PSY255 - Exam 1 Flashcards
I/O Psychology
The application of psychological principles, theory, and research to the work setting.
Personnel Psychology
Field of psychology that addresses issues such as recruitment, selection, training, performance, appraisal, promotion, transfer and termination.
Human Resources Management (HRM)
Practices such as recruitment, selection, retention, training, and development of people (human resources) in order to achieve individual and organizational goals.
Organizational Psychology
Field of psychology that combines research from social psychology and organizational behavior and addresses the emotional and motivational side of work.
Human Engineering (Human Factors Psychology)
The study of the capacities and limitations of humans with respect to a particular environment.
Scientist-Practitioner Model
A model that uses scientific tools and research in the practice of I-O Psychology.
Research Design
Provides the overall structure or architecture for the research study; allows investigators to conduct scientific research on a phenomenon of interest.
Experimental Design
Participants are randomly assigned to different conditions.
Quasi-Experimental Design
Participants are assigned to different conditions, but random assignments to conditions is not possible.
Nonexperimental Design
Does not include any “treatment” or assignment to different conditions.
Observational Design
The researcher observes employee behavior and systematically records what is observed.
Survey Design
Research strategy in which participants are asked to complete a questionnaire or survey.
Quantitative Methods
Rely on tests, rating scales, questionnaires, and physiological measures and yield numerical results.
Qualitative Methods
Rely on observations, interviews, case studies, and analysis of diaries or written documents and produce flow diagrams and narrative descriptions of events or processes.
Introspection
Early scientific method in which the participant was also the experimenter, recording his or her experiences in completing an experimental task, considered very subjective by modern standards.
Triangulation
Approach in which researchers seek converging information from different sources.
Generalize
To apply the results from one study or sample to other participants or situations.
Experimental Control
Characteristic of research in which possible confounding influences that might make results less reliable or harder to interpret are eliminated: often easier to establish in laboratory studies than in field studies.
Statistical Control
Using statistical techniques to control for the influence of certain variables. Such control allows researchers to concentrate exclusively on the primary relationships of interest.
Descriptive Statistics
Statistics that summarize, organize, and describe a sample of data.
Measure of Central Tendency
Statistic that indicates where the center of a distribution is located. Mean/median/mode are measures of central tendency.
Variability
The extent to which scores in a distribution vary.
Skew
The extent to which scores in a distribution are lopsided or tend to fall on the left or right side of the distribution.
Mean
The arithmetic average of the scores in a distribution, obtained by summing all of the scores in a distribution and dividing by the sample size.
Mode
The most common or frequently occurring score in a distribution.
Median
The middle score in a distribution.
Inferential Statistics
Statistics used to aid the researcher in testing hypotheses and making inferences from sample data to a larger sample or population.
Statistical significance
Indicates that the probability of the observed statistic is less than the stated significant finding indicates that the results found are unlikely to have occurred by chance, and thus the null hypothesis is rejected.
Statistical Power
The likelihood of finding a statistically significant difference when a true difference exists.
Measurement
Assigning numbers to characteristics of individuals or objects according to rules.
Correlation Coefficient
Statistic assessing the bivariate, linear association between two variables. Provides information about both the magnitude (numerical value) and the direction (+ or -) of the relationship between two variables.
Scatterplot
Graph used to plot the scatter of scores on two variables, used to display the correlational relationship between two variables.
Regression Line
Straight line that best “fits” the scatterplot and describes the relationship between the variables in the graph, can also be presented as an equation that specifies where the line intersects the vertical axis and what the angle or slope of the line is.
Linear
Relationship between two variables that can be depicted by a straight line.
Nonlinear
Relationship between two variables that cannot be depicted by a straight line; sometimes called “curvilinear” and most easily identified by examining a scatterplot.
Multiple Correlation Coefficient
Statistic that represents the overall linear association between several variables (e.g. cognitive ability, personality, experience) on the one hand and a single variable (e.g. job performance) on the other hand.
Meta-Analysis
Statistical method for combining and analyzing the results from many studies to draw a general conclusion about relationships among variables.
