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IOP302 – Personnel psychology
Study unit 1 – The historical background of industrial psychology
• Personnel psychology is concerned with all aspects of the theory of psychology applied to understanding
differences between individuals in work settings. Psychology is the scientific study of behaviour and the mind.
Industrial psychology is a field of specialisation in psychology.
• Major fields of industrial psychology:
1. Personnel psychology:
• Scientific study of individual differences in work settings.
• Personnel psychology represents the overlap between psychology and HR management (HRM).
• This is an applied discipline that focuses on individual differences in behaviour and job
performance and on methods of scientifically measuring and predicting such differences to
enhance the quality of personnel decisions.
2. Organisational psychology:
• Focuses on the influence organisations may have on the attitudes and behaviour of their
employees.
• Organisational psychology is more concerned with social and group influences, culture and
climate, and leadership behaviour on the overall effectiveness or performance of the organisation.
• Fields of interest: Leadership, group dynamics, conflict, decision-making, communication,
motivation, power, organisational culture and climate, organisational change, and organisational
development and structure
3. Ergonomics:
• Objective of this field is to modify the work environment to be compatible with the characteristics
of human beings.
• Human-machine interface; interactions between humans and systems
4. Career psychology:
• Concerned with counselling employees and assisting them in making career choices.
• Core focus is the psychological contract between organisations and employees.
• Focuses on areas such as the career development of employees, the meaning of work in people’s
lives, individual vocational behaviour across the lifespan, career counselling and guidance, etc.
5. Organisational development:
• Concerned with improving or changing organisations to make them more efficient.
• Involves the planned, deliberate change in an organisation to resolve a particular problem. The
change may involve people, work procedures or technology.
6. Consumer psychology:
• Behaviour that consumers display in searching for, purchasing, using, evaluating and disposing of
products and services, behaviour that they expect will satisfy their needs.
• Looks at the way consumers make decisions to spend their resources on products or services.
7. Employment relations:
• Aka labour or industrial relations
• Focus is primarily the behavioural dynamics related to the juxtaposition of conflict and common
ground in any employment relationship.
• Emphasis falls on the collective relationship and trade union-related dynamics are therefore
relevant.
8. Cross-cultural industrial psychology:
• Looks at similarities and differences in individual psychological and social functioning in various
cultures and ethnic groups.
• Licensing and certification of psychologists:
o The Health Professions Council of SA (HPCSA) is a statutory body, established in terms of the Health
Professions Act, which, together with the professional board, is committed to promoting the health of the
population, determining standards of professional education and training, and setting and maintaining fair
standards of professional practice.
o In order safeguard the public and indirectly the professions, registration in terms of the Act is a
prerequisite for practising any of the health professions with which the council is concerned.
o Registration confers professional status upon a practitioner and therefore the right to practise his chosen
profession.
o Practitioners enjoy the security of being registered in terms of an Act in the knowledge that no unqualified
person may practise the profession.
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o Mission of the HPCSA: “Protecting the public and guiding the professions”
o If any person feels that he has been abused by people who claim to be knowledgeable about the field of
industrial psychology or claim to have been registered as an industrial psychologist, a formal complaint
can be lodged with the HPCSA.
o The council will protect the human rights of practitioners and the public. Any complaint made against a
practitioner by any member of the public will be investigated by the council.
o All professional and practicing psychologists must be registered with the HPCSA, which through the
Professional Board for Psychology controls and applies the laws regarding psychological training and
professional actions.
o The requirement for registration at the Board for Psychology as a psychometrist, HR counsellor, career
counsellor, or employee wellbeing counsellor is a 4-year or honours degree in I/O psychology and a
completed approved 6 month practicum.
o In order to register as an industrial psychologist with the Professional Board, a master’s degree and a
formal internship are required. The duration of the internship is one year.
Study unit 2 – Research methods in industrial psychology
• The role and use of research in personnel psychology:
o Knowledge of research methods makes us better able to find useful solutions to problems rather than
merely stumbling across them by chance.
o Research can be used to develop new practices, such as a new selection procedure.
o Knowledge of research will enable you to evaluate the work of others or new practices or procedures
introduced by others before the organisation implements these at a considerable cost and not being
convinced of their effectiveness.
• The research process:
1. Step 1: Formulating the research question:
• The research process begins with the identification of the problem: What question or problem
needs to be answered?
• Based on the kind of answer that is required, we distinguish between various types of questions:
i. Exploratory questions:
Often asked when a relatively new field or area is investigated.
Results can often be used to generate more specific research questions that
should be addressed in consecutive studies.
ii. Descriptive questions:
Provides a picture of a state of events.
Researchers may describe levels of productivity, numbers of employees who left
during the year, average levels of job satisfaction, etc.
iii. Predictive questions:
Researchers try to predict which employees will be productive, which ones are
likely to leave, and which ones will be dissatisfied.
This info is used to select applicants who will be better employees.
iv. Evaluative questions:
Set to determine the quality or effectiveness of a programme, practice or
procedure.
v. Causal questions:
Question asking why events occur as they do.
Tries to find causes: why production is at a certain level or why employees leave
• Variables:
i. Independent / predictor variables – variables that are manipulated or controlled by the
researcher.
ii. Dependent / criterion variable – most often the object of the researcher’s interest. Usually
some aspect of behaviour.
• Types of research:
i. Qualitative research – aims to provide in-depth information and a deeper understanding
of behaviour at work. Best kind of research method for discovering underlying
motivations, feelings, values, attitudes, and perceptions.
ii. Quantitative research – aims to describe or explain a variable or situation. This type of
research collects some type of numerical data and uses statistical analysis to answer a
given research question.
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