PSY360 Work Psychology
Work psychology aims to help realize the full potential of people and create effective organizations (two
perspectives here sometimes, when working for manager vs working for employee).
It is a broad discipline.
Core psychology applied to the workplace – physiological, cognitive, developmental, social and
individual differences.
Also known as
Occupational Psychology (UK, BPS)
Industrial & Organizational Psychology (US)
Organizational/ Vocational/ Managerial/ Personnel/ Ergonomics (aka Human
Factors/Engineering)
Origins
Two perspectives
-> Fitting the person to the job (FPJ)
Selection, identifying the right people with certain qualities
Training to mould them to fit job even better, develop their skills
Vocational guidance, identifying appropriate career paths forward for employees
-> Fitting the job to the person (FJP)
Ergonomics – physical work environment
Job design – design of psychosocial work environment (how much autonomy, demands, social
support
Origins of FPJ & FJP go back to beginning of 20 th century.
WW1 – long hours in munitions factories, difficult conditions to meet demands, mostly women. Need to
screen individuals for suitability (psychometric testing etc.)
WW2 – technology more sophisticated (needed more pilots etc.), extremely demanding conditions,
development of vigilance & attention (lots of cognitive psychology we learn about today came from
these very practical demands they had after WW2).
Post WW2 – social development of large state organizations, civil service selection & training, NHS
recruited lots of people, development in mass selection methods
In the early days of the Industrial Revolution, the dominant philosophy was scientific management
(Frederick Taylor) - ‘workers are stupid & lazy, we need to design work and working models around
that’. So, tasks were broken into the simplest components, with assembly lines where someone does a
single task repeatedly. Incentivization of ‘work harder, get extra pay, don’t & get fired’.
BUT
Many problems around this approach – workers become tired, dissatisfied, bored. Caused conflict
between management and employees, leading to strengthening of the trade union movement. Not an
,effective way of optimizing production. Development of the Human Relations movement, thinking more
about the social psychology of the workplace.
Hawthorne studies – during inter-war years, conducted in an electrical assembly company.
Looked at levels of lighting in the production area and effect on productivity. Found – whatever changes
the researchers made to lighting, productivity levels kept going up. Attributed this to the workers
responding to the fact that people were taking an interest in what they were doing, felt more
special/motivated. [Hawthorne effect (certain phenomena around the effects that come from studying
people on their behavior)]
Followed up by other studies called release & retention – took away groups of workers, put them in
separate rooms and studied them for how they work. Found – whatever manipulations they did in terms
of working conditions, performance was improved, down to interest being given to their work & workers
trying to find out what the researchers wanted. Hard to make single changes in environment without
affecting lots of other variables.
Demonstrated difficulty of changing one variable in workplace, controlling the confounds in a real
environment. Also, that workers are human beings, and their behavior is affected by their interpretation
of what is happening.
Study observing wiring technicians – social interactions between employees and supervisors, how group
norms were developed, expectations of how each of your colleagues should perform. Social relations
can be more influential than policy or pay in terms of productivity (the opposite of scientific
management principle!)
Work today – fewer physically demanding jobs, new technology (less labor intensive), knowledge work
(cognitive load), service jobs (emotion regulation, ‘service with a smile’)
Expectation of workers different – more diversity (gender, age [aging population, need to enable old
people to continue to work], ethnicity, education), increased flexibility (work hours/location, virtual
teams), rapidly changing organizations (responding to globalization, new technology).
Also, a changing psychological contract (unwritten understanding that employees/employers have). In
the modern workplace, no longer expecting a job for life as it used to be, more changing of jobs/careers
now. So stable, permanent & predictable jobs are out. Self-regulation, flexibility & employability (taking
skills learnt to another job) are in.
Methods of study used in work psychology
Requirements of research (McGrath, 1981) - precision (control of variables, study setting), existential
realism (real world tasks) & generalizability (from sample to population). Can only maximize 1 at
expense of the other 2!
Experimental studies in the lab
Don’t see many of these in work psychology Adv – scientific rigor, precision
Disadv – expensive & logistically difficult, lack of ecological validity (what happens with people's
behavior in lab studies has little bearing on how they behave in the real world) so lacks realism
& generalizability
Experimental field studies/interventions
, More real... at the expense of full control
High levels of subject attrition (drop-outs due to life circumstances)
Random selection, creating experiment in the workplace
Requires a research-friendly organization (could mess up business model)
It has precision and realism but lacks generalizability.
