History of Industrial -Organizational Psychology

History of Organizational
Psychology
Presented by: Dr. Rhea Lowella Santillan Fiser, RPsy, RPm, CSIOP

History of I/O Psychology: 
(1900-1916)
W. L. Bryan
! Early President of A.P.A (American
Psychological Association)
! In the 1904 presidential address to APA,
W.L. Bryan, encouraged psychologists
to study "concrete activities and
functions as the appear in every day
life". Although he didn't cite industry
directly, he encouraged these sorts of
"real life" applications of a science of
psychology.

History of I/O Psychology: 
(1900-1916)
W. L. Bryan
❑ But not really considered father of I/O Psych
because he was a originator, before the
field was established.
❑ Postscript note: "The term 'industrial
psychology' first appeared in a 1904 article
of Bryan's APA address. Ironically, it
appeared in print only as a typographical
error. Bryan was quoting a sentence he had
written five years earlier in which he spoke
of the need for more research in individual
psychology. Instead, Bryan wrote industrial
psychology and did not catch his
mistake." (Muchinsky, 1997, p10;)

THE NAMELESS WAS NAMED 
● Frank and Lillian Gilbreth
➢Interested in improving productivity
and efficiency of industrial engineers.
➢Argued for the use of psychology in
the work lives of industrial engineers.
➢Led to the merger of psychology with
applied interests.
➢The nameless was crowned
industrial psychology in 1910.

Lillian
Gilbreth is
called the
Mother of Modern
Management

Lillian Gilbreth 
The Mother of Modern Management
! In 1900 at age 22, she
earned a BA in Lit from
Berkeley, despite her
Father’s belief that
educating women was a
waste of time.
! She spoke at the
commencement, the 1st
woman ever to do .
! She earned a MA from
Berkeley (also in Lit.) in
1902.

Lillian Gilbreth 
! After graduation, she meets and falls
in love with an uneducated builder
named Frank Gilbreth.
! Frank is interested in workplace
efficiency, and Lillian looks into
scientific management principles.
They begin consulting together.
! In 1915, Lillian receives a PhD in
Educational Psychology, with an
emphasis in management, at Brown
University. At commencement, she is
accompanied by her 4 children, all
under age 5.

Lillian Gilbreth 
! 1924: Nine years have passed, and she
has had another 8 children. She and
Frank perform groundbreaking work in
process simplification, efficiency and
employee motivation. She is the first to
recognize the impact of stress and
fatigue on time management.
! Lillian continues to work full time until
the age of 88, and makes tremendous
contributions to how we work, which
endure to this day. She puts all of her
12 children through college.
! 2 of her children write a book modeled
after her, called Cheaper By the
Dozen.

Lillian Gilbreth 
Some of her contributions:
! Designed the layout of keys on a
typewriter keyboard
! Invented scaffolding
! Created the process hospitals use to
organize instruments during surgery
! Designed the first continuous-surface-
model kitchen (created to assist
handicapped women work in the
kitchen)
! Invented “hospital corners” to prevent
back injuries in nurses
! Designed a myriad of household
appliances and industrial equipment.

Industrial Organizational Psychology 
World War I
!Robert Yerkes was the most
influential in getting psychology into the war
! He proposed ways of screening recruits for
mental deficiency and assigning selected
recruits to army jobs
! Committees of psychologists also
investigated soldier motivation, morale,
psychological problems of physical
incapacity ("shell shock"), and discipline
! Army was skeptical and approved only a
modest number of proposals, primarily in
the assessment of recruits -- which Yerkes
and others developed as a general
intelligence test.
! Walter Dill Scott classified and placed
enlistees, conducted performance
evaluations of officers, and developed and
prepared job duties and qualifications for
over 500 military jobs
ROBERT YERKES

World War I - I/O field catalyst
!Robert Yerkes and Walter Dill
Scott:
❑ Screening recruits for mental deficiency—
Army Alpha and Beta intelligence tests
developed.
❑ Classification of selected recruits into jobs
❑ Performance evaluations of officers
❑ Job Analysis
❑ soldier motivation and morale
❑ Discipline
First journal of applied psychology began in 1917

