Organizational psychology
The mandatory readings (book chapters/ research papers) can be found at the top of each section.
The contents of these documents are integrated into the summary of the lecture. Some lectures didn’t
cover the research papers very well, in these cases an additional paragraph is added with the most
important outcomes of the study.
Contents
Intro (lecture 1) ................................................................................................................................... 2
Attitudes in organizations (lecture 2) .................................................................................................. 2
Emotions in organizations (lecture 3) ................................................................................................. 7
Psychology of teams/ groups (lecture 4)........................................................................................... 12
Web- and mobile-based interventions at work (lecture 5) ............................................................... 19
Leadership and status (lecture 6+7) .................................................................................................. 22
Organizational decision making (lecture 8) ....................................................................................... 27
Organizational justice (lecture 9) ...................................................................................................... 30
Organizational ethics (lecture 10) ...................................................................................................... 35
Creativity and innovation (lecture 11-12) .......................................................................................... 39
Culture, conflict and communication (lecture 13-14) ....................................................................... 43
,Intro (lecture 1)
Organizational psychology: study of human mind and behaviour in organizational context. The
application of psychological principles, theory and research to works settings.
- Organization: a group of people regularly working together to achieve a common goal
related to work.
- Psychology is about looking for why people do what they do. Organizational psychology looks
for causes of behaviour within organizations:
- Why study psychology at work:
o Majority of waking weekdays devoted to work.
o Work is more than a way to earn money:
▪ Centrality of work for defining who we are.
▪ Work as defining characteristic of how people gauge their value to society,
their family and themselves.
o Trend: we work less than we used to (WEIRD countries).
3 Levels of study:
- Individual, topics: personality, values, beliefs – attitudes – decision making.
- Group, topics: teamwork – negotiation and conflict management – leadership.
- Organization, topics: organizational culture – diversity – change management –
communication.
Attitudes in organizations (lecture 2)
Textbook, attitudes and job satisfaction (pp. 69-96).
Attitudes and job satisfaction:
- Attitudes are evaluative statements,
favourable or unfavourable, about objects,
people or events. They reflect how we feel
about something.
- Favourable and unfavourable.
- To understand attitudes and how they link to
behaviour, we must understand their
components (ABC):
o Affective component: feelings about the object of the attitude.
o Behavioural component: the action that follows from the above.
o Cognitive component: evaluation of object of the attitude.
- Especially cognitive and affective component are closely related.
- Although we often think cognition causes affect, which then causes behaviour, in reality
these components are often difficult to separate
Does behaviour always follow from attitudes?
- First researchers assumed attitudes caused behaviour.
o Hawthorne studies: suggested a link between job satisfaction (cognition about work)
and performance (behaviour). Groups that were studied performed better than
groups not studied. Groups that were aware of attention/interest showed an
increase in production.
, o Before 1930’s most surveys asked managers about worker satisfaction or assumed
payment was the only explanation for satisfaction.
- Festinger: attitudes follow behaviour (behaviour causes attitudes).
o People change what they say (attitude) so it doesn’t contradict what they do/ did
(behaviour).
o Cognitive dissonance: any incompatibility a person might perceive between attitudes
or between behaviour and attitudes. Any inconsistency is uncomfortable and people
will try to reduce it. Either by altering behaviour or attitude.
▪ Desire to reduce dissonance moderated by:
• Importance of elements.
• Degree of influence person beliefs to have over them.
• Reward of dissonance.
▪ Most motivation to reduce dissonance: important topic, belief of control, low
reward of dissonance.
o Recent research shows attitudes predict future behaviour and confirms moderating
- variables can strengthen the link between the two.
Moderators of the attitude – behaviour relationship:
- Importance of attitude: does it concern fundamental values, self-interest, identification with
group or self?
- Correspondence of attitude to behaviour: specific attitudes predict specific behaviour,
general attitudes predict general behaviour.
o A specific question (intention to stay/leave) could predict turnover (specific
behaviour).
o A general question (job satisfaction) could predict motivation to contribute to
organization (general behaviour).
- Accessibility of attitude: e.g. something you talk about a lot is more accessible.
- Social pressures: can be very strong in organizations and can cause behaviour that
contradicts attitudes.
- Direct experience with the attitude: is the situation the attitude is about well known? E.g.
attitudes about work by someone with no work-experience do not predict behaviour well.
Three major attitudes in organizational psychology: job satisfaction, job involvement, organizational
commitment. These tap pos./ neg. evaluations that employees hold about aspects of their work.
- Job satisfaction: positive/ negative feeling about a job, resulting from an evaluation of its
characteristics. Appraisal/ evaluation of one’s job.
o Cognitive component of attitude.
o The definition of job satisfaction is broad and should be so. It involves a complex
summation of an employee’s satisfaction with many elements of a job.
o Measurements:
▪ Overall satisfaction: single item, overall evaluative rating of the job. “All
things considered, how satisfied are you with your job?”
▪ Facet satisfaction: information related to specific elements of job
satisfaction. Co-workers, supervisors, pay, tasks, etc.
▪ Both single item measurement and complex facet measurements are valid.
In this case simplicity also works well. The concept of job satisfaction is so
broad a single question captures its essence.
, - Job involvement: the degree to which people identify psychologically with their job and
consider their perceived performance level important to self-worth.
o A related concept is psychological empowerment, an employees’ beliefs in the
degree to which they influence their work environment, their competence, the
meaningfulness of their job, and their perceived autonomy.
- Organizational commitment: how much an employee identifies with a particular organization
and its goals and wishes to remain a member.
o Theoretical models propose that employees who are committed will be less likely to
engage in work withdrawal even if they are dissatisfied, because they have a sense of
organizational loyalty.
Additional job-related attitudes mentioned in the lecture and the textbook:
- Perceived organizational support (POS): the degree to which employees believe the
organization values their contribution and cares about their well-being
- Employee/ work engagement: an individual’s involvement with, satisfaction with, and
enthusiasm for, the work (s)he does. A positive, fulfilling, work related state of mind that is
characterized by vigor, dedication, and absorption.
▪ Vigor: really wanting to do the job.
▪ Dedication: job is meaningful to person, proud of job.
▪ Absorption: fully concentrated on job.
o More affective than job satisfaction.
o Job satisfaction and work engagement r=.50.
o Worldwide survey (16 countries, n=86.000): global 24% disengaged, 14% highly
engaged.
o Satisfaction seems easy to reach, engaged workers are hard to generate.
o Work engagement and performance:
▪ Self-rated: r=.28.
▪ Supervisor rated: r=.32
▪ Co-worker rated: r= .27
▪ Work engagement predicts performance just as strong as satisfaction does.
o Work engagement and turnover: disengaged employees actively look for other jobs.
o Work engagement and organizational performance:
▪ Positively associated with customer satisfaction, profits.
▪ Negatively associated with incidents: engaged employees have 5x less safety
incidents (incidents cost money!).
Overlap between job attitudes: high job involvement seems likely to go along with high job
satisfaction and high perceived organizational support might also bring along strong organizational
commitment.
- Evidence suggests that job related attitudes indeed are highly related.
- Research has not been able yet to compare and contrast these attitudes well.
- They might have a common basis: some people are predisposed to be positive or negative
about everything they experience in their life.
