I. Psychology as a science Definition of psychology
Psychology is the scientific study of human and animal behavior with the object of understanding why living beings behave as they do. As almost any science, its discoveries have practical applications. As it is a rather new science, applications are sometimes confused with the science itself. It is easier to distinguish what is 'pure' and 'applied' in older disciplines: everybody can separate physics and mathematics from engineering, or anatomy and physiology from medicine. People often confound psychology with psychiatry, which is a branch of medicine dedicated to the cure of mental disorders.
Some topics that 'pure' psychologists may study are: how behavior changes with development, when a behavior is instinctive or learned, how persons differ, and how people get into trouble. 'Applied' psychologists may use scientific knowledge to find better ways to deal with adolescents, to teach, to match persons with jobs, and to get people out of their troubles. Accordingly, several branches exist of psychology: developmental psychology, animal psychology, educational psychology, psychotherapy, industrial psychology, psychology of personality, social psychology, are but some of them.
Physiological psychology is a field akin to neurophysiology that studies the relation between behavior and body systems like the nervous system and the endocrine system. It studies which brain regions are involved in psychic functions like memory, and activities like learning. It also studies the complex interaction between brain and hormones that gives rise to emotions.
Animal behavior is studied by psychologists mainly in laboratory. The study of animal behavior in their natural habitats is undertaken by the science of ethology. The comparative study of human and animal behavior is one of the sources of evolutionary psychology, that tries to understand how evolution has shaped the way we think and feel.
Educational psychology concentrates on those aspects of the psychic activity that have to do with learning. Experimenting with animals and people, it tries to understand how they learn, and to devise better ways of teaching. A psychological school, known as behaviorism, maintains that every human behavior is a learned response to a stimulus, and consequently tried to establish learning as the central topic of psychology.
The area of cognitive psychology concerns with the ways we perceive and we express, how we store our perceptions and later recall them, and the way we think. Perception, memory, speech, and thinking are the main subjects of this branch. The study of decision making is a topic that has a great practical importance.
The study of emotion and the study of personality are two related fields that delve into the profound question of why we are different and why we feel how we feel. While some scientists propose genetic traits as the reason, others look to the social environment as the cause of our differences.
Abnormal psychology, also known as psychopathology, is a branch that attempts to describe and classify abnormal behaviors. Applications include the development of diagnostic tools like tests, and the proposal and evaluation of therapies. The corresponding applied specialty is known as clinical psychology or psychotherapy.
Social psychology studies problems that arise from the interaction of men, because a person will behave differently when isolated than when in the company of other humans. Developmental psychology is interested in the ways in which the behavior of people changes as persons pass from childhood to old age. Educationists are just one kind of specialists concerned with its results.
The challenges that applied psychologists must confront range from helping a child to learn to train executives in decision making, from helping a person troubled by anxiety to smoothing the relationship between spouses. In these tasks the psychologist must make use of scientific knowledge combined with his own personal experience to address problems that most of the time cannot be postponed. Hence, it will be no surprise that, when science is not enough, practitioners use their intuition to help people. In the same way as physicians existed long before the principles of blood circulation were understood and frequently based their interventions in theories without confirmation, psychologists sometimes convert their intuitions in theories that later give origin to 'schools.' There are many of these schools that attempt to furnish some principles to the clinical psychologist's labor. Older ones have themselves originated branches that contribute to the variety of approaches that can be observed in the treatment of psychologically disturbed people.
Besides clinical psychology, the largest field of applied psychology, two other areas are important in terms of the number of people involved: the educational and the industrial areas. Educational psychologists help pupils with learning problems and give counsel on curriculum and career choice. Industrial psychologists help people to work together, and deal with aspects such as motivation and job satisfaction.
Task 1. Find the words in the dictionary and learn them by heart:
scientific study, behavior, discovery, application, to distinguish, to confuse with, to confound, branch, cure, mental disorders, development, adolescent, to get into trouble, brain, interaction, stimulus, to perceive, to express, decision making, trait, social environment, to delve, approach, treatment, field.
