Industrial/Organizational Psychology:

An Applied Approach, 9e 9th Edition

Michael G. Aamodt
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 Michael G. Aamodt

Industrial/Organizational
Psychology An Applied Approach

9e
Australia Brazil Canada Mexico Singapore United Kingdom United States
 Industrial/Organizational Psychology:
An Applied Approach, Ninth Edition
Michael G. Aamodt
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This edition is dedicated to my mother-in-law, Joanne
Hicks, who continues to demonstrate a kind spirit in
spite of the complexities of getting a little older.
Brief Contents

Chapter 1
Introduction to I/O Psychology 1
Chapter 2
Job Analysis and Evaluation 35
Chapter 3
Legal Issues in Employee Selection 77
Chapter 4
Employee Selection: Recruiting and Interviewing 117
Chapter 5
Employee Selection: References and Testing 151
Chapter 6
Evaluating Selection Techniques and Decisions 195
Chapter 7
Evaluating Employee Performance 227
Chapter 8
Designing and Evaluating Training Systems 277
Chapter 9
Employee Motivation 315
Chapter 10
Employee Satisfaction and Commitment 351
Chapter 11
Organizational Communication 387
Chapter 12
Leadership 421
Chapter 13
Group Behavior, Teams, and Conflict 455

iv
Chapter 14
Organization Development 495
Chapter 15
Stress Management: Dealing with the Demands of Life and Work 533
Appendix
Working Conditions and Human Factors 575

Glossary 582
References 602
Name Index 648
Subject Index 660

Brief Contents v
Contents

Preface xv

Chapter 1 Introduction to I/O Psychology 1

1-1 The Field of I/O Psychology 2
Differences Between I/O and Business Programs 2
Major Fields of I/O Psychology 3
Brief History of I/O Psychology 4
Employment of I/O Psychologists 10
Educational Requirements and Types of Programs 11
Considerations in Conducting Research 14
1-3 Ethics in Industrial/Organizational
Psychology 30
On the Job: Applied Case Study: Conducting
Research at the Vancouver (British Columbia)
International Airport Authority, Canada 31

Career Workshop: Getting into Graduate School 12 Chapter Summary 32

1-2 Research in I/O Psychology 13 Key Terms 32

Why Conduct Research? 13 Questions for Review 33

Chapter 2 Job Analysis and Evaluation 35

2-1 Job Analysis 36 Determining Sex, Race, and Ethnicity Equity 70
Importance of Job Analysis 36 Career Workshop: Negotiating Salary 72
Writing a Good Job Description 38
On the Job: Applied Case Study: National Board of
Preparing for a Job Analysis 41 Veterinary Medical Examiners 73
Conducting a Job Analysis 48
Focus on Ethics: Compensating CEOs and
Using Other Job Analysis Methods 55 Executives 74
Evaluation of Methods 64
Chapter Summary 74
2.2 Job Evaluation 66
Key Terms 75
Determining Internal Pay Equity 66
Questions for Review 75
Determining External Pay Equity 68

Chapter 3 Legal Issues in Employee Selection  77

3-1 The Legal Process 78
Resolving the Complaint Internally 78
Career Workshop: What to Do If You Feel You Are
Being Discriminated Against at Work 79
Filing a Discrimination Charge 79
Outcomes of an EEOC Investigation 80
3-2 Determining Whether an Employment
Decision Is Legal 82
Does the Employment Practice Directly Refer to a
Member of a Federally Protected Class? 82

vi
 Is the Requirement a BFOQ? 92 Unintended Consequences of Affirmative Action
Has Case Law, State Law, or Local Law Expanded the Plans 108
Definition of Any of the Protected Classes? 93 3-6 Privacy Issues 109
Does the Requirement Have Adverse Impact on Members Drug Testing 109
of a Protected Class? 94
Office and Locker Searches 110
Was the Requirement Designed to Intentionally
Psychological Tests 110
Discriminate Against a Protected Class? 95
Electronic Surveillance 111
Can the Employer Prove That the Requirement Is Job
Related? 96 Chapter Summary 112
Did the Employer Look for Reasonable Alternatives That Key Terms 112
Would Result in Lesser Adverse Impact? 98
Questions for Review 112
3-3 Harassment 98
Appendix: Canadian Employment
Types of Harassment 98
Law by Province 113
Organizational Liability for Sexual Harassment 100
On the Job: Applied Case Study: Keystone RV
3-4 Family Medical Leave Act 101 Company, Goshen, Indiana 114
3-5 Affirmative Action 102 Focus on Ethics: The Ethics Behind Workplace
Reasons for Affirmative Action Plans 102 Privacy 114
Affirmative Action Strategies 103
Legality of Preferential Hiring and Promotion Plans 104

Chapter 4 Employee Selection: Recruiting and Interviewing  117

4-1 Employee Recruitment 118 4-4 Employment Interviews 133
Media Advertisements 119 Types of Interviews 133
Point-of-Purchase Methods 120 Advantages of Structured Interviews 134
Career Workshop: How to Be Successful at a Job Problems with Unstructured Interviews 135
Fair 121 Creating a Structured Interview 138
Recruiters 122 Conducting the Structured Interview 141
Employment Agencies and Search Firms 122 4-5 Job Search Skills 142
Employee Referrals 123 Successfully Surviving the Interview Process 142
Direct Mail 125 Writing Cover Letters 143
Internet 125 Writing a Résumé 146
Job Fairs 127
On the Job: Applied Case Study: Recruitment at the
Special Recruit Populations 128 Borgata Hotel Casino and Spa 148
Nontraditional Sources 128
Focus on Ethics: The Ethics of Recruiting and Hiring
Recruiting “Passive” Applicants 129 Based on Physical Appearance 148
Evaluating the Effectiveness of Recruitment
Chapter Summary 149
Strategies 129
Key Terms 150
4-2 Realistic Job Previews 131
Questions for Review 150
4-3 Effective Employee Selection
Techniques 132

Contents vii
Chapter 5 Employee Selection: References and Testing  151
5-1 Predicting Performance Using References Personality Inventories 177
and Letters of Recommendation 152 Interest Inventories 180
Reasons for Using References and Integrity Tests 181
Recommendations 152
Conditional Reasoning Tests 182
Career Workshop: Asking for Letters of Credit History 183
Recommendation 153
Criminal History 184
Ethical Issues 160
Graphology 184
5-2 Predicting Performance Using Applicant
5-8 Predicting Performance Limitations
Training and Education 160
Due to Medical and Psychological
5-3 Predicting Performance Using Applicant Problems 185
Knowledge 161 Drug Testing 185
5-4 Predicting Performance Using Applicant Psychological Exams 187
Ability 161 Medical Exams 187
Cognitive Ability 162
5-9 Comparison of Techniques 187
Perceptual Ability 163
Validity 187
Psychomotor Ability 166
Legal Issues 190
Physical Ability 166
5-10 Rejecting Applicants 191
5-5 Predicting Performance Using Applicant
Skill 169 On the Job: Applied Case Study: City of New
London, Connecticut, Police Department 192
5-6 Predicting Performance Using Prior
Experience 172 Focus on Ethics: The Ethics of Tests of Normal
Personality in Employee Selection 193
Experience Ratings 172
Biodata 173 Chapter Summary 193

5-7 Predicting Performance Using Key Terms 194

Personality, Interest, and Character 177 Questions for Review 194

Chapter 6 Evaluating Selection Techniques and Decisions  195

6-1 Characteristics of Effective Selection Lawshe Tables 213
Techniques 196 Expectancy Charts 213
Reliability 196 Brogden-Cronbach-Gleser Utility Formula 213
Validity 201
6-3 Determining the Fairness of a Test 217
Career Workshop: Evaluating Tests 202 Measurement Bias 217
Cost-Efficiency 207 Predictive Bias 218
6-2 Establishing the Usefulness of a Selection 6-4 Making the Hiring Decision 219
Device 208
Unadjusted Top-Down Selection 219
Taylor-Russell Tables 208
Rule of Three 220
Proportion of Correct Decisions 209

viii Contents
 Passing Scores 220 Focus on Ethics: Diversity Efforts 225
Banding 223 Chapter Summary 225
On the Job: Applied Case Study: Thomas A. Edison’s Key Terms 226
Employment Test 224
Questions for Review 226

Chapter 7 Evaluating Employee Performance  227

7-1 Determine the Reason for Evaluating 7-8 Communicate Appraisal Results to
Employee Performance 228 Employees 260
Providing Employee Training and Feedback 229 Prior to the Interview 261
Determining Salary Increases 229 During the Interview 262
Making Promotion Decisions 229 7-9 Terminate Employees 263
Making Termination Decisions 230
Career Workshop: Getting Good Performance
Conducting Organizational Research 230 Ratings 263
7-2 Identify Environmental and Cultural Employment-at-Will Doctrine 264
Limitations 230
Legal Reasons for Terminating Employees 265
7-3 Determine Who Will Evaluate The Termination Meeting 267
Performance 231
7-10 Monitor the Legality and Fairness of the
Supervisors 231
Appraisal System 268
Peers 232
On the Job: Applied Case Study: Firing an Employee
Subordinates 232
at Kohl’s Department Store 268
Customers 233
Focus on Ethics: The Ethics of the At-Will
Self-Appraisal 234
Doctrine 269
7-4 Select the Best Appraisal Methods to
Chapter Summary 269
Accomplish Your Goals 235
Decision 1: Focus of the Appraisal Dimensions 235 Key Terms 270
Decision 2: Should Dimensions Be Weighted? 237 Questions for Review 270
Decision 3: Use of Employee Comparisons, Objective Appendix: Additional Types of Rating Scales 271
Measures, or Ratings 237
Behaviorally Anchored Rating Scales 271
Evaluation of Performance Appraisal Methods 246
Creating BARS 271
7-5 Train Raters 250
Using BARS 272
7-6 Observe and Document
Forced-Choice Rating Scales 272
Performance 250
Creating a Forced-Choice Scale 273
7-7 Evaluate Performance 254
Mixed-Standard Scales 273
Obtaining and Reviewing Objective Data 254
Reading Critical-Incident Logs 254 Behavioral Observation Scales 274
Completing the Rating Form 254

Contents ix
Chapter 8 Designing and Evaluating Training Systems  277
8-1 Determining Training Needs 278 Interest 302
Organizational Analysis 278 Feedback 302
Task Analysis 280 8-6 Ensuring Transfer of Training 303
Person Analysis 280 Use Realistic Training Programs 303
8-2 Establishing Goals and Objectives 283 Have Opportunities to Practice Work-Related Behavior
During the Training 304
8-3 Choosing the Best Training Method 283
Provide Employees with the Opportunity to Apply Their
Using Lectures to Provide Knowledge 284
Training 304
Using Case Studies to Apply Knowledge 285
Ensure Management Is Supportive of the
Using Simulation Exercises to Practice New Training 305
Skills 286
Have Employees Set Goals 305
Practicing Interpersonal Skills Through
Role-Play 287 8-7 Putting It All Together 305
Increasing Interpersonal Skills Through Behavior 8-8 Evaluation of Training Results 307
Modeling 288 Research Designs for Evaluation 307
8-4 Delivering the Training Program 289 Evaluation Criteria 309
Conducting Classroom Training 290 On the Job: Applied Case Study: Training at Pal’s
Career Workshop: Audience Etiquette 293 Sudden Service 312
Conducting Training Through Virtual Learning 294 Focus on Ethics: The Ethics of Using Role-Play in
Conducting On-the-Job Training 297 Employee Trainings 313

8-5 Motivating Employees to Learn During Chapter Summary 313

Training 301 Key Terms 314
Providing Incentives for Learning 301
Questions for Review 314

