What is industrial organizational psychology

In the decades since, the two have merged to where there is little distinction. According to Landers, the main distinctions are as follows. Even so, both sides borrow from the other, creating no real distinction between the two in many settings.

IO Psychology has now expanded just helping businesses, according to the American Psychological Association. Success in IO psychology requires a combination of specific skills. They include expertise in psychology and its application to the workplace, of course. But they also include data analysis, critical thinking, research skills, psychometrics, and knowledge of test development and validation principles. Psychologists requires doctoral training and licensing.

There is a growing need for more workforce analytics, more AI, and a greater understanding of organizational development needs and growth, including some difficult conversations. As the workplace becomes more complex, those skills are needed now more than ever. Marian University 45 S. In addition, they help to determine ways to deliver humanitarian aid during major catastrophes. The Humanitarian Work Psychology group can also reach out to those in the local community who do not have the knowledge, skills, and abilities KSAs to be able to find gainful employment that would enable them to not need to receive aid.

In both cases, humanitarian work psychologists try to help the underserved individuals develop KSAs that they can use to improve their lives and their current situations.

When ensuring these underserved individuals receive training or education, the focus is on skills that, once learned, will never be forgotten and can serve individuals throughout their lifetimes as they seek employment APA, Table This site also offers several I-O psychologist profiles. Industrial and organizational psychology had its origins in the early 20th century. Some of these researchers had been involved in work in the area of industrial psychology before World War I.

Scott was one of the first psychologists to apply psychology to advertising, management, and personnel selection. They are the first books to describe the use of psychology in the business world. In addition to their academic positions, these researchers also worked directly for businesses as consultants. When the United States entered World War I in April , the work of psychologists working in this discipline expanded to include their contributions to military efforts.

Today the APA performs a number of functions including holding conferences, accrediting university degree programs, and publishing scientific journals. They developed the Army Alpha test to measure mental abilities. The Army Beta test was a non-verbal form of the test that was administered to illiterate and non-English-speaking draftees. After the war, work on personnel selection continued. This long-term project took industrial psychology beyond just employee selection and placement to a study of more complex problems of interpersonal relations, motivation, and organizational dynamics.

These studies mark the origin of organizational psychology. They began as research into the effects of the physical work environment e. These studies also examined how human interaction factors, such as supervisorial style, increased or decreased productivity.

Analysis of the findings by later researchers led to the term the Hawthorne effect , which describes the increase in performance of individuals who are aware they are being observed by researchers or supervisors Figure What the original researchers found was that any change in a variable, such as lighting levels, led to an improvement in productivity; this was true even when the change was negative, such as a return to poor lighting.

The Hawthorne-effect concept endures today as an important experimental consideration in many fields and a factor that has to be controlled for in an experiment. In other words, an experimental treatment of some kind may produce an effect simply because it involves greater attention of the researchers on the participants McCarney et al.

Watch this video of first-hand accounts of the original Hawthorne studies to learn more. Lewin is considered the founder of social psychology and much of his work and that of his students produced results that had important influences in organizational psychology. Lewin was also responsible for coining the term group dynamics , and he was involved in studies of group interactions, cooperation, competition, and communication that bear on organizational psychology.

Parallel to these studies in industrial and organizational psychology, the field of human factors psychology was also developing. Frederick Taylor was an engineer who saw that if one could redesign the workplace there would be an increase in both output for the company and wages for the workers. In he put forward his theory in a book titled, The Principles of Scientific Management Figure His book examines management theories, personnel selection and training, as well as the work itself, using time and motion studies.

Taylor argued that the principle goal of management should be to make the most money for the employer, along with the best outcome for the employee. He believed that the best outcome for the employee and management would be achieved through training and development so that each employee could provide the best work.

He believed that by conducting time and motion studies for both the organization and the employee, the best interests of both were addressed. Create a personalised content profile. Measure ad performance. Select basic ads. Create a personalised ads profile. Select personalised ads. Apply market research to generate audience insights. Measure content performance. Develop and improve products. List of Partners vendors. Industrial-organizational psychology is the branch of psychology that applies psychological theories and principles to organizations.

Often referred to as I-O psychology, this field focuses on increasing workplace productivity and related issues such as the physical and mental well-being of employees. Industrial-organizational psychologists perform a wide variety of tasks, including studying worker attitudes and behavior, evaluating companies, and conducting leadership training. The overall goal of this field is to study and understand human behavior in the workplace. You can think of industrial-organizational psychology as having two major sides.

First, there is the industrial side, which involves looking at how to best match individuals to specific job roles. This segment of I-O psychology is also sometimes referred to as personnel psychology.

People who work in this area might assess employee characteristics and then match these individuals to jobs in which they are likely to perform well.

Other functions that fall on the industrial side of I-O psychology include training employees, developing job performance standards, and measuring job performance.

The organizational side of psychology is more focused on understanding how organizations affect individual behavior. Organizational structures, social norms, management styles, and role expectations are all factors that can influence how people behave within an organization. By understanding such factors, I-O psychologists hope to improve individual performance and health while at the same time benefiting the organization as a whole. While industrial-organizational psychology is an applied field, basic theoretical research is also essential.

With roots in experimental psychology, I-O psychology has a number of different sub-areas such as human-computer interaction, personnel psychology, and human factors.