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Organizational Psychology

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Organizational Psychology
Michelle Brito
Psych/570
December 23, 2013
Prof. Linda Whinghter

Organizational Psychology
The behavior that people experience in a workplace can be studied in organizational psychology. Organizational psychology is a sub-category to organizational/industrial psychology better known as I/O psychology. The I/O psychology is divided into two different groups. Each subject focuses on an essential part of the organization. There are two related discipline in organizational psychology, which are organizational behavior and Industrial psychology. Although both are similar to organizational psychology, each side has its differences. Research statistics are an essential part to an organizing development and problem solving.
Organizational Psychology
The study of organizational psychology understands the dynamics of people in a workplace. Organizational psychology uses scientific methods to understand the conduct of people who work in an organization setting (Jex & Britt, 2008). Rules, structure, and guideline aids employee to work as a group instead of working as individual towards a common goal. The purpose of organizational psychology is to help better employee’s performances, better fairness, and better the relationship between employees. The core of an organization is patterned human conduct (Katz & Kahn, 1978). The rules, structure, and guideline aids the employees to perform the task at hand and can also have a psychological effect. Organizational psychology also studies the behavior of people. Organizational psychology is its own research, but it is part of a bigger study known as industrial/organizational psychology. The I/O psychology is the requirement of method and values to an organization (Spector, 2006). The two structure aid organizational psychology. The industrial side focuses on the management features of the business, whereas the organizational side focuses on improving the workplace setting (Jex & Britt, 2008).
The Evolution of Organizational Psychology
The history of organizational psychology point out towards the ancient time. It is said that Midianite the priest and Jethro were the father of organizational psychology. As stated by Jex and Britt, (2008) the priest and Jethro advised Moses “on how to staff and organize the ancient Israelites” (p. 9). Despite the evidence, it was not until more research and studies was conducted that organizational psychology was recognized. Organizational psychology is a part of I/O psychology. I/O psychology was founded by Professor Hugo Munsterberg, Walter Bingham, and Walter Dill Scott. The professor’s research was during the twentieth century, dealing with skill acquisition and personnel selection (Jex & Britt, 2008). Organizational psychology was deeply influenced by Frederick Winslow Taylor. He was a non-psychologist. There was three important principle taught through Frederick Wilson Taylor work.
The first thing was that work should be planned by another person rather than the one who is performing the duties. The second thing is that employees would work better when given incentives. The final thing learned was that workplace problems should be as stated by Jex and Britt, (2008) “subjected to empirical study” (p. 10). Max weber was another important figure in organizational psychology he develop the concept of bureaucracy. The Bureaucracy system is about people knowing exactly what to do when at work and who the authority figures are. Another part of the system is people should be promoted based on hard work and merit instead of social status, or family.
Compare and contrast organizational psychology
The two related control that will be compare and contrasted are organizational behavior and industrial psychology. Organizational behavior differs from organizational psychology because Organizational behavior goes further into the study of human behavior. It uses two steps, information and performance within the company. Organizational psychology and behavioral organizational are both apprehensive with the impact of high variable and procedure organizational psychology does not continue to study how the influences of such variable and procedure could affect the person at the workplace. Organizational behavior does deal with how the employees are affected by the variable and how he or she interacts with the workplace (Jex & Britt, 2008).
The industrial psychology is known as I/O psychology consists of both sides organizational and industrial. The industrial side focuses more on recruitment, classification, selection, training, compensation, and performance (Jex & Britt, 2008). The organizational side focuses more on the on developing the employees, socializing, motivating, leadership, and business performance (Jex & Britt, 2008). The industrial and organizational side is very different and deals with a different aspect or organizes, but each one depends on the other. An organization would not run efficiently without both parts.
Research and Statistics
Organization must use research and statistics to find out what development does the business needs to run more efficiently. One of the key factors in organizational psychology is management monitoring the business and employees. When observing the employee or business people can realize certain issue that happen in the business and can find a solution to those problems. The research needs to be dependable and assessable for examination to assure the problems that are occurring or possible solution. Statistics help in organizing and analyzing the information obtain from the research.
Research is gathering the necessary information by observing and experimenting. There are four different methods to research, observation, archival data, surveys, and designed experiments (Jex & Britt, 2008). Observation is very simple. It is monitoring the employee in the workplace setting. It can occur by monitoring communication between employees or between customers. Observation can backfire if the person who is observed is notified of the situation. The person being observe can easily change his or her behavior around the person who is observing. Archival data is going through the data compiled by other researcher. Survey is the process of asking people a series a question relating to different subject. The question can be asked either verbally or written. Experimentation occurs in a control setting where the person can test the research.
Statistic is different test used to verify the research. There are four types of test. The test can be descriptive statistic, which consist of mean, medium, mode, variance, range, and standard deviation (Jex & Britt, 2008). The descriptive statistic is finding the relationship between a set of groups. Correlation and regression are the test used to study the relationship between variable. The problem with correlation is that it cannot determine which variable influence the other one. Meta-analysis is taking several studies already conducted and averaging the different effects.
Conclusion
Organizational psychology primary focus is to comprehend the reason why people act or interact the way he or she does at a workplace. The rules, structure, and guideline play a significant role in the person behavior and mental process. Organizational psychology may have started in the ancient time but was not truly recognized until Frederick Taylor and Max Weber with his bureaucracy system. The bureaucracy helps people understand his or her role in the workplace while also establishing merit for promotion instead of social status. Organizational psychology is it personal study of human behavior in the workplace, but derived from a bigger study known as I/O psychology, which focuses on the Industrial focuses on the management portion and the organizational focuses on the people interaction. Another important factor to organizational psychology is the research and statistic. Research focuses on gathering the information, where statistics focuses on testing.

References
Jex, S., and Britt, T., (2008), Organizational Psychology: A Scientist-Practitioner Approach, 2nd Ed., John Wiley & Sons, Inc. Hoboken, NJ Katz, D., & Kahn, R. L. (1978). The social psychology of organizations (2nd ed.). New
York: Wiley.
Spector, P. E. (2006). Industrial and organizational psychology: Research and practice.
Australia: Wiley.

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