Task 2. Make up your own sentences using these words.
Task 3. Make reports / presentations and describe any branch of psychology you are interested in.
History of psychology
Until the last decades of the 19th century, psychology was considered a branch of philosophy and its object was defined as the study of the mind. As a philosophical discipline, it was not subject to experimental control because the only condition of philosophical arguments is to be internally coherent. Philosophers can thence propose different views about a same phenomenon, and it is up to each person to decide what proposal is more appealing.
During this period, philosophers of the Modern Age who deal significantly with psychological topics were René Descartes and the British empiricists: Hume and Locke. They were concerned with issues like: the nature of mind, the relation of mind with body, and how men elaborate a mental representation of the world and arrive to abstract concepts.
The first psychological laboratory, founded in 1879 in Leipzig, Germany, was committed to the experimental study of sensation and perception. Several scientists of the time: Wilhelm Wundt, Herman Ebbinghaus, Gustav Theodor Fechner, and Hermann Ludwig Ferdinand von Helmholtz, collaborated in the formulation of the laws of perception.
In the United States of America, Edward B. Titchener and William James help to separate psychology from philosophy. Titchener insisted in the study of experience, and James published in 1890 a book that became a landmark: Principles of Psychology. James, who was a philosopher, is mostly known for his theories on learning and emotion. He maintained that the mastering of new situations results in the formation of habits, which are then the result of the adaptation to environment changes. As to emotion, he stated that it was the consequence of physiological changes.
The first laboratory of psychology in the United States was founded in 1883 by G. Stanley Hall at Clark University. He was also the first president of the American Psychological Association (APA). The end of the nineteenth century saw psychology as a new discipline heavily influenced by the functionalist doctrine of the philosophers at the University of Chicago.
In the early twentieth century, a book was published that marked a change in the orientation of psychology. This change was going to influence the work of psychologists till the century was well into its second half. The philosophical conception of psychology as the introspective study of the mind had been preserved by the founders of the new discipline, though introducing experimental methods. This approach was first challenged by the movement known as functionalism, which endorsed the use of other methods than introspection, such as the intelligence tests that at the moment were having increased use in the United States.
The intent of making psychology an experimental science was curtailed by the emphasis in the importance of introspection, as introspection is an internal phenomenon that cannot be replicated or evaluated. The classical conception of psychology, which became known as mentalism, was particularly under attack by animal psychologists, who cannot make their subjects to introspect. One of these animal psychologists was John B. Watson, disciple of the leader of functionalism, James Rowland Angell. A graduated from the University of Chicago working at John Hopkins University, Watson postulated a new conception of animal psychology, that he later expanded to psychology as a whole.
In a work published in the scientific journal Psychology Review in 1913, Watson defined psychology as a natural science whose goal was the study of behavior. Thus, Watson dispensed with any use of introspection and any reference to mind. Data obtained by introspection, he said, was only evident to the person who produced them. The only objective evidence was externally observable behavior. Watson's ideas were shared by many psychologists, and soon a movement was formed called behaviorism, of which Watson is considered the founder.
Task 1. Answer the following questions:
What was the object of psychology until the last decades of the 19th century?
What issues the philosophers of the Modern Age were concerned with?
When and where was the first psychological laboratory founded?
Who separated psychology from philosophy?
Who and when founded the first laboratory of psychology in the United States?
What marked a change in the orientation of psychology? Describe the changes.
What were Watson's ideas? When and where were they published?
Task 2. Make a brief summary of the text.
Task 3. Work in groups. Chose the topic, the psychologist or the historical period you like. Make reports or presentations.
Reading scientific articles
Translate the text using the dictionary:
Psychology in America
The results of German investigations in sensory physiology and their significance for the philosophy of mind did not go unnoticed by Americans in the period after the Civil War. William James, abroad for his health and to further his medical studies, wrote to a friend: “It seems to me that perhaps the time has come for psychology to begin to be a science – some measurements have already been made in the region lying between the physical changes in the nerves and the appearance of consciousness at (in the shape of sense perceptions) and more may come of it. Helmholtz and a man named Wundt at Heidelberg are working at it”.
