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Arbeids-, Organisatie- en Personeelspsychologie
Work in the 21st Century: An Introduction to Industrial and Organizational Psychology
Part I: FUNDAMENTALS
Chapter 1: What is Industrial and Organizational Psychology?
Module 1.1 The Importance of I-O Psychology
The concept of “Good Work” Good work is work that “exhibits a higher level of expertise, and it
entails regular concern with the implications and applications of an individual’s work for the wider
world.” “Compromised work”: work that is not illegal or unethical, but still undermines the core
values of a trade or profession. The interesting aspect of “good” and “bad” work is that the individual
worker and the employer together have the power to define good work or to transform good work
into bad work and vice versa. The study of work by I-O psychologists and student is potentially “good
work”, because t enables individuals to develop and use skills and to use them for the benefit of
someone other than simply themselves.
What is I-O psychology?
Industrial-organizational psychology: the application of psychological principles, theory, and
research to the work setting.
Society for Industrial and Organizational Psychology: an association to which many I-O
psychologists, both practitioners and researchers, belong.
Traditionally, I-O psychology has been divided into three major concentrations:
- Personal psychology: often seen as part of HRM, this field addresses issues as recruitment,
selection, training, performance, appraisal, promotion, transfer, and termination. Human
resources management (HRM): practices such as recruitment, selection, retention, training,
and development of people (human resources) in order to achieve individual and
organizational goals.
- Organizational psychology: combines research from social psychology and organizational
behaviours and addresses the emotional and motivational side of work.
- Human engineering or human factors psychology: the study of capacities and limitations of
humans with respect to a particular environment. The human engineering approach is almost
the opposite of the personnel approach.
Personnel approach: fit the best person to the job.
Engineering approach: develop an environment with the characteristics of the worker.
There is a clear connection between research conducted using the tools of science and the practice
of I-O psychology. This emphasis on the scientific knowledge is known as the scientist-practitioner
model: a model that uses scientific tools and research in the practice of I-O psychology. Science and
practice are both important. Address a real issue or problem in the workplace.
I-O psychology’s contribution to society I-O psychologists have become increasingly interested in
building a sustainable and environmentally conscious organization. I-O psychologists can guide
organizations in identifying and measuring their eco-benefits and in promoting these benefits as
another important outcome that can be considered along with more traditional outcomes such as
individual, team and organizational performance. Ones and Ditchert (2012) discovered five
dimensions of employee green behaviour: conserving (finding new uses for products), avoiding harm
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(disposing of wase properly), transforming (using innovations), influencing others, and taking
initiative.
Evidence-based I-O psychology: I-O psychologists have become increasingly focused on making
evidence-based decisions in their work in organizations.
How this course can help you
Working is a part of almost everyone’s life. I-O psychology can help you understand what you are
experiencing in the workplace. We try to provide you broader context to understand various policies
and practices that you are likely to experience at work. This material should provide you with a good
foundation for developing and/or implementing effective policies. And you will be able to help your
family and friends to understand the policies that are affecting them.
Welfare-to-work program: program thar requires individuals to work in return for government
subsidies.
Telecommuting: accomplishing work tasks from a distant location using electronic communication
media.
Virtual team: team that has widely dispersed members working together towards a common goal
and linked through computers and other technology.
Module 1.2 The Past, Present, and Future of I-O Psychology
The past: a brief history of I-O psychology
1876-1930 Wilhelm Wundt founded one of the first laboratories in 1867. Within 10 years, he had
established a thriving graduate training and research enterprise. His student, Munsterberg, was one
of the first to measure abilities in workers and tie those abilities to performance. I-O psychology was
really just only “industrial” psychology those days, devoted to the goal of increasing productivity.
Cattel is recognized for being the first to realize the importance of differences among individuals as a
way of predicting their behaviour. At around the same time Scott and Van Dyke Bingham, were
developing methods for selecting and training sales personnel. They redeveloped the Stanford-Binet
test: a well-known intelligence test designed for testing one individual at a time, this new form of
testing was called the Army Alpha. Lillian Gilbreth was the first to receive a PhD in industrial
psychology. She applied the Scientific Management principles to educational institutions.