Statistical Artifacts
Characteristics (e.g. small sample size, unreliable measures) of a particular study that distort the observed results. Researchers can correct for artifacts to arrive at a statistic that represents the “true” relationship between the variables of interest.
Micro-Research
The study of individual behavior.
Macro-Research
The study of collective behavior.
Meso-Research
The study of the interaction of individual and collective behavior.
Reliability
Consistency or stability of a measure.
Validity
The accuracy of inferences made based on test or performance data, also addresses whether a measure accurately and completely represents what was intended to be measured.
Test-Retest Reliability
A type of reliability calculated by correlating measurements taken at time 1 with measurements taken at time 2.
Equivalent Forms Reliability
A type of reliability calculated by correlating measurements from a sample of individuals who complete two different forms of the same test.
Internal Consistency
Form of reliability that assesses how consistently the items of a test measure a single construct: affected by the number of items in the test and the correlations among the test items.
Generalizability Theory
A sophisticated approach to the question of reliability that simultaneously considers all types of error in reliability estimates (e.g. test-retest, equivalent forms, and internal consistency).
Predictor
The test chosen or developed to asses attributes (e.g. abilities) identified as important for successful job performance.
Criterion
An outcome variable that describes important aspects or demands of the job; the variable that we predict when evaluating the validity of a predictor.
Criterion-Related Validity
Validity approach that is demonstrated by correlating a test score with a performance measure; improves researcher’s confidence in the interference that people with higher test scores have higher performance.
Validity Coefficient
Correlation coefficient between a test score (predictor) and a performance measure (criterion).
Predictive Validity Design
Criterion-related validity design in which there is a time lag between collection of the test data and the criterion data.
Concurrent Validity Design
Criterion-related validity design in which there is no time lag between gathering the test scores and the performance data.
Content-Related Validation Design
A design that demonstrates that the content of the selection procedure represents an adequate sample of important work behaviors and activities and/or worker KSAOs defined by the job analysis.
Construct Validity
Validity approach in which investigator’s gather evidence to support decisions or inferences about psychological constructs, often begins with investigators demonstrating that a test designed to measure a particular construct correlates with other sets in the predicted manner.
Construct
Psychological concept or characteristic that a predictor is intended to measure. examples are intelligence, personality, and leadership.
Individual Differences
Dissimilarities between or among two or more people.
Mental Test
Instrument designed to measure a subject’s ability to reason, plan and solve problems; an intelligence test.
Differential Psychology
Scientific study of differences between or among two or more people.
Intelligence
The ability to learn and adapt to an environment; often used to refer to general intellectual capacity, as opposed to cognitive ability or mental ability, which often refer to more specific abilities such as memory or reasoning.
Mental Ability
Capacity to reason, plan, and solve problems, cognitive ability.
Psychometrics
Practice of measuring a characteristic such as mental ability, placing it on a scale or metric.
Intelligence Test
Instrument designed to measure the ability to reason, learn, and solve problems.
Psychometrician
Psychologist trained in measuring characteristics such as mental ability.
Cognitive Ability
Capacity to reason, plan,and solve problems; mental ability.
“g”
Abbreviation for general mental ability.
General Mental Ability
The nonspecific capacity to reason, learn, and solve problems in any of a wide variety of ways and circumstances.
g-ocentric Model
Tendency to understand and predict the behavior of workers simply by examining “g.”
Personality
An individual’s behavioral and emotional characteristics, generally found to be stable over time and in a variety of circumstances; an individual’s habitual way of responding.
Interests
Preferences or likings for broad ranges of activities.
Knowledge
A collection of specific and interrelated facts and information about a particular topical area.
Emotion
An effect or feeling, often experienced and displayed in reaction to an event or thought and accompanied by physiological changes in various systems of the body.
Taxonomy
An orderly, scientific system of classification.
Perceptual-Motor Abilities
Physical attributes that combine the senses (e.g. seeing, hearing, smell) and motion (e.g. coordination, dexterity).
Affect
The conscious, subjective aspect of emotion.
IQ
Abbreviation for intelligence quotient
Intelligence Quotient
Measure of intelligence obtained by giving a subject a standardized IQ test. The score is obtained by multiplying by 100 the ratio of the subject’s mental age to chronological age.
