A: Introduction

Question 1

Replay

Answer 1

• Work= set of coordinated and goal-directed activities, conducted in exchange for smth else (money)
• Work psychology= ppls behavior, emotions, motivations and thoughts at work
• Goal: maximize work performance, health and well-being sustainable performance
• Focus on activities to achieve work goals not context or worker characteristics

Question 2

What do we mean when we talk about workers?

Answer 2

• 3 billion ppl at work
• Global unemployment 6%
• Service sector growing fast, agricultural sector second
• Problem: Selection bias, Research in western-oriented economies, Focus on white collar, professional and middle to highly educated employees

Question 3

The meaning of work

Answer 3

• Popculture: work= unpleasant
• Working: suicide, mortality , long term illness, anxiety, depression and risky behavior lower
• Relative Deprivation Model (Jahoda)  social benefits of work: time structure, social contact, common purpose, social identity/status, regular activity

Question 4

The roots of work psychology

Answer 4

• Roman army: military manuals
• Ancient Greeks: medical doctors Hippocratic collection
• 1500s: Agricola, impact of work in coal mine on health
• Industrial revolution: artisanal to mass production
• Psychotechnics: optimizing match between worker and vocation
• Taylorism simplification, one best fit, stsrict supervision, pay-for-performance
• After 1930: Human Relations movement, Hawthorne Studies, social context
• Contemporary work psychology: merging ideas from all disciplines sustainable performance

Question 5

The times, they are a-changing

Answer 5

• Change from manufacture to service and knowledge work
• More diverse work force (gender, age, ethnicity, organizational tenure, educational background
• New ways of working: 1.flexibility in timing 2.flexibility in place 3. Facilitation of new media
• Globalization, ICT (Information and communication technologies) : organizations must adapt
• Psychological contract: what employees and employers expect from each othe, changed from stability and employment to flexibility and employability

Question 6

The crucial role of task analysis in contemporary work psychology

Answer 6

• Task analysis: data collected, ranked and evaluated to say smth about nature of task
• Task analysis methods: behavior description, behavior requirements, ability requirements, task characteristics
• Task analysis techniques: data collection techniques, task representation techniques, task simulation techniques

Question 7

2.Research methods in work psychology

Answer 7

• Reliability: extent to which measurement reflects true score
• Validity: extent to which test is measuring what it claims to measure
• Construct validation, criterion-related validation (outcome)
• Construct deficiency: measures not entire construct
• Construct contamination: measures smth else other than intended construct
• Common method variance: relationship can beexplained by how data was collected rather than true relationship
• 3 key features of research design: precision, existential realism, generalizability only one can be maximized
• Precision in laboratory, field experiment
• Quasi-experiment: intact, pre-existing groups
• Increase generalizability: survey
• Random sampling, stratified sampling, convenience sampling
• Longitudinal surveys
• Focus groups
Conclusions: first identifiying, then defining and operationalizing constructs. Two major characteristics of measure: reliability, validity, reliability is necessary but not sufficient for validity scale that is not reliable cannot be valid but reliability does not guarantee validity.. 3 types of reliability: stability over time, equivalence of two measures, internal consistency of items. Laboratory experiments may not be realistic, experience sampling studies may not be generalizable, Surveys may not be precise or realisticthree horned dilemma