Industrial/Organizational Psychology

What is Industrial/Organizational Psychology?

Industrial/organizational psychology is the application of psychological principles to human behavior in the workplace. Known as I/O psychology for short, this is the field of career counselors and HR professionals. Industrial/organizational psychology studies the factors that contribute to or detract from productivity and workplace wellbeing, and are an indispensable element of many Human Resources offices. The core of I/O psychology is in social psychology – since workplaces are usually social environments, and since relationships between human beings are a fundamental element of any successful workplace, I/O psychologists must be highly knowledgeable about human behavior in social contexts.

Who Should Study Industrial/Organizational Psychology?

While theoretical research is important in any area of psychology, few people interested in research get degrees in industrial/organizational psychology. The majority of those who study in this field go on to apply their knowledge “in the field” by working for corporations or in private practice. As a highly applied field with strong job prospects for graduates, industrial/organizational psychology is a great choice for those who are interested in psychology but worried about the job market for psychology majors. Nearly every company above a certain size needs human-resources officers, and those with psychological training are often considered particularly valuable.

Industrial/organizational psychology also opens up career options in private practice and at career-counseling centers, and I/O psychologists are some of the most well-paid, on average, of all psychological professionals.

Industrial/organizational psychology can be a great way to do hands-on counseling work without the added stresses that clinical and school psychologists go through. The issues you will confront as a career counselor or HR specialist are serious, but tend not to rise to the level of the existential, emotional, and psychological crises faced by clinical psychologists and school counselors on a regular basis. You can help those in need by coaching them through job stress, difficulties with co-workers, or unemployment, but people rarely see their workplace counselors as sources of emergency support; this is probably the biggest difference between industrial/organizational psychology and many other fields of applied psychology.

The History of Industrial/Organizational Psychology

The birth of industrial/organizational psychology was in the First World War, when psychologists were employed by various armed forces to ensure that recruits could be rapidly evaluated for their particular aptitude, then assigned where they would be most useful. This practice continued through WWII. After the wars, as the world’s economies shifted toward peacetime production, I/O psychologists began to apply their knowledge and techniques to the kind of workplaces we are familiar with today.

In recent years, the advent of positive psychology has lent a new perspective on psychology in the workplace. Positive psychology is the study of what makes us happy, what contributes to our feelings of success and wellbeing, and many I/O psychologists think that ideas about human happiness could contribute to ideas about what makes people productive. Presenting workers with tasks that are challenging but carefully matched with their skills, for example, has been shown to increase both workplace satisfaction and productivity by a striking amount. Positive industrial/organizational psychology is the effort to help people find joy and contentment in the environment where they often spend a majority of their waking hours: in the workplace.