Flynn Effect
Phenomenon in which new generations appear to be smarter than their parents by a gain of 15 points in average intelligence set score per generation, named after the political scientist who did extensive research on the topic.
Standard Deviation
Measure of the extent of spread in a set of scores.
Muscular Tension
Physical quality of muscular strength.
Muscular Power
Physical ability to lift, pull, push, or otherwise move an object; unlike endurance, this is a one-time maximum effort.
Muscular Endurance
Physical ability to supply muscles with oxygenated blood through the cardiovascular system, also known as cardiovascular strength or aerobic strength or endurance.
Sensory Abilities
Physical functions of vision, hearing, touch, taste, smell and kinesthetic feedback (e.g. noticing changes in body position).
Americans with Disabilities Act
Federal legislation enacted in 1990 requiring employers to give applicants and employees with disabilities the same consideration as other applicants and employees, and to make certain adaptations in the work environment to accommodate disabilities.
Psychomotor Abilities
Physical functions of movement, associated with coordination, dexterity, and reaction time, also called motor or sensorimotor abilities.
Big Five
A taxonomy of five personality factors; the Five-Factor Model (FFM).
Five-Factor Model (FFM)
A taxonomy of five personality factors, composed of conscientiousness, extraversion, agreeableness, emotional stability, and openness to experience.
Conscientiousness
Quality of having positive intentions and carrying them out with care.
Functional Personality at Work
The way that an individual behaves, handles emotions, and accomplishes tasks in a work setting; a combination of Big Five factors.
Achievement
A facet of conscientiousness consisting of hard work, persistence, and the desire to do good work.
Dependability
A facet of conscientiousness consisting of being disciplined, well organized, respectful of laws and regulations, honest, trustworthy, and accepting of authority.
Tacit Knowledge
Action-oriented, goal-directed knowledge, acquired without direct help from others; colloquially called street smarts.
Procedural Knowledge
Familiarity with a procedure or process; knowing “how.”
Declarative Knowledge
Understanding what is rehired to performa task, knowing information about a job or job task.
Competencies
Sets of behaviors, usually learned by experience, that are instrumental in the accomplishment of desired organizational results or outcomes.
Job Analysis
Process that determines the important tasks of a job and the human attributes necessary to successfully perform those tasks.
Emotional Intelligence (EI)
A proposed kind of intelligence focused on people’s awareness of their own and others’ emotions.
Norming
Comparing a test score to other relevant test scores.
Norm Group
Group whose test scores are used to compare and understand an individual’s test score.
Test Battery
Collection of tests that usually asses a variety of different attributes.
Mental Measurements Yearbook
Widely used source that includes an extensive listing of tests as well as reviews of those tests.
Cognitive Ability Test
A test that allows individuals to demonstrate what they know, perceive, remember, understand, or can work with mentally; includes problem identification, problem-solving tasks, perceptual skills, the development or evaluation of ideas, and remembering what one has learned through general experience or specific training.
Overt Integrity Test
A test asks questions directly about past honesty behavior (stealing, etc) as well as attitude toward various behaviors such as employee theft.
Personality-Based Integrity Test
A test tat infers honesty and integrity from questions dealing with broad constructs such as conscientiousness, reliability, and social responsibility and awareness.
Structured Interview
Assessment procedure that consists of very specific questions asked of each candidate; includes tightly crafted scoring schemes with detailed outlines for the interviewer with respect to assuaging ratings or scores based on interview performance.
Situational Interview
An assessment procedure in which the interviewee is asked to describe in specific and behavioral detail how he or she would respond to a hypothetical situation.
Unstructured Interview
An interview format that includes questions that may vary by candidate and that allows the candidate to answer in any form he or she prefers.
Work Sample Test
Assessment procedure that measures job skills by taking samples of behavior under realistic job-like conditions.
Situational Judgment Test
Commonly a paper-and-pencil test that presents the candidate with a written scenario and asks the candidate to choose the best response form a series of alternatives.
Incremental Validity
The value in terms of increased validity of adding a particular predictor to an existing selection system.
