Industrial and organizational psychology

Industrial and organizational psychology studies human behavior in relation to work and work-related concerns such as organization and productivity. It is a branch of psychology that is both practical and academic (Schreuder & Coetzee, 2010). When investigating human behavior at work, I/O practitioners are guided by factors that are not limited to the workplace boundaries, such as family duties, cultural influences, and traumatic events. Deeply ingrained individual problems are a major source of worry for I/O psychologists (Barkhuizen, Jorgensen & Brink, 2014). The scientific study of working and applying the science so learned to issues facing individuals, teams, and organizations in the workplace is what explains industrial/organizational psychology.

Industrial/organizational psychologists act as both researchers and practitioners. I/O psychologists provide assistance and support to workers in the workplace. Workplace behavior gets influenced by many factors which do not originate from the work setting. Incidents that are traumatic and personal problems can interfere with employees’ performance at work and hence the needs for I/O practitioners to counsel and help the people at work in dealing with these issues. When looking into these matters psychology does consider not only the employees but also their working conditions. Industrial-Organizational psychologists act as advisors to respond to problems and issues at the workplace (Barkhuizen, Jorgensen & Brink, 2014).

According to Barkhuizen, Jorgensen & Brink (2014), to perform their role as advisors, I/O psychologists have to act as scientific researchers. To understand human behavior at work, productivity, and organizations and come up with working solutions, the practitioners have to carry out extensive research. The investigation enables them to come up with principles of human behavior as well as doctrines group and organizational behavior. The extensive knowledge and the clear understanding of actions of people then get applied to individuals, groups and the organization as a whole to improve efficiency. The improved effectiveness consequently improves the lives and psychological well-being levels of people and agencies.

I/O psychologists can either act as consultants to organizations while others work in-house to resolve issues as they arise. In addition to providing advisory services, the analysts may be hired by organizations to motivate the workers, assess the performance of jobs, implement change in the institution or assist in the interviews to ensure that hiring is legally done. Some I/O psychologists especially those who teach at universities also continuously carry out research and contribute to the publication of articles. The findings of these researchers are used in coming up with solutions at the workplace to ensure the functioning of private and government agencies, as well as universities, is improved.

Schreuder & Coetzee, (2010) argue that workplace and careers are always changing and hence research into the effects brought about by the changes is necessary. Most of these workplace changes are a result of constantly changing technology which drives the economy. The new technologies bring about an increase in mental and emotional demands. The people’s subjective experiences of their work are negatively affected by these requirements and thus the need for research to determine ways of dealing with the strains.

When carrying our scientific research in the field of industrial/organizational psychology people in their everyday environments are the participants. For this reason, therefore, ethical considerations should be the basis of the research. When carrying out the research, the personal space, time and personal lives of participants should not get intruded by the person conducting the investigation (Barkhuizen, Jorgensen & Brink, 2014). People deserve to be treated with dignity and hence the research should ensure that the peoples’ privacy, freedom, autonomy, and self-expression are respected. If that the participants in the study want to maintain anonymity and confidentiality in the reporting of the research findings it should be adhered to by the researchers.

Another issue arises in the way the collected data gets interpreted. The data should be analyzed in such a way that there are no misinterpretations, misstatements of analysis that is fraudulent. To ensure this the principle of justice should be used in the interpretation. The policy requires that there is avoidance of abuse and exploitation of participants (Barkhuizen, Jorgensen & Brink, 2014). When information has inappropriately been interpreted some variables that are important are left out leading to unclear and wrong conclusions. Misinterpretations occur due to the researchers having foreknowledge of the people participating leading to biases. For this reason, all the biases that could lead to wrong interpretations need to get avoided.

Once data has been collected during the research it needs to be summarized and analyzed in such a way that the results are trustworthy and reliable. The statistical procedures used by psychologists are categorized as either descriptive or inferential statistics. These methods represent the data so collected numerically for easy interpretation. Researchers deal with a lot of data which they collect. To summarize the descriptive data statistics are used. In descriptive statistics, the entire the data gathered is used to obtain the measures of central tendency (which are the mean, median and mode of the received data) and measures of variability (that is, the standard deviation of the date). Descriptive statistics clarify information that is already known and summarize, and hence the analysis can’t be used to predict behavior.

Inferential statics, on the other hand, is used by psychologists to draw conclusions and inferences from the research data. It provides ways of establishing how reliable are the findings of a particular study. Founding the reliability entails the use of a small group of the participants as opposed to descriptive which uses all the data collected. Correlation coefficient and variance analysis are the most widely used inferential statistics. Inferential statics are used predicting future expected behaviors and hence used by I/O psychologists to know what to expect from the people they are dealing with in the future.

Conclusion

The business environment is always changing, and the changes bring with them new demands and challenges. I/O psychologists are, therefore, required by the organizations to solve these issues. In dealing with concerns finding from previous researchers are used by the practitioners. Sometimes these prior findings may not have absolute knowledge due to the changes taking place. For the field to remain relevant research has to be done regularly to predict behavior and solve the problems that may arise for positive outcomes. When the research base that predicts is better, the organization becomes more confident it the given expected result. Industrial-Organizational psychologists’ should have willingness and capacity to bridge the rift that exists between science and practice by carrying out research that adopts new perspectives to deal with real-world problems and needs of the business society.

References

Barkhuizen, H., Jorgensen, L., & Brink, L. (2014). Exploring the role of the industrial-organizational psychologist as counsellor. SA Journal Of Industrial Psychology, 40(1). http://dx.doi.org/10.4102/sajip.v40i1.1193

Byrne, Z., Hayes, T., Mort McPhail, S., Hakel, M., Cortina, J., & McHenry, J. (2014). Educating Industrial–Organizational Psychologists for Science and Practice: Where Do We Go From Here?. Industrial And Organizational Psychology, 7(01), 2-14. http://dx.doi.org/10.1111/iops.12095

Heffner, C. (2017). Chapter 8.1: Descriptive Statistics | AllPsych. Allpsych.com. Retrieved 22 September 2017, from https://allpsych.com/researchmethods/descriptivestatistics/

Kerry, (2017). An Introduction to Industrial/Organizational Psychology. Location. Retrieved 22 September 2017, from https://owlcation.com/social-sciences/An-Introduction-to-IndustrialOrganizational-Psychology

Schreuder, D., & Coetzee, M. (2010). An overview of industrial and organizational psychology research in South Africa: A preliminary study. SA Journal Of Industrial Psychology, 36(1). http://dx.doi.org/10.4102/sajip.v36i1.903