Industrial Psychology

Unit 1
 Introduction
• Psychology is the study of mind and behavior in humans and non-
humans.
• Psychology includes the study of conscious and unconscious
phenomena, including feelings and thoughts.
• A professional practitioner or researcher involved in the discipline is
called a psychologist.
• Some psychologists are also be classified as behavioral or
cognitive scientists. Some psychologists attempt to understand the role
of mental functions in individual and social behavior. Others explore
the physiological and neurobiological processes that underlie cognitive
functions and behaviors.
• Psychologists seek an understanding of the emergent properties of
brains, linking the discipline to neuroscience.
• As social scientists, psychologists aim to understand the behavior of
individuals and groups.
• Psychologists are involved in research on
perception, cognition, attention, emotion,
intelligence, subjective experiences, motivation,
brain functioning, and personality.
Psychologists' interests extend to
interpersonal relationships,
psychological resilience, family resilience, and
other areas within social psychology. They also
consider the study of unconscious mind.
 Definition
• In 1890, William James defined psychology as
"the science of mental life, both of its
phenomena and their conditions."
 Definition of psychology

• According to Woodworth (1954), “psychology is the science of

the activities of the individual in relation to its environment.”
• According to Munn (1955), “Psychology, today concerns itself
with the scientific investigation of behaviour including, from the
standpoint of behaviour much of what earlier psychologist
dealt with as experience.”
• According to C.E. Skinner (1956), “psychology deals with
responses to any and every kind of situation that life presents.
By responses or behaviour is meant all form of processes,
adjustment, activities and expressions of the organism.”
 S-O-R FRAMEWORK
• Organism or human beings do not live in vacuum. They live in any
environment (surroundings). They receive excitements
(stimulation) from their environment and these excitements or
stimulus get response from time to time from them. Thus we can
say that human beings give their response and treatments
according to the environment in which they live. These responses
are towards the stimulations of the environment. This can be
represented in the from of a model as:
• S O R
• Stimulus Organism Response
• Above framework can also be written as:
• R= f (S. O.)
 Scope/field of psychology
• Field of psychology can be divided into two broad categories
namely pure psychology and applied psychology.
• Pure Psychology provides the framework and theory. It deals
with the formulation of psychological principles and theories.
It suggests various methods and techniques for analysis,
assessment, modification and improvement of behaviour.
• In Applied Psychology, the theory generated or discussed
through pure psychology finds its practical shape. Here we
discuss ways and means of the applications of psychological
rules, principles, theories and techniques with reference to
the real practical life situations.
 Branches of Pure Psychology:
• General psychology: deals with the fundamental rules, principles
and theories of psychology in relation to the study of behaviour of
normal adult human beings.
• Abnormal Psychology: describes and explains the behaviour of
abnormal people in relation to their own environment. The causes
symptoms, syndromes, and description of the abnormalities of
behaviour form the subject matter of this branch.
• Social Psychology: deals with the group behaviour and inter-
relationships of people with other people. Group dynamics, likes
and dislikes, interests, and attitudes, social distance and prejudices
of the people in their personal and social relationships form the
subject matter of this branch.
 Branches of Applied Psychology
• Experimental psychology: The branch of psychology describes and explains the ways
and means of carry out psychological experiments following scientific methods in
controlled or laboratory situations for the study of mental processes and behaviour. It
picks up animals, birds and human beings as subjects for these experiments.
Experimental psychology is an important field of psychology. This branch studies
various problems but the problems are studied only by experimental methods.
• Physiological psychology: This branch of psychology describes and explains the
biological and physiological basis of behaviour. The study of internal environment and
physiological structure of the body, particularly brain, nervous system, functioning of
glands in relation to conative, cognitive and affective behaviour of the human being
form part of the subject matter of this branch.
• Para-psychology: Deals with extra sensory perceptions, cases of re-birth, telepathy and
allied problems.
• Development psychology: This branch of psychology describes and explains the
processes and products of the processes of growth and development in relation to the
behaviour of an individual from birth to old age. For convenience, it is further sub-
divided into branches or fields like child psychology, adolescents’ psychology and adult
psychology.
 Branches of Applied Psychology:
• Educational Psychology: It is that branch of applied psychology, which tries to
apply the psychological principles, theories and techniques to human
behaviour in educational situations. The subject matter of this branch covers
psychological ways and means of improving all aspects of the branch covers of
the teaching/ learning process including the learner, learning process,
learning material, learning environment and the teacher. Educational
psychology is concerned with the application of psychological theories and
research to help us understand how teachers and learners behave, perform,
think, feel and relate to each other in various educational settings.