In antebellum America, the dominant philosophical tradition was derived from England and Scotland, as exemplified in John Locke’s Essay on Human Understanding and the texts of the Scottish commonsense realists, Thomas Reid,
Dugald Stewart, and Thomas Brown with only modest representation of German and French philosophy. British philosophy was empirical, gathering information about mind and mental processes from introspective observation, observation of the behavior of others, and observations of individuals recorded in medical treatises, court proceedings, literature, and poetry. The data were classified under general faculties or categories of mind, such as the intellect and the sensibilities (cognitive, emotional, or motivational states) and the many possible subdivisions, such as memory and reasoning, instincts, and desires.
Results from the investigations in psychophysics, sensory physiology, and the early experiments in psychology were incorporated into later textbooks of intellectual and mental philosophy. Adding the empirical data to the theological concerns for “soul” did not change the traditional philosophical position of these texts. Even a textbook by G. T. Ladd (1842–1921) that represented the new psychology did not escape fully the theological concerns of the “old psychology”.
Americans traveled abroad for advanced education at British and continental universities after the Civil War; painters, writers, and scientists went in large numbers. With the postwar establishment of the new land-grant universities, professional opportunities arose for faculty members, especially in the sciences, for education not yet available in the United States. With the zeal of converts and crusaders, the first generation of North American psychologists returned from their study abroad to stimulate the development of graduate education within established American colleges and universities and the newer land-grant universities. They wrote textbooks to incorporate the results of the continental laboratories, developed courses for undergraduate and graduate students, created laboratories for teaching and research, and founded journals for the publication of research from the newly established laboratories. The laboratories came to be the locus of education in psychology in universities and colleges and came to symbolize psychology as science, while psychology, lodged within departments of philosophy, became the introductory course required for further study in philosophy.
II. WORK PSYCHOLOGY
The origins of work psychology
Work psychology has at least two distinct roots. One resides in a pair of traditions that have often been termed 'fitting the man to the job' (FMJ) and 'fitting the job to the man' (FJM).
The FMJ tradition manifests itself in employee selection, training and vocational guidance. These endeavours have in common an attempt to achieve an effective match between job and person by concentrating on the latter.
The FJM tradition focuses instead on the job; and in particular the design of tasks, equipment and working conditions which suit a person's physical and psychological characteristics.
Much early work in these traditions was undertaken in response to the demands of two world wars. In the UK, for example, there was concern about the adverse consequences of the very long hours worked in munitions factories during the First World War and again in the Second World War. The extensive use of aircraft in the Second World War led to attempts to design cockpits which optimally fitted pilots' capacities. In both the UK and the USA, the First World War highlighted the need to develop methods of screening people so that only those suitable for a post were selected for it. This need was met through the development of tests of ability and personality. One important source of such work in the UK was the National Institute of Industrial Psychology, which was established by the influential psychologist C. S. Myers between the two wars, and survived in various forms until 1971. The UK civil service began to employ a considerable number of psychologists after the Second World War. Their brief was, and largely still is, to improve civil service procedures, particularly in selection. Especially from the 1960s onwards, some other large organizations have also employed psychologists, and many independent consultants also work in these areas for examples of what such consultants do.
The FMJ and FJM traditions essentially concern the relationship between individuals and their work. The other root of work psychology can be loosely labelled human relations. It is concerned with the complex interplay between individuals, groups, organizations and work. It therefore emphasizes social factors at work much more than FMJ and FJM. The importance of human relations was highlighted in some famous research now known as the Hawthorne studies. These were conducted in the 1920s at a large factory of the Western Electric Company at Hawthorne, near Chicago, USA. The studies were reported most fully in Roethlisberger and Dickson (1939). Originally, they were designed to assess the effect of level of illumination on productivity. One group of workers (the experimental group) was subjected to changes in illumination whilst another (the control group) was not. The productivity of both groups increased slowly during this investigation; only when illumination was at a small fraction of its original level did the productivity of the experimental group begin to decline. These strange results suggested that other factors apart from illumination were determining productivity.
