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Work and Organizational Psychology
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Q1 – 2023/2024
,Technische Universiteit Eindhoven
Industrial Engineering – Bachelor Year 1
Work & Organiza>onal Psychology
Literature- and lecture summary:
– Lectures Q1
– Book: Jeffrey M. Conte, Frank J. Landy, Work in the 21st century, an introduc>on to
industrial and organiza>onal psychology, 6th edi>on. Wiley, 2018.
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, Week 1 - 5 September: Introduc>on and Course Informa>on
Psychology is the scien&fic discipline that seeks to understand human behavior by establishing
general principles.
Work & Organiza9onal psychology is the scien&fic discipline that seeks to understand human
behavior by establishing general principles in the work se,ng.
® Seeks how human behavior affects organiza9onal processes.
® Seeks how organiza9onal processes affect human behavior.
By improving organiza&onal processes, it is crucial to understand:
® The human factor that affects these processes and outcomes.
® What effect processes have on the human factor.
The roots of W&O psychology traces back to both world wars, were they focus more on individual
capabili9es.
– Tes9ng and selec9ng people to do a certain type of job (‘person-environment fit’).
Example 1: is the army recruitment test, became important, test was the basis for decision for
a job in the army.
Example 2: ‘pilot error’ vs ‘design error’. Planes crashed without a reason. The cause was that
pilots had to fly planes with different cockpits, the environment was always different. Now
cockpits are always the same.
– Produc9vity improvement and 9me studies (development of the ‘assembly line’).
Example: Firstly, Ford cars were produced by high knowledge people, but took a long 9me. An
assembly line was created with 50-100 workers to do small parts of the work. Makes
produc9on faster.
– A>en&on for the work circumstances in factories.
Example: Assembly line work is boring; it is con9nuous work.
Work in the 21st century is different because there are many changes in how we work. It is a global
economy, 24-hour economy. There is more technology, like AI. More diversity and teamwork. Also,
there is more mental workload and more ‘emo9onal labor’.
The present-day W&O psychology has a lot of themes. A few are human capabili9es / individual
differences or conflict / counterproduc9vity.
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, Week 1 – 5 September: Methods & Techniques (part 1)
Science is an approach that involves the understanding, predic9on, and control of some phenomenon
of interest.
® Try to get an understanding of the rela9onships between all the factors.
Psychology is the understanding, predic9on, and control of human behavior.
® W&O-psychology is the understanding in work-related context.
Based on empirical evidence: a data-driven approach to test theories and rela9onships.
What are the characteris9cs of ‘good’ science:
– Logic approach, based on theories from which testable hypotheses can be derived.
– Knowledge based on data.
– Open, transparent, publicly available.
– The process of falsifiability: the inherent possibility that a hypothesis (a theory that you can
accept or decline) can be proved false.
– Researchers should be independent and objec&ve concerning their research results.
Hypothesis is a predic9on about rela9onships among variables of interest.
Disinterestedness is the characteris9c of scien9sts, who should be objec9ve and uninfluenced by
biases or prejudices when conduc9ng research.
Expert witness is a witness in a lawsuit who is permi[ed to voice opinions about organiza9onal
prac9ces.
Theory: Oversimplifica9on of reality. A set of interrelated concepts, defini9ons, and proposi9ons that
are advanced to explain or predict phenomena. Also describe and explain rela9onships that link the
variables.
® Are seen as important by the scien9fic community and peer reviewed.
® Empirically tested and are verifiable and replicable.
The Empirical cycle is a kind of theory development:
– Observa&on: a limited set of observa9ons
induce a more general rule.
– Theory/model: a general rule is deducted to
something specific.
– Predic&on: is based on the theory.
– Result: Test the predic9on, revise the theory because of the observa9on and evaluate.
Research design: Provides the overall structure or architecture for the research study. There are
different decisions you can make when designing research. All decisions have consequences. Some
examples are:
– Laboratory or field?
– Condi9ons and how to assign people to the different experimental condi9ons?
There are different research designs in W&O-psychology.
Experimental: random assignment to condi9ons. It is the ‘golden standard’.
– Variable x has an impact on variable y, giving profound insight in the rela9onships.
Experiments are studies in which the researchers manipulate a variable in order to observe how it
affects another variable that is being studied.
Experiments provide insight into cause-and-effect by demonstra9ng what outcome occurs when a
par9cular factor is manipulated.
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