Chapter 9 Employee Motivation  315

9-1 Is an Employee Predisposed to Being 9-4 Needs for Competency, Autonomy, and
Motivated? 317 Relatedness 328
Personality 317 Drives to Acquire, Bond, Learn, and Defend 328
Self-Esteem 317 9-5 Do Employees Have Achievable
Intrinsic Motivation 320 Goals? 329
9-2 Are Employees Effectively Involved in Specific 329
Self-Regulating Behavior? 321 Measurable 330
9-3 Have the Employee’s Values and Difficult but Attainable 330
Expectations Been Met? 322 Relevant 330
Job Expectations 322 Time-Bound 331
Job Characteristics 323 Employee Participation 331
Needs, Values, and Wants 324 9-6 Are Employees Receiving Feedback on
Needs for Achievement, Affiliation, and Power 328 Their Goal Progress? 331

x Contents
 9-7 Are Employees Rewarded for Achieving 9-9 Are Other Employees Motivated? 345
Goals? 331
9-10 Integration of Motivation
Career Workshop: Providing Feedback 332 Theories 346
Timing of the Incentive 333 On the Job: Applied Case Study: Faster Service at
Contingency of Consequences 333 Taco Bueno Restaurants 347
Type of Incentive Used 334 Focus on Ethics: Ethics of Motivation
Individual Versus Group Incentives 337 Strategies 348
Expectancy Theory 341 Chapter Summary 349
Reward Versus Punishment 343
Key Terms 349
9-8 Are Rewards and Resources Given
Questions for Review 350
Equitably? 343

Chapter 10 Employee Satisfaction and Commitment  351

10-1 Why Should We Care About Employee Commonly Used Standard Inventories 369
Attitudes? 352
Career Workshop: What to Do If You Are Unhappy
10-2 What Causes Employees to Be Satisfied with Your Job 369
with and Committed to Their Jobs? 354 Custom-Designed Inventories 373
What Individual Differences Affect Job
10-4 Consequences of Dissatisfaction and
Satisfaction? 354
Other Negative Work Attitudes 373
Are Employees Satisfied with Other Aspects of Their
Absenteeism 373
Lives? 357
Turnover 379
Are Employees’ Job Expectations Being Met? 359
Counterproductive Behaviors 382
Is the Employee a Good Fit with the Job and the
Organization? 360 Lack of Organizational Citizenship Behaviors 383
Are the Tasks Enjoyable? 360 On the Job: Applied Case Study: Reducing Turnover
Do Employees Enjoy Working with Supervisors and at Bubba Gump Shrimp Co. 383
Coworkers? 361 Focus on Ethics: Ethics and Organizational
Are Coworkers Outwardly Unhappy? 361 Commitment 384
Are Rewards and Resources Given Equitably? 362 Chapter Summary 384
Is There a Chance for Growth and Challenge? 364
Key Terms 385
Integration of Theories 366
Questions for Review 385
10-3 Measuring Job Satisfaction and
Commitment 368

Contents xi
Chapter 11 Organizational Communication  387
11-1 Types of Organizational 11-3 Improving Employee Communication
Communication 388 Skills 413
Upward Communication 388 Interpersonal Communication Skills 414
Downward Communication 391 Written Communication Skills 414
Business Communication 393 On the Job: Applied Case Study: Reducing Order
Career Workshop: Video Conferencing Errors at Hardee’s and McDonald’s 417
Etiquette 394 Focus on Ethics: Ethical Communication 417
Informal Communication 396
Chapter Summary 418
11-2 Interpersonal Communication 399
Key Terms 418
Problem Area 1: Intended Message Versus Message
Sent 399 Questions for Review 419
Problem Area 2: Message Sent Versus Message Media Resources and Learning Tools 419
Received 400
Problem Area 3: Message Received Versus Message
Interpreted 409

Chapter 12 Leadership  421

12-1 An Introduction to Leadership 422 Leadership Through Vision: Transformational
Leadership 442
12-2 Personal Characteristics Associated with
Leadership 422 Leadership Through Authenticity 444
Leader Emergence 422 12-5 Cultural Differences in Leadership:
Leader Performance 424 Project Globe 445

12-3 Interaction Between the Leader and the 12-6 Leadership: Where Are We Today? 447
Situation 430 Career Workshop: Obtaining Leadership
Situational Favorability 430 Skills 450
Organizational Climate 432 On the Job: Applied Case Study: Developing
Subordinate Ability 434 Leaders at Claim Jumper Restaurants 451
Relationships with Subordinates 436 Focus on Ethics: Ethics and Leadership 452
12-4 Specific Leader Skills 437 Chapter Summary 453
Leadership Through Decision-Making 440
Key Terms 453
Leadership Through Contact: Management by Walking
Around 440 Questions for Review 454
Leadership Through Power 440

xii Contents
Chapter 13 Group Behavior, Teams, and Conflict  455
13-1 Group Dynamics 456 Types of Teams 475
Definition of a Group 456 How Teams Develop 477
Reasons for Joining Groups 457 Why Teams Don’t Always Work 478
13-2 Factors Affecting Group 13-5 Group Conflict 480
Performance 460 Types of Conflict 481
Group Cohesiveness 460 Causes of Conflict 481
Group Ability and Confidence 464 Conflict Styles 484
Personality of the Group Members 465
Career Workshop: Tips for Being a Good Group
Communication Structure 465 Member 485
Group Roles 466 Resolving Conflict 488
Presence of Others: Social Facilitation and
On the Job: Applied Case Study: Conflict at
Inhibition 466
Work 491
Individual Dominance 470
Focus on Ethics: Group Hazing 491
Groupthink 470
Chapter Summary 492
13-3 Individual Versus Group
Performance 471 Key Terms 492
13-4 Teams 473 Questions for Review 493
What Is a Work Team? 473

Chapter 14 Organization Development  495

14-1 Managing Change 496 Strategy 3: Reducing Work Hours 520
Sacred Cow Hunts 496 Strategy 4: Working from Home 521
Employee Acceptance of Change 498 14-4 Downsizing 523
Implementing Change 501 Reducing the Impact of Downsizing 523
Organizational Culture 502 Effects of Downsizing 527
Career Workshop: Coping with Change 503 On the Job: Applied Case Study: Managing Change
14-2 Empowerment 507 at Carlson Restaurants 529
Making the Decision to Empower 507 Focus on Ethics: Change Management 529
Levels of Employee Input 510 Chapter Summary 530
Empowerment Charts 514
Key Terms 531
Consequences of Empowerment 515
Questions for Review 531
14-3 Flexible Work Arrangements 515
Media Resources and Learning Tools 531
Strategy 1: Full-Time Work, Flexible Hours 516
Strategy 2: Compressed Workweeks 518

Contents xiii
Chapter 15 Stress Management: Dealing with the Demands of Life and Work 533
15-1 Stress Defined 534
15-2 Predisposition to Stress 535
Stress Personalities 536
Gender, Ethnicity, and Race 536
Stress Sensitization 537
15-3 Sources of Stress 537
Personal Stressors 537
Occupational Stressors 539
Organizational Stressors 540
Stressors in the Physical Work Environment
Noise Reduction 544
Stress Caused by Work Schedules 550
Other Sources of Stress 553
15-4 Consequences of Stress 554
Personal Consequences 554
Organizational Consequences 555
15-5 Managing Stress 557
Planning for Stress 557
Appendix Working Conditions and Human Factors
Glossary 582
References 602
Name Index 648
Subject Index 660
xiv Contents
15-6 Stress Reduction Interventions Related
to Life/Work Issues 561
Easing the Child-Care Burden 561
Career Workshop: Dealing with Stress 563
Easing the Care of the Older Population Burden 565
Easing the Daily-Chore Burden 565
Providing Rest Through Paid Time Off 566
15-7 Measuring Stress 567
15-8 Workplace Violence 567
542 Perpetrators of Workplace Violence 570
Reducing Workplace Violence 570
On the Job: Applied Case Study: Reducing Stress at
a Manufacturing Company 572
Focus on Ethics: The Obligation to Reduce
Stress 573
Chapter Summary 574
Key Terms 574
Questions for Review 574
575
Preface

To Students
I can’t imagine a career better than industrial/organizational (I/O) psychology; it has
something for everyone. You can be a scientist, a detective, a lawyer, an adviser, a
statistician, an inventor, a writer, a teacher, a mentor, a trainer, a high-stakes gambler,
a motivator, a humanitarian, or an engineer—or all at the same time. In no other field
can you experience such challenging opportunities, earn an excellent salary, and derive
the satisfaction of bettering the lives of others.
I wrote this book because there was a strong need for a text that would appeal
directly to undergraduates without sacrificing scholarship. Our field is so exciting,
yet the existing texts do not reflect that excitement. This book contains many real-
world examples that illustrate important points; humor to make your reading more
enjoyable; and charts and tables that integrate and simplify such complicated issues as
employment law, job satisfaction, work motivation, and leadership.
In writing this book, I tried to strike a balance between research, theory, and
application. In addition to the fundamental theories and research in I/O psychology, you
will find such practical applications as how to write a résumé, survive an employment
interview, write a job description, create a performance appraisal instrument, and
motivate employees.

Student Friendly!
To make your reading easier, humor, stories, and real-world examples are used. The
text is written at a level designed to help you understand the material rather than at
a level designed to show off the author’s vocabulary. The feedback I have received
indicates that students actually enjoy reading this text!
To help you learn, innovative charts such as those found in Chapters 3, 8, 9, 10,
and 13 integrate the main points of the chapter. At the beginning of each chapter, a list
of learning objectives helps organize your thinking for what you are about to read. On
each page, key terms are defined in the margins. At the end of each chapter, a chapter
summary reminds you of the important points you learned, and critical thinking
questions test the depth of your new knowledge.
To help you apply the material to whatever career you choose, each chapter
contains a Career Workshop Box that provides tips on how to use the chapter
information to help your career, a case study of an actual situation experienced by a
real organization, and a Focus on Ethics Box that presents an ethical dilemma related
to the chapter material.

Two Books in One!

Your instructor has access to both a workbook containing applied exercises and a
statistics primer that they can distribute to students at no additional cost. Each chapter
comes with exercises to help you apply what you have learned. Thus, not only will you
read about I/O psychology, but you will also get the opportunity to experience it as well.

xv
 You will take psychological tests, conduct the critical incident technique, solve case
studies, analyze situations, prepare for an interview, and create a structured interview.

To Instructors
Instructor Resources
Additional instructor resources for this product are available online. Instructor assets
include an Instructor’s Manual, PowerPoint® slides, a test bank powered by Cognero®, a
workbook, and a Statistics Primer. Sign up or sign in at www.cengage.com to search
for and access this product and its online resources.

Instructor’s Manual
The instructor’s manual contains a variety of resources to aid instructors in preparing
and presenting text material in a manner that meets their personal preferences and
course needs. It presents chapter-by-chapter suggestions and resources to enhance and
facilitate learning.

PowerPoint® Slides
These vibrant Microsoft PowerPoint® lecture slides for each chapter assist you with
your lecture by providing concept coverage using content directly from the textbook.

Cengage Learning Testing, powered by Cognero®

Cognero is a flexible online system that allows you to author, edit, and manage test bank content
as well as create multiple test versions in an instant. You can deliver tests from your school’s
learning management system, your classroom, or wherever you want!

Workbook
This workbook contains exercises related to psychological tests, case studies, and
interviews.

Understanding Statistics Primer

This resource provides students with a brief guide to understanding the statistics they
encounter in journal articles, technical reports, and conference presentations.