Industrial Organizational Psych. 
After World War I
! Psychological Corporation started
by James Cattell in 1921
! Main purpose was to advance
psychology and promote its
usefulness to industry
! Also to maintain quality reputation
of field by serving as a place for
companies to get reference
checks on prospective
psychologists
! Helped companies weed out quacks
from qualified professionals
! Mission has shifted: Today serves as
one of largest publishers of
psychological tests
JAMES CATTELL

Industrial Organizational Psychology. 
The Hawthorne Studies
! In 1933 Elton Mayo made his interim
report on the Hawthorne studies. It
contains the first significant call for the
human relations movement
! Mayo showed the existence of
informal employee groups and their
effects on production, the importance
of employee attitudes, the value of a
sympathetic and understanding
supervisor, and the need to treat
people as people -- not simply as
human capital
! This was one of the benchmark events
in the development of industrial
psychology
! By this time, several Universities offered
a PhD program in I/O Psychology.  
ELTON MAYO

Industrial Organizational Psychology 
The Hawthorne Studies
! In 1924 a series of experiments began
at the Hawthorne Works of the
Western Electric Company
! Researchers from Harvard University
set out to study the relation between
lighting and efficiency
! Increased lighting resulted in
increased efficiency, but to their
surprise, efficiency continued to
improve as the lighting dimmed to
faint moonlight levels
! The Hawthorne Effect -- change in
behavior following the onset of a
novel treatment (generally new or
increased attention). Effect
eventually wears off (behavior returns
to original) as the "novelty" dissipates

The 3 Founding Fathers
❖Walter Dill Scott (American Psychologist)
❖Hugo Munsterberg (German)
❖Frederick Taylor (American Engineer)

WALTER DILL SCOTT
!in 1903, he gave a talk to
Chicago business leaders on
the application of psychology to
advertising, which led to the
publication of two books on the
topic published in 1903 & 1908.
!By 1911 he had published two
more books :
1. Influencing Men in Business
2. Increasing Human
Efficiency in Business

WALTER DILL SCOTT
● First to apply the
principles of psychology to
motivation and productivity
in the workplace.
● Would later become
instrumental in the
application of personnel
procedures within the
army during World War I.
● He boosted industrial
psychology

Hugo Munsterberg
!Pioneered the
application of
psychological findings
from laboratory
experiments to practical
matters
!He was the first to
encourage government
funded research in the
area of industrial
psychology.

Hugo Munsterberg
! In 1911 he cautioned
managers to be
concerned with "all the
questions of the
mind...like fatigue,
monotony, interest,
learning, work
satisfaction, and
rewards."
In 1913 his book
Psychology and Industrial
Efficiency addressed such
things as personnel
selection and equipment
design .

Hugo Munsterberg
!Munsterberg’s early concept of
I/O psychology assumed that :
1. People need to fit the
organization -- training!
2. Applied behavioral sciences
should help organizations to
shape people to serve as
replacement parts for
organizational machines---
Mechanistic.
His ideas were influential well
into the 1950's

Frederick Taylor
! About the same time as
Munsterberg, Frederick Taylor
began publishing similar
philosophies on management --
which had a tremendous impact on
organizational management
! Taylor realized the value of
redesigning the work situation (thru
use of time and motion studies) to
achieve both higher output for the
company and higher wages for the
worker “Pay the worker, not the job”.
! His book Shop Management (1909)
explained management's role in
motivating workers to avoid "natural
soldiering", i.e., the natural
tendency of people to "take it easy" 

! Born in 1856 in Germantown, Pennsylvania,
a suburb of Philadelphia.
! was the son of affluent parents and spent
a great deal of his childhood travelling in
Europe.
! At the age of 18, he turned down the
opportunity to study at Harvard, and
instead accepted a position as an
apprentice at the Enterprise Hydraulic
Works in Philadelphia.
! worked there for two years before moving
to Midvale Steel.
! prospered at Midvale, working his way up
to the supervisory ranks by the age of 24.
Frederick Winslow Taylor:  
Father of Scientific Management

Frederick Winslow Taylor:  
Father of Scientific Management
! It was during his time at Midvale that
Taylor developed an interest in work
methods and procedures—an
interest that would lead to the
famous pig iron experiments and
ultimately to the development of
Scientific Management.
! eventually left Midvale, worked for
several other organizations, and
ultimately went out on his own and
became one of the first
management consultants.
! His scientific management faced
serious controversy.
! died in 1915 at the age of 59.