Biodata
Information collected on an application blank or in a standardized test that includes questions about previous jobs, education, specialized training, and personal history: also known as biographical data.
Ecology Model
Underlying model for life history biota instruments. Proposes that the events that make up a person’s history represent choices made by the individual to interact with his or her environment. These choices can signal abilities, interests, and personality characteristics.
Social Desirability
Desire to be appealing to others.
Computer Adaptive Testing (CAT)
A type of testing that presents a tat taker with a few items that cover the range of difficulty of the test; identifies a test taker’s approximate level of ability and then asks only questions to further refine the test taker’s position within that ability level.
Routing Test
Preliminary test used in computer adaptive testing that identifies a test taker’s approximate level of ability before providing providing additional questions to refine the test taker’s position within that ability level.
Performance
Actions or behaviors relevant to the organization’s goals, measured in terms of each individual’s proficiency.
Effectiveness
Evaluation of the results of performance; often controlled by factors beyond the actions of an individual.
Productivity
Ratio of effectiveness (output) to the cost of achieving that level of effectiveness (input).
Declarative Knowledge (DK)
Understanding what is required to perform a task: knowing information about a job or task.
Procedural Knowledge and Skill (PKS)
Knowing how to perform a job or task; often developed through practice and experience.
Motivation (M)
Concerns the conditions responsible for variations in intensity, persistence, quality, and direction of ongoing behavior.
Determinants of Performance
Basic building blocks or causes of performance, which are declarative knowledge, procedural knowledge, and motivation.
Performance Components
Components that may appear in different jobs and result from the determinants of performance. John Campbell and colleagues identified eight performance components, some or all of which can be found in every job.
Criterion Deficiency
A situation that occur when an actual criterion is missing information that is part of the behavior one is trying to measure.
Criterion Contamination
A situation that occurs when an actual criterion includes information unrelated to the behavior one is trying to measure.
Ultimate Criterion
Ideal measure of all the relevant aspects of job performance.
Actual Criterion
Actual measure of job performance obtained.
Organizational Citizenship Behavior (OCB)
Behavior that goes beyond what is expected.
Altruism
Helpful behaviors directed toward individuals or groups within the organization, such as offering to help a co-worer who is up against a deadline.
Generalized Compliance
Behavior that is helpful to the broader organization, such, as upholding company rules.
Task Performance
Proficiency with which job incumbents performa activities that are formally recognized as a part of their job.
Counterproductive Work Behavior (CWB)
Voluntary behavior that violates significant organizational norms and threatens the well-being of the organization, its members, or both.
Dishonesty
Employee theft of foods and theft of time (arriving late, leaving early, taking unnecessary sick days) or dishonest communications with customers, co-workers, or management.
Absenteeism
Type of counterproductive behavior that involves failure of an employee to report for or remain at work as scheduled.
Sabotage
Acts that damage, disrupt, or subvert the organization’s operations for personal purposes of the saboteur by creating unfavorable publicity, damage to property, destruction or working relationships, or harming of employees or customers.
Adaptive Performance
Performance componen that includes flexibility and the ability to adapt to changing circumstances.
Expert Performance
Performance exhibited by those who have been practicing for at least 10 years and have spent an average of four hours per day in deliberate practice.
Objective Performance Measure
Usually a quantitative count of the results of work, such as sales volume, complaint letters, and output.
Judgmental Measure
Evaluation made of the effectiveness of an individual’s work behavior, judgment most often made by supervisors in the context of a performance valuation.
Personnel Measure
Measure typically kept in a personnel file, including absences, accidents, tardiness, rate of advancement, disciplinary actions, and commendations or meritorious behavior.
Job Analysis
Process that determines the important tasks of a job and the human attributes necessary to successfully perform those tasks.
Task-Oriented Job Analysis
Approach that begins with a statement of the actual tasks as well as what is accomplished by those tasks.
Worker-Oriented Job Analysis
Approach that focuses on the attributes of the worker necessary to accomplish the tasks.
KSAOs
Individual attributes of knowledge, skills, abilities, and other characteristics that are required to successfully perform job tasks.
Subject Matter Expert (SME)
Employee (incumbent) who provides information about a job in a job analysis interview or survey.