New to This Edition

■■ More examples of diversity efforts spread throughout the text
■■ Enhanced discussion of the history of I/O psychology
■■ Revised discussion of conducting salary equity analyses
■■ Updates on changes in employment law
■■ Updated discussion on employee recruitment
■■ Enhanced discussion of considering an applicant’s criminal history
■■ New material on expectancy charts
■■ Increased discussion of virtual interviews, meetings, and communication
■■ New discussion of the four-drive theory of human nature
■■ Enhanced discussion of working at home
■■ Updated use of technology examples
■■ Updated references and examples in every chapter

xvi Preface
Acknowledgments
I am grateful to the excellent staff at Cengage Learning, including vendor project
manager Sheila Moran and associate product manager Cazzie Reyes. I am especially
grateful to Valarmathy Munuswamy of Lumina Datamatics for working so diligently and
patiently in getting the text through production. The quality of this edition was greatly
enhanced by the thoughtful responses of Jolene Goh who served as a subject matter
expert to ensure accuracy and provide additional examples.
I would like to thank the reviewers of previous editions, whose comments and
suggestions continue to make the text stronger: Sheree Barron, Georgia College and State
University; Elizabeth Boyd, Indiana University–Purdue University Indianapolis; Jay Brand,
Haworth Inc.; Robert Bubb, Auburn University; Linda Butzin, Owens Community College;
Maureen Conard, Sacred Heart University; George Cook, University of Rochester; Daniel
DeNeui, University of Southern Oregon; Jim Diefendorff, University of Akron; Elizabeth
Erffmeyer, Western Kentucky University; Armando Estrada, Washington State University;
Evan Finer, College of Lake County; Donald Fisher, Southwest Missouri State; Mary Fox,
University of Maryland; Mark Frame, University of Texas at Arlington; Alisha Francis,
Northwest Missouri State University; Dean Frost, Portland State University; William
Gaeddert, SUNY-Plattsburgh; David Gilmore, University of North Carolina at Charlotte;
Matthew Grawitch, St. Louis University; George Hampton, University of Houston; Paul
Hanges, University of Maryland; Kathy Hanish, Iowa State University; Donald Hantula,
Temple University; Steven Hurwitz, Tiffin University; Brian Johnson, University of Tennessee
at Martin; Scott Johnson, John Wood Community College; Harold Kiess, Framingham
State College; Jean Powell Kirnan, The College of New Jersey; Janet Kottke, California State
University at San Bernardino; Charles Lance, University of Georgia; Laurie Lankin, Mercer
University; Paul Lloyd, Southwest Missouri State University; Janine Miller Lund, Tarrant
County College; Alexandra Luong, University of Minnesota; James Mitchel, LIMRA
International; Paul Nail, Southwestern Oklahoma State University; Christopher Nave,
Rutgers University; Craig Parks, Washington State University; Charles Pierce, University
of Memphis; Marc Pratarelli, Colorado State University-Pueblo; Juan Sanchez, Florida
International University; Steven Scher, Eastern Illinois University; Ken Schultz, California
State University, San Bernardino; Eugene Sheehan, University of Northern Colorado;
William Siegfried, University of North Carolina at Charlotte; Sharmin Spencer, University
of Illinois; Ross Steinman, Widener University; Keith Syrja, Owens Community College;
Todd Thorsteinson, University of Idaho; and Tiffani Tribble, College of Mount Union.
I would also like to thank my family, friends, and students for accommodating my
time spent writing and for all their ideas and support. I appreciate my colleagues Eric
Dunleavy, Emilee Tison, Mark Nagy, Kayo Sady, Michael Surrette, and David Cohen, who
patiently allowed me to bounce ideas off them, vent, and ask dumb questions. Thanks
also to my SIOP, IPMA, IPAC, and SHRM colleagues for their insight and stories. There
is no way I can properly express my gratitude to my mentor, Dr. Wilson W. Kimbrough,
who taught me much more than facts and theories, and to Dr. Al Harris and Dr. Daniel
Johnson, who have been so supportive throughout my career.
Finally, I thank my wife, Bobbie, and son, Josh, for their love and emotional support.
Most of the time, writing a book is an enjoyable process. However, during the times I
was stressed or confused (an increasingly common occurrence), my family was always
patient and understanding. I could not have done this, or much of anything, without
them. I would also like to thank Bobbie for her contributions in helping write the stress
chapter, the section on organizational culture, several of the Career Workshop Boxes,
and all of the Focus on Ethics Boxes.
Michael G. Aamodt

Preface xvii
About the Author

Mike is a professor emeritus of industrial/organizational psychology at Radford

University in Radford, Virginia. In 2009, after 26 years of teaching at RU, Mike took
advantage of an early retirement option and joined DCI Consulting Group as a
principal consultant.
Mike received his B.A. in psychology from Pepperdine University in Malibu,
California, and both his M.A. and Ph.D. from the University of Arkansas. Over the
years, Mike has taught courses in employee selection, job analysis, compensation,
employee training and development, organizational psychology, organizational
influence, organizational politics, and forensic psychology. Mike has received teaching
awards as a graduate student at the University of Arkansas and as a professor at Radford
University. Mike is the recipient of the 2020 Stephen E. Bemis Memorial Award for
Excellence.
As a researcher, Mike has published over 65 journal articles and book chapters
and presented many papers at professional conferences. He is the author of Applied
Industrial/Organizational Psychology, now in its ninth edition, Research in Law
Enforcement Selection, I/O Psychology in Action, Understanding Statistics in I/O
Psychology, and Human Relations in Business. Mike is on the editorial boards of the
Journal of Police and Criminal Psychology and Criminal Justice and Behavior.
In over 35 years as a trainer and a consultant, Mike has helped a wide variety of
organizations deal with such issues as employee selection, performance evaluation,
down-sizing, organizational change, compensation, and motivation. He is considered
one of the nation’s experts in police psychology. Mike’s fast-paced and humorous
presentation style makes him a frequently requested speaker throughout the region.
Mike is an active member in many organizations, including SIOP, SHRM, IPAC,
and the Society for Police and Criminal Psychology.
In his spare time, Mike likes to make lame attempts at being athletic, cook what at
times turn out to be edible meals, travel, and scuba dive. He lives in Pulaski, Virginia,
with his wife, Bobbie. Mike and Bobbie have a son, Josh, who is an attorney in northern
Virginia, but they continue to love him anyway.

xviii
Chapter

1 Introduction to I/O
Psychology
Learning Objectives
1-1 Define I/O psychology. ­1-5 Explain the importance of conducting research.
1-2 Describe what I/O psychologists do. ­1-6 Describe how to evaluate I/O psychology
­1-3 Summarize the history of I/O psychology. research.
­1-4 List the admissions requirements for graduate ­1-7 Differentiate various research methods.
programs in I/O psychology.

1-1 The Field of I/O
Psychology 2
Differences Between I/O and
Business Programs 2
Major Fields of I/O
Psychology 3
Brief History of I/O
Psychology 4
Employment of I/O
Psychologists 10
Educational Requirements and 1-3 Ethics in Industrial
Types of Programs 11 /Organizational Psychology 30
Career Workshop: Getting into On The Job: Applied Case
Graduate School 12 Study 31
1-2 Research in I/O Psychology 13
Why Conduct Research? 13
Considerations in Conducting
Research 14

W
ouldn’t it be wonderful if all employees loved their jobs so much that they
couldn’t wait to get to work and were so well suited and trained that their
performances were outstanding? Well, this is the ultimate goal of industrial
psychology. Unfortunately, not every employee will enjoy their job, and not every
employee will do well on a job. In this book, you will learn the techniques developed by
industrial/organizational (I/O) psychologists that lead toward the goal of a happy and
productive workforce.
Before we can talk about these techniques, several areas must be discussed so that
you will have the basics to help you better understand the rest of the book. This chapter
has two distinct sections. The first section provides a brief overview of the field of I/O
psychology; the second section discusses the research methods that will be mentioned
throughout the text.

1
1-1 The Field of I/O Psychology
Industrial/organizational
psychology A branch
of psychology that
applies the principles
of psychology to the
workplace.
Scientist-practitioner
model A teaching
model in which students
are trained first to be
scientists and second
to be able to apply the
science of their field to
find solutions to real-
world problems.
2 Chapter 1
Differences Between I/O and Business Programs
Perhaps the best place to begin a textbook on I/O psychology is to look at the field
itself. Industrial/organizational psychology is a branch of psychology that applies
the principles of psychology to the workplace. The purpose of I/O psychology is “to
enhance the dignity and performance of human beings, and the organizations they
work in, by advancing the science and knowledge of human behavior” (Rucci, 2008).
For example, principles of learning are used to develop training programs and
incentive plans, principles of social psychology are used to form work groups and
understand employee conflict. Principles of motivation and emotion are used to
motivate and satisfy employees. The application of psychological principles is what
best distinguishes I/O psychology from related fields typically taught in business
colleges. Although many of the topics covered in this text are like those found in a
human resource management (HRM) or organizational behavior text, the main
difference between I/O psychology and business fields is that I/O psychology examines
factors that affect the people in an organization, as opposed to the broader aspects of
running an organization such as marketing channels, transportation networks, and
cost accounting (Kimbrough, Durley, & Muñoz, 2005). As you can tell from the typical
graduate courses listed in Table 1.1, business (MBA) programs examine such areas as
accounting, economics, and marketing, whereas I/O programs focus almost exclusively
on issues involving the people in an organization (Moberg & Moore, 2011).
I/O psychology relies extensively on research, quantitative methods, and testing
techniques. I/O psychologists are trained to use empirical data and statistics rather
than intuition to make decisions. I/O psychologists are not clinical psychologists who
happen to be in industry, and they do not conduct therapy for workers. There are
psychologists working for organizations and helping employees with such problems
as drug and alcohol misuse, but these are counselors rather than I/O psychologists.
A factor that helps differentiate I/O psychology from other branches of psychology
is the reliance on the scientist-practitioner model. That is, I/O psychologists act as
scientists when they conduct research and as practitioners when they work with actual
organizations. In addition, I/O psychologists act as scientist-practitioners when they
apply research findings so the work that they perform with organizations will be of
high quality and enhance an organization’s effectiveness.
One reason that I/O psychology continually increases in popularity is that, perhaps
more than in any other field, professionals in the field can have a positive impact on the
lives of other people. To support this last statement, let us examine a typical day in the
life of a typical person:
Work 8 hours
Commute to work 1 hour
Watch TV 3 hours
Sleep 8 hours
Prepare and eat meals 2 hours
Other 2 hours
With the possible exception of sleeping, people spend more time at their jobs
than at any other activity in life. (And sometimes these two activities overlap!) Thus, it
makes sense that people who are happy with and productive at their jobs will lead more
fulfilling lives than people unhappy with their jobs. If a person is unhappy at work for
 Table 1.1 Comparison of Commonly Required Courses in I/O Psychology
and MBA Programs

Program Type

Course I/O (%) MBA (%)

Research methods 90 6
Quantitative methods 82 50
Employee selection 80 0
Organizational psychology/behavior 80 48
Psychometrics/test construction 62 0
Training & development 60 2
Performance appraisal 38 2
Finance 0 94
Marketing 0 90
Corporate strategies and policies 4 82
Accounting 0 78
Information systems 0 68
Economics 0 66
Operations management 0 56
Culture/global/international business 12 42
Ethics 20 36
Source: Adapted from Moberg & Moore (2011).

eight hours a day, the residual effects of this unhappiness will affect the quality of that
person’s family and leisure life as well.
From a societal perspective, I/O psychologists can also improve the quality of life by
increasing employee effectiveness, which reduces the cost of sold goods by improving
product quality. This in turn reduces repair and replacement costs by improving
organizational efficiency, which can result in decreases in inefficient activities such as
waiting in line.
Thus, I/O psychology can improve the quality of life at levels equal to, and often
exceeding, those of fields such as counseling psychology and medicine. So even though
I/O psychologists earn a good salary, the real benefits to the field involve the positive
impacts on the lives of others.

