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Organizational psychology
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Organizational psychologyLecture 1 Introduction to organizational psychology
Psychology = study of human mind and behavior. Mind is the cognitions (feeling, thinking) and
emotions.
Organizational psychology = Study of human mind and behavior in an organizational context. Why do
people feel/think/do the way they feel/think/do when they are at work? The application of
psychological principles, theory and research to work settings.
Organization = a group of people regularly working together to achieve some common goal.
Levels of study
1. Individuals: personality, values, beliefs, emotions, attitudes, decision-making.
2. Groups (teams): teamwork, cooperation, competition, leadership.
3. Organizations: structure, culture, change management, communication, hybrid work.
But can influence each other on different level, so individual has emotion but influences team.
Difference with Organizational Behavior
- Investigates the impact that individuals, groups, and structure have on behavior within
organizations:
What people think, feel and do in organizational setting?
How individuals and teams in organizations relate to each other and to the organization?
How organizations interact with their external environment?
OP focuses also on the mind (emotions), also the cognitions. Behavior is not the central point.
Psychological processes.
- Goal: improve performance (and do so ethically) of organizations in terms of effectiveness
(achieving goals) and efficiency (minimizing costs)
- Multiple disciplines (psychology, sociology, anthropology, …)
It is important to study psychology at work, because of work that takes a central place in our lives. But
we work less than we used to.
Work centrality = the degree of importance work plays in one’s life. It can define who we are, more
than making money. How important is work for you.
- Research on unemployment: Work as a defining characteristic of how people assess their value to
society, their family, and themselves.
Latent benefits of work: Work can give you social contribution (to society), social context outside
family (colleagues, supervisor), meaningfulness during the day.
OP is based on the belief that the human mind and behavior are not random, they have predictable
patterns. This helps us to predict, explain and manage phenomenon’s. People’s intuition about human
mind and behavior often turn out to be wrong, not all just common sense.
a. Predicting: Does A causes B? Emotions.
b. Explaining: Why and when events occur the way they do? Feeling,
acting, thinking. Understanding.
c. Managing: Directing people’s mind and behavior in order to achieve
define goals. Manage and influence attitudes, emotions and
behaviors.
Evidence-based management = decisions should be based on a combination of critical thinking and the
best available evidence, using data to drive decisions.
,- Sources:
Scientific literature, internal data, values and concerns of stakeholders (employees, involve people
who are influenced by the decision) and professional expertise (practitioners).
- Practical tips:
Demand evidence, data is more accurate than stories (persuasive, inaccurate) so combine them and
appreciate how little you know. Practical experience in workplace is also necessary for the context of a
situation. Sometimes things only work in a specific context, not yours. Need both evidence and
practical.
Lecture 2 Work-related attitudes
Attitudes = evaluative statements about objects, people or events (un-/favorable).
- Underlying reasons might be complex.
Components:
1. Cognitive = evaluation. My supervisor gave a promotion to a coworker who deserved it less
than me. That is unfair.
2. Affective = feeling. I dislike my supervisor.
3. Behavioral = action. Looking for other work or complained about supervisor to anyone who
listened.
The relationship between attitudes and behavior.
Cognitive dissonance theory = when people feel there is a inconsistency between attitudes and
behavior, they feel unsatisfied. Attitude can lead to changing behavior, but also the other way around.
- VB: Person who missed promotion. He really thought he could do it (attitude). Then he chooses a job
at another job (behavior). He changes his attitude saying the promotion is not that good to match the
attitude to the behavior.
Hawthorne studies
- Link job satisfaction and performance.
- Goal: examine relationship between physical working conditions (light, workday length,
duration of breaks) and productivity.
- Unexpected result: productivity increased regardless of whether physical conditions
improved/worsened. Increased attention to workers in all study condition led to increased job
satisfaction which increased productivity.
- Implication for managers: employees tend to be more productive when attention is paid to
their efforts and welfare.
Implication research: the concept of employee attitudes entered OP research.
Hawthorne effect = employees will perform better when they feel singled out for special attention or
feel that management is concerned about employee welfare.
Attitudes in OP research = job satisfaction, work engagement (enthusiasm), job involvement (identify
with job), organizational commitment (attachment), perceived organizational support (employees
believes that the organization looks after their well-being).
Job satisfaction = an appraisal/evaluation of one’s job. Cognitive attitude (favorable/unfavorable).
1. Overall satisfaction = single overall evaluative rating of the job. VB: Faces scale.
Advantages: fast, easy & cheap.
2. Facet satisfaction = information related to specific elements of job satisfaction, for example
co-workers, supervisors, pay, tasks. VB: Job Descriptive Index.