• By shedding light on these processes, work in this area has the important
function of helping us to bring about positive changes in the educational
context, particularly in order to support those individuals who are experiencing
difficulties- whether to do with academic performance, social behaviour and
relationships, or emotional wellbeing.
 Cont.
• Clinical Psychology: This branch of applied psychology describes and
explains the causes of mental illness or abnormal behaviour of a patient
attending the clinic or hospital and suggests individual or group therapy
for the treatment and effective adjustment of the affected person in
society.
• Clinical psychologists are closely involved in helping people to recover
from different kinds of problems. They attempt to help people understand
the causes of their difficulties, provide interventions that can help to
alleviate specific symptoms associated with their difficulties and provide
support and guidance through the period to recovery.
• Clinical psychology should not be confused with psychiatry. The latter
tends to have similar goals to clinical psychology, but focuses more on
medication based solutions to mental health problems. In contrast, clinical
psychologists try to help people by facilitating their understanding of their
thoughts and actions.
• Industrial psychology: This branch of applied psychology
tries to seek application of the psychological principles,
theories and techniques for the study of human behaviour
in relation to industrial environment.
• it includes the topics or contents that are useful for
improving the ways and means of knowing the interests of
the consumers, advertising and sales for products,
selection training and placing of personnel, solving labour
problems, establishing good relationship between the
employee and employer strengthening morals of workers
and increasing production etc.
• Legal Psychology: It is that branch of applied psychology
which tries to study the behaviour of the persons like
clients, criminals, witness etc. in their respective
surrounding with the help of the application of
psychological principles and techniques.
• It contain the subject matter for improving the ways and
means of detections of crimes, false witness and other
complex phenomena. the root causes of the crime,
offence, dispute or any legal case can be properly
understood through the use of this branch of psychology.
• Military Psychology: This branch of psychology is
concern with the use of psychological principles and
techniques in the world of military science. how to
keep the morale of the soldiers and citizens high
during war time, how to fight war of propaganda and
intelligence services, how to secure better
recruitment of the personnel for armed forces and
how to improve the fighting capacities and
organisational climate and leadership etc. are various
topics that are dealt with in this branch of psychology.
Political Psychology: This branch of
psychology relates itself with the use of
psychological principle and techniques in
studying the politics and deriving political
gains. The knowledge of the dynamics of
the group behaviour, judgement of the
public opinion, qualities of leadership, the
art of diplomacy etc. are some of the key
concepts in political psychology.
 Industrial psychology
• Industrial psychology is that branch of applied
psychology that is concerned with efficient
management of an industrial labour force and
especially with problems encountered by workers.
• There are some other factors then wages which
directly affect the performance of individuals. If
employers provide adequate working conditions,
proper distribution of work, attractive compensation,
effective leader etc. then definitely organization
achieves its success.
 Concept
• Industrial psychology is concerned with people's work-related
values, attitudes and behaviours, and how these are influenced
by the conditions in which they work.
• The term 'Industrial Psychology' is a combination of two words
'Industrial' and 'Psychology'. Industrial is that part of social life
whose function is to provide civilized man with the material
goals that his condition of life demand. Psychology is the science
of behaviour in relation to environment.
• Thus industrial psychology is the systematic study of the
behaviour of the people at work. It studies how the social,
industrial, economic, political and other factors affect the
behaviour of the people at work.
 Definition
• Industrial psychology is simply the application
or extension of psychology facts and principles
to the problem concerning human beings
operating within the context of business and
industry’, says Blum and Naylor.
• According to Thomas W. Harrell, ‘Industrial
psychology may be defined as the study of
people as individuals and in groups and of the
relationship between individual and group’.
 IP as a Science
• Psychology is the study of mental processes
and human behavior. Researchers have put
the IP in both social science and science
category
• IP as a science because of its following
characteristics
• Reasoning: Psychologists rely on scientific
reasoning to interpret and design
psychological research and interpret
phenomena.
• Research: Like traditional science,
psychologists make use of quantitative and
qualitative research methods that are
necessary for performing analysis and drawing
conclusions.
• Application:
• Objectivity
• When conducting any study, researchers must
remain focused on objective. They cannot let
their own emotions and feelings enter the
process which is the main principle of science.
• Empirical evidence
• Evidence is collected through experiments and
observations.