Major Fields of I/O Psychology

Though the goal of I/O psychology is to increase the productivity and well-being of
employees, there are two approaches as to how this can be accomplished. The industrial
approach (the “I” in I/O psychology) focuses on determining the competencies
needed to perform a job, staffing the organization with employees who have those
competencies, and increasing those competencies through training. The organizational
approach (the “O” in I/O psychology) creates an organizational structure and culture

Introduction to I/O Psychology 3

 that will motivate employees to perform well, give them the necessary information to
do their jobs, and provide working conditions that are safe and result in an enjoyable
and satisfying work/life environment.

Personnel Psychology
Personnel I/O psychologists and human resource management professionals involved in
psychology The field of personnel psychology study and practice in such areas as analyzing jobs, recruiting
study that concentrates applicants, selecting employees, determining salary levels, training employees, and
on the selection and
evaluation of employees.
evaluating employee performance. Professionals working in these areas choose existing
tests or create new ones that can be used to select and promote employees. These tests
are then constantly evaluated to ensure that they are both fair and valid.
Personnel psychologists also analyze jobs to obtain a complete picture of
what each employee does, often assigning monetary values to each position. After
obtaining complete job descriptions, professionals in personnel psychology construct
performance-appraisal instruments to evaluate employee performance.
Psychologists in this area also examine various methods that can be used to train and
develop employees. People within this subfield usually work in a training department
of an organization and are involved in such activities as identifying the organization’s
training needs, developing training programs, and evaluating training success.

Organizational Psychology
Organizational Psychologists involved in organizational psychology are concerned with the issues
psychology The of leadership, job satisfaction, employee motivation, organizational communication,
field of study that conflict management, organizational change, and group processes within an organization.
investigates the behavior
of employees within
Organizational psychologists often create and conduct surveys of employee attitudes to get
the context of an ideas about what employees believe are an organization’s strengths and weaknesses. Usually
organization. serving in the role of a consultant, an organizational psychologist makes recommendations
on ways problem areas can be improved. For example, low job satisfaction might be
improved by allowing employees to participate in making certain company decisions, and
poor communication might be improved by implementing an employee suggestion system.
Organization development professionals implement organization-wide programs
designed to improve employee performance. Such programs might include team
building, restructuring, and employee empowerment.

Human Factors/Ergonomics
Human factors A field of Psychologists studying human factors concentrate on workplace design, human-
study concentrating on machine interaction, ergonomics, and physical fatigue and stress. These psychologists
the interaction between
frequently work with engineers and other technical professionals to make the
humans and machines.
workplace safer and more efficient. Sample activities in this subfield have included
designing the optimal way to assemble products, designing the most comfortable chair,
and investigating the optimal work schedule.

Brief History of I/O Psychology

Considering that the field of psychology itself has been around for only a relatively
short time (since 1879), it is not surprising that I/O psychology has a correspondingly
short history. Although various experts disagree about the precise beginning of I/O
psychology, as shown in Table 1.2, it is generally thought to have started either in

4 Chapter 1
Table 1.2 Important Events in I/O Psychology

Year Event
1903 Walter Dill Scott publishes The Theory of Advertising
1911 Walter Dill Scott publishes Increasing Human Efficiency in Business
Frederick Winslow Taylor publishes The Principles of Scientific Management
1913 Hugo Münsterberg publishes Psychology and Industrial Efficiency (German version published in 1910)
1917 Journal of Applied Psychology first published
1918 World War I provides I/O psychologists with first opportunity for large-scale employee testing and selection
1921 First Ph.D.s in I/O psychology awarded to Bruce Moore and Merrill Ream at Carnegie Tech
1932 First I/O text written by Morris Viteles
1933 Hawthorne studies published
1937 American Association for Applied Psychology established
1939 The Dictionary of Occupational Titles (DOT) was first published by the U.S. Employment Service
1945 Society for Industrial and Business Psychology established as Division 14 of the American Psychological Association (APA) with 130
members
1951 Marion Bills elected as the first woman president of Division 14
1960 Division 14 renamed as Society for Industrial Psychology, membership exceeds 700
1963 Equal Pay Act passed
1964 Civil Rights Act passed
First issue of The Industrial-Organizational Psychologist (TIP) published
1970 Division 14 membership exceeds 1,100
1971 B. F. Skinner publishes Beyond Freedom and Dignity
1980 Division 14 membership exceeds 1,800
1982 Division 14 renamed Society for Industrial and Organizational Psychology (SIOP)
1986 Society for Industrial and Organizational Psychology (SIOP) holds first annual national conference separate from APA meeting
1989 Supreme Court sets conservative trend and becomes more “employer friendly”
1990 Americans with Disabilities Act passed
SIOP membership exceeds 2,800
1991 Civil Rights Act of 1991 passed to overcome 1989 conservative Supreme Court decisions
1997 SIOP celebrates golden anniversary at its annual conference in St. Louis
2000 SIOP membership exceeds 5,700
2005 Office of Federal Contract Compliance Programs (OFCCP) and Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) become more
aggressive in fighting systemic discrimination
2008 The journal Industrial and Organizational Psychology: Perspectives on Science and Practice begins publication as an official journal of SIOP
2009 Lilly Ledbetter Fair Pay Act and Americans with Disabilities Act Amendment Act (ADAAA) passed
2010 SIOP membership exceeds 8,000; SIOP members narrowly vote to keep the name Society for Industrial Organizational Psychology
rather than change the name to the Society for Organizational Psychology
2013 OFCCP issues new regulations affecting the hiring of military veterans and individuals with disabilities
2020 SIOP membership exceeds 7,500
Global COVID-19 pandemic results in a tremendous increase in employees working remotely and the SIOP conference being held virtually

Introduction to I/O Psychology 5

 1903, when Walter Dill Scott wrote The Theory of Advertising, in which psychology
was first applied to business; in 1910, when Hugo Münsterberg wrote Psychology and
Industrial Efficiency, which was first published in English in 1913; in 1911, when Scott
wrote the book Increasing Human Efficiency in Business (Koppes & Pickren, 2007) or
when Taylor published The Principles of Scientific Management, which emphasized a
fourfold philosophy of management, including personnel selection and training (Van
De Water, 1997). Regardless of the official starting date, I/O psychology was born in the
early 1900s. In addition to Scott Taylor, and Münsterberg, pioneers in the field include
James Cattell, Walter Bingham, Arthur Kornhauser, Louis Thurstone, John Watson,
Marion Bills, and Lillian Gilbreth (DiClemente & Hantula, 2000; Vinchur & Koppes
Bryan, 2021). Interestingly, the term “industrial psychology” was seldom used prior to
World War I. Instead, the common terms for the field were “economic psychology,”
“business psychology,” and “employment psychology” (Koppes & Pickren, 2007).
I/O psychology made its first big impact during World War I. Because of the large
number of soldiers who had to be assigned to various units within the armed forces, I/O
psychologists were employed to test recruits and then place them in appropriate positions.
Army Alpha An The testing was accomplished mainly through the Army Alpha and Army Beta tests of
intelligence test mental ability. The Alpha test was used for recruits who could read and the Beta test for
developed during World
recruits who could not read. The higher scoring recruits were assigned to officer training,
War I and used by the
army for soldiers who and the lower scoring to the infantry. John Watson, who is better known as a pioneer in
can read. behaviorism, served as a major in the U.S. Army in World War I and developed perceptual
and motor tests for potential pilots (DiClemente & Hantula, 2000). I/O psychologists,
Army Beta An
intelligence test
along with engineers such as Henry Gantt, were responsible for increasing the efficiency
developed during World with which cargo ships were built, repaired, and loaded (Van De Water, 1997). While
War I and used by the women were infrequently directly involved with World War I, after attending graduate
army for soldiers who school at the University of Chicago, Mary Holmes Steven Hayes consulted and conducted
cannot read. research on personnel issues on the Committee on Classification of Personnel in the
Army (Koppes, 1997). I/O psychologists helped select aviators in Italy; gunners and pilots
in France; and pilots, radio operators and drivers in Germany (Vinchur, 2018).
Though certainly not an I/O psychologist, inventor Thomas A. Edison understood
the importance of selecting the appropriate employees for the job requirements. In 1920,
Edison created a 163-item knowledge test that he administered to over 900 applicants.
The test and its passing score were so difficult that only 5% of the applicants passed! You
will learn more about Edison’s test in the Applied Case Study at the end of Chapter 6.
Two of the most interesting figures in the early years of I/O psychology were the
husband-and-wife team of Frank Gilbreth and Lillian Moller Gilbreth. The Gilbreths
were among the first, if not the first, scientists to improve productivity and reduce fatigue
by studying the motions used by workers. Frank began his career as a contractor and
became famous for developing improvements in bricklaying that reduced the number
of motions needed to lay a brick from 18 to 4½. Lillian, received her Ph.D. from Brown
University in 1915—a rare achievement for a woman at that time. As a couple, they had
12 children, and the efficiency methods they used to raise their children while having
busy careers were the inspiration for the book and the movie Cheaper by the Dozen (the
1950 version of the movie). After Frank’s death in 1924 at the age of 55, Lillian continued
her consulting with industry, as the Great Depression forced companies to find ways to
reduce costs and be more productive. In 1935, she became a professor of management
and engineering at Purdue University, the first woman to hold such a position.
During these early years, I/O psychology thrived outside of the United States.
Prominent psychologists who applied psychology to problems in industry outside the
United States included Jules Suter and Franziska Baumgarten-Tramer in Switzerland;
Bernard Muscio and Alfred Martin in Australia; Walter Moede, William Stern, Otto

6 Chapter 1
 © Courtesy of Purdue University Libraries, Archives and Special Collections
Frank and Lillian
Gilbreth were two
pioneers in I/O
psycholog.

Lipmann, and Emil Kraepelin in Germany; Jean-Marie Lahy in France; Isaak Shipil’rein
in Russia; Edward Webster and Gerald Cosgrave in Canada; and Cyril Burt, Charles
Myers, and Sir Frederick Bartlett in Great Brittan (Feitosa & Sim, 2021, Vinchur &
Koppes Bryan 2021; Warr, 2007).
Zickar and Gibby (2021) note that the early years of I/O psychology were
characterized by four themes: an emphasis on production and efficiency, an emphasis
on statistical analysis, a focus on employee selection, and a balance between science and
practice Frederick Taylor pioneered the use of financial incentives to increase employee
job performance and productivity, as noted in his first article released in 1895, A Piece
Rate System, Being a Step Toward Partial Solution of the Labor Problem (Van De Water,
1997). His efforts in studying production and efficiency throughout the years led to his
nomination as president of the American Society of Mechanical Engineers (ASME) in
1906, in which he presented his 26 years of research on increasing employee productivity.
In the early years of I/O psychology, psychologists were involved in the selection
process of a variety of jobs including apprentices, stenographers, streetcar drivers, tram
operators, teachers, clerical and office employees, military personnel, and ammunition
inspectors (Vinchur, 2021) Marion Almira Bills, who received her PhD from Bryn
Mawr College and developed a proficiency for personnel selection, examined the
effectiveness of selection tests and criteria used to hire stenographers through
predictive validity studies. She concluded that more measures would result in a higher
chance of successful personnel selection (Koppes, 1997).
In the 1930s, I/O psychology greatly expanded its scope. Until then, it had been
involved primarily in improving productivity through the selection and placement of
employees and the application of financial incentives. An exception to this emphasis was