Scientific Management: there was one best and most efficient way to perform various jobs, bases on
the principles developed by Frederick W. Taylor.
Time and motion studies: studies that broke every action down into its constituent parts, times
those movements with a stopwatch, and developed new and more efficient movements that would
reduce fatigue and increases productivity. Leaders of government and industry embraces industrial
psychology.
1930-1964 Elton Mayo did not focus on the efficiency of workers, but focused on their emotions. He
was interested in the possibility that work caused workers to act in pathological ways. He proposed
there was a mental state known as revery obsession: this mental state resulted from mind-numbing,
repetitive, and difficult work, causing factory workers to be unhappy, and sympathetic the labour
unions.
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Hawthorne studies: research that began as attempts to increase productivity by manipulating
lightning, rest breaks and work hours. This research showed the important role that workers’
attitudes played in productivity.
Hawthorne affect: the very fact that someone was paying attention to the workers seemed to have
affected their behaviour.
Human Relations Movement: the result of the Hawthorne studies ushered this movement, which
focused on work attitudes and the newly discovered emotional world of the workers.
Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964: feral legislation that prohibits employment discrimination on
the basis of race, colour, religion, sex or national origin, which define what are known as protected
groups. Prohibits not only intentional discrimination but also practices that have the unintentional
effect of discriminating against individuals because of their race, colour, national origin, or sex.
During the mid-1960s the field name changed from industrial psychology to industrial and
organization psychology.
The present: the demographic of I-O psychologists
American Psychological Association (APA): the major professional organizations for psychologists of
all kinds in the United States, founded in 1892.
I-O psychologists work in a wide variety of employment settings. I-O psychologists described various
events of that led them to their career or led to radical shifts in their interests.
The future: the challenge to I-O psychology in the 21 st century
There are many opportunities for I-O psychology to contribute to employers, workers and the
broader society. To make these contributions, I-O psychology needs to meet four challenges: it needs
to be relevant, successful, think bigger and it needs to be grounded in scientific method.
Module 1.3 Multicultural and Cross-Cultural Issues in I-O Psychology
The multicultural nature of life in the 21 st century
Culture: a system in which individuals share meanings and common ways of viewing events and
objects. It is culture that distinguishes people.
In I-O psychology, some of the most obvious cultural differences we need to address are related to
nationality. According to the definition of culture, people have the opportunity to bring different
meaning and interpretations to an event or an object. As the world of work brings together people of
different nationalities, de opportunities of misunderstanding and ineffective or counterproductive
human resource applications grow as the number of different cultures grows. “Cultural mosaic”, each
individual is really a composite of serval interacting cultural influences.
Cross-national issues in the workplace The global economy: it is no longer possible for any country,
regardless of size, to exist without economic connections with other countries. For the I-O
psychologist the importance of connectedness is that it brings many different cultures into contact
with one another at the workplace, particularly when that workplace is a virtual one. The challenge
then becomes one of developing systems (e.g., training, motivation, or reward) that will be
compatible with so many different ways of viewing objects or events, that is compatible with so
many different cultures. The key to meeting this challenge is understanding culture. Ere zen Gati
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(2004) make the point that individual behaviour is the results of
many different forces, and culture is one of those forces. They
distinguish different layers of culture.
The centre represents ‘how I see myself’, e.g., a Swede, a
software engineer, etc.
Why should multiculturalism be important to you? In your
working life, it is a virtual certainty that you will come into
contact with co-workers, superiors, subordinates, clients, and
vendors who have cultural values and beliefs different from your
own. For that face, you need to understand not only the fact
that cultures differ systematically, but also how they may differ.
Why is multiculturalism important for I-O psychology?
“West-versus-the-Rest” mentality: tendency for researcher to develop theories relevant to U.S.
situations, with less concern given to their applicability to other countries.
Expatriate: manager or professional assigned to work in a location outside of his or her home
country.
Theories of cultural influence
Collectivist culture: a culture that values the group more than the individual.
Individuals culture: a culture that values the individuals more than the group.
By understanding the underlying cultural principles, and gaining the ability to place other cultures on
the collectivist-individuals continuum, the manager might be able to design effective reward schemes
for operations elsewhere.
