por What is organizational psychology?
The organizational psychologyPsychology, also known as industrial or work psychology, is an applied branch derived from the study of human behavior. This discipline is responsible for understanding all the psychological and behavioral factors in the field of work, and applies theories drawn from psychology in general to different topics related to companies and organizations.
Organizational psychology experts use the scientific method to investigate the different factors that impact the work and personal lives of workers. Thus, among other things, they investigate topics such as motivation, productivity, job satisfaction, safety at work, and the physical and mental health of employees.
The objective of organizational psychology is both to understand the factors that influence all these aspects of the field of work, and to design interventions that allow them to be improved based on the data collected. It is common for experts in this field to develop techniques and processes related to phenomena such as recruitment, training, leadership and team management.
history of the organizational psychology
early years
Although organizational psychology as a recognized discipline would emerge much later, at the end of the 19th century some of its practices already began to appear in countries such as the United States, the United Kingdom, the Netherlands, and Germany. From this moment it began to develop relatively quickly.
In the 1980s, two of the students of the first psychology laboratory in history, Hugo Münsterberg and James Cattell, began to carry out the first investigations relating psychology and work. For example, Cattell studied the impact of individual differences on behavior in the workplace.
In the United States, Walter Dill Scott was one of the main promoters of organizational psychology during its early stages. This president of the American Psychological Association (APA) worked at the Carnegie Institute of Technology, where he developed methods for recruiting and training sales workers along with other colleagues.
Later, during the First World War, organizational psychology had a great development due to the need to recruit new soldiers quickly and assign them to the positions that best fit their personality. Thus, in the first decade of the 20th century, different intelligence and aptitude tests were developed to be used for the selection of personnel in the army.
One of the most famous tests developed at this time was the Army Alphacreated from those used by Binet and Stanford.
after the war
After World War I the United States experienced strong economic and industrial growth. Due to the great success that aptitude tests had had in recruiting new soldiers, many employers wanted similar tools to select their own workers.
In addition to this, some researchers began to study which aspects of work and the place where it was carried out had the greatest influence on the behavior of workers and their performance. At this time, research was carried out on individual differences, rest periods, informal relationships between employees and their morale.
During this time the American Psychological Association created a section called the «Division of Business and Industrial Psychology.» After undergoing several name changes, in 1982 it became a much more independent body from the APA, renamed the Society for Industrial and Organizational Psychology.
This name change reflects the changing perspective of psychologists involved in this area. Although at first they were only concerned with the efficiency of factory workers, today their scope of work is much broader and is more related to the feeling of belonging to a company and the group dynamics that occur within it. from the same.
Currently, organizational psychology has adopted a much more personalized and humanistic approach, concerned with the well-being of workers and their specific needs. Today this discipline is present in practically all companies in developed countries.
What does organizational psychology study? object of study
The main aspects that this branch of psychology studies about organizations are structure, climate, culture, social systems and organizational processes.
At a general level, organizational psychology is the discipline in charge of understanding all the factors that affect the performance of companies and their workers in their professional work. At the same time, professionals in this field have to design effective interventions that improve results and increase the well-being of all the people involved.
Thus, for example, an organizational psychologist could carry out a study on the individual needs of a person with the intention of guiding them at the work level and recommending a specific job position; but she could also dedicate herself to the selection of personnel for a professional opportunity, or to the training and training of workers in a specific skill.
In any case, the psychology of organizations is a predominantly practical discipline. Contrary to what happens in other areas of the study of human behavior, in this sector most research is carried out with the intention of immediately using it in the real world.
Goals
The main objectives of organizational psychology can be summarized in two main aspects:
On the one hand, this applied science is used to improve work performance and productivity, examining the functioning of the organization and detecting the areas to intervene.
On the other hand, organizational psychology is used to increase and enhance the personal development of workers and improve their quality of life in the workplace.
Definition of organizational psychology according to different authors
Many authors have proposed different definitions of the concept of organizational psychology. In order to review the particularities of this branch of psychology, the most important ones are discussed below.
–Spector
In 2002, Spector defined the concept of organizational and/or industrial psychology as «a small field of applied psychology that is concerned with the development and applications of scientific principles in the workplace.»
–Andy and Conte
Three years later, Andy and Conte revised Spector’s conceptualization and reformulated the term organizational psychology as «the application of psychology, theory, and research to the workplace.»
– Blum and Neylor
These authors were one of the pioneers in establishing the concept of organizational psychology and defined it as «the application or extension of psychological facts and principles to problems that concern human beings working within the context of business and industry.»
–Furnham
According to Furnham, organizational psychology is «the study of how people are recruited, selected, and socialized in organizations.»
Areas of organizational psychology
At present, organizational psychology comprises a very broad spectrum of study topics; but some of its most important figures have attempted to divide the issues it deals with into several easily distinguished categories. Next we will see one of the most accepted classifications.
– Staff pick
Personnel selection is probably the most common area within the psychology of organizations. Experts in this area research the requirements that the ideal candidate for a job must meet. Once you know them, they will be in charge of selecting the workers with the most potential for the specific position.
Among the most used tools within the selection of personnel we find questions, surveys, tests and live tests to know as deeply as possible the capabilities of the candidates.
– Training and development
Organizational psychologists specialized in this area are in charge of determining which skills are most important to achieve good results in a specific discipline. Once they have done their research, they prepare training programs to help employees meet the requirements expected of them.
Once the training programs have been implemented, organizational development psychologists have to evaluate the results achieved by employees through different types of tests and tests. The objective of this is to be able to design better interventions in the future, in such a way that higher quality results are obtained each time.
– Performance management
The organizational psychologists in charge of this area have as main objective to carry out investigations to verify if the employees are reaching their maximum potential and carrying out their work correctly.
On the other hand, experts in this discipline also develop interventions that improve performance in this regard if necessary.
– Ergonomics
Although it has not always been considered as a field of organizational psychology, ergonomics plays a very important role in the well-being of workers. It is about the study of physical spaces and their impact on the performance, emotions and motivation of employees.
– Laboral life
This branch of organizational psychology seeks to help employees achieve the maximum possible satisfaction in their work while increasing their job performance. To achieve this, experts in this area design interventions to improve the quality of life in the work environment, and try to make the task itself more rewarding.
– Organizational development
The last area in which experts in organizational psychology can work is in the design of interventions to improve the results of a company, both economically and in terms of performance and productivity.
Among the tasks carried out by experts in this area are some such as product redesign, study and improvement of the organizational structure, market research or direct intervention on certain areas of the company that are not working as they should. .
Techniques and instruments used
Organizational psychology focuses all its efforts on investigating the most common problems within the workplace and solving them as far as possible. For this they use all kinds of tools derived from psychology in general,…