Frederick Taylor
Principles of Scientific Management
(1911) suggested:
`1. Scientifically design work methods for
efficiency.
2. Select the best workers and train them in
the best
methods.
3. A study he did showed workers who
handle heavy iron become more productive
when given work rests .
4. Training when to work and when to rest
raised productivity from 12.5 to 47.0 tons
moved per day .
❑ Less fatigue reported by the workers
❑ This allowed for increased wages
increased wages
❑ Costs dropped from 9.2 to 3.9 cents per
ton

Frederick Taylor
The controversy…
! `Taylor's methods led to charges that he
inhumanely exploited workers for higher
wages and that great numbers of
workers would be unemployed because
fewer were needed (a sensitive topic
since unemployment was already high
at the time)
! Both the Interstate Commerce
Commission and the U.S. House of
Representatives began investigations
! Taylor replied that increased efficiency
would produce greater not lesser
prosperity
! Outbreak of WWI distracted most from
the controversy before much was
resolved

Max Weber: Pioneer in the  
study of Organizational design
! Born in 1864 in the Hanseatic town
of Erfurt (which is now part of
Germany) but spent the majority of
his childhood in Berlin.
! entered Heidelberg University to
study law, although he never
became a practicing lawyer.
! Instead, he completed his doctoral
dissertation on medieval trading
companies in 1889,
! and eventually secured a university
appointment in Berlin.
! Moved back to Heidelberg in 1896,
and, shortly after, suffered a
nervous breakdown that plagued
his academic career for several
years.

Max Weber: Pioneer in the  
study of Organizational design
! Following his travels, Weber
completed influential essays on
methods and procedures for
studying social behavior, as well as
the Protestant ethic.
! These essays were followed by a
series of studies on legal institutions,
religious systems, political
economy, and authority relations.
! For organizational psychology, the
studies of authority relations were
especially significant because out
of these came the well-known
“principles of bureaucracy.”

Hawthorne Studies
! The Hawthorne studies is collaborative
effort between the Western Electric
Company and a group of researchers
from Harvard University,
! took place between 1927 and 1932
! The original purpose of the Hawthorne
studies was to investigate the impact
of environmental factors—such as
illumination, wage incentives, and rest
pauses—on employee productivity.
! Given the time period in which the
Hawthorne studies were initiated
(early 1920s), these topics were
central to the dominant mode of
managerial thought at the time:
scientific management.

Hawthorne Studies
! What made the Hawthorne studies so important to the
field of organizational psychology were the
unexpected, serendipitous findings that came out of
the series of investigations.
! Perhaps the best known were the findings that came
from the illumination experiments.
! Specifically, the Hawthorne researchers found that
productivity increased regardless of the changes in
level of illumination.
! This became the basis for what is termed the
Hawthorne effect, or the idea that people will respond
positively to any novel change in the work
environment.

Hawthorne Effect
❑ A positive change in behavior
that occurs at the onset of an
intervention followed by a
gradual decline, often to the
original level of the behavior
prior to the intervention.
❑ explains that a subject will
improve or modify an aspect of
their behavior in response to the
fact they are being studied or
watched and not in response to
any part of the actual study.

Hawthorne Effect
❑ A Hawthorne effect might occur
when a relatively trivial change is
made in a person’s job, and that
person initially responds to this
change very positively but the
effect does not last long.
❑ Hawthorne researchers
discovered that work groups
established and enforced
production norms.
❑ In fact, it was found that those
who did not adhere to
production norms often met with
very negative consequences
from the other members of the
work group, and that employees
responded very differently to
various methods of supervision.

