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I/O Psychology

-I/O psychology is the psychology applied to work
-The behavior of an individual in the work place
-Motivation to work and feelings about work
Psychology- scientific study of the behavior of people
-I/O is made up of two parts:
1) Research methodology used to discover things about work
2) Put them into work; apply
-Three major sub fields: personnel, organizational and human factors/ergonomics
1) Personnel Psychology – deals with the selection of personnel
-Performance appraisal, job analysis (backbone of I/O psychology)
-Training: understanding the job well enough to know who to hire and how well they are doing.
-Job attitudes: whether or not the employees are satisfied and committed.
2) Organizational Psychology
-Deals with leadership and work motivation
-Divide into teams and see how the group affects individuals.
3) Human Factors/ Ergonomics Psychology
-Human Ergonomics- study of the work place fitting the human
-studies the workplace and job designs, the safety and the usability of equipment.
-Where do I/O psychologists work?
-Academia (scientists) doing research and teaching
-Production such as a teacher producing knowledge
-Researchers publish projects in journals
-Important to get research seen by the people who it would benefit.
-Industry (practitioners)
-Government is the largest employer
-Office of personnel management is staffed with I/O psychologists to determine who to hire.
-The military, consulting firms (go to clients) and in-house consultants are employers.
-Salary: for PhD I/O psychologist $40-$50k a yr; Industry Master or PhD $35-65k a yr; PhD for higher level makes $50-$80k a yr.
HISTORY
1900-1917 (about 10 I/O psychologists in the U.S.)
-Topics of interest in psychology:
1) Skill acquisition – how do people learn to be quick and efficient at their job
2) Personnel selection- what might individual indifferences mean when it comes time to hiring people...