Advantages: practical when you want to change work characteristics.
, Disadvantages: more expensive, takes longer, job satisfaction can be scored very differently
when you choose specific element of a job.
Validity of measure of job satisfaction: equally valid. The choice for scale will be decided by what you
want to measure.
Pay & job satisfaction: small correlation effect, in some cases negative association. Stronger positive
associations at lower pay levels (lawyers with high salary were less satisfied than childcare workers
with low salary).
Strong positive association between pay and job satisfaction at lower pay levels. > because workers
need a certain amount of money. When you are already earning not a lot then the difference in pay is
bigger for people who earn less than people who work more.
Job conditions that have a positive impact on job satisfaction
- Social characteristics: interdependence, feedback from others, social support, low conflicts,
interaction outside the organization (external people).
- Task characteristics: autonomy, variety, significance (does it have meaningful impact on others),
identity (you know the end product of your job so the meaning), feedback from job.
Characteristics that influence the internal nature of the job have the most impact on job satisfaction.
Why is job satisfaction important for organizations? happy worker is productive worker.
Correlation between satisfaction and job performance (.30).
- Job attitudes make the organization more profitable, because satisfaction predicts
performance.
- Reasons can be: performance, less turnover, higher customer satisfaction/loyalty.
- But managers tend to overestimate their employees satisfaction (misperception). Potential
reason: less interaction between manager and employee. Employees act toward managers in a
favorable positive way, managers have a wrong illusion that their workers are doing good.
Employee surveys can help to reduce the gap.
Work engagement = a positive, fulfilling, work-related state of mind that is characterized by vigor
(energy to do it), dedication (meaningful to them) and absorption (fully concentrated on it). More
affective than job satisfaction.
- Measure example = Utrecht Work Engagement Scale
- Job satisfaction and work engagement correlate around .50.
- Work engagement predicts performance about equally strongly
as job satisfaction does. About 0.30.
Job Demands-Resources model (Bakker & Demerouti; 2007).
Job demands are mental, emotional and physical. Lead to strain
(burnout) which negatively impacts organizational outcomes.
Job resources are support, autonomy and feedback. Lead to motivation
(work engagement) which positively impacts organizational outcomes.
- Mediator = variable that describes the process by which a predictor (X) achieves its effect on
an outcome (Y). Intervening variable, explanatory mechanism.
- Moderator = variable for which the predictor (X) has a different effect on the outcome (Y) at
different values of the moderating variable. Buffer OR amplifier.
Lecture 3 Emotions at work
, Until recently little attention to emotion in OP. Myth of rationality; Rational workers are productive.
Belief that emotions at work are disruptive. Workplace needs to be emotion-free.
We need emotions to make rational decisions. Play an important role in the workplace (perform and
evaluate). You can’t make a decision without emotions. Human beings have evolved so your gut
(emotion) are a shortcut to rational decisions.
Affect = broad range of feelings that people experience. Can be experienced in the form of emotions
or moods.
Moods = last longer than emotions, cause is general and unclear, more general (positive or negative
affect) that are composed of multiple specific emotions. Generally, not indicated by distinct
expressions. Cognitive in nature.
- Positivity offset = most people are in a positive mood most of the time.
- Negative emotions lead to negative moods.
- Negativity bias: negative events have a stronger impact than positive events, when of similar
intensity. Vb: larger impact and slower recovery to the initial level for negative life events (job
loss) than positive life events (new job).
Emotions = caused by a specific event, very brief in duration, specific and numerous in nature, usually
accompanied by distinct facial expressions. Action oriented in nature.
Basic emotions happiness, sadness, fear, anger, surprise and disgust.
Problems in identifying emotions by studying facial expressions:
- Some emotions are too complex to be represented on faces (love)
- Display rules: cultures differ in norms of emotional expressions.
Sources of emotions
- Time of the day
Positive mood peaks during the middle part of the day.
Negative moods show very little variation over the day.
Organizational behavior for example early morning meetings might
not be that good for social interactions. Afternoon would be best.
Productivity also be better.
- Day of the week
Negative moods are highest on Sundays and Mondays, fall throughout
the week. Positive moods are highest at the end of the week.
- Daily activities (for example: socializing, relaxing).
- Income
The effect of income on happiness is smaller than most people think, even smaller at higher
income levels.
- Stressors at work
Affective Events Theory
Work event can be positive or negative. This leads to affective reaction.
(positive/negative affect). Those reactions lead to work attitudes and job performance.
Positive affect can increase attitudes like job satisfaction and performance.
But dispositions, personality traits, coping strategies, moderate the relationship between
the event and the reaction. High on neuroticism for example will react more negatively.
Work environment also plays a role/influences work events.
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