I/O Psychology Chapter 1

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Introduction to I/O Psychology

• I/O psychology applies psychology principles to the workplace to enhance dignity and performance of humans and organizations.
• Developed training programs, incentive plans, work groups, and understanding employee conflict using principles of learning, social psychology, motivation, and emotion.

Major Fields of I/O Psychology

• Industrial approach: determines job competencies, staffs organizations, and increases competencies through training.
• Organizational approach: creates an organizational structure and culture that motivates employees, provides necessary information, and ensures a safe and satisfying work environment.
• Personnel psychology: analyzes jobs, recruits applicants, selects employees, determines salary levels, trains employees, and evaluates performance.
• Organizational psychology: concerned with leadership, job satisfaction, motivation, communication, conflict management, and group processes.
• Human Factors/Ergonomics: focuses on workplace design, human-machine interaction, ergonomics, and physical fatigue and stress.

Brief History of I/O Psychology

• 1903: Walter Dill Scott wrote on applying psychology to business.
• 1913: Hugo Munsterberg published on psychology and industrial efficiency.
• 1918: Journal of Applied Psychology first published.
• 1930s: I/O psychology involved in World War I and II efforts.
• 1940s-1980s: Development of I/O psychology as a field, with formation of societies and publication of texts.

Research in I/O Psychology

• Reasons for conducting research: answering questions, making decisions, and understanding everyday life.
• Types of research:
  • Laboratory research: high internal validity, low external validity.
  • Field research: high external validity, low internal validity.
  • Quasi-experiments: no random assignment.
  • Surveys: ask people their opinions.
  • Archival research: uses previously collected data.
• Importance of random assignment and debriefing in research.
• Meta-analysis: statistical method for combining results from multiple studies.

Ethics in I/O Psychology

• Ethical dilemmas: ambiguous situations requiring personal judgments.
• Informed consent: participants must understand and agree to participate voluntarily.
• Considerations in conducting research: random assignment, debriefing, and intervening variables.

Job Analysis and Evaluation

• Job analysis: gathering, analyzing, and structuring information about a job's components and requirements.
• Importance of job analysis: writing job descriptions, employee selection, training, personnel planning, compensation, and job evaluation.
• Steps in conducting a job analysis: identify tasks performed, write task statements, and gather existing information.
• Methods of job analysis: committee-based, field-based, and job competency approaches.### Job Analysis
• A task statement must contain an action and an object, and may also include details about where, how, why, and when the task is done.
• The Occupational Information Network (O*NET) is a national job analysis system that understands jobs at four levels: economic, organizational, occupational, and individual.
• Critical Incident Technique (CIT) is used to discover actual incidents of job behavior that make a difference between a job's successful or unsuccessful performance.

Competencies

• Knowledge is a body of information needed to perform a task.
• A skill is the proficiency to perform a learned task.
• Ability is a basic capacity for performing a wide range of different tasks, acquiring knowledge, or developing a skill.
• Other characteristics include personal factors such as personality, willingness, interest, and motivation, and tangible factors such as licenses, degrees, and years of experience.

Job Evaluation

• Job evaluation is the process of determining a job's worth.
• It involves determining internal pay equity and external pay equity.
• Internal pay equity involves comparing jobs within an organization to ensure that the people in jobs worth the most money are paid accordingly.
• External pay equity involves determining the worth of a job by comparing it to the external market.

Job Analysis Methods

• Position Analysis Questionnaire (PAQ) is a structured instrument that contains 194 items organized into six main dimensions.
• Job Structure Profile (JSP) is a revised version of the PAQ.
• Job Elements Inventory (JEI) is another instrument designed as an alternative to the PAQ.

Legal Issues in Employee Selection

• The legal process involves resolving complaints internally, including policies for alternative dispute resolution (ADR) such as grievance processes, mediation, and arbitration.
• Sexual harassment can take two forms: quid pro quo or hostile environment.
• Quid pro quo harassment involves granting sexual favors in exchange for employment decisions.
• Hostile environment harassment involves unwanted patterns of behavior that interfere with an individual's work performance.

Employee Selection: Recruiting and Interviewing

• Recruitment involves attracting people with the right qualifications to apply for the job.
• Methods of recruitment include media advertisements, campus recruiters, outside recruiters, and incentives.
• Realistic Job Previews (RJP) involve giving an applicant an honest assessment of a job.
• Expectation-lowering procedures (ELP) lower an applicant's expectations about work and expectations in general.