If you can do these intervention studies, they are ‘gold standard’ - good ones hard to find.
Difficult to conduct.
Findings will probably be specific to one particular organization
Natural/’quasi-’ experiments
Bit more common
Observing changes happening naturally in the workplace (no interventions)
Less control
Has realism
Precision questionable
Lacks generalizability
Questionnaire surveys
Very easy to conduct & cheap so common
Sees the world as it is, an accurate reflection of population.
Disadv – problems with identifying confounds when making comparisons between groups (lots
of questions meaning lengthy surveys, decreasing sample size), what info to collect, cause or
effect? (better with longitudinal studies), reliability of self-report questionable, common method
variance (studies based on one method of measuring introduces an artificial correlation
between the variables simply by asking people who are using the same method)
Lack of precision (not much control over potential confounds)
Lack of realism (recall bias etc.)
But, has generalizability (with careful sampling by probability)
Qualitative research (interviews & focus groups)
Has realism - detailed picture of the individual’s view
Costly, difficult to gain access to workers (worries of disrupting industrial relations)
Questionable scientific rigor, lacks precision
Often small sample, cannot generalize
Action research
Researcher & participants work together to solve a problem
Usually interviews and participant observation
Problem specific
Unpredictable
Abandons notion of the objective observer
May help organization to solve thir own problems in the future
Explores how general principles may be applied in practice
Lots of realism, but lacks generalizability/precision
, Secondary research
->e.g., taking company records
Doing analysis to answer research question
BUT, as you didn’t design the way the measures were taken in first place, don’t know if the data
is accurate/in the right format.
So highly realistic but lacks precision and generalizability.
->Conducting meta-analyses
Usually as part of a systematic review
Increasingly popular
Very useful when answering assignment questions
More powerful than single studies, bigger picture, combining data from numerous studies so
more statistical power... but, must rely on each of these studies to be good quality
Lacks precision
Questionable realism
Has generalizability
Work psychology aims to help realize the full potential of people and create effective organizations (two
perspectives here sometimes, when working for manager vs working for employee).
It is a broad discipline.
Core psychology applied to the workplace – physiological, cognitive, developmental, social and
individual differences.
Also known as
Occupational Psychology (UK, BPS)
Industrial & Organizational Psychology (US)
Organizational/ Vocational/ Managerial/ Personnel/ Ergonomics (aka Human
Factors/Engineering)
Origins
Two perspectives
-> Fitting the person to the job (FPJ)
Selection, identifying the right people with certain qualities
Training to mould them to fit job even better, develop their skills
Vocational guidance, identifying appropriate career paths forward for employees
-> Fitting the job to the person (FJP)
Ergonomics – physical work environment
Job design – design of psychosocial work environment (how much autonomy, demands, social
support
Origins of FPJ & FJP go back to beginning of 20 th century.
WW1 – long hours in munitions factories, difficult conditions to meet demands, mostly women. Need to
screen individuals for suitability (psychometric testing etc.)
WW2 – technology more sophisticated (needed more pilots etc.), extremely demanding conditions,
development of vigilance & attention (lots of cognitive psychology we learn about today came from
these very practical demands they had after WW2).
Post WW2 – social development of large state organizations, civil service selection & training, NHS
recruited lots of people, development in mass selection methods
In the early days of the Industrial Revolution, the dominant philosophy was scientific management
(Frederick Taylor) - ‘workers are stupid & lazy, we need to design work and working models around
that’. So, tasks were broken into the simplest components, with assembly lines where someone does a
single task repeatedly. Incentivization of ‘work harder, get extra pay, don’t & get fired’.
BUT
Many problems around this approach – workers become tired, dissatisfied, bored. Caused conflict
between management and employees, leading to strengthening of the trade union movement. Not an
,effective way of optimizing production. Development of the Human Relations movement, thinking more
about the social psychology of the workplace.
Hawthorne studies – during inter-war years, conducted in an electrical assembly company.