Hofstede’s theory Culture is more complect than a single continuum like individualist-collectivist.
Hofstede proposes in his theory five basic elements on which culture can be distinguished:
- Individualism/collectivism: is the degree to which individuals are expected to look after
themselves versus remaining integrated into groups (usually family).
- Power distance: is the degree to which less powerful members of an organization accept and
expect an equal distribution of power.
- Uncertainty avoidance: is the extend to which members of a culture feel comfortable in
unstructured situations.
- Masculinity/femininity: is the distribution of emotional roles between genders, with the
masculine role being seen as ‘tough’ and the feminine role seen as ‘tender’.
- Long term versus short term orientation: is the extend to which members of a culture expect
immediate versus delayed gratification of their material, social, and emotional needs.
If diversity is to produce anticipated economic and intellectual rewards, managers must be aware of
the various cultures operating in the workplace and be prepared to provide the training and support
necessary to work with those cultures productively.
Other theories of cultural influences
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Horizontal culture: a culture that minimizes distance between Collectivist Individualist
individuals. Horizont Israel Sweden, Australia
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Vertical culture: a culture that accepts and depends upon Vertical China, India, Greece America, Germany
distances between individuals.
Most theories of cultural influences have incorporated the individualist-collectivist dimension of
Hofstede one way or another, and it appears that this dimension will be the backbone of any future
theories. But, within a country, not all individuals share the same culture. Cultural variables represent
only one of many influences on work behaviour. Nevertheless, culture is a key factor in appreciating
the complexity of the modern workplace.
Chapter 2: Research Methods and Statistics in I-O Psychology
Module 2.1 Science and Research
What is science?
Science: approach that involves the understanding, prediction, and control of some phenomenon of
interest.
Hypothesis: prediction about relationship(s) among variables of interest.
1. Science is marked by a logical approach to investigation, usually based on a theory, a
hypothesis.
2. Science depends on data.
3. Science must be communicable, open and public.
4. Science does not set out to prove theories or hypothesis. It sets out to disprove them.
5. One other characteristic is that of disinterestedness: the expectation that scientists will be
objective and not influenced by biases or prejudice.
The role of science in society
The burden of trustworthy science must be shouldered by a trustworthy scientist.
Expert witness: witness in a lawsuit who is permitted to voice opinions about organizational
practices.
The scientific method is one of the most commonly accepted methods for protecting individuals from
the consequences of uninformed speculation.
Why do I-O psychologists engage in research?
By conducting research, we are able to develop a model of a system – a theory – and predict the
consequences of introducing that system or of modifying a system already in place. Even though you
may not actually engage in scientific research yourself, you will certainly consume the results of that
research. Both science and business strategies are based on the same principles: predictability. A
good theory displays the following characteristics: often novel insights; are interesting; are focused;
are relevant to important topics; provide explanations; are practical.
Research design
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Research design: provides the overall structure or architecture for the research study; allows
investigators to conduct on scientific research on a phenomenon or interest.
- Experimental design: participants are randomly assigned to different conditions.
- Quasi-experimental design: participant are assigned to different conditions, but random
assignment is not possible.
- Nonexperimental design: does not include any ‘treatment’ or assignment to different
conditions. Two common designs:
Observational design: the researchers observes employee behaviour and systematically
records what is observed.
Survey design: research strategy in which participants are asked to complete a
questionnaire or survey.
Laboratory studies provide excellent methods of control and are more likely to lead to causal
explanations. Field studies permit researchers to study behaviour difficult to simulate in laboratory,
but cause-effect relationships are more difficult to examine in such field studies.
Methods of data collection
Qualitative and quantitative research
Quantitative methods: rely on tests, rating scales, questionnaires, and psychological measures and
yield numerical results.
Qualitative methods: rely on observations, interviews, case studies, and analysis of diaries or written
documents and produce flow diagrams and narrative descriptions of events of processes.
Introspection: early scientific method in which the participants was also the experimenter, recording
his or her experience in completing an experimental task; considered very subjective by modern
standards.
Alle methods of research ultimately require interpretation, regardless of whether they are
quantitative or qualitative. The key is in combining information of different sources to develop a
theory.
Triangulation: approach in which researchers seek converging information from different sources.