• Control
• In order to deduce cause and effect
(independent variables and dependent
variables), variables must be controlled.
• Hypothesis testing
• To start off the p rocess, an observation is made. Then researchers create
their hypothesis, which is a prediction that’s rooted in theory. These
hypotheses should be clearly stated and then tested through unbiased
experiments.
• Predictability
• Based on the findings of research, scientists should technically be able to
forecast and predict the future Behaviour.
• Replication
• When scientists develop experiments, they should be able to be
replicated to test. When the same results occur based on the same
conditions, then that provides credibility and accuracy to the findings,
which can give way to the creation of a scientific theory or discovery.
 Applications
• Industrial psychologists apply the theories and
principles of psychology to the workplace in
an attempt to “enhance the dignity and
performance of human beings, and the
organizations they work in, by advancing the
science and knowledge of human behavior”
• Social learning theory to build training and
development programs and incentive plans
• Social psychology to create working groups to
understand and reduce employee conflict
• Motivational and emotional theories to meet
the psychological needs of employees and
increase their satisfaction at work
• theories commonly applied in industrial
psychology:
• Self-regulation theory
This theory suggests that “employees monitor
their own progress toward attaining goals and
then make the necessary adjustments; that is,
they self-regulate” (Aamodt, 2010, p. 342)
• Expectancy theory
“The individual chooses to behave in accordance
with the alternative that she or he associates
with the highest subjective expected utility”
(Rogelberg, 2007, p. 235). The possible outcomes
of behavior are factored against the probability of
a particular performance level, and the higher
the score, the greater the employee’s motivation.
• Equity theory
• Job satisfaction
• Organizational commitment and
job satisfaction have been widely studied in
organizational psychology and appear highly
correlated. Both are important to the
employee and the employer as they affect
commitment to the job and the organization,
including attendance and positive behavior at
work (Aamodt, 2010).
 Applications
• Talent inventory
Assessing employees’ knowledge, skills, abilities,
and how they are used
• Workforce forecasting
Planning future organizational requirements,
including volume and skill sets
• Control and evaluation
Constantly evaluating the effectiveness of
industrial psychology programs and interventions
• Performance appraisal
• Employees’ performance must be continuously monitored.
Early results provide helpful feedback for the recruitment
process and, over time, identify needs and opportunities
for training and development (Riggio, 2017).
• Job performance is measured against criteria used to
assess successful or unsuccessful performance
levels: objective performance criteria (such as the number
of units made or products sold) and subjective performance
criteria (judgments or ratings of other employees, including
their manager).
• industrial psychologists rely on psychological
testing, behavioral interviews, and work data.
On the other hand, human resources
departments typically adopt unstructured
interviews to progress staff selection and
promotion
 Scope of IP
• ● Scientific selection of workers’—Industrial psychology offers a whole
arrangement of tests such as systematic depth interviews and
psychological tests of intelligence, aptitude, skills, abilities and interest
the personnel characteristic etc. By these tests candidates are measured
and properly selected and placed on the job.
• ● Proper division of work—One of the scopes of industrial psychology is
the work should be properly divided according to the abilities, skills and
aptitude of the workers so they may feel comfortable and satisfied. It may
also lead higher production.
• ● Minimizing the wastage of human efforts—Industrial psychology tries
to minimize the wastage of human power. It studies psychological factors
causing fatigue or accident and give feasible suggestions to prevent them.
The techniques of motivation and morale are used for this purpose.
• ● Promoting labour welfare—It promotes the welfare of the labour by introducing
adequate working environment through which job satisfaction, work efficiency
increases and also state the provisions of higher incentives.
• ● Enhancement of human relations—Human relations are the relation among
individuals in an organization and the group behaviour that emerge from their
relations. Most of problems arise in the industries are connected to human
relation. If workers' feel ease with the surrounding then automatically they get
motivated and productivity will be higher. Industrial psychology has made
significant contribution in framing the techniques of leadership, worker
participation, communication etc.
• ● Developing industrial relations—Industrial psychology studies the attitude of the
employer and employees. Individuals differ from each others in their thoughts,
thinking, behaviour and other parameters. Therefore, different measures may be
adopted in solving the problem relating to each individual like transfers,
promotions, grievances etc. This helps in developing industrial relationship among
workers' and management.
• ● Increase production—It helps in attaining the major objective of the organization
that to get the best output from the existing resources. The production is
automatically increased if proper selection is made, the work will be properly
distributed, accident prevention and safety measures suggested.