Hawthorne Effect
! The overall implication
of the Hawthorne
studies, which later
formed the impetus for
organizational
psychology, was that
social factors impact
behavior in
organizational settings.

! During the period of union growth in the
1930s, another event occurred that would
prove to be very significant for the
development of the field of
organizational psychology:
! Kurt Lewin fled Nazi Germany and
ultimately took a post at the University of
Iowa Child Welfare Research Station.
! By the time he immigrated to the United
States, Lewin was already a prominent
social psychologist who had a variety of
research interests, many of which were
relevant to the emerging field of
organizational psychology.
History of Organizational Psychology:
1930s

Kurt Lewin: 
The Practical theorist
! born in 1890 in the village of Mogilno,
which was then part of the
Prussianprovince of Posen (now part
of Poland).
! Lewin’s father owned a general store,
as well as a small farm.
! In 1905, Lewin’s family moved to
Berlin.
! Lewin entered the University of
Frieberg in 1909, initially with the goal
of studying medicine.
! He switchedhis interest to biology.
! This led to a transfer first to the
University of Munich and ultimately to
the University of Berlin, where he
earned his doctorate in 1916.

Kurt Lewin: 
The Practical theorist
! After returning from military service
during World War I, he began his
academic career.
! Began to develop an interest in the
application of psychology to
applied problems such as
agricultural labor, production
efficiency, and the design of jobs.
! became quite interested in scientific
management, particularly the
impact of this system on workers.
! His ideas continue to influence the
study of a number of areas such as
employee motivation, leadership,
group dynamics, and organizational
development.

! World War II (1941-1945) had a
tremendous impact on the growth of
organizational psychology.
! For example, one of the results of World
War II was that women were needed to
fill many of the positions in factories that
were vacated by the men called into
military service.
! Also, shortly after World War II in 1948,
President Harry S. Truman made the
decision to pursue racial integration of
the military.
! Both events were extremely important
because they represented initial attempts
to understand the impact of diversity on
the workplace.
! World War II also served as the impetus for
major studies of morale and leadership
styles.
Psychology: 1930s-1950s

! Birmingham led an advisory committee or
classification of military personnel,
including the development of a test that
sorted new recruits into 5 categories
( Army General Classification Test).
! Psychologist worked on the development
and use situational stress tests to assess
candidates for assignment to military
intelligence units.
! Industrial psychology was used in civilian
life and the use of employment test in
industry increased greatly.
! Industrial discovered that many of the
techniques of industrial psychologist were
useful in the areas of selection, training
and machine design.
! As the field evolved and became
accepted as professional practice, more
colleges and universities offered courses
in industrial psychology
WORLD WAR II

! In 1946, The Division of Industrial
Psychology of the APA was created.
! Subspecialties emerged such as
engineering psychology ( ergonomics)
and personnel psychology which
specialized in personnel selection,
classification and training
! E. Mayo founded the human relations
movement and emphasized individual
needs, informal groups and social
relationships as the primary bases for
behavior within organizations.
! More focus was given on social influences
that impinges on behavior in organizations
! In 1964, The Civil Rights Act was passed to
address issue of discrimination in the
workplace. Companies were legally
mandated to demonstrate that their
employment test did not discriminate
against any minority group.
WORLD WAR II

! More selection techniques were
developed aside from paper-and pencil
test.
! Changing market has led to the need for
frequent changes in workers
responsibilities, task and work
relationships.
! Speed of delivery was added as a new
critical standard for judging organizations
aside from the quality and quantity of
products and services
! With the innovation of telecommuting,
virtual work teams and offices and
wireless communications, work is no
longer a physical place.
! In the modern times, the field is tasked to
increase the fit between the workforce at
a time when the composition of both is
rapid changing.
WORLD WAR II

! Another very important event in the
development of organizational psychology was
the publication of Morris Viteles’ book Motivation
and Morale in Industry (1953).
! It signified that the organizational side of the field
had finally “arrived” and had a significant role to
play in the broader field of industrial psychology.
! It was also during the post-WWII period that the
human relations perspective emerged within the
field.
! During this time, for example, Herzberg
conducted his studies of job design and job
enrichment, and major research programs
investigating both leadership and job
satisfaction were conducted.