Critical Incident Technique
Approach in which subject matter experts are asked to identify critical aspects of behavior or performance in a particular job that led to success or failure.
Work Diary
Job analysis approach that requires workers and/or supervisors to keep a log of their activities over a prescribed period of time.
Electronic Performance Monitoring
Monitoring work processes with electronic devices; can be very cost effective and has the potential for providing detailed and accurate work logs.
Cognitive Task Analysis
A process that consists of methods for decomposing job and task performance into discrete, measurable units, with special emphasis on eliciting mental processes and knowledge content.
Competency Modeling
Process that identifies the characteristics desired across all individuals and jobs within an organization: these characteristics should predict behavior across a wide variety of tasks and settings, and provide the organization with a set of core characteristics that distinguish it from other organizations.
Objective Performance Measure
Usually a quantitative count of the results of work such as sales volume, complaint letters, and output.
Judgmental Performance Measure
Evaluation made of the effectiveness of an individual’s work behavior; most often by supervisors in the context of a yearly performance evaluation.
Hands-on Performance Measurement
Type of measurement that requires an employee to engage in work-related tasks; usually includes carefully constructed simulations of central or critical pieces of work that involve single workers.
Walk-through Testing
Type of measurement that requirements an employee to describe to an interviewer in detail how to complete a task or job-related behavior, employee may literally walk through the facility answering questions as he or she actually sees the displays or controls in question.
Performance Management
System that emphasizes the link between individual behavior and organizational strategies and goals by defining and goals by defining performance in the context of those goals: jointly developed by managers and the people who report to them.
Task Performance
Proficiency with which job incumbents perform activities that are formally recognized as a part of their job.
Critical Incidents
Examples of behavior that appear “critical” in determining whether performance would be good, average, or poor in specific performance areas.
Graphic Ratings Scale
Graphic display of runs from high on one end to low on the otter end.
Checklist
List of behaviors presented to a rater, who places a check next to each of the items that best (or least) describe the ratee.
Forced-Choice Format
Format that requires the rater to choose two statements out of four that could describe the ratee.
Behaviorally Anchored Rating Scale (BARS)
Rating format that includes behavioral anchors describing what a worker has done, or might be expected to do, in a particular duty area.
Behavioral Observation Scale (BOS)
Format that asks the rater to consider how frequently an employee has been seen to act in a particular way.
Employee Comparison Methods
Form of evaluation that involves the direct comparison of one person with another.
Simple Ranking
Ranking of employees from top to bottom according to their assessed proficiency on some dimension, duty area, or standard.
Paired Comparison
Technique in which each employee in a work group or a collection of individuals with the same job title is compared with every other individual in the group on the various dimensions being considered.
Rating Errors
Inaccuracies in ratings that may be actual errors or intentional or systematic distortions.
Central Tendency Error
Error in which raters choose a middd point on the scale to describe performance, even though a more extreme point might better describe the employee.
Leniency Error
Error that occurs with raters who are unusually easy in their ratings.
Severity Error
Error that occurs with raters who are unusually harsh in their ratings.
Halo Error
Error tha occurs when a rater assigns the same rating to an employee on a series of dimensions, creating a halo or aura that surrounds all of the ratings, causing them to be similar.
Psychometric Training
Training that makes raters aware of common rating errors (central tendency, leniency/severity, and halo) in the hope that this will reduce the likelihood of errors.
Frame-of-reference (FOR) Training
Training based on the assumption that a rater needs a context or “frame” for providing a rating: includes:
- Providing information on the multidimensional nature of performance.
- Ensuring that raters understand the meaning of anchors on the scale.
- Engaging in practice rating exercises.
- Providing feedback on practice exercises.
Destructive Criticism Negative
Feedback that is cruel, sarcastic, and offensive; usually general rather than specific and often directed toward personal characteristics of the employee rather than job-relevant behaviors.
Forced-Distribution Rating System
Rating system that requires evaluators to place employees into performance categories based on a predetermined percentage of employees in different categories (low, moderate, high).
Policy Capturing
Technique that allows researchers to code various characteristics and determine which weighted most heavily in raters’ decision making.
