APPENDIX A

PSYCHOLOGY AT WORK

A-1 What is flow, and what are the three subfields of industrial-organizational psychology?

Flow is a completely involved, focused state of consciousness with diminished awareness of self and time. It results from fully engaging one’s skills. Industrial-organizational (I/O) psychology’s three subfields are personnel, organizational, and human factors psychology.

A-2 How do personnel psychologists help organizations with employee selection, work placement, and performance appraisal?

Personnel psychologists work with organizations to devise selection methods for new employees; recruit and evaluate applicants; design and evaluate training programs; identify people’s strengths; analyze job content; and appraise individual and organizational performance. Unstructured, subjective interviews foster the interviewer illusion; structured interviews pinpoint job-relevant strengths and are better predictors of performance. Checklists, graphic rating scales, and behavior rating scales are useful performance appraisal methods.

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A-3 What is the role of organizational psychologists?

Organizational psychologists examine influences on worker satisfaction and productivity and facilitate organizational change. Employee satisfaction and engagement tend to correlate with organizational success.

A-4 What are some effective leadership techniques?

Effective leaders harness job-relevant strengths; set specific challenging goals; and choose an appropriate leadership style. Leadership style may be goal-oriented (task leadership), group-oriented (social leadership), or some combination of the two.

A-5 How do human factors psychologists work to create user-friendly machines and work settings?

Human factors psychologists contribute to human safety and improved design by encouraging developers and designers to consider human perceptual abilities, to avoid the curse of knowledge, and to test users to reveal perception-based problems.

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