This work was followed up with what became known as the Relay Assembly Test Room Study. A small group of female assembly workers was taken from their large department, and stationed in a separate room so that their working conditions could be controlled effectively. Over a period of more than a year, changes were made in the length of the working day and working week, the length and timing of rest pauses and other aspects of the work context. Productivity increased after every change, and the gains were maintained even after all conditions returned to their original levels. Why did these results occur? Clearly, factors other than those deliberately manipulated by the researchers were responsible. The researchers had allowed the workers certain privileges at work, and had taken a close interest in the group. Hence some factor probably to do with feeling special, or guessing what the researchers were investigating, seemed to be influencing the workers' behaviour.
The problem of a person's behaviour being affected by the knowledge
that they are in an experiment has come to be called the Hawthorne effect. The more general lessons here are: (1) it is difficult to experiment with people without altering some conditions other than those intended, and (2) people's behaviour is substantially affected by their interpretation of what is happening around them.
These conclusions were extended by a study of a group of male workers who wired up equipment in the Bank Wiring Room. A researcher sat in the corner and observed the group's activities. At first this generated considerable suspicion, but apparently after a time the men more or less forgot about the researcher's presence. Once this happened, certain phenomena became apparent. First, there were social norms: that is, shared ideas about how things should be. Most importantly, there was a norm about what constituted an appropriate level of production. This was high enough to keep management off the men's backs, but less than they were capable of. Workers who consistently exceeded the productivity norm or fell short
of it were subjected to social pressure to conform. Another norm concerned supervisors' behaviour. Supervisors were expected to be friendly and informal with the men: one who was more formal and officious was strongly disapproved of. Finally, there were two informal groups in the room, with some rivalry between them. The Bank Wiring Room showed clearly how social relationships between workers were important determinants of work behaviour. These relationships were often more influential than either official company policy or monetary rewards.
There has been much criticism of the experimental methods used by the Hawthorne researchers and considerable debate about the exact reasons for their findings. However, subsequent research by other social scientists confirmed and extended the general message that human relations matter. For example, Trist and Bamforth (1951), working in British coal mines, showed that if technology is introduced which disrupts existing social groups and relationships, then there are serious consequences for productivity, industrial relations and employee psychological well-being. Their work gave birth to the socio-technical systems approach to work design.
Notes:
endeavour – стремление altering – изменение
adverse consequences – неблагоприятные последствия
munitions factory – военный завод substantially – существенно
extensive use – всестороннее использование to wire up - подсоединить
cockpit – авиа кабина suspicion - подозрение
brief – задание apparently – очевидно
onwards – далее to constitute – взять за основу
loosely – небрежно, неточно, широко to conform – адаптироваться
to label – обозначать rivalry – соперничество
to assess – оценивать to disapprove – осуждать
illumination – освещение determinant – определяющий фактор
to subject – подвергать to disrupt – разрушать
fraction – часть consequence – последствие
Translate the following words and word combinations from Russian into English: психология труда, сотрудник, достигать, сосредотачивать, условия труда, промышленная психология, принимать на работу, человеческие отношения, исследование, исследователь, повышать продуктивность, влиять на поведение, социальное давление, контроллер, благополучие.
Work psychology today
One source of confusion is that work psychology has a lot of different names. In the UK and the USA, the old-established term (still sometimes used) is industrial psychology. The newer label in the USA is industrial/organizational psychology (or I/O psychology for short). In the UK, it is often called occupational psychology, but this term is uncommon in most other countries. Throughout Europe, increasing use is made of the psychology of work and organization and work and organizational psychology to describe the area.
We`ll use the term work psychology because of its simplicity, and because to us it encompasses both the individual and organizational levels of analysis.
Here is the list of twelve areas in which work psychologists operate as teachers, researchers and consultants. This list was adapted from the British Psychological Society (1986) register of the Division of Occupational Psychology members.