Interviewing

• Types of interviews include structured, unstructured, one-on-one, serial, return, and panel interviews.
• Structured interviews are job-related, asked to all applicants, and have standardized scoring.
• Unstructured interviews lack consistency and may assign points at the interviewer's discretion.
• Interviewer biases include poor intuitive ability, lack of job-relatedness, primacy effects, contrast effects, negative-information bias, and interviewer-interviewee similarity.

Employee Selection: References and Testing

• A reference check is the process of confirming the accuracy of information provided by an applicant.
• A reference is the expression of an opinion regarding an applicant's ability, previous performance, work habits, character, or potential for future success.
• Types of tests include cognitive ability tests (verbal, numerical, abstract, spatial, and mechanical), perceptual ability tests (vision, color discrimination, depth perception, glare sensitivity), and psychomotor ability tests (finger dexterity, manual dexterity, control precision).
• Physical ability tests are often used for jobs that require physical demands.### Jobs Requiring Physical Strength and Stamina
• Jobs such as police officer, firefighter, and lifeguard require physical strength and stamina
• Physical ability is measured through job simulations and physical agility tests

Problems with References and Letters of Recommendation

• Leniency: most letters of recommendation are positive (less than 1% rate applicants as below average or poor)
• Lack of knowledge about the applicant: person writing the letter may not know the applicant well
• Reliability: lack of agreement between two people providing references for the same person
• Extraneous factors: letters written by references who like the applicant are longer than those written by references who do not like the applicant

Ethical Guidelines for Reference Providers

• Explicitly state your relationship with the person you are recommending
• Be honest in providing details
• Let the applicant see your reference before sending it and give them the chance to decline to use it

Predicting Performance Using:

1. Applicant Knowledge

• Used primarily in the public sector, especially for promotions
• Job knowledge tests are designed to measure how much a person knows about a job

2. Applicant Ability

• Used primarily for occupations where applicants are not expected to know how to perform the job at the time of hire
• Cognitive ability includes dimensions such as oral and written comprehension, oral and written expression, numerical facility, originality, and vocational interests

3. Prior Experience

• Typically measured in one of four ways: experience ratings of application/resume information, biodata, reference checks, and interviews

4. Personality, Interest, and Character

• Personality inventories are becoming increasingly popular as an employee selection method
• Interest inventories are designed to tap vocational interests
• Integrity tests tell an employer the probability that an applicant would steal money or merchandise
• Conditional reasoning tests were initially developed to reduce inaccurate responses and get a more accurate picture of a person's tendency to engage in aggressive or counterproductive behavior

Predicting Performance Limitations Due to Medical and Psychological Problems

• Drug testing is a controversial testing method used by HR professionals
• Psychological exams usually consist of an interview by a clinical psychologist, an examination of the applicant's life history, and the administration of one or more psychological tests
• Medical exams determine if there are any medical conditions that will keep the employee from safely performing the job

Establishing the Usefulness of a Selection Device

• Reliability: stable and free from error
• Validity: measures what it purports to measure
• Cost-Efficiency: if two or more tests have similar validities, then costs must be considered

Making the Hiring Decision

• Multiple Regression: statistical procedure in which the scores from more than one criterion-valid test are weighted according to how well each test predicts performance
• Unadjusted Top-Down Selection: applicants are rank-ordered on the basis of their test scores
• Compensatory Approach: a high score on one test can compensate for a low score on another test
• Rule of Three: names of the top three applicants are given to a hiring authority who can then select any of the three
• Passing Score: minimum test score that an applicant must achieve to be considered for hire
• Multiple-Hurdle Approach: selection practice of administering one test at a time so that applicants must pass that test before being allowed to take the next test
• Banding: hire the top test scorers while still allowing some flexibility for affirmative action

Evaluating Employee Performance

• Determine the reason for evaluating employee performance
• Identify environmental and cultural limitations
• Determine who will evaluate the employee
• Select the best appraisal method to accomplish goals
• Train raters
• Observe and document performance

Evaluating Employee Performance Methods

• Forced-Choice Rating Scale
• Graphic Rating Scale
• Behavioral Checklists
• Comparison with other employees
• Frequency of desired behaviors
• Extent to which organizational expectations are met