Introduction to Organizational Psychology Flashcards
What is Psychology?
- Psychology is the scientific study of mind and behaviour.
- Mind: our private inner experience – our perceptions, thoughts, memories and feelings.
- Behaviour: our observable actions - the things we do in the world, by ourselves or with others.
What are the different Areas of psychology?
Forensic Sport & Exercise Counselling Clinical Educational Academia, Research & Teaching Occupational
Forensic Psychology
What are the Key duties?
Where do they work?
Who they work with?
Key duties:
o piloting and implementing treatment programmes,
o modifying offender behaviour,
o reducing stress for staff and prisoners
o prisoner profiling and giving evidence in court
Where:
o Mainly Prison Service
o Also: rehabilitation units, secure hospitals
Who they work with: o Clinical psychologists o Medical personnel (doctors, nurses) o Judges and lawyers o Police
Clinical Psychology
What are the Key duties?
Where do they work?
Who they work with?
Key duties:
o Dealing with a wide range of mental and physical health problems, including addiction, anxiety, depression, learning difficulties, relationship issues and eating problems
o Undertaking clinical assessments to investigate a client’s situation
o Providing psychological treatments & therapy
Where:
o Hospitals, health centres, community mental health teams
Who they work with:
o Medical personnel (psychiatrists, nurses)
o Social workers
o Counselling psychologists
Occupational / organizational Psychology
What are the Key duties?
Where do they work?
Key duties:
o Increase the effectiveness of organizations and improve the job satisfaction of individuals;
o Touches on diverse fields, including employee engagement, leadership and time management;
o Work can be in consultancy, teaching and research roles
Where:
o Organizations and businesses of all size across the private and government sectors
What do we mean by Organizational Psychology?
- Organizational psychology is the science of human behaviour relating to work
- It applies psychological theories and principles to organizations and individuals in their places of work.
Organizational Psychology is also known as?
o Industrial and organizational (I/O) psychology
o Occupational psychology
o Work and organizational psychology
o Business psychology
I/O psychologists help companies by ?
improving the performance, motivation, job satisfaction, occupational safety and health as well as the overall health and well-being of its employees.
What model are Organizational psychologists are trained in? And how do they imply it?
scientist-practitioner model
Create interventions based on hard facts – evidence-based methodology
An Organizational Psychologist conducts research on employee behaviours and attitudes, and attempts to improve these in the workplace
I-O psychology is the scientific study of …………….
work and the application of that science to workplace issues facing individuals, organisations, and teams.
How I-O psychology relate psychology to business?
It lies at the crossroads of business and psychology.
• Just as finance professionals advise organisations on how to maximise their financial capital, I-O psychologists advise organisations how to maximise their human capital.
What is human capital?
Human Capital defined: Human capital is the skill, talent, and productivity that employees bring to a company.
According to the Scientific / Practitioner model, what is the Scientific Objective and the Practitioner Objective?
Scientific Objective:
o Study and understand all aspects of behaviour at work
o Conduct research
o Publish results
Practitioner Objective:
o Application of knowledge gained from research
o Deal with specific problems/issues
In the case with I/O Psychologist are. HR managers, who is the Scientific and who is the Practitioner?
Scientific: I/O Psych “interventionist”
Practitioner: HR Manager “process”
Difference and similarities between I/O Psychologist and HR managers?
I/O Psych “interventionist”:
- Not an employee, hired more often on a contractual basis
- More education
- Provide HR manager with evidence-based research to make informed strategic decisions
HR Manager “process” :
- An employee, part of senior leadership team
- Involved in payroll, employment law, employee benefits, disciplinaries etc.
Similarities:
- Both deal with people in the workplace
- Both involved in recruitment, assessment and employee relations
What are the key roles (specialities) of an I/O Psychologist?
- Recruitment and selection
- Job training and development
- Conflict resolution
- Managing Healthy Workplace
- Intervene with workplace crises
- Address problem behaviour and situations
What are the contributions of I/O Psychologists? with examples
Leadership Styles
o What are the most effective leadership styles?
Employee Assessment
o What personal characteristics, attitudes are the best match for a particular job?
o How to assess these characteristics so that we can find the best candidate for a particular position?
Job Burnout
o Do personality traits like self-efficacy or attitude influence rates of burnout at work? How do you prevent job burnout?!
Motivation and Reward
o Does monetary award increase productivity at work? Is it all about the money?!
What are the skills needed to become a successful i/o psychologist
- Professional skills: Including implementing ethical and legal standards
- Research skills: Including designing, conducting and analyzing psychological research in numerous area and using a range of advanced quantitative and qualitative methods.
- Consultancy skills: Including planning, evaluation, and analyzing and understanding client needs, problems and priorities.
- Training and presentation skills: Including delivery of presentations, and knowledge of designing, delivering and evaluating training program.
- Problem solving
- Confidence to work with a range of people
- Ability to influence – communication skills!
- Commercial awareness
- Work under pressure
Do i/o psychologist use Assessment and Psychometrics?
Yes
Why i/o psychologist use Assessment and Psychometrics?
- A large part of an I/O psychologist’s role is to use assessments to measure individual differences
- They help design and choose effective tests for intelligence, personality, social skills, language, and perception
- They use these tests to determine employee selection, performance, promotion, and evaluation of training.
Give 2 example of Assessment i/o psychologist use?
Cognitive Abilities Tests
o Measure cognitive abilities in verbal + mathematical reasoning relevant to the position
Personality tests
o measure traits related to behaviour at work, interpersonal interactions, and satisfaction with different aspects of work.
“Shape of your personality” – personality assessment:
What are the 4 personalities according to this assessment?
- Square/box
- Triangle
- Circle
- Squiggle
Describe the Square/box
o Detail-oriented o Dependable and responsible o Work hard o Organized–hate clutter o Analytical o Can be stubborn o Hesitant to change o Expressing emotion may be difficult o Prefer individual work
Describe the Triangle
o Hate to lose o Extremely confident o Love to debate and argue o Like to be in charge o multi-task o Rarely apologize o Impatient o Self-motivated