1. Selection and assessment (for all types of job by a variety of methods, including tests and interviews).
2. Training( identification of training needs; the design, delivery and evaluation of training).
3. Performance appraisal (identification of key aspects of job performance; design of systems for accurate performance assessment; training in appraisal techniques).
4. Organizational change and development (analysis of systems and relationships with a view to possible change; implementation of any such change (e.g. new technology).
5. Ergonomics and equipment design (analysis and design of work equipment and environments to fit human physical and cognitive capabilities).
6. Career choice, development and counselling (analysis of a person's abilities, interests and values, and their translation into occupational terms).
7. Interpersonal skills (identification and development of skills such as leadership,
assertiveness, negotiation, group working and relationships with other individuals).
8. Equal opportunities (monitoring, and if necessary enhancing, opportunities for minority groups at work).
9. Occupational safety and health (examination of causes of accidents and introduction of measures to reduce their frequency of occurrence).
10. Work design (allocation of tasks so that jobs are as satisfying and motivating as possible).
11. Attitude surveys (design, conduct and analysis of surveys (e.g. by questionnaire or interview) of employee opinions and experiences at work).
12. Well-being and work (investigation of factors which lead to stress in work and unemployment, and identification of ways to prevent and manage stress).
Notes:
source – источник design – замысел
confusion – путаница, неразбериха delivery – передача
label – категория evaluation – оценка
occupational psychology – профессиональная психология
to be uncommon – редко использовать performance – выполнение
to encompass – заключать appraisal – оценка, поощрение
register – реестр assertiveness – уверенность в себе
selection – отбор equal – одинаковый, равный
assessment – оценка allocation– распределение
Task 1. Translate the following words and word combinations from Russian into English: термин, профессиональная психология, организационная психология, разнообразие, опрос, обучение, ключевой аспект, точная оценка, внедрение, окружающая среда, способность, выбор карьеры, консультирование, ценность, навык, лидерство, уверенность в себе, общение, возможность, безопасность, несчастный случай, принимать меры, удовлетворять, мотивировать, анкетирование, опыт, безработица, предупреждать стресс.
Task 2. Make up a topic. Tell about work psychology.
What is work stress?
Work-related stress is the response people may have when presented with work demands and pressures that are not matched to their knowledge and abilities and which challenge their ability to cope.
Stress occurs in a wide range of work circumstances but is often made worse when employees feel they have little support from supervisors and colleagues and where they have little control over work or how they can cope with its demands and pressures.
There is often confusion between pressure or challenge and stress and sometimes it is used to excuse bad management practice. Pressure at the workplace is unavoidable due to the demands of the contemporary work environment. Pressure perceived as acceptable by an individual, may even keep workers alert, motivated, able to work and learn on the available resources and personal characteristics. However, when that pressure becomes excessive or otherwise unmanageable it leads to stress. Stress can damage your workers health and your business performance.
Stress results from a mismatch between the demands and pressures on the person, on the one hand, and their knowledge and abilities, on the other. It challenges their ability to cope with work. This includes not only situations where the pressures of work exceed the worker s ability to cope but also where the worker s knowledge and abilities are not sufficiently utilized and that is a problem for them.
A healthy job is likely to be one where the pressures on employees are appropriate in relation to their abilities and resources, to the amount of control they have over their work, and to the support they receive from people who matter to them. As health is not merely the absence of disease or infirmity but a positive state of complete physical, mental and social well-being, a healthy working environment is one in which there is not only an absence of harmful conditions but an abundance of health promoting ones.
These may include continuous assessment of risks to health, the provision of appropriate information and training on health issues and the availability of health promoting organizational support practices and structures. A healthy work environment is one in which staff have made health and health promotion a priority and part of their working lives.
Task 1. Write down and translate unknown words.
Task 2. Answer the questions:
What is work-related stress?
Why does stress occur?
How can you define pressure at the work place? Can it be avoided?
What does stress result from?
What is healthy job?
What should be a priority for staff?
