkation been seen between classic and modern thinking?

Answer 42

mid-1960s

→ during this period, field changed its name to add ‘organisational’ to I-O psychology

Question 43

when + why was ‘organisational’ added to the term I-O psychology?

Answer 43

in 1973 — to emphasise that when an individual joins an organisation they will be exposed to a common set of goals & operating procedures (the worker will be ‘organised’ by a larger social system)

= provided the foundation for an approach to theory & data analysis called multi-level analysis

Question 44

what did the inclusion of the term organisational in I-O psychology lead to?

Answer 44

provided the foundation for an approach to theory & data analysis called multi-level analysis

Question 45

what were some lines of thinking in I-O psychology before the mid-1960s?

Answer 45

• tendency to see three branches of I-O psychology as unrelated and in competition with the others to explain industrial behaviour
• mental ability tests have always played a very important part of industry psychology
• most industrial psychologists were focused on improving productivity and reducing counterproductive behaviour (ie. absenteeism & turnover)
• unit of analysis was the individual worker (and not work-group, organisation or even culture)

Question 46

what challenges do the authors name for I-O psychology making significant contributions in the 21st century?

Answer 46

• has to be relevant — tackling problems such as globalisation of economy ; increasing technological revolutions
• needs to be useful — must always have practical applications
• needs to tackle large, global issues
• needs to be grounded in scientific method

Question 47

what was a notable step in terms of the relevance of I-O psychology?

Answer 47

SIOP was granted NGO status with United Nations in 2011

→ provides opportunities to tackle larger humanitarian issues