The importance of context in interpreting research The added value of qualitative research is that it
helps to identify the context for the behaviour in question. Often the situation in which behaviour
was embedded provided the explanation.
Generalizability and control research
Generalizability one of the most important issues in conducting research is how widely the results
can be generalized.
Generalize: to apply results from one study or sample to other participants or situations.
An investigator can generalize results to areas that have been sampled in the research study.
Control when researchers conducted in the field, events and variables can often obscure research
results.
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Experimental control: characteristics of research in which possible confounding influenced that
might make results less reliable or harder to interpret are eliminated; often easier to establish in
laboratory studies than in field studies.
Statistical control: using statistical techniques to control for the influence of certain variables. Such
control allows researcher to concentrate exclusively on the primary relationships of interest.
Ethical behaviour in I-O psychology
Formulating ethical guidelines for I-O psychologists can be very challenging, because the work of an I-
O psychologist is incredibly varied. Because every situation is different, there is no simple formula for
behaving ethically. As more and more organizations expand their operations to include international
and multinational dealing, the ethical dilemma’s for behaviour is generally accompanied by a clash
between personal values and organizational goals in which organizational goals prevail. Ethical
standards for I-O psychologists are set forth by APA, SIOP and other organizations. The overriding
ethical principle is “do not harm”.
Module 2.2 Data Analysis
Descriptive and inferential statistics
Descriptive statistics
Descriptive statistics: statistics that summarize, organize, and describe a sample of data.
Measure of central tendency: statistic that indicates where the centre of a distribution is located.
Mean, median, and mode are measures of central tendency.
- Mean: the arithmetic average of the scores in a distribution.
- Mode: the most common of frequently occurring score in a distribution.
- Median: the middle score in a distribution.
Variability: the extent to which scores in a distribution vary.
Skew: the extent to which scores in a distribution are lopsided or tend to fall to the left or right side
of the distribution.
Inferential statistics
Inferential statistics: statistics used to aid the researchers in testing hypothesis and making
inferences from sample data to a larger sample or population t-test, chi-square, f-test
Statistical significance
Statistical significance: indicates that the probability of the observed statistic is less than the stated
significance level adopted by the researchers (commonly p < 0.05). A statistically significant finding
indicates that the results found are unlikely to have occurred by chance, and thus the null hypothesis
(i.e., hypothesis of no effect) is rejected.
The concept of statistical power
Statistical power: the likelihood of finding a statistically significant difference when a true difference
exists.
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Correlation and regression
Measurement: assigning numbers to characteristics of individuals or objects according to rules.
Correlation coefficient: statistic assessing the bivariate, linear association between two variables.
Provides information about the magnitude (numerical value) and the direction (1 or 2) of the
relationship between two variables.
The concept of correlation
Scatterplot: graph used to plot the scatter of scores on two variables; used to display the correlation
between variables.
Regression line: straight line that ‘fits’ the scatterplot and describes the relationship between
variables in a graph.
Linear: relationship between two variables in the graph.
Nonlinear: relationship between two variables that cannot be depicted by a straight line; sometimes
called “curvilinear” and most easily identified by examining a scatterplot.
Multiple correlation
Multiple correlation coefficient: statistic that represents the overall linear association between
several variables (e.g., cognitive ability, personality, experience) on the one hand and a single
variable (e.g., job performance) on the other hand.
Correlation and causation
Correlation coefficients simply represent the extend to which to variables are associated. They do not
signal any cause-effect relationships.
Big Data is a term that describes using large data sets to examine relationships among variables and
to make organizational decisions based on such data.
Meta-analysis: statistical method for combing and analysing the results from many studies to draw a
general conclusion about relationships among variables.
Statistical artifacts: characteristic (e.g., small sample size, variable measures) of a particular study
that distort the observes results. Researchers can correct for artifacts to arrive at a statistic that
represents the ‘true’ relationship between the variable of interest, studies that have already been
completed, and, by virtue of the number and diversity of these results, has the potential to ‘liberate’
conclusions that were obscure of confusing at the level of an individual study.
Micro-, macro-, and meso-research
Micro-research: the study of individual behaviour.