! By the early 1960s, organizational
psychology was clearly an equal partner
with the industrial side of the field in terms of
the research topics studied and the activities
of those in nonacademic settings
! Another broader social factor impacted the
development of organizational psychology
was during the 1960s and early 1970s:
! the U.S. involvement in the Vietnam War,
which led to many cultural changes in
America and in other countries.
! During this period, for example, many young
people began to question the wisdom of
societal institutions such as education,
government, and the legal system.

! the recognition that behavior in organizations is impacted by
forces at the group and organizational levels (e.g., James &
Jones,
! 1974; Rousseau, 1985).
! This “multilevel”perspective has had major implications for the
field in guiding theory development as well as statistical
methodology (e.g., Dansereau, Alutto, & Yammarino, 1984;
James, Demaree, & Wolf, 1984).
! Organizational psychologists began to devote increasing
attention to what could be called “nontraditional” topics.
! For example; literature began to appear on work/family issues
(e.g., Greenhaus & Buetell, 1985), job-related stress and health
(Beehr & Newman, 1978), and retirement (Beehr, 1986).

! Organizational psychology began to mature as a field of
study.
! During the early 1970s, the name of Division 14 of the
American Psychological Association (APA) was formally
changed from “Industrial Psychology” to “Industrial/
Organizational Psychology.”
! Organizational psychologists began to break significant new
ground in both theory and research.
! As just a few examples, Salancik and Pfeffer (1978) proposed
Social Information Processing Theory (SIP) as an alternative to
more traditional need-based theories of job satisfaction and
job design.
! Also, organizational psychology began to “rediscover” the
impact of personality and dispositions on things such as job
attitudes (Staw & Ross, 1985) and perceptions of job-related
stress (Watson & Clark, 1984).

! A number of trends have impacted and will continue to
impact the field of organizational psychology.
! If one takes a global perspective, perhaps the most significant
event of this period was the breakup of the Soviet Union and
the eventual fall of many Communist regimes.
! These extraordinary events have implications for organizational
psychology because a number of the nations that embraced
democracy during this period have also attempted to establish
free market economies.
! Another important trend, both in the United States and
worldwide, is the change in the demographic composition of
the work-force.
Psychology: 1980s-present

! 1982 Division 14 renamed as Society for Industrial
Psychology exceeds from 1,800 membership
! 1986 SIOP hold first annual national conference separate
from APA
! 1989 Supreme Court sets conservative trend and becomes
more “ employer friendly.
! 1990 Americans with Disabilities Act Passed. SIOP
Membership exceeds 2,500
! 1991 Civil Rights Act of 1991 passed to overcome 1989
conservative Supreme Court Decision
Important Events

! 1997 SIOP celebrates golden anniversary at its annual
conference
! 2000 SIOP Membership exceeds 3,600
! 2005 OFCCP and EEOC become aggressive in fighting
systematic discrimination
Important Events

Ethics in I/O Field
It is essential for the psychologists in the profession
to follow the Ethical Code developed by American
Psychological Association (APA), in order prevent
any harm to the client.
The code includes both ethical principles and
statements of appropriate professional conduct.

1. Competence: A psychologist only does work that he/she is competent
to perform.
2.Integrity: Psychologists are fair and honest in their professional dealing
with others.
3.Professional and Scientific Responsibility: Psychologists maintain high
standards of professional behavior.
4. Respect for People’s Rights and Dignity: Psychologists respect the rights
of confidentiality and privacy of others.
5. Concern for Other’s Welfare: Psychologists attempt to help others
through their professional work.
6. Social Responsibility: Psychologists have a responsibility to use their skills
to benefit society.
Six Ethical Principles of APA Code 
(CIPRCS)

History of Industrial -Organizational Psychology

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History of Industrial -Organizational Psychology