The Subject of Industrial Psychology

Over the course of this semester we have covered a lot of material in the subject of industrial psychology and we have pondered questions such as; what the main purpose of industrial psychology is, what the most important information in industrial psychology is, and what the underlying assumptions industrial psychologists are thinking among others. Today, I am   here to answer these questions and provide an insight into what I learned during this course and how I can apply it to real world situations.

The main purpose of industrial psychology are to understand the basis of critical thinking and how it applies to our everyday lives. psychology is everywhere, it shows up a lot in business when it comes to HR and the hiring process. In order to be a good employee, one must first of all, do their job correctly and effectively. Secondly, the individual must fit the system and the company culture as an individual in order to keep a relaxed, yet effective working environment. When it comes to hiring, employers use the psychological method of critical thinking in order to not jump to conclusions and make the best hire possible for the company.

The key questions at the heart of industrial psychology are 1) how do you properly  measure diversity? 2) how do companies use utility test in order to hire good employees in the workplace? 3) Does culture have an impact on decision making? 4) How do you evaluate the scores of job candidates? In order to keep this paragraph simple and easy to read, I will answer these questions in order. 1) In order to properly measure diversity, you must take the percentage of all ethnicities working within a company. This lays out a simple, out of one hundred percent scale on who works at the company and then diversity can be scaled. 2) The utility of a test is literally its value. It is where value is measured in monetary or economic terms. 3) Culture has a very large impact in decision making, companies, especially those who follow the managerial business system rely on culture to make decisions on who to hire and what to produce. Businesses that use this type of system are typically older, larger companies that have a lot of wealth. 4) This is subjective. When it comes to scoring a candidate on their ability to do a job, it is up to the committee hiring, the references that the candidate provides and the reputation that the candidate already has within the company.

The most important information in industrial psychology is the fact that supervisor ratings are most commonly used when it comes to performance appraisal, one´s performance can be judged by both your peers and supervisors, most personnel decisions are made based on the performance management system. When the a company is evaluating its performance or looking at its quarterly or yearly reports, supervisors may evaluate their subordinates. These evaluations are used to judge whether or not this person is deserving of a promotion, of no use to the company or if they should just stay where they are right now. With that being said, it is not only superiors that can evaluate someone’s performance, their peers can as well. These people work with the individual in question every day and can provide insight on what this individual is actually like on the job. The final piece of information is that most personnel decisions are based on the performance management systems. Whether it’s to fire or hire someone, performance is usually the thing that is looked at the most to ensure that the individual in question is qualified enough for the job or unqualified enough to be let go.

The main inferences in industrial psychology are that stress plays a big in terms of the psychological health of the employees in the workplace, people did not really pay attention to workplace health until the 1960s, organizations can help the workplace health of the employees by holding interventions and changing hours and it is important for organizations to have a negative impact on one’s psychological health. Stress is one of the biggest factors of ineffectiveness, this is not only seen in the workplace, but we can start to see it in the youth, particularly high school and middle school. If an employee is ineffective from stress, the company should help them find ways to relieve it by offering programs on stress relief. Reform of workplace safety started in the 1960s due to Johnson’s social reforms and laws, but personally I don't believe that it was until 1973 when the EPA began regulations on asbestos. This is very similar to the psychological health due to stress, if an employee needs an intervention, it should be the company's responsibility to put their employees first.