Chapter 10 Flashcards
What are two of the earliest published works in the area of Organisational psychology?
Scott’s (1908) analysis of advertising
Munsterberg’s (1913) general text for industry
The organisational psychology division of the Australian Psychological Society formed in which year? When did it become the College of Organisational Psychology?
1971; 1993
Name some of the major areas of focus for organisational psychology
- work motivation
- designing and redesigning jobs
- recruitment and selection of new personnel
- training and development of workers
- managing individual and group performance
- facilitating organisational change processes
What are the two main areas of application for I/O psychologists?
Performance appraisal
Prediction of performance
The most valid assessment of job performance of workers has always rested on what?
The application of psychological assessment principles
Number of items produced, number of defects and dollar value of sales, are which type of indicator?
Quantitative production counts
Number of defects/errors, number of products returned, and number of customer complaints, are which type of indicator?
Qualitative production measures
Absenteeism, turnover, length of downtime and rate of promotion are which type of indicator?
Personnel information
Scores on training exams, scores on performance tests conducted during training, and trainer ratings are which type of indicator?
Training proficiency
Supervisor ratings of performance on the job or of samples, peer ratings, subordinate ratings, and customer ratings are which type of indicator?
Judgemental data
Productivity counts indicate nothing about _____
The quality of the production
What is the main problem with personnel data?
The events recorded are usually relatively rare
The most common form of job performance measure has become what?
Supervisor ratings (rating scales)
One problem with simple, objective productivity counts is what?
That rate of production is often outside a worker’s control
The graphic rating scale is a good way to capture which type of information?
Judgemental information
One of the most successful means for establishing scale anchors are what?
Behaviourally Anchored Rating Scales (BARS)
Define BARS
Rating scales with explicit behavioural statements located along them. They also allow standardisation
What is the main drawback of BARS?
Raters can sometimes become overly focused on the specific wording used
What is the main by-product of BARS?
The involvement of people from within the organisation
Define BOS
This contains stems that are composed of the kinds of behaviours that form the anchors of BARS, and the scale is based on the frequency with which the rater had observed the behaviour in question
What are the two broad components of job performance that have thus far been identified?
Task performance (core technical aspects of the job) Contextual performance (behaviours directed more at successful continued performance of the work group or organisation, ‘good citizen’)
Some people will be appointed whose performance ultimately does not measure up. Such cases are known as?
False positives or mishires
What does KSAOs stand for?
Knowledge, Skills, Abilities, and Other characteristics
The process of meta-analysing validity coefficients is called?
Validity generalisation (VG)
What sits as the top item of the Validity Generalisation League Table?
General mental ability (GMA)
What is the only moderator in the League Table?
Job complexity
What sits at the bottom of the League Table?
Age
What sits below GMA in the League Table?
Work sample tests
What is the biggest disadvantage of work sample tests?
Their cost
What are 2 disadvantages of peer ratings?
- virtually impossible to obtain from people outside the organisation
- can be influenced by ‘social standing’
What is the main disadvantage of job knowledge tests?
They are only relevant for experienced workers
Integrity is seen as a superordinate personality factor comprising which 3 factors?
- agreeableness
- conscientiousness
- emotional stability
What are the two types of integrity test?
Overt and covert
What are assessment centres?
They resemble a large battery of tests comprising many different activities applied to groups of around 10-20 people at a time
What have assessment centres been particularly useful for?
Identifying managerial potential
Which is the only personality factor to appear in the League Table?
Conscientiousness
Personality factors are more likely to have an impact on ____ than ____
contextual performance; task performance
What does the Wonderlic Personnel Test measure?
- vocabulary items
- knowledge items
- arithmetical items
- figural items
Which test is described as being made up of a few items taken from many different second stratum tests in the CHC?
Wonderlic Personnel Test
What is the ACER test comprised of?
A language (verbal) and a numerical (quantitative) test
How is the score on the ACER Speed and Accuracy Test calculated?
Number of correct answers minus incorrect answers
What are Meyer and Allen’s (1997) 3 types of commitment?
- affective (overall liking)
- continuance (sense of one’s need to stay)
- normative (one’s obligation to the employer)
What are O’Reilly and Chatman’s (1986) 3 types of commitment?
- compliance
- identification
- internalisation
What are the steps involved in BARS construction?
- obtain critical incidents
- cluster these into coherent behavioural themes or dimensions
- Rate incidents in each theme (looking for high agreement)
- Use the subset of anchors that survive step 3 to represent scale points on the scale
