Organizational psychology
Boek: robbins & judge (2011). Organizational behavior. 4/5 lectures
Lecture 1:
Psychology is study of human mind and behavior. So, organizational psychology is in an
organizational context.
Merit principle performing really well, you get better paid.
We spend a lot of time working. Now we work less hours, in comparison with 100 years ago. We
work less hours, but we are supposed to be working in the weekends as well, being available on the
phone for example. People overestimate the hours they work during the week. Do we work more or
less than we used to?
Work is central to our identities, who we are, what we think we are. Work as a defining characteristic
of how people gauge their value to society, their family and themselves. When people lose their job,
it is bad for life satisfaction, even though your financial situation is fine (do to insurance).
Scarring effect of unemployment before and years after job loss. 1 year before they lose their
jobs, you already see a decline in life satisfaction. After you find a new job, life satisfaction comes
back, but not completely as before. Because you lost it once, it has a lifetime effect on life
satisfaction. It defines who you are, it damages your satisfaction.
What is an organization? McDonalds, Tilburg University, National football team. But not a group of
friends. Why a group of friends not an organization you’re not working together towards a
common goal. Their common goal is not related to the work they do.
An organization A group of people regularly working together to achieve some common goal.
Three levels of study:
1. Individuals attributes of individuals, and how they affect them. How does personality
values personality, values, beliefs. Attitudes (job satisfaction effect on individual), emotions,
how do individuals make decisions.
2. Groups (teams) teamwork, negotiation and conflict management and leadership (what
characteristics make good leaders).
3. Organizations organizational culture, diversity, change management, communication.
Communication can be between two people, then it is on a group level.
In a hospital you have the three different levels.
Psychology is about finding out why people do what they do.
Woman are less likely to reach top management positions than men. Because of cultural/social
norms, traditions that man are supposed to be on top of an organization.
Reasons why women are passed over for promotion:
- Discrimination
- Lack of qualified women on the market (they stop studying/promotion because their wish of
having a family)
- Women’s own preferences (work-life balance)
- Structural barriers to combine work and family (lack of child care facilities)
Once there are enough women within an organization, the culture could change/be changed.
Lecture 2:
Attitudes and emotions at work I
Attitudes are evaluative statements about objects, people, or events. They are favorable or
unfavorable.
,The components of an attitude:
1. Cognitive – evaluation
2. Affective – feeling
3. Behavioral – action
Hawthorne studies
Before 1930s: little interest in workers’ attitudes. The Hawthorne studies suggested a link between
job satisfaction and performance.
They wanted to examine the different lighting while working. And more physical aspects of work and
productivity. Groups that were part of the experiment performed better, than the groups were not
part of the experiment. So workers who got more attention changed their behavior in a positive way.
The most important and most studied is job satisfaction. Also work engagement is studied a lot.
Job satisfaction
Appraisal/evaluation of one’s job. It’s the ‘cognitive’ attitude. If you’re only interested in the overall
satisfaction, there is no need to look at the different aspects. That will only take time (and more likely
money), which is not necessary. If you do use the different facets, and then calculate the average,
that is more or less the same as the overall job satisfaction. Facet satisfaction is information related
to specific elements of job satisfaction (co-workers, supervisors, pay, tasks)
what causes job satisfaction? Pay could be one of them. The meta-analysis had a correlation of
r=.15. So it’s a small correlation. In some cases a negative correlation was found. That lawyers who
earned more than child care workers, were less satisfied that the child care workers. There is a
stronger positive association at lower pay levels.
how strong is the correlation between job satisfaction and job performance? On average there is a
correlation of r=.30. When being more satisfied with the job, you can be less sick, loving your job
more, wanting to perform better. But also the other way around. When you’re performing better at
your job, you can be more satisfied, because you’re performing well. Work is easy.
Common method bias when you assess two things with the same method, the correlation will be
a lot higher, just because you use the same method. Not really because there is a higher correlation.
Job satisfaction and organizational performance. Favorable job attitudes make the organization more
profitable. potential reasons are: employee performance, low turnover and higher customer
satisfaction/loyalty.
Managers tend to overestimate their employee’s satisfaction. Regular employee surveys can help.
Work engagement:
Is more ‘affective’ than job satisfaction. Work engagement is: a positive, fulfilling and work-related
state of mind that is characterized by vigor, dedication, and absorption.
- Vigor – they really want to do it
- Dedication – it is meaningful to them
- Absorption – they are fully concentrated on it.
Job satisfaction and work engagement correlated around r=.50 which is quite high.
, Job satisfaction is kind of easy to reach for employees/employers/organizations, but work
engagement is like a hurdle. For some occupations it is quite hard to increase the ‘absorption’
component.
Work engagement & performance
- Correlation with performance
o Self-rated – r=.28 (ask employees themselves to rate their performance)
o Supervisor-rated – r=.32
o Co-worker rated – r=.27
Work engagement predicts performance about equally strongly as job satisfaction does.
Affect, moods and emotions.
Affect – defined as a broad range of feelings that people experience. Affect can be experienced in the
form of emotions or moods.
Emotions – they are caused by a specific event, very brief in duration. Specific and numerous in
nature (anger, fear, sadness, happiness, disgust and surprise) and usually accompanied by distinct
facial expressions. Action oriented in nature
Moods – cause is often general and unclear, they last longer than emotions. More general (positive
and negative affect) and generally not indicated by distinct expressions. Cognitive in nature.
Basic emotions are: happiness, sadness, fear, anger, surprise and disgust.
Can emotions turn into moods and moods give rise to emotions? Moods can give rise to emotions
and vice versa. When you experience angriness (emotion). After a while, anger can result into a
general negative mood. Or, when you slept badly, you wake up and you have a bad mood. When you
go to work, your boss yells at you. Then you become angry. So your bad mood gives you the anger
emotion.
Some emotions are too complex to be represented on faces (love, pride). And also some cultures
differ in norms of emotion expressions.
Lecture 3
Attitudes and emotions at work II
Emotions at work
- Display rules
- Myth of rationality
- Sources of emotions
- Emotions and career success
- Emotional labor
- Emotional intelligence