Looked at levels of lighting in the production area and effect on productivity. Found – whatever changes
the researchers made to lighting, productivity levels kept going up. Attributed this to the workers
responding to the fact that people were taking an interest in what they were doing, felt more
special/motivated. [Hawthorne effect (certain phenomena around the effects that come from studying
people on their behavior)]
Followed up by other studies called release & retention – took away groups of workers, put them in
separate rooms and studied them for how they work. Found – whatever manipulations they did in terms
of working conditions, performance was improved, down to interest being given to their work & workers
trying to find out what the researchers wanted. Hard to make single changes in environment without
affecting lots of other variables.
Demonstrated difficulty of changing one variable in workplace, controlling the confounds in a real
environment. Also, that workers are human beings, and their behavior is affected by their interpretation
of what is happening.
Study observing wiring technicians – social interactions between employees and supervisors, how group
norms were developed, expectations of how each of your colleagues should perform. Social relations
can be more influential than policy or pay in terms of productivity (the opposite of scientific
management principle!)
Work today – fewer physically demanding jobs, new technology (less labor intensive), knowledge work
(cognitive load), service jobs (emotion regulation, ‘service with a smile’)
Expectation of workers different – more diversity (gender, age [aging population, need to enable old
people to continue to work], ethnicity, education), increased flexibility (work hours/location, virtual
teams), rapidly changing organizations (responding to globalization, new technology).
Also, a changing psychological contract (unwritten understanding that employees/employers have). In
the modern workplace, no longer expecting a job for life as it used to be, more changing of jobs/careers
now. So stable, permanent & predictable jobs are out. Self-regulation, flexibility & employability (taking
skills learnt to another job) are in.
Methods of study used in work psychology
Requirements of research (McGrath, 1981) - precision (control of variables, study setting), existential
realism (real world tasks) & generalizability (from sample to population). Can only maximize 1 at
expense of the other 2!
Experimental studies in the lab
Don’t see many of these in work psychology Adv – scientific rigor, precision
Disadv – expensive & logistically difficult, lack of ecological validity (what happens with people's
behavior in lab studies has little bearing on how they behave in the real world) so lacks realism
& generalizability
Experimental field studies/interventions
, More real... at the expense of full control
High levels of subject attrition (drop-outs due to life circumstances)
Random selection, creating experiment in the workplace
Requires a research-friendly organization (could mess up business model)
It has precision and realism but lacks generalizability.
If you can do these intervention studies, they are ‘gold standard’ - good ones hard to find.
Difficult to conduct.
Findings will probably be specific to one particular organization
Natural/’quasi-’ experiments
Bit more common
Observing changes happening naturally in the workplace (no interventions)
Less control
Has realism
Precision questionable
Lacks generalizability
Questionnaire surveys
Very easy to conduct & cheap so common
Sees the world as it is, an accurate reflection of population.
Disadv – problems with identifying confounds when making comparisons between groups (lots
of questions meaning lengthy surveys, decreasing sample size), what info to collect, cause or
effect? (better with longitudinal studies), reliability of self-report questionable, common method
variance (studies based on one method of measuring introduces an artificial correlation
between the variables simply by asking people who are using the same method)
Lack of precision (not much control over potential confounds)
Lack of realism (recall bias etc.)
But, has generalizability (with careful sampling by probability)
Qualitative research (interviews & focus groups)
Has realism - detailed picture of the individual’s view
Costly, difficult to gain access to workers (worries of disrupting industrial relations)
Questionable scientific rigor, lacks precision
Often small sample, cannot generalize
Action research
Researcher & participants work together to solve a problem
Usually interviews and participant observation
Problem specific
Unpredictable
Abandons notion of the objective observer
May help organization to solve thir own problems in the future
Explores how general principles may be applied in practice
Lots of realism, but lacks generalizability/precision
, Secondary research
->e.g., taking company records
Doing analysis to answer research question
BUT, as you didn’t design the way the measures were taken in first place, don’t know if the data
is accurate/in the right format.
So highly realistic but lacks precision and generalizability.
->Conducting meta-analyses
Usually as part of a systematic review
Increasingly popular
Very useful when answering assignment questions
More powerful than single studies, bigger picture, combining data from numerous studies so
more statistical power... but, must rely on each of these studies to be good quality
Lacks precision
Questionable realism
Has generalizability