Task 3. Retell the text using the answers to the questions above.
What causes work stress?
Poor work organization, that is the way we design jobs and work systems, and the way we manage them, can cause work stress. Excessive and otherwise unmanageable demands and pressures can be caused by poor work design, poor management and unsatisfactory working conditions. Similarly, these things can result in workers not receiving sufficient support from others or not having enough control over their work and its pressures.
Research findings show that the most stressful type of work is that which values excessive demands and pressures that are not matched to workers knowledge and abilities, where there is little opportunity to exercise any choice or control, and where there is little support from others. The more the demands and pressures of work are matched to the knowledge and abilities of workers, the less likely they are to experience work stress. The more support workers receive from others at work, or in relation to work, the less likely they are to experience work stress. The more control workers have over their work and the way they do it and the more they participate in decisions that concern their jobs, the less likely they are to experience work stress.
Most of the causes of work stress concern the way work is designed and the way in which organizations are managed. Because these aspects of work have the potential for causing harm, they are called stress-related hazards. The literature on stress generally recognizes nine categories of stress-related hazards:
Stress-related Hazards
Work Content:
1. Job Content Monotonous, under-stimulating, meaningless tasks
Lack of variety
Unpleasant tasks
Aversive tasks
2. Workload and Work pace Having too much or too little to do
Working under time pressures
3. Working Hours Strict and inflexible working schedules
Long and unsocial hours
Unpredictable working hours
Badly designed shift systems
4. Participation and Control Lack of participation in decision making
Lack of control (for example, over work methods, work pace, working hours and the work environment)
Work Context:
5. Career Development, Status and Pay Job insecurity
Lack of promotion prospects
Under-promotion or over-promotion
Work of low social value
Piece rate payments schemes
Unclear or unfair performance evaluation systems
Being over-skilled or under-skilled for the job
6. Role in the Organization Unclear role
Conflicting roles within the same job
Responsibility for people
Continuously dealing with other people and their problems
7. Interpersonal Relationships Inadequate, inconsiderate or unsupportive supervision
Poor relationships with co-workers
Bullying, harassment and violence
Isolated or solitary work
No agreed procedures for dealing with problems or complaints
8. Organisational Culture Poor communication
Poor leadership
Lack of clarity about organizational objectives and structure
9. Home-Work Interface Conflicting demands of work and home
Lack of support for domestic problems at work
Lack of support for work problems at home
The prevention of work stress
There are a number of ways by which the risk of work stress can be reduced. These include:
primary prevention, reducing stress through: ergonomics, work and environmental design, organizational and management development,
secondary prevention, reducing stress through: worker education and training,
tertiary prevention, reducing the impact of stress by: developing more sensitive and responsive management systems and enhanced occupational health provision.
The organization itself is a generator of different types of risk. Tertiary prevention in organizations places an emphasis on the provision of responsive and efficient occupational health services. Contemporary work stress management should, therefore, encompass tertiary prevention.
A good employer designs and manages work in a way that avoids common risk factors for stress and prevents as much as possible foreseeable problems.
Resources for managing work stress
Employers should carefully consider the systems that they have in place for assessing, preventing and otherwise managing work stress. You must be aware of your organization s systems and resources for managing stress.
Internal resources may include occupational health ser vices, human resource management (personnel), training departments or other individuals with responsibility for staff well-being and health.
Individual problems which are complex, difficult and not manageable internally, are best dealt with by a counseling psychologist, clinical psychologist, counselor, or an occupational physician who may consult with a general practitioner or other specialist functions as deemed necessary.
Identification of any groups at risk within your organization is crucial and should accompany the examination of available organizational resources for managing work stress.
Work stress is a real challenge for workers and their employing organizations. As organizations and their working environment transform, so do the kinds of stress problems that employees may face. It is important that your workplace is being continuously monitored for stress problems.
Further, it is not only important to identify stress problems and to deal with them but to promote healthy work and reduce harmful aspects of work. Work in itself can be a self-promoting activity as long as it takes place in a safe, development- and health-promoting environment.