Introduction to I/O Psychology 7


Hawthorne studies A
series of studies,
conducted at the
Western Electric plant
in Hawthorne, Illinois,
that have come to
represent any change in
behavior when people
react to a change in the
environment.
Hawthorne effect When
employees change their
behavior due solely to
the fact that they are
receiving attention or are
being observed.
8 Chapter 1
a chapter in a book, Industrial Psychology, by Morris Viteles on work motivation in which
he called for the study of worker motives and attitudes (Latham & Budworth, 2021).
However, later in the 1930s, when the findings from the famous Hawthorne studies were
published, psychologists became more involved in the quality of the work environment,
as well as the attitudes of employees. The Hawthorne studies, which were conducted at
the Hawthorne plant of the Western Electric Company in the United States demonstrated
that employee behavior was complex and that the interpersonal interactions between
managers and employees played a tremendous role in employee behavior. The Hawthorne
studies were initially designed to investigate such issues as the effects of lighting levels,
work schedules, wages, temperature, and rest breaks on employee performance.
Much to the surprise of the researchers, the actual work conditions did not affect
productivity in the predicted manner. That is, there were times when productivity
improved after work conditions were made worse, and times when productivity decreased
after work conditions were made better. After interviewing employees and studying
the matter further, the researchers realized that employees changed their behavior and
became more productive because they were being studied and received attention from
their managers, a condition that is now commonly referred to as the Hawthorne effect.
Additionally, the six employees in the small test group received incentives for productivity
and were protected from layoffs, advantages that the other employees did not receive
(Highhouse, 2021). Perhaps the major contribution of the Hawthorne studies was that it
inspired psychologists to increase their focus on human relations in the workplace and to
explore the effects of employee attitudes (Olson, Verley, Santos, & Salas, 2004).
The 1940s brought World War II and with it, the extensive use of I/O psychologists
to support the war effort, especially in Germany and Great Britain. In addition to
cognitive ability and aptitude tests, I/O psychologists began using such selection
methods as life history, interviews, and leaderless group discussions (Vinchur, 2021).
Interest in identifying effective leaders, especially in the military, and finding ways
to motivate employees beyond the use of financial incentives also increased during
this decade (Latham & Budworth, 2021; Zaccaro, Day, & Hedrick, 2021) Training
methods, including job instructional training, were also emphasized greatly during
this time period, and companies and university-based centers began establishing R&D
departments for research and training (Katzell & Austin, 1992).
The 1950s were associated with further advancements in employee selection,
most importantly the assessment center and biodata. Interviews and application blank
data were the most popular selection methods (Vinchur, 2021). These methods are
discussed in detail in Chapters 4 and 5. New theories and subsequent research on
employee motivation and satisfaction continued to increase in the 1950s.
The 1960s were characterized by the passage of several major pieces of civil rights
legislation, which are discussed in Chapter 3. These laws focused the attention of HR
professionals on developing fair selection techniques. As a result, the need for I/O
psychologists greatly increased. The 1960s were also characterized using sensitivity
training and T-groups (laboratory training groups) for managers (Carson, Lanier,
Carson, & Guidry, 2000).
The 1970s brought great strides in the understanding of many organizational
psychology issues that involved employee satisfaction and motivation. The decade also
saw the development of many theories about employee behavior in organizations. B. F.
Skinner’s (1971) Beyond Freedom and Dignity resulted in the increased use of behavior-
modification techniques in organizations. The study of goal setting on employee
behavior was also a major component of the 1970s (Latham & Budworth, 2021).
The 1980s and 1990s brought four major changes to I/O psychology. The first
involved an increased use of fairly sophisticated statistical techniques and methods of
analysis. This change is evident if one compares journal articles written in the 1960s with
those written since 1980. More recent articles use such complex statistical techniques as
path analysis, structural equation modeling, meta-analysis, hierarchical linear modeling
(HLM), multivariate analysis of variance (MANOVA), and causal modeling. Prior to the
1970s, simpler statistical techniques such as t-tests and analysis of variance (ANOVA)
were used (unless you have taken a statistics course, these methods probably are not
familiar to you). This reliance on statistics explains why students enrolled in an I/O
psychology doctoral program take at least five statistics courses as part of their education.
A second change concerned a new interest in the application of cognitive
psychology to industry. For example, articles written about performance appraisal
in the 1970s primarily described and tested new methods for evaluating employee
performance. In the 1980s and early 1990s, however, many articles approached the
performance appraisal issue by examining the thought process used by managers when
they conduct such appraisals.
The third change was the increased interest in occupational health psychology, a field
that applies psychological principles to improve, “the quality of work-life and promoting
the safety, health, and well-being of people at work” (Hammer & Brady, 2021).
The final major change in the 1980s and 1990s came about when I/O psychologists
took a renewed interest in developing methods to select employees. In the 1960s and
1970s, the courts were still interpreting the major civil rights acts of the early 1960s, with
the result that I/O psychologists took a cautious approach in selecting employees. By
the mid-1980s, however, the courts became less strict, and a wider variety of selection
instruments was developed and used. Examples of these instruments include cognitive
ability tests, personality tests, biodata, and structured interviews. Other changes during
the 1980s and 1990s that had significant I/O psychology–related effects included
massive organizational downsizing, greater concern for diversity and gender issues, an
increasing older population in the workforce, increased concern about the effects of
stress, and the increased emphasis on such organizational development interventions
as total quality management (TQM), reengineering, and employee empowerment.
In the 2000s, perhaps the greatest influence on I/O psychology is the rapid advances
in technology. Many tests and surveys are now administered online, employers recruit
and screen applicants online; job seekers use such social media outlets as Twitter,
LinkedIn, and Facebook to find jobs; I/O psychologists increasingly focus on “big data”
and artificial intelligence, employees are being trained and meetings are being held
virtually rather than in person.
Another important factor impacting I/O psychology is the changing demographic
makeup of the workforce. Women are increasingly entering the workforce and taking
on managerial roles; Hispanics and Latino/as are now the largest underrepresented
groups in the United States; Asian Americans are the fastest-growing segment of the
U.S. population; and an increasing number of workers, vendors, and customers have
English as their second language. Thus, diversity and inclusion issues will continue to
be an important factor in the workplace.
The global economy is also affecting the role of I/O psychology. As many manufacturing
jobs are shifted to developing countries with lower wages, there will be an increased
emphasis on service jobs requiring human relations skills. As an increasing number
of employees work in other countries (as expatriates) and as rates of immigration (both
documented and undocumented) increase, efforts must keep pace to understand various
cultures, and training must be conducted so that employees and managers can successfully
work not only in other countries, but at home with expatriates from other countries.
Other factors that are impacting I/O psychology, especially due to the global
COVID-19 pandemic, include high unemployment rates, movements toward flexible

Introduction to I/O Psychology 9

 work schedules, family-friendly work policies, accommodation of an increasing number
of employees with childcare and older adult-care responsibilities, flatter organizational
structures with fewer management levels, population shifts from urban to suburban
locations, and increasing costs of health-care benefits. In addition, potential changes in the
retirement age for Social Security may result in employees working into their late sixties.
The long-term effects of the COVID-19 global pandemic are yet to be determined.
Many employees liked working from home and organizations realized that working
virtually has advantages for both the employee and the organization.

Employment of I/O Psychologists

It is useful to examine some of the broad areas in which I/O psychologists work. As
shown in Table 1.3, I/O psychologists typically work in one of four settings: colleges and
universities, consulting firms, the private sector, and the public sector. As one might
expect, I/O psychologists who work at colleges and universities typically teach and conduct
research, although some work as administrators (e.g., deans, provosts, vice presidents).
I/O psychologists who work in consulting firms help a wide variety of organizations
become more productive by helping them select a high quality and diverse workforce,
designing systems that will motivate employees while treating them fairly, creating
efficient and effective training plans for employees, and ensuring that organizations
treat applicants and employees in a legal and ethical manner. Consulting firms range
in size from one-person organizations to large consulting firms employing hundreds
of consultants. Some consulting firms specialize in one area of I/O psychology (e.g.,
employee selection, diversity, attitude surveys), whereas others offer a range of services.
I/O psychologists who work in the private and public sectors perform
similar duties as consultants, but they do so in vastly different environments. I/O
psychologists who work in the private sector work for a single company such as
IBM, Microsoft, and FedEx, whereas consultants work with many companies. I/O
psychologists in the public sector work for a local, state, or federal government
agency. Though the private sector historically paid more than the public sector, many
employees believe the higher job stability of the public sector offsets the potential
for lower pay. Though master’s- and doctoral-level graduates can be found in all
employment areas, Ph.D.s are much more likely to be employed in an academic
setting; master’s-level graduates are more often employed as HR generalists, data
analysts, trainers, and compensation analysts.
As you can tell by the job titles listed in Table 1.4, there are many careers in I/O
psychology, including entry-level jobs to presidents and CEOs of large companies.
Whether one wants to work in the public or private sector, work with data or work
with people, spend the day talking, writing, or analyzing, there is some job or the

Table 1.3 Employment Settings of I/O Psychologists

Highest Degree Obtained

Employment Setting M.A. Ph.D.
Education 3% 45%
Private sector 76% 43%
Public sector 8% 7%
Nonprofit 12% 6%
Source: SIOP (2020).

10 Chapter 1
Another random document with
no related content on Scribd:
marked touches, and it ends in vapid flippancy and impertinence.
Among our neighbours on the Continent, Moliere and Rabelais
carried the freedom of wit and humour to an almost incredible
height; but they rather belonged to the old French school, and even
approach and exceed the English licence and extravagance of
conception. I do not consider Congreve’s wit (though it belongs to
us) as coming under the article here spoken of; for his genius is any
thing but merry. Lord Byron was in the habit of railing at the spirit
of our good old comedy, and of abusing Shakspeare’s Clowns and
Fools, which he said the refinement of the French and Italian stage
would not endure, and which only our grossness and puerile taste
could tolerate. In this I agree with him; and it is pat to my purpose. I
flatter myself that we are almost the only people left who understand
and relish nonsense. We are not ‘merry and wise,’ but indulge our
mirth to excess and folly. When we trifle, we trifle in good earnest;
and having once relaxed our hold of the helm, drift idly down the
stream, and delighted with the change are tossed about ‘by every
little breath’ of whim or caprice,
‘That under Heaven is blown.’

