Industrial Psychology

Let’s Get Started:

WHAT IS INDUSTRIAL PSYCHOLOGY?

Psychology is the science of human (and nonhuman) behavior, cognition, emotion, and
motivation. It can be subdivided into many different specializations, some of which are concerned
primarily with psychological science (experimental psychology) and others of which are concerned
with both psychological science and the application of that science to real-world problems outside of
the research setting. I/O psychology (along with clinical psychology) falls into the latter category of
being concerned with both psychological science and its application.

As its two-part name implies, the field of Industrial psychology contains two major divisions:
the industrial (or personnel) and the organizational. Although the contents of the two major
divisions overlap and cannot be easily separated, each grew out of different traditions in the history
of the field. Industrial psychology, which was the original name for the field, is the older branch and
tends to take a management perspective of organizational efficiency through the appropriate use of
human resources or people. It is concerned with issues of efficient job design, employee selection,
employee training, and performance appraisal. Organizational psychology developed from the
human relations movement in organizations. It is concerned with understanding behavior and
enhancing the well-being of employees in the workplace. Organizational topics include employee
attitudes, employee behavior, job stress, and supervisory practices. The major topics of the field,
however, cannot easily be characterized as strictly industrial (I) or organizational (O). Motivation, for
example, is relevant to the I concerns of employee efficiency and performance, but it is also relevant
to the O concern with the happiness and well-being of employees, as well as understanding human
behavior in organizational settings. Even though the I and O areas cannot always be clearly
distinguished, together they suggest the broad nature of the field.

The largest subarea of psychology concerned with application of scientific findings is clinical
psychology. Clinical psychologists deal with the study and treatment of psychological disorders and
problems. Industrial/organizational psychology is a smaller, but more rapidly growing psychology
subfield that is concerned with the development and application of scientific principles to the
workplace. I/O psychologists do not deal directly with employees’ emotional or personal problems.
This activity falls in the domain of clinical psychology. An I/O psychologist, however, might
recommend hiring a clinical psychologist to help with such problems as employee alcoholism or
post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD).
 SCOPE OF INDUSTRIAL/ORGANIZATIONAL PSYCHOLOGY
Psychology is about the mind and how it works and is also concerned with groups, about
their thinking and reactions. Organizational psychology is also known as “Industrial and Occupational
Psychology” and also as “Business Psychology”. The purpose of organizational psychology is to
improve the overall efficiency of an organization by analyzing and implementing necessary tools in
place. It studies everything that has an effect on the organization from the management styles to
employees’ conditions. It tries to create optimal conditions for a good place in which the employees
are in peace with the management leading to better business, higher job satisfactions and maximum
efficiency. Organizational psychology is also concerned with conflicts at the workplace as well as
psychological 6 matters at the workplace to ensure healthy social connection and communication in
the organization. Studying the organizational structure of an organization from the perspective of
organizational psychology is essential since it will bring improvements to the organizational structure
and identify areas of improvement by constantly studying and analyzing.
The main purpose of every business is to generate profits while maximizing overall efficiency
and of course profit oriented or not every organization will want to be as efficient as possible. Total
quality management, total organization development are important parts of an organization.
Continuous organizational development can be achieved through organizational psychology studies.
By studying the organization from the organizational psychology perspective one can improve the
effectiveness, productivity and competitiveness of an organization while improving workforce
efficiency, satisfaction, and motivation.
Industrial/Organizational psychology’s scope could be defined as increasing the overall
efficiency of an organization by studying the organization, behaviors and identify issues that has
negative effects on the organization. Organizational psychology tackles these issues by implementing
training and development programs, performance appraisal programs which will help identify the
best person for a job, suggest ideas that will be beneficial for the organization and the employees. As
Apple also believes, the most valuable asset in a company are the employees. It is all about
improving the performance of the workforce and continuously engaging them in activities that
develop their skills while ensuring optimum performance in their duties. A healthy relationship is the
key to successful friendships, relationships and this is also valid for organizations.
Organizational psychologists teach management about how to select the right person for a
particular job requirement and also set out the criteria through which they can be promoted. As part
of their activities they have to conduct a lot of research and also come up with the right statistics so
that their point can be actually implemented (The Nature and Scope of Organizational Psychology.
2010).
As long as there is communication, openness, competency and satisfaction in both sides- the
management and the employees, the organization will produce positive results and the employees
will themselves aim for better at all times.