Macro-research: the study of collective behaviour.
Meso-research: the study of the interaction of individual and collective behaviour.
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Module 2.3 Interpretation through Reliability and Validity
Reliability
Reliability: consistency or stability of measure.
Test-retest reliability: a type of reliability calculated by correlating measurements taken at time 1
with measurements taken at time 2.
Equivalent forms reliability: a type of reliability calculated by correlating measurements from a
sample of individuals who complete two different forms of the same test.
Internal consistency: form of reliability that assesses how consistently the items of a test measure a
single construct; affected by the number of items in the test and the correlations among the test
items.
Inter-rater reliability: we calculate various statistical indices to show the level of agreement among
the raters.
Generalizability theory: a sophisticated approach to the question of reliability that simultaneously
considers all types of errors in reliability estimates (e.g., test-retest, equivalent forms, and internal
consistency).
Validity
Validity: the accuracy of inferences made based on test or performance data; also addresses
whether a measure accurately and completely represents what was intended to be measured.
Predictor: the test chosen or developed to assess attributes (e.g., abilities) identified as important for
successful job performance.
Criterion: an outcome variable that describes important aspects or demand of the job; the variable
that we predict when evaluating the validity of a predictor.
Criterion-related validity: validity approach that is demonstrated by correlating a test score with a
performance measure; improves researchers confidence in the inference that people with higher
test-scores have higher performance.
Validity coefficient: correlation coefficient between a test-score (predictor) and a performance
measure (criterion).
Predictive validity design: criterion-related validity design in which there is a time lag between
collection of the data and the criterion data.
Concurrent validity design: criterion-related validity design in which there is no time lag between
gathering the test-scores and the performance data.
Content-related validation design: a design that demonstrated that the content of the selection
procedure represents an adequate sample of important work behaviours and activities and/or
worker KSAOs defined by the job analysis KSAOs: knowledge, skills, abilities, or other
characteristics.
Construct validity: validity approach in which investigators gather evidence to support decisions or
inference about psychological constructs; often begins with investigators demonstrating that a test
designed to measure a particular construct correlates with other tests in predicted manner.
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Construct: psychological concepts or characteristic that a predictor is intended to measure, examples
are intelligence, personality, and leadership.
Part II: INDUSTRIAL PSYCHOLOGY
Chapter 3 Individual Differences and Assessment
Module 3.1 An Introduction to Individual Differences
Individual differences: dissimilarities between or among two or more people.
Some background
Mental test: instrument designed (by James McKeen Cattell) to measure a subject’s ability to reason,
plan, and solve problems, an intelligence test. This sort of study became known as differential
psychology: scientific study of differences between or among two or more people.
Intelligence: the ability to learn and adapt to an environment; often used to refer to general
intellectual capacity, as opposed to cognitive abilities such as memory or reasoning. Cattell had
developed methods of measuring mental capacity: capacity to reason, plan and solve problems;
cognitive ability, placing it on a scale or metric: standard of measurement; a scale. As a results, the
actual measurements of abilities became known as psychometrics: practice of measuring a
characteristic, such as mental ability, and solve problems.
Intelligence test: instrument designed to measure the ability to reason, learn, and solve problems.
Differential psychology, psychometrics, and I-O psychology
Differential psychology is person-centred, looking for qualities or characteristics within the person
that will help us understand that person’s behaviour. The differential psychologist identifies what
should be measures, and the psychometrician set about measuring it.
Psychometrician: psychologist trained in measuring characteristics such as mental ability.
Cognitive ability: capacity to reason, plan, and solve problems; mental ability.
“g”: abbreviation for general mental ability: the nonspecific capacity to reason, learn, and solve
problems in any of a wide variety of ways and circumstances intelligence, cognitive ability, and
mental ability all refer to general mental ability.
Identifying individual differences
Francis Galton was one of the early advocates of studying individual differences. In the past I-O
psychologists only focused on intelligence, today they are sinking many more shafts, as well as
deeper ones (e.g., specific mental abilities such as memory, etc). the differential psychologists
examines the psychological landscape and identifies areas for drilling. The psychometrician sink the
shaft. The applied I-O psychologist uses what comes out of it.
Varieties of individual differences
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