All we then want is to proclaim a truce with reason, and to be pleased

with as little expense of thought or pretension to wisdom as possible.
This licensed fooling is carried to its very utmost length in
Shakspeare, and in some other of our elder dramatists, without,
perhaps, sufficient warrant or the same excuse. Nothing can justify
this extreme relaxation but extreme tension. Shakspeare’s trifling
does indeed tread upon the very borders of vacancy: his meaning
often hangs by the very slenderest threads. For this he might be
blamed if it did not take away our breath to follow his eagle flights, or
if he did not at other times make the cordage of our hearts crack.
After our heads ache with thinking, it is fair to play the fool. The
clowns were as proper an appendage to the gravity of our antique
literature, as fools and dwarfs were to the stately dignity of courts
and noble houses in former days. Of all people, they have the best
right to claim a total exemption from rules and rigid formality, who,
when they have any thing of importance to do, set about it with the
greatest earnestness and perseverance, and are generally grave and
sober to a proverb.[7] Poor Swift, who wrote more idle or nonsense
verses than any man, was the severest of moralists; and his feelings
and observations morbidly acute. Did not Lord Byron himself follow
up his Childe Harold with his Don Juan?—not that I insist on what
he did as an illustration of the English character. He was one of the
English Nobility, not one of the English People; and his occasional
ease and familiarity were in my mind equally constrained and
affected, whether in relation to the pretensions of his rank or the
efforts of his genius.
They ask you in France, how you pass your time in England
without amusements; and can with difficulty believe that there are
theatres in London, still less that they are larger and handsomer than
those in Paris. That we should have comic actors, ‘they own,
surprises them.’ They judge of the English character in the lump as
one great jolter-head, containing all the stupidity of the country, as
the large ball at the top of the Dispensary in Warwick-lane, from its
resemblance to a gilded pill, has been made to represent the whole
pharmacopœia and professional quackery of the kingdom. They have
no more notion, for instance, how we should have such an actor as
Liston on our stage, than if we were to tell them we have parts
performed by a sea-otter; nor if they were to see him, would they be
much the wiser, or know what to think of his unaccountable twitches
of countenance or nondescript gestures, of his teeth chattering in his
head, his eyes that seem dropping from their sockets, his nose that is
tickled by a jest as by a feather and shining with self-complacency as
if oiled, his ignorant conceit, his gaping stupor, his lumpish vivacity
in Lubin Log or Tony Lumpkin; for as our rivals do not wind up the
machine to such a determined intensity of purpose, neither have they
any idea of its running down to such degrees of imbecility and folly,
or coming to an absolute stand still and lack of meaning, nor can
they enter into or be amused with the contrast. No people ever laugh
heartily who can give a reason for their doing so: and I believe the
English in general are not yet in this predicament. They are not
metaphysical, but very much in a state of nature; and this is one
main ground why I give them credit for being merry,
notwithstanding appearances. Their mirth is not the mirth of vice or
desperation, but of innocence and a native wildness. They do not
cavil or boggle at niceties, and not merely come to the edge of a joke,
but break their necks over it with a wanton ‘Here goes,’ where others
make a pirouette and stand upon decorum. The French cannot,
however, be persuaded of the excellence of our comic stage, nor of
the store we set by it. When they ask what amusements we have, it is
plain they can never have heard of Mrs. Jordan, nor King, nor
Bannister, nor Suett, nor Munden, nor Lewis, nor little Simmons,
nor Dodd, and Parsons, and Emery, and Miss Pope, and Miss Farren,
and all those who even in my time have gladdened a nation and
‘made life’s business like a summer’s dream.’ Can I think of them,
and of their names that glittered in the playbills when I was young,
exciting all the flutter of hope and expectation of seeing them in their
favourite parts of Nell, or Little Pickle, or Touchstone, or Sir Peter
Teazle, or Lenitive in the Prize, or Lingo, or Crabtree, or Nipperkin,
or old Dornton, or Ranger, or the Copper Captain, or Lord Sands, or
Filch, or Moses, or Sir Andrew Aguecheek, or Acres, or Elbow, or
Hodge, or Flora, or the Duenna, or Lady Teazle, or Lady Grace, or of
the gaiety that sparkled in all eyes, and the delight that overflowed all
hearts, as they glanced before us in these parts,
‘Throwing a gaudy shadow upon life,’—

and not feel my heart yearn within me, or couple the thoughts of
England and the spleen together? Our cloud has at least its rainbow
tints; ours is not one long polar night of cold and dulness, but we
have the gleaming lights of fancy to amuse us, the household fires of
truth and genius to warm us. We can go to a play and see Liston; or
stay at home and read Roderick Random; or have Hogarth’s prints of
Marriage à la Mode hanging round our room. ‘Tut! there’s livers
even in England,’ as well as ‘out of it.’ We are not quite the forlorn
hope of humanity, the last of nations. The French look at us across
the Channel, and seeing nothing but water and a cloudy mist, think
that this is England.
——‘What’s our Britain
In the world’s volume? In a great pool a swan’s nest.’

If they have any farther idea of us, it is of George III. and our Jack
tars, the House of Lords and House of Commons, and this is no great
addition to us. To go beyond this, to talk of arts and elegances as
having taken up their abode here, or to say that Mrs. Abington was
equal to Mademoiselle Mars, and that we at one time got up the
‘School for Scandal,’ as they do the ‘Misanthrope,’ is to persuade
them that Iceland is a pleasant summer-retreat, or to recommend the
whale-fishery as a classical amusement. The French are the cockneys
of Europe, and have no idea how any one can exist out of Paris, or be
alive without incessant grimace and jabber. Yet what imports it?
What! though the joyous train I have just enumerated were, perhaps,
never heard of in the precincts of the Palais-Royal, is it not enough
that they gave pleasure where they were, to those who saw and heard
them? Must our laugh, to be sincere, have its echo on the other side
of the water? Had not the French their favourites and their
enjoyments at the time, that we knew nothing of? Why then should
we not have ours (and boast of them too) without their leave? A
monopoly of self-conceit is not a monopoly of all other advantages.
The English, when they go abroad, do not take away the prejudice
against them by their looks. We seem duller and sadder than we are.
As I write this, I am sitting in the open air in a beautiful valley, near
Vevey: Clarens is on my left, the Dent de Jamant is behind me, the
rocks of Meillerie opposite: under my feet is a green bank, enamelled
with white and purple flowers, in which a dew-drop here and there
still glitters with pearly light—
‘And gaudy butterflies flutter around.’

Intent upon the scene and upon the thoughts that stir within me, I
conjure up the cheerful passages of my life, and a crowd of happy
images appear before me. No one would see it in my looks—my eyes
grow dull and fixed, and I seem rooted to the spot, as all this
phantasmagoria passes in review before me, glancing a reflex lustre
on the face of the world and nature. But the traces of pleasure, in my
case, sink into an absorbent ground of thoughtful melancholy, and
require to be brought out by time and circumstances, or (as the
critics tell you) by the varnish of style!
The comfort, on which the English lay so much stress, is of the
same character, and arises from the same source as their mirth. Both
exist by contrast and a sort of contradiction. The English are
certainly the most uncomfortable of all people in themselves, and
therefore it is that they stand in need of every kind of comfort and
accommodation. The least thing puts them out of their way, and
therefore every thing must be in its place. They are mightily offended
at disagreeable tastes and smells, and therefore they exact the utmost
neatness and nicety. They are sensible of heat and cold, and
therefore they cannot exist, unless every thing is snug and warm, or
else open and airy, where they are. They must have ‘all appliances
and means to boot.’ They are afraid of interruption and intrusion,
and therefore they shut themselves up in in-door enjoyments and by
their own firesides. It is not that they require luxuries (for that
implies a high degree of epicurean indulgence and gratification), but
they cannot do without their comforts; that is, whatever tends to
supply their physical wants, and ward off physical pain and
annoyance. As they have not a fund of animal spirits and enjoyments
in themselves, they cling to external objects for support, and derive
solid satisfaction from the ideas of order, cleanliness, plenty,
property, and domestic quiet, as they seek for diversion from odd
accidents and grotesque surprises, and have the highest possible
relish not of voluptuous softness, but of hard knocks and dry blows,
as one means of ascertaining their personal identity.
 OF PERSONS ONE WOULD WISH TO HAVE
SEEN

The New Monthly Magazine.]

[January, 1826.
‘Come like shadows—so depart.’

B—— it was, I think, who suggested this subject, as well as the

defence of Guy Faux, which I urged him to execute. As, however, he
would undertake neither, I suppose I must do both—a task for which
he would have been much fitter, no less from the temerity than the
felicity of his pen—
‘Never so sure our rapture to create
As when it touch’d the brink of all we hate.’

Compared with him I shall, I fear, make but a common-place piece of

business of it; but I should be loth the idea was entirely lost, and
besides I may avail myself of some hints of his in the progress of it. I
am sometimes, I suspect, a better reporter of the ideas of other
people than expounder of my own. I pursue the one too far into
paradox or mysticism; the others I am not bound to follow farther
than I like, or than seems fair and reasonable.
On the question being started, A—— said, ‘I suppose the two first
persons you would choose to see would be the two greatest names in
English literature, Sir Isaac Newton and Mr. Locke?’ In this A——, as
usual, reckoned without his host. Every one burst out a laughing at
the expression of B——’s face, in which impatience was restrained by
courtesy. ‘Yes, the greatest names,’ he stammered out hastily, ‘but
they were not persons—not persons.’—‘Not persons?’ said A——,
looking wise and foolish at the same time, afraid his triumph might
be premature. ‘That is,’ rejoined B——, ‘not characters, you know. By
Mr. Locke and Sir Isaac Newton, you mean the Essay on the Human
Understanding, and the Principia, which we have to this day. Beyond
their contents there is nothing personally interesting in the men. But
what we want to see any one bodily for, is when there is something
peculiar, striking in the individuals, more than we can learn from
their writings, and yet are curious to know. I dare say Locke and
Newton were very like Kneller’s portraits of them. But who could
paint Shakspeare?’—‘Ay,’ retorted A——, ‘there it is; then I suppose
you would prefer seeing him and Milton instead?’—‘No,’ said B——,
‘neither. I have seen so much of Shakspeare on the stage and on
book-stalls, in frontispieces and on mantle-pieces, that I am quite
tired of the everlasting repetition: and as to Milton’s face, the
impressions that have come down to us of it I do not like; it is too
starched and puritanical; and I should be afraid of losing some of the
manna of his poetry in the leaven of his countenance and the
precisian’s band and gown.’—‘I shall guess no more,’ said A——.
‘Who is it, then, you would like to see “in his habit as he lived,” if you
had your choice of the whole range of English literature?’ B—— then
named Sir Thomas Brown and Fulke Greville, the friend of Sir Philip
Sidney, as the two worthies whom he should feel the greatest
pleasure to encounter on the floor of his apartment in their
nightgown and slippers, and to exchange friendly greeting with
them. At this A—— laughed outright, and conceived B—— was jesting
with him; but as no one followed his example, he thought there
might be something in it, and waited for an explanation in a state of
whimsical suspense. B—— then (as well as I can remember a
conversation that passed twenty years ago—how time slips!) went on
as follows. ‘The reason why I pitch upon these two authors is, that
their writings are riddles, and they themselves the most mysterious
of personages. They resemble the soothsayers of old, who dealt in
dark hints and doubtful oracles; and I should like to ask them the
meaning of what no mortal but themselves, I should suppose, can
fathom. There is Dr. Johnson, I have no curiosity, no strange
uncertainty about him: he and Boswell together have pretty well let
me into the secret of what passed through his mind. He and other
writers like him are sufficiently explicit: my friends, whose repose I
should be tempted to disturb, (were it in my power) are implicit,
inextricable, inscrutable.
“And call up him who left half-told
The story of Cambuscan bold.”

‘When I look at that obscure but gorgeous prose-composition (the

Urn-burial) I seem to myself to look into a deep abyss, at the bottom
of which are hid pearls and rich treasure; or it is like a stately
labyrinth of doubt and withering speculation, and I would invoke the
spirit of the author to lead me through it. Besides, who would not be
curious to see the lineaments of a man who, having himself been
twice married, wished that mankind were propagated like trees! As
to Fulke Greville, he is like nothing but one of his own “Prologues
spoken by the ghost of an old king of Ormus,” a truly formidable and
inviting personage: his style is apocalyptical, cabalistical, a knot
worthy of such an apparition to untie; and for the unravelling a
passage or two, I would stand the brunt of an encounter with so
portentous a commentator!’—‘I am afraid in that case,’ said A——,
‘that if the mystery were once cleared up, the merit might be lost;‘—
and turning to me, whispered a friendly apprehension, that while B
—— continued to admire these old crabbed authors, he would never
become a popular writer. Dr. Donne was mentioned as a writer of the
same period, with a very interesting countenance, whose history was
singular, and whose meaning was often quite as uncomeatable,
without a personal citation from the dead, as that of any of his
contemporaries. The volume was produced; and while some one was
expatiating on the exquisite simplicity and beauty of the portrait
prefixed to the old edition, A—— got hold of the poetry, and
exclaiming ‘What have we here?’ read the following:—
‘Here lies a She-Sun and a He-Moon there,
She gives the best light to his sphere,
Or each is both and all, and so
They unto one another nothing owe.’

