Industrial Psychology Quiz 1
1.Technology advancement has put organizational practices into jeopardy
by taking out traditional practices that have worked for centuries. False
2.Industrial and organizational psychology is the study of individuals, group
processes and their work environments. True
3.The Hawthorne e昀昀ect can be seen in what situation? None of the choices
Display of conformity to a single idea in a group setting
4.Organizational psychology focuses on what the employee brings to the job
True
5.An industrial psychologist would _________________. Devise interview
questions
6.Walter Dill Scott is considered the father of I/O psychology because he
was the 昀椀rst one to publish a book about the subject. False
7.Psychology is _______________. Both a 昀椀eld of study that has existed for
about 100 years and a study of an individual's mental processes
8.The Hawthorne e昀昀ect says that when one vocal employee says his
opinion, all others follow suit. False
9.An industrial psychologist would study_________________. How jobs are
measured and evaluated
10.I/O psychology involves _________________ Both behavior modi昀椀cation
studies and motivation studies
1.An organizational psychologist would _________________. Devise interview
questions Design organizational structure
2.An organizational psychologist would study _________________. Business
process improvement on human resources Assessments used for selection
and recruitment
3.World War 1 and 2 made use of selection techniques discovered from I/O
researches that identi昀椀ed good recruits by means of intelligence tests.
True
4.The internet and social media platforms can be useful in studying I/O
psychology because of _________________. Both ease of conduct of
employee processes such as recruitment and training and accessibility of
workers to work emails, deliverables and its e昀昀ects on them
5.I/O traces its roots to pre World War 2 when work was hard and had to be
studied. False
6.Frederick Taylor used time and motion studies to re-design jobs to give
greatest e昀케ciency. True
Just recently, I made an interesting discovery at the gym. I’m one of those gymgoers who sticks to what they know they like—I like to run, so I’m basically shackled to a treadmill as soon as I walk in. But, of course, some days are better than others. Some days I can run 4 miles without any breaks in between, while on others I just can’t find the motivation. I began to wonder what contributed to my increase and decrease in motivation: Was it my diet? Did it have
to do with my energy levels? Were my muscles tired or sore on the bad days? Finally, I reached a revelation. One day, I was jogging leisurely when someone started running on the treadmill next to me. As they increased their speed, I did too. And I didn’t let myself stop until they stopped first. Looking at my stats, I saw that I ran my 4 miles and faster than I ever had before. It dawned on me that when other people were nearby, I performed better. Have you ever had a similar
experience? Say, you worked harder at the gym when other people were around, or you were more productive at work when the CEO popped into your office. You can thank the Hawthorne effect for this. The Hawthorne effect essentially says that we do better when other people are watching us. This was observed during a series of experiments
conducted during the 1920s and 1930s at Western Electric’s Hawthorne Works electric company. The purpose was to understand how different elements of the work environment—lighting, breaks, and hours spent at work—might affect productivity. In one experiment, the researchers changed the lighting to see how it affected workers. They found that any change—brightening or dimming of the lights—resulted in increased productivity. Similarly, when the researchers cut out breaks and extended the
workday, productivity also increased. Surprised by these results, the researchers finally concluded that the increased levels of productivity resulted from increased attention, rather than the changes made to their environment. The Hawthorne effect now describes improved performance due to one’s being observed. While we still use this term today to
describe increased productivity levels due to our being observed, more recent studies have failed to reach the same conclusion. For example, in looking at the data from this original series of experiments, researchers from the University of Chicago found that other influences played a greater role in productivity levels than the original researchers reported. Furthermore,
additional studies have concluded that increased feedback (rather than an increased attention) resulted in greater worker productivity. That said, psychologists agree that the term “Hawthorne effect” is a generally fair explanation for why we might perform better in the presence of others. And I, for one, have observed this phenomenon in my own life—when I run at the gym, go to work, or even sing in the car with friends!What Is the Hawthorne Effect?
Does This Theory Hold Up Today?