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 A BRIEF HISTORY OF INDUSTRIAL PSYCHOLOGY

PRE-PSYCHOLOGY

Psychology's formal "birthdate" as a science wasn't until 1879 (when Wilhelm Wundt
established the first psychology laboratory). Of course, industrial and organizational psychology
weren't established until sometime after that. Yet, many of the issues important to I/O psychology
had been discussed long before then. Below are just a few examples:

 Aristotle, in Politics, developed foundations for many modern management concepts,

including specialization of labor, delegation of authority, departmentalization,
decentralization, and leadership selection
 Medieval European guilds functioned like modern-day quality circles to ensure fine
craftsmanship  Machiavelli (in The Prince, 1527) offered practical advice for developing
authoritarian structures within organizations
 Thomas Hobbes (1651) advocated strong centralized leadership as a means for bringing
"order to the chaos created by man". He provided a justification for autocratic rule that
helped establish the pattern for organizations through the nineteenth century
 John Locke (1690) outlined the philosophical justification later manifested in the U.S.
Declaration of Independence, which in effect, advocates participatory management in his
argument that leadership is granted by the governed
 Jean Jacques Rousseau, in The Social Contract (1762), in effect supported Locke's position
 Adam Smith (1776), in The Wealth of Nations revolutionized economic and organizational
thought by suggesting the use of centralization of labor and equipment in factories, division
of specialized labor, and management of specialization in factories

THE EARLY YEARS

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  1881: the first school of professional management was started at the University of
Pennsylvania when Joseph Wharton donated $100,000 to do so

 1883: Frederick W. Taylor began experiments at the Midvale and Bethlehem Steel plant,
which later led to the development of his "scientific management" philosophy

W.L. BRYAN
 1903: W.L. Bryan, prior to the formation of I/O psychology, gave a
presidential address to APA in which he encouraged psychologists
to study "concrete activities and functions as the appear in
everyday life". Although he didn't cite industry directly, he did
encourage these sorts of "real life" applications of a science of
psychology.

 Postscript note: "The term 'Industrial Psychology' first appeared in

a 1904 article of Bryan's APA address. Ironically, it appeared in print
only as a typographical error. Bryan was quoting a sentence he had
written five years earlier in which he spoke of the need for more
research in individual psychology. Instead, Bryan wrote industrial
psychology and did not catch his mistake." (source: Muchinsky, 1997, p10; emphasis added)

WALTER DILL SCOTT

 Walter Dill Scott gave a talk to Chicago business leaders on the

application of psychology to advertising, which led to books on the
topic published in 1903 & 1908.

 By 1911 he had published two more books (Influencing Men in

Business and Increasing Human Efficiency in Business), and became
the first to apply the principles of psychology to motivation and
productivity in the workplace.

 He also became instrumental in the application of personnel

procedures within the army during World War I.

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 HUGO MUNSTERBERG

 Hugo Munsterberg, considered by many as "the father of industrial psychology", pioneered

the application of psychological findings from laboratory experiments to practical matters
 In 1911 he cautioned managers to be concerned with "all the questions of the mind...like
fatigue, monotony, interest, learning, work satisfaction, and
rewards."

 He was also first to encourage government funded research in the

area of industrial psychology

 In 1913 his book Psychology and Industrial Efficiency addressed such

things as personnel selection and equipment design

 Munsterberg's early I/O psychology became influential well into the

1950's

 It assumed people need to fit the organization, thus applied behavioral sciences largely
consisted of helping organizations shape people to serve as replacement parts for
organizational machines

 About the same time as Munsterberg, Frederick W. Taylor began publishing similar
philosophies on management -- which had a tremendous impact on organizational
management

FREDERICK W. TAYLOR

 Taylor realized the value of

redesigning the work situation (thru
use of time and motion studies) to
achieve both higher output for the
company and higher wages for the
worker

 His writings were one of the first

reasonably comprehensive
philosophies of management

 1909 Taylor's book Shop Management

explained management's role in motivating workers to avoid "natural soldiering", i.e., the
natural tendency of people to "take it easy"

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  1911 Taylor's book The Principles of Scientific Management; two of his key principles:

 Scientifically design work methods for efficiency

 Select the best workers and train them in the best methods

 e.g., showed workers who handle heavy iron ingots more productive given use of work rests

a) training when to work and when to rest raised productivity from 12.5 to 47.0 tons
moved per day
b) Less fatigue reported
c) Increased wages
d) Costs dropped from 9.2 to 3.9 cents per ton

 Taylor's methods led to charges that he inhumanely exploited workers for higher wages and
that great numbers of workers would be unemployed because fewer were needed (which
was a sensitive topic since unemployment was already high at the time)

 Both the Interstate Commerce Commission and the U.S. House of Representatives began
investigations

 Taylor replied that increased efficiency would produce greater not lesser prosperity

 Outbreak of WWI distracted most from the controversy before much was resolved

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 ROBERT YERKES

 Robert Yerkes was the psychologist most influential in getting

psychology into the war

 proposed ways of screening recruits for mental deficiency and

assigning selected recruits to army jobs

 committees of psychologists also investigated soldier motivation,

morale, psychological problems of physical incapacity ("shell
shock"), and discipline