There was no resisting this, till B——, seizing the volume, turned to
the beautiful ‘Lines to his Mistress,’ dissuading her from
accompanying him abroad, and read them with suffused features and
a faltering tongue.
‘By our first strange and fatal interview,
By all desires which thereof did ensue,
By our long starving hopes, by that remorse
Which my words’ masculine persuasive force
Begot in thee, and by the memory
Of hurts, which spies and rivals threaten’d me,
I calmly beg. But by thy father’s wrath,
By all pains which want and divorcement hath,
I conjure thee; and all the oaths which I
And thou have sworn to seal joint constancy
Here I unswear, and overswear them thus,
Thou shalt not love by ways so dangerous.
Temper, oh fair Love! love’s impetuous rage,
Be my true mistress still, not my feign’d Page;
I’ll go, and, by thy kind leave, leave behind
Thee, only worthy to nurse in my mind.
Thirst to come back; oh, if thou die before,
My soul from other lands to thee shall soar.
Thy (else Almighty) beauty cannot move
Rage from the seas, nor thy love teach them love,
Nor tame wild Boreas’ harshness; thou hast read
How roughly he in pieces shiver’d
Fair Orithea, whom he swore he lov’d.
Fall ill or good, ’tis madness to have prov’d
Dangers unurg’d: Feed on this flattery,
That absent lovers one with th’ other be.
Dissemble nothing, not a boy; nor change
Thy body’s habit, nor mind; be not strange
To thyself only. All will spy in thy face
A blushing, womanly, discovering grace.
Richly cloth’d apes are called apes, and as soon
Eclips’d as bright we call the moon the moon.
Men of France, changeable cameleons,
Spittles of diseases, shops of fashions,
Love’s fuellers, and the rightest company
Of players, which upon the world’s stage be,
Will quickly know thee.... O stay here! for thee
England is only a worthy gallery,
To walk in expectation; till from thence
Our greatest King call thee to his presence.
When I am gone, dream me some happiness,
Nor let thy looks our long hid love confess,
Nor praise, nor dispraise me; nor bless, nor curse
Openly love’s force, nor in bed fright thy nurse
With midnight startings, crying out, Oh, oh,
 Nurse, oh, my love is slain, I saw him go
O’er the white Alps alone; I saw him, I,
Assail’d, fight, taken, stabb’d, bleed, fall, and die.
Augur me better chance, except dread Jove
Think it enough for me to have had thy love.’

Some one then inquired of B—— if we could not see from the
window the Temple-walk in which Chaucer used to take his exercise;
and on his name being put to the vote, I was pleased to find that
there was a general sensation in his favour in all but A——, who said
something about the ruggedness of the metre, and even objected to
the quaintness of the orthography. I was vexed at this superficial
gloss, pertinaciously reducing every thing to its own trite level, and
asked ‘if he did not think it would be worth while to scan the eye that
had first greeted the Muse in that dim twilight and early dawn of
English literature; to see the head, round which the visions of fancy
must have played like gleams of inspiration or a sudden glory; to
watch those lips that “lisped in numbers, for the numbers came”—as
by a miracle, or as if the dumb should speak? Nor was it alone that he
had been the first to tune his native tongue (however imperfectly to
modern ears); but he was himself a noble, manly character, standing
before his age and striving to advance it; a pleasant humourist
withal, who has not only handed down to us the living manners of his
time, but had, no doubt, store of curious and quaint devices, and
would make as hearty a companion as Mine Host of Tabard. His
interview with Petrarch is fraught with interest. Yet I would rather
have seen Chaucer in company with the author of the Decameron,
and have heard them exchange their best stories together, the
Squire’s Tale against the Story of the Falcon, the Wife of Bath’s
Prologue against the Adventures of Friar Albert. How fine to see the
high mysterious brow which learning then wore, relieved by the gay,
familiar tone of men of the world, and by the courtesies of genius.
Surely, the thoughts and feelings which passed through the minds of
these great revivers of learning, these Cadmuses who sowed the teeth
of letters, must have stamped an expression on their features, as
different from the moderns as their books, and well worth the
perusal. Dante,’ I continued, ‘is as interesting a person as his own
Ugolino, one whose lineaments curiosity would as eagerly devour in
order to penetrate his spirit, and the only one of the Italian poets I
should care much to see. There is a fine portrait of Ariosto by no less
a hand than Titian’s; light, Moorish, spirited, but not answering our
idea. The same artist’s large colossal profile of Peter Aretine is the
only likeness of the kind that has the effect of conversing with “the
mighty dead,” and this is truly spectral, ghastly, necromantic.’ B——
put it to me if I should like to see Spenser as well as Chaucer; and I
answered without hesitation, ‘No; for that his beauties were ideal,
visionary, not palpable or personal, and therefore connected with
less curiosity about the man. His poetry was the essence of romance,
a very halo round the bright orb of fancy; and the bringing in the
individual might dissolve the charm. No tones of voice could come
up to the mellifluous cadence of his verse; no form but of a winged
angel could vie with the airy shapes he has described. He was (to our
apprehensions) rather “a creature of the element, that lived in the
rainbow and played in the plighted clouds,” than an ordinary mortal.
Or if he did appear, I should wish it to be as a mere vision, like one of
his own pageants, and that he should pass by unquestioned like a
dream or sound—
——“That was Arion crown’d:
So went he playing on the wat’ry plain!”’

Captain C. muttered something about Columbus, and M. C. hinted

at the Wandering Jew; but the last was set aside as spurious, and the
first made over to the New World.
‘I should like,’ said Miss D——, ‘to have seen Pope talking with
Patty Blount; and I have seen Goldsmith.’ Every one turned round to
look at Miss D——, as if by so doing they too could get a sight of
Goldsmith.
‘Where,’ asked a harsh croaking voice, ‘was Dr. Johnson in the
years 1745–6? He did not write any thing that we know of, nor is
there any account of him in Boswell during those two years. Was he
in Scotland with the Pretender? He seems to have passed through
the scenes in the Highlands in company with Boswell many years
after “with lack-lustre eye,” yet as if they were familiar to him, or
associated in his mind with interests that he durst not explain. If so,
it would be an additional reason for my liking him; and I would give
something to have seen him seated in the tent with the youthful
Majesty of Britain, and penning the Proclamation to all true subjects
and adherents of the legitimate Government.’
 ‘I thought,’ said A——, turning short round upon B——, ‘that you of
the Lake School did not like Pope?’—‘Not like Pope! My dear sir, you
must be under a mistake—I can read him over and over for
ever!’—‘Why certainly, the “Essay on Man” must be masterpiece.’—‘It
may be so, but I seldom look into it.’—‘Oh! then it’s his Satires you
admire?’—‘No, not his Satires, but his friendly Epistles and his
compliments.’—‘Compliments! I did not know he ever made
any.’—‘The finest,’ said B——, ‘that were ever paid by the wit of man.
Each of them is worth an estate for life—nay, is an immortality.
There is that superb one to Lord Cornbury:
“Despise low joys, low gains;
Disdain whatever Cornbury disdains;
Be virtuous, and be happy for your pains.”

‘Was there ever more artful insinuation of idolatrous praise? And

then that noble apotheosis of his friend Lord Mansfield (however
little deserved), when, speaking of the House of Lords, he adds—
“Conspicuous scene! another yet is nigh,
(More silent far) where kings and poets lie;
Where Murray (long enough his country’s pride)
Shall be no more than Tully or than Hyde!”

‘And with what a fine turn of indignant flattery he addresses Lord

Bolingbroke—
“Why rail they then, if but one wreath of mine,
Oh! all accomplish’d St. John, deck thy shrine?”

‘Or turn,’ continued B——, with a slight hectic on his cheek and his
eye glistening, ‘to his list of early friends:
“But why then publish? Granville the polite,
And knowing Walsh, would tell me I could write;
Well-natured Garth inflamed with early praise,
And Congreve loved and Swift endured my lays:
The courtly Talbot, Somers, Sheffield read,
Ev’n mitred Rochester would nod the head;
And St. John’s self (great Dryden’s friend before)
Received with open arms one poet more.
Happy my studies, if by these approved!
Happier their author, if by these beloved!
 From these the world will judge of men and books,
Not from the Burnets, Oldmixons, and Cooks.”’

