Industrial and Organizational Psychology - Essay Example

I/O, therefore, serving as a guide tool to ensuring better performance of individual and a better running organization, covers major aspects of organizational management such as human resource management. The human capital serves as the primary factor that contributes to the over-all efficiency of the organization. I/O tools are used in personnel selection, motivation, and further development. It also helps in improving relationships between teams, and within individual workers. McCarthy (2002) outlined the brief historical flow of the growth of I/O Psychology.

His accounts started with Wilhelm Wundt, who established the first psychology laboratory in 1879. It served as a precursor to the recognition of I/O psychology although other issues related to I/O had long been raised before Wundt's. During the pre-WW1 era several key figures made contribution in the field of I/O psychology. Among which Frederick W. Taylor's, experimented in 1883 at the Midvale and Bethlehem Steel plant led to the development of his Scientific Management philosophy in 1911. McCarthy (2002) also mentioned Hugo Munsterberg, as being considered as "the father of industrial psychology" who led the way to the application of psychological findings from laboratory experiments to practical matters.

His book Psychology and Industrial Efficiency published in 1913 addressed personnel selection and equipment design. During World War I, Walter Dill Scott did some research on best placement of soldiers in Army. The Hawthorne Studies in 1924 led to the publication of the concept of Hawthorne Effect in 1939, which is highly contributory to industrial psychology. It states that the there is a change in behavior, such as increased attention, following the onset of a novel treatment and this effect eventually wears off as the novelty dissipates.

From then to present several other studies more elaborative within the field of Industrial and Organizational psychology came out and other names emerged. Farr (2006) laid a comprehensive discussion on the birth of a formal institution that recognizes Industrial and Organizational Psychology. In his Presidential Address to the Society for Industrial & Organizational Psychology, Inc., at St. Louis on April 11, 1997, Farr reviewed how the society was born from its original mother organization, the APA.. Several members of APA with strong interests in the applicability of psychology, include James McKeen Cattell and the founder of the Journal of Applied Psychology, G.

Stanley Hall; while Hugo Munsterberg was elected a member at the first meeting of the charter group. The first applications of psychology that might be labeled as industrial psychology occurred in the early 1900s; Walter Dill Scott in Chicago began work related to advertising, and published books related to this topic in 1903 and 1908. Munsterberg conducted research on the use of aptitude and work sample tests in personnel selection and later published Psychology and In