 Army was skeptical and approved only a modest number of

proposals, primarily in the assessment of recruits -- which Yerkes
and others developed as a general intelligence test

Meanwhile Walter Dill Scott was doing research on best placement of soldiers in Army. He
classified and placed enlistees, conducted performance evaluations of officers, and developed and
prepared job duties and qualifications for over 500 jobs. However, the final authorization for the
testing program came in August 1918, only three months before the Armistice was signed -- thus the
intelligence tests weren't as utilized as much as Yerkes had hoped  1917: Journal of Applied
Psychology began publication. Today is still perhaps the most respected, representative journal in
I/O field

Between the Wars (1919-1940)

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  Psychological Corporation started by James Cattell in 1921

 Main purpose was to advance psychology and promote its usefulness to industry

 Also to maintain quality reputation of field by serving as a place for companies to get
reference checks on prospective psychologists, helped companies weed out quacks from
qualified professionals

 Mission has shifted: Today serves as one of largest publishers of psychological tests

 1920's: doctoral degrees specializing in industrial psychology begin to be offered at U.S.

universities

 Among the first: Ohio State, Carnegie Institute of Technology, Univ. of Minnesota, and
Stanford University

 Greatest influence on I/O psychology from this time was the Hawthorne studies

The Hawthorne Studies

1924 series of experiments began at the Hawthorne Works of the Western Electric
Company. Researchers from Harvard University (who were not psychologists) were attempting to
study the relation between lighting and efficiency. Increased lighting resulted in increased efficiency,
but to their surprise, efficiency continued to improve as the lighting dimmed to faint moonlight
levels. These seemingly "bizarre" results were eventually explained in terms of previously
unrecognized aspects of human behavior in the workplace. Researchers hypothesized that these
results were due to the employee's desire to please them. They were flattered at having

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 distinguished investigators from Harvard study them and were trying to impress them, which caused
them to be more productive. Quite some time later the employees got used to the researchers'
presence and began returning to their original levels of productivity

The Hawthorne Effect -- change in behavior following the onset of a novel treatment (new or
increased attention, most commonly). Effect eventually wears off (behavior returns to original) as
the "novelty" dissipates. In 1933 Elton Mayo made the first significant call for the human relations
movement in his interim report on the Hawthorne studies. Showed the existence of informal
employee groups and their effects on production, the importance of employee attitudes, the value
of a sympathetic and understanding supervisor, and the need to treat people as people -- not simply
as human capital  This was one of the benchmark events in the development of industrial
psychology . 1939 the definitive account of the Hawthorne studies was published

1950's and 1960's

 Late 40's & early 50's: clinical psychologists Carl Rogers' and Abraham Maslow's theories of
motivation supported the human relations movement
 Skinner initiated discussions of behaviorism's applications to organizational settings
 1954 Peter F. Drucker outlined his Management by Objectives (MBO) approach
 1954 John C. Flanigan outlined his Critical Incidents Technique

Rise of Motivation Theories

 Late 1950's: Douglas McGregor proposed his Theory X and Theory Y assumptions of the
relations between employees and organizations
 Early 1960's: contingency models of leadership proposed a need for different styles under
different circumstances -- a view that rose with work of Fred Fiedler in mid 1960's

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  1964: Vroom's VIE theory (valence, instrumentality, expectancy) of motivation proposed 
Influential in development of later expectancy theories
 Mid 1960's: David McClelland proposed need for achievement theory
 Argues there are two groups of people, the majority who aren't concerned about achieving
and the minority who are challenged by achieving
 Late 1960's: Frederick Herzberg proposed his two-factor theory of motivation
(satisfies/motivators & hygiene factors)
 Late 1960's: Edwin Locke outlined his goal setting approach to motivation

1964 Civil Rights Act passed. Title VII, section 703a states: "it is unlawful to discriminate in
any employment practice on the basis of race, color, religion, sex, or national origin". In 1966: Katz &
Kahn published classic text outlining theory and research of organizational behavior as embedded in
open, sociotechnical systems  Mid 1960's into early 1970's: advances in job analysis techniques
included: 'task inventory' approach developed from research with U.S. Air Force. Dictionary of
Occupational Titles published in 1965 (third edition)  1960's research at Purdue Occupational
Research Center led to publication of the Position Analysis Questionnaire in 1972. Edwin Fleishman
developed 'ability requirements' approach

Assessment :
1. Discuss Briefly your understanding about Industrial Psychology.
2. Discuss Briefly your understanding about Performance Appraisal.

Discuss Briefly the contribution of each person on the development of Industrial

Psychology given below:

FREDERICK W. TAYLOR -

HUGO MUNSTERBERG -

ROBERT YERKES -

WALTER DILL SCOTT -

W.L. BRYAN -

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