Work and Health Psychology Lecture 1
Introduc)on
Are you working?
85% of students in higher educa3on in the Netherlands are working (CBS, 2020)
What is ‘work’?
‘A set of coordinated and goal-directed ac3vi3es that are conducted in exchange for something else, usually
some form of monetary reward’.
Example: waiter/waitress
Coordinated? Goal-directed? In exchange for something.
What is work psychology?
Psychology
= individual level, people’s behavior, mo3va3on, thoughts, and emo3ons.
Work psychology
= use insights from psychology to help workers achieve their work-goals in an op3mal manner, and to help
organizaCons achieve their goals.
Balance approach!
Belief: engaged employees = produc3vity
What do work psychologists do?
How to design work so that it is mo3va3ng, enjoyable, does not induce stress, and allow the employees to work
in a produc3ve way?
Example: Waiter/Waitress
- Organiza3onal goals:
Good service performance, high customer sa3sfac3on, & high profits. Sustainability?
- When do waiters/waitresses show the desired behaviors for good service performance?
- Posi3ve mood/ feeling well?
(not) under pressure?
op3mal demands?
mo3va3on?
Why is work psychology important?
1. Because of the amount of 3me we spend working
2. Because work has the poten3al to make us happy
3. Because work has the poten3al to make us sick
4. Because of the increasing expecta3ons of employers
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,Adidas: “If you want to work from 9 to 5, know at 8:42 am what you will be doing at 4:05 pm, and not put too
much effort into that whole career thing, stop reading now. We are not for you. [...] If you want to challenge
yourself, if you want a career that will push your limits, a place where you can transform the world of sport and
fashion, then the adidas Group may be your next career des3na3on.”
PwC: “At PwC, we expect our people to conCnuously develop themselves.”
Heineken: Are you ready to be challenged in a high-pace environment at one of the world's most respected
organiza3ons? Are you ready to push yourself, both professionally and personally, to reach excellence in loca3ons
around the world? The Interna3onal Graduate Program at HEINEKEN is a highly compeCCve program with even
higher expectaCons for those that make it through the selec3on process. [...] This requires you to be flexible,
self-sufficient, open to feedback, and gracious.
Work and Health Psychology
Course posiConing
S(HRM) is mainly focused at the organiza3onal/group level. It oien deals with the workforce/the anonymous
worker in an organiza3on rather than with the worker as a person. In addi3on, it is very much focused on
strategies and prac3ces that ul3mately benefit the organiza3on.
- Kernvragen PEW/ SHRM
OB oien has a tendency to emphasize the social aspects of behavior in organiza3ons (teams, leadership,
rela3onship, conflict/ cohesive) rather than job/ task-related aspects.
- OB / Managing social capital.
This course, WHP, deals with the individual worker and his/her work, well-being, and performance. It mainly
deals with literature in the area of job design, work psychology and occupa3onal health psychology.
The roots of work psychology
When did it start? And why?
Psychotechnics / Applied psychology
Psychotechnics
= The prac3cal or technological applica3on of psychology, as in analysis of social or economic problems.
“[...] the psychological experiment is systema3cally to be placed at the service of commerce and industry“
(Münsterberg, 1913).
Pioneers:
1. Jean Marie Lahy (France, from 1903 onwards)
ð experiments on the selec3on of streetcar operators
ð general method for employee selec3on (normed tests)
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, • Normed tests = vergelijkingsgroep waar individueels score wordt vergeleken en daardoor een waarde
toegemeten krijgt.
2. Münsterberg (Germany/U.S., 1913)
ð “Selec3on of those personali3es which by their mental quali3es are especially fit for a par3cular kind
of economic work.” (Münsterberg, 1913).
ð Work on the selec3on of drivers, typists, army gunners, etc.
ScienCfic management
Country of origin: USA
Founding father: Frederick Winslow Taylor
“As to the importance of obtaining the maximum output of each man and each machine, it is only through the
adop3on of modern scien3fic management that this great problem can be finally solved” (Taylor, 1911).
Not focusing on the match between worker and tasks, but mostly on the task.
ScienCfic management
à Focus on the task (simplifica3on of tasks)
à Why?
à Two assump3ons about the workers
ScienCfic management
First assump3on of Taylor approach Workers are lazy.
“...in nineteen out of twenty industrial establishments, the workmen believe it to be directly against their
interests to give their employers the best ini3a3ve, and that instead of working hard to do the largest possible
amount of work and the best quality of work for their employer, they deliberately work as slowly as they dare
while they at the same 3me try to make those over them believe that they are working fast.” (Taylor, 1939)
ScienCfic management
Second assump3on of Taylor approach à Workers are stupid.
Pig iron handling (Raw iron bar)
Task: loading or piling pig iron (~46kg)
“There is a science of handling pig iron, and [...] this science amounts to so much that the man who is suited to
handle pig iron cannot possibly understand it, nor even work in accordance with the laws of this science,
without the help of those who are over him” (Taylor, 1911).
ScienCfic management: SoluCon
To maximize producCvity
- Simplify tasks as much as possible.
- Examine the best way to conduct the tasks.
- Training workers in the one best way to conduct the tasks (High control).
- Separa3ng the planning of tasks from their execu3on.
1930 - now
Human RelaCons Movement
Hawthorne studies (1924-1932)
Researchers: Na3onal Research Council, Fritz Roethlisberger, Lloyd Warner, & Elton Mayo
1. Effects of ligh3ng intensity on produc3vity
2. Relay Assembly Test Room
- 5 women in a secluded room varia3ons in the number and dura3on of rest breaks, and the
length of the workday and work week
3. 2nd Relay Assembly Test
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, - Incen3ve schemes (team-based)
4. Mica Spliqng Test Room
- Incen3ve schemes (team-based)
5. Interviews
- Importance of empathic listening and par3cipa3on
6. Bank Wiring Observa3on Room
- 14 workers
- Informal system and group norms
Human RelaCons Movement
“From the 3me of the publica3on of the results of the Hawthorne Studies onward, no one interested in the
behavior of employees could consider them as isolated individuals. Rather, such factors and concepts as group
influences, social status, informal communica3on, roles, norms, and the like were drawn upon to explain and
interpret the voluminous data from these studies and other field inves3ga3ons that followed them”.
CONTEMPORARY WORK PSYCHOLOGY
A balance approach.
o Performance but also well-being
Performance
“The ac3on or process of performing a task or func3on.”
(Oxford Dic3onaries)
Work performance: AcCon or outcome?
Ac3on:
“Performance is what the organiza3on hires one to do, and do well” (Campbell et al., 1993)
Outcome:
“The consequence or the result of the individual worker’s behavior” (Sonnentag & Frese, 2002)
Dimensions of individual job performance
o Task performance (proficiency)
o Organiza3onal ci3zenship behaviors (OCB; going the extra mile)
o Counterproduc3ve work behaviors
o Employee withdrawal behaviors
Well-being
“The state of being comfortable, healthy, or happy” (Oxford Dic3onaries)
“Health is a state of complete physical, mental and social well-being and not merely the absence of disease or
infirmity.” (WHO)
Well-being at work
Health (physical well-being)
o decrease disease and injuries, stress, and increase health benefits.
RelaConships (social well-being)
o increase trust, support, decrease exploita3on, and power abuse.
Happiness (psychological well-being)
o increase pleasure, sa3sfac3on, and fulfillment / engagement, and decrease the opposite thereof.
SUMMARY: During this lecture, we addressed...
o ...what work psychology is and why it is important.
o ...the structure, expecta3ons, and goals related to the course.
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