Here his voice totally failed him, and throwing down the book, he
said, ‘Do you think I would not wish to have been friends with such a
man as this?’
‘What say you to Dryden?’—‘He rather made a show of himself,
and courted popularity in that lowest temple of Fame, a coffee-
house, so as in some measure to vulgarize one’s idea of him. Pope, on
the contrary, reached the very beau-ideal of what a poet’s life should
be; and his fame while living seemed to be an emanation from that
which was to circle his name after death. He was so far enviable (and
one would feel proud to have witnessed the rare spectacle in him)
that he was almost the only poet and man of genius who met with his
reward on this side of the tomb, who realized in friends, fortune, the
esteem of the world, the most sanguine hopes of a youthful ambition,
and who found that sort of patronage from the great during his
lifetime which they would be thought anxious to bestow upon him
after his death. Read Gay’s verses to him on his supposed return
from Greece, after his translation of Homer was finished, and say if
you would not gladly join the bright procession that welcomed him
home, or see it once more land at Whitehall-stairs.’—‘Still,’ said Miss
D——, ‘I would rather have seen him talking with Patty Blount, or
riding by in a coronet-coach with Lady Mary Wortley Montagu!’
E——, who was deep in a game of piquet at the other end of the
room, whispered to M. C. to ask if Junius would not be a fit person to
invoke from the dead. ‘Yes,’ said B——, ‘provided he would agree to
lay aside his mask.’
We were now at a stand for a short time, when Fielding was
mentioned as a candidate: only one, however, seconded the
proposition. ‘Richardson?’—‘By all means, but only to look at him
through the glass-door of his back-shop, hard at work upon one of
his novels (the most extraordinary contrast that ever was presented
between an author and his works), but not to let him come behind
his counter lest he should want you to turn customer, nor to go
upstairs with him, lest he should offer to read the first manuscript of
Sir Charles Grandison, which was originally written in eight and
twenty volumes octavo, or get out the letters of his female
correspondents, to prove that Joseph Andrews was low.’
 There was but one statesman in the whole of English history that
any one expressed the least desire to see—Oliver Cromwell, with his
fine, frank, rough, pimply face, and wily policy;—and one enthusiast,
John Bunyan, the immortal author of the Pilgrim’s Progress. It
seemed that if he came into the room, dreams would follow him, and
that each person would nod under his golden cloud, ‘nigh-sphered in
Heaven,’ a canopy as strange and stately as any in Homer.
Of all persons near our own time, Garrick’s name was received
with the greatest enthusiasm, who was proposed by J. F——. He
presently superseded both Hogarth and Handel, who had been
talked of, but then it was on condition that he should act in tragedy
and comedy, in the play and the farce, Lear and Wildair and Abel
Drugger. What a sight for sore eyes that would be! Who would not
part with a year’s income at least, almost with a year of his natural
life, to be present at it? Besides, as he could not act alone, and
recitations are unsatisfactory things, what a troop he must bring with
him—the silver-tongued Barry, and Quin, and Shuter and Weston,
and Mrs. Clive and Mrs. Pritchard, of whom I have heard my father
speak as so great a favourite when he was young! This would indeed
be a revival of the dead, the restoring of art; and so much the more
desirable, as such is the lurking scepticism mingled with our
overstrained admiration of past excellence, that though we have the
speeches of Burke, the portraits of Reynolds, the writings of
Goldsmith, and the conversation of Johnson, to show what people
could do at that period, and to confirm the universal testimony to the
merits of Garrick; yet, as it was before our time, we have our
misgivings, as if he was probably after all little better than a
Bartlemy-fair actor, dressed out to play Macbeth in a scarlet coat and
laced cocked-hat. For one, I should like to have seen and heard with
my own eyes and ears. Certainly, by all accounts, if any one was ever
moved by the true histrionic æstus, it was Garrick. When he followed
the Ghost in Hamlet, he did not drop the sword, as most actors do
behind the scenes, but kept the point raised the whole way round, so
fully was he possessed with the idea, or so anxious not to lose sight of
his part for a moment. Once at a splendid dinner-party at Lord ——’s,
they suddenly missed Garrick, and could not imagine what was
become of him, till they were drawn to the window by the convulsive
screams and peals of laughter of a young negro boy, who was rolling
on the ground in an ecstasy of delight to see Garrick mimicking a
turkey-cock in the court-yard, with his coat-tail stuck out behind,
and in a seeming flutter of feathered rage and pride. Of our party
only two persons present had seen the British Roscius; and they
seemed as willing as the rest to renew their acquaintance with their
old favourite.
We were interrupted in the hey-day and mid-career of this fanciful
speculation, by a grumbler in a corner, who declared it was a shame
to make all this rout about a mere player and farce-writer, to the
neglect and exclusion of the fine old dramatists, the contemporaries
and rivals of Shakspeare. B—— said he had anticipated this objection
when he had named the author of Mustapha and Alaham; and out of
caprice insisted upon keeping him to represent the set, in preference
to the wild hair-brained enthusiast Kit Marlowe; to the sexton of St.
Ann’s, Webster, with his melancholy yew-trees and death’s-heads; to
Deckar, who was but a garrulous proser; to the voluminous
Heywood; and even to Beaumont and Fletcher, whom we might
offend by complimenting the wrong author on their joint
productions. Lord Brook, on the contrary, stood quite by himself, or
in Cowley’s words, was ‘a vast species alone.’ Some one hinted at the
circumstance of his being a lord, which rather startled B——, but he
said a ghost would perhaps dispense with strict etiquette, on being
regularly addressed by his title. Ben Jonson divided our suffrages
pretty equally. Some were afraid he would begin to traduce
Shakspeare, who was not present to defend himself. ‘If he grows
disagreeable,’ it was whispered aloud, ‘there is G—— can match him.’
At length, his romantic visit to Drummond of Hawthornden was
mentioned, and turned the scale in his favour.
B—— inquired if there was any one that was hanged that I would
choose to mention? And I answered, Eugene Aram.[8] The name of
the ‘Admirable Crichton’ was suddenly started as a splendid example
of waste talents, so different from the generality of his countrymen.
This choice was mightily approved by a North-Briton present, who
declared himself descended from that prodigy of learning and
accomplishment, and said he had family-plate in his possession as
vouchers for the fact, with the initials A. C.—Admirable Crichton! H
—— laughed or rather roared as heartily at this as I should think he
has done for many years.
 The last-named Mitre-courtier[9] then wished to know whether
there were any metaphysicians to whom one might be tempted to
apply the wizard spell? I replied, there were only six in modern times
deserving the name—Hobbes, Berkeley, Butler, Hartley, Hume,
Leibnitz; and perhaps Jonathan Edwards, a Massachusets man.[10] As
to the French, who talked fluently of having created this science,
there was not a title in any of their writings, that was not to be found
literally in the authors I had mentioned. [Horne Tooke, who might
have a claim to come in under the head of Grammar, was still living.]
None of these names seemed to excite much interest, and I did not
plead for the re-appearance of those who might be thought best fitted
by the abstracted nature of their studies for their present spiritual
and disembodied state, and who, even while on this living stage, were
nearly divested of common flesh and blood. As A—— with an uneasy
fidgetty face was about to put some question about Mr. Locke and
Dugald Stewart, he was prevented by M. C. who observed, ‘If J——
was here, he would undoubtedly be for having up those profound
and redoubted scholiasts, Thomas Aquinas and Duns Scotus.’ I said
this might be fair enough in him who had read or fancied he had read
the original works, but I did not see how we could have any right to
call up these authors to give an account of themselves in person, till
we had looked into their writings.
By this time it should seem that some rumour of our whimsical
deliberation had got wind, and had disturbed the irritabile genus in
their shadowy abodes, for we received messages from several
candidates that we had just been thinking of. Gray declined our
invitation, though he had not yet been asked: Gay offered to come
and bring in his hand the Duchess of Bolton, the original Polly:
Steele and Addison left their cards as Captain Sentry and Sir Roger
de Coverley: Swift came in and sat down without speaking a word,
and quitted the room as abruptly: Otway and Chatterton were seen
lingering on the opposite side of the Styx, but could not muster
enough between them to pay Charon his fare: Thomson fell asleep in
the boat, and was rowed back again—and Burns sent a low fellow,
one John Barleycorn, an old companion of his who had conducted
him to the other world, to say that he had during his lifetime been
drawn out of his retirement as a show, only to be made an exciseman
of, and that he would rather remain where he was. He desired,
however, to shake hands by his representative—the hand, thus held
out, was in a burning fever, and shook prodigiously.
The room was hung round with several portraits of eminent
painters. While we were debating whether we should demand speech
with these masters of mute eloquence, whose features were so
familiar to us, it seemed that all at once they glided from their
frames, and seated themselves at some little distance from us. There
was Leonardo with his majestic beard and watchful eye, having a
bust of Archimedes before him; next him was Raphael’s graceful
head turned round to the Fornarina; and on his other side was
Lucretia Borgia, with calm, golden locks; Michael Angelo had placed
the model of St. Peter’s on the table before him; Corregio had an
angel at his side; Titian was seated with his Mistress between himself
and Giorgioni; Guido was accompanied by his own Aurora, who took
a dice-box from him; Claude held a mirror in his hand; Rubens
patted a beautiful panther (led in by a satyr) on the head; Vandyke
appeared as his own Paris, and Rembrandt was hid under furs, gold
chains and jewels, which Sir Joshua eyed closely, holding his hand so
as to shade his forehead. Not a word was spoken; and as we rose to
do them homage, they still presented the same surface to the view.
Not being bonâ-fide representations of living people, we got rid of
the splendid apparitions by signs and dumb show. As soon as they
had melted into thin air, there was a loud noise at the outer door,
and we found it was Giotto, Cimabue, and Ghirlandaio, who had
been raised from the dead by their earnest desire to see their
illustrious successors—
‘Whose names on earth
In Fame’s eternal records live for aye!’

Finding them gone, they had no ambition to be seen after them,

and mournfully withdrew. ‘Egad!’ said B——, ‘those are the very
fellows I should like to have had some talk with, to know how they
could see to paint when all was dark around them?’
‘But shall we have nothing to say,’ interrogated G. J——, ‘to the
Legend of Good Women?’—‘Name, name, Mr. J——,’ cried H—— in a
boisterous tone of friendly exultation, ‘name as many as you please,
without reserve or fear of molestation!’ J—— was perplexed between
so many amiable recollections, that the name of the lady of his choice
expired in a pensive whiff of his pipe; and B—— impatiently declared
for the Duchess of Newcastle. Mrs. Hutchinson was no sooner
mentioned, than she carried the day from the Duchess. We were the
less solicitous on this subject of filling up the posthumous lists of
Good Women, as there was already one in the room as good, as
sensible, and in all respects as exemplary, as the best of them could
be for their lives! ‘I should like vastly to have seen Ninon de l’Enclos,’
said that incomparable person; and this immediately put us in mind
that we had neglected to pay honour due to our friends on the other
side of the Channel: Voltaire, the patriarch of levity, and Rousseau,
the father of sentiment, Montaigne and Rabelais (great in wisdom
and in wit), Moliere and that illustrious group that are collected
round him (in the print of that subject) to hear him read his comedy
of the Tartuffe at the house of Ninon; Racine, La Fontaine,
Rochefoucault, St. Evremont, &c.
‘There is one person,’ said a shrill, querulous voice, ‘I would rather
see than all these—Don Quixote!’
‘Come, come!’ said H——; ‘I thought we should have no heroes,
real or fabulous. What say you, Mr. B——? Are you for eking out your
shadowy list with such names as Alexander, Julius Cæsar,
Tamerlane, or Ghengis Khan?’—‘Excuse me,’ said B——, ‘on the
subject of characters in active life, plotters and disturbers of the
world, I have a crotchet of my own, which I beg leave to
reserve.’—‘No, no! come, out with your worthies!’—‘What do you
think of Guy Faux and Judas Iscariot?’ H—— turned an eye upon him
like a wild Indian, but cordial and full of smothered glee. ‘Your most
exquisite reason!’ was echoed on all sides; and A—— thought that B
—— had now fairly entangled himself. ‘Why, I cannot but think,’
retorted he of the wistful countenance, ‘that Guy Faux, that poor
fluttering annual scare-crow of straw and rags, is an ill-used
gentleman. I would give something to see him sitting pale and
emaciated, surrounded by his matches and his barrels of gunpowder,
and expecting the moment that was to transport him to Paradise for
his heroic self-devotion; but if I say any more, there is that fellow G
—— will make something of it. And as to Judas Iscariot, my reason is
different. I would fain see the face of him, who, having dipped his
hand in the same dish with the Son of Man, could afterwards betray
him. I have no conception of such a thing; nor have I ever seen any
picture (not even Leonardo’s very fine one) that gave me the least
idea of it.’—‘You have said enough, Mr. B——, to justify your choice.’
‘Oh! ever right, Menenius,—ever right!’
‘There is only one other person I can ever think of after this,’
continued H——; but without mentioning a name that once put on a
semblance of mortality. ‘If Shakspeare was to come into the room, we
should all rise up to meet him; but if that person was to come into it,
we should all fall down and try to kiss the hem of his garment!’
As a lady present seemed now to get uneasy at the turn the
conversation had taken, we rose up to go. The morning broke with
that dim, dubious light by which Giotto, Cimabue, and Ghirlandaio
must have seen to paint their earliest works; and we parted to meet
again and renew similar topics at night, the next night, and the night
after that, till that night overspread Europe which saw no dawn. The
same event, in truth, broke up our little Congress that broke up the
great one. But that was to meet again: our deliberations have never
been resumed.
 ON THE CONVERSATION OF LORDS

The New Monthly Magazine.]

[April, 1826.
‘An infinite deal of nothing,’—Shakspeare.

The conversation of Lords is very different from that of authors.

Mounted on horseback, they stick at nothing in the chace, and clear
every obstacle with flying leaps, while we poor devils have no chance
of keeping up with them with our clouten shoes and long hunting-
poles. They have all the benefit of education, society, confidence,
they read books, purchase pictures, breed horses, learn to ride,
dance, and fence, look after their estates, travel abroad:—authors
have none of these advantages, or inlets of knowledge, to assist them,
except one, reading; and this is still more impoverished and clouded
by the painful exercise of their own thoughts. The knowledge of the
Great has a character of wealth and property in it, like the stores of
the rich merchant or manufacturer, who lays his hands on all within
his reach: the understanding of the student is like the workshop of
the mechanic, who has nothing but what he himself creates. How
difficult is the production, how small the display in the one case
compared to the other! Most of Correggio’s designs are contained in
one small room at Parma: how different from the extent and variety
of some hereditary and princely collections!
The human mind has a trick (probably a very natural and
consoling one) of striking a balance between the favours of wisdom
and of fortune, and of making one thing a gratuitous and convenient
foil to another. Whether this is owing to envy or to a love of justice, I
will not say: but whichever it is owing to, I must own I do not think it
well founded. A scholar is without money: therefore (to make the