Article archive / October 1, 2013
Originally published: . Volume 5, No. 2. Source pages: 11.
Laurence Siegel, PhD Irving M. Lane, PhD The Irwin Series in Management and The Behavioral Sciences, 1982
There is a reason that some books are classics. No matter how much new information has been added from new scientific discoveries, the classics hold their value.
Perhaps one reason for this in social psychology is because many things in human behavior actually don’t change all that much. We research a slightly different angle, switching from a correlation to a nested, hierarchical regression. Or we put them in a new context. We rename them. But much of the foundation is still there, right where it has always been.
Maybe it’s just me, but I’ve found find that if you read a classic text through the modern lens, some of the ideas seem richer and more meaningful. Probably it’s my age and, hopefully, experience, but there is a feeling for me of visiting an old homestead, with its solid foundations. These ideas and lessons are right where we left them, like a comfortable old shoe.
Personnel and Organizational Psychology was written by then LSU professors Larry Seigel and Irv Lane, and it’s one of those books. It was a “new” edition of earlier versions, and was written for the undergraduate. So it is simple in some ways, made for teaching. Perhaps not accidentally the wonderfully fresh writing style is clear and direct, and it has voice, so different than much of what is written today. “Welcome to our book,” the authors begin, with economy of words. But there is also an intimacy in the writing, that students of Larry or Irv will remember about the two of them. Not too many extra words, no circles drawn around the key points.
“Welcome to our book. We wrote it because we wish to share our enthusiasm for psychology in general and for our particular specialty, industrial/organizational (I/O) psychology.”
The main value is the overview of psychology applied to the world of work, a text written at a time when things were expanding in the field. The authors point out that the personnel and organizational psychology specialty includes the issues of applied psychology that impact people at work. They walk the reader through the specifics of the science from an applied perspective.
They twist the strands together from economic psychology, psychological testing, industrial engineering, and the human relations movements. And they include research methodology, theories of behavior, and interactions between organizations and individuals, and bring them together. But they also keep it simple.
One of the delightful finds in this classic text is the description of what a psychologist is, crafted at a time when perhaps it was easier to define. Professional psychologists who deliver services, the authors write, “do so with a scientific perspective: professional practice is applied research. Solving a real problem in the real world (like excessive absenteeism, ‘burnout’ among air traffic controllers, training the hard-core unemployed, and so on) requires that the issues be defined, alternative solutions be evaluated, and the optimal solution implemented.”
“It is easy to be enthusiastic about psychology,” they write. “It provides the excitement of gaining new knowledge about behavior with the gratification of being able, through applying that knowledge, to improve human conditions.”
The first section includes chapters on “Research” and “Correlation and Psychometric Theory.” Here the authors review the basics of independent, dependent, and extraneous variables, control, and inferences about causality. Different types of experimentation are reviewed, including nonexperimental research for field experimentation, such as unobtrusive measures.
Section Two, “Personnel Psychology” addresses specifics of of I/O in three parts. Part A is “Defining and Measuring Performance.” This part includes Job Analysis and Occupational Classification, Criterion Development, and Performance Appraisal.
Part B of this Section involves Predicting Performance: Personnel Selection and Placement.
Here the authors provide chapters on Validity and Prediction, Biodata and Pre-employment Interviews, and Psychological Tests.
Part C is Facilitating Performance. Training and Human Factors in Performance conclude this section.
“Organizational Psychology,” Section Three, opens with a Part A and chapters on Motivational Theories. This is followed by a chapter on “Job Satisfaction.”
Part B is Individuals in Groups, with a chapter on Group Behavior, and of course a chapter on Leadership.
Part C, Organizational Dynamics, includes chapters about Organizational Theories, Organizational Development Technologies, and the last chapter, Organizational Change: Theoretical Models and Case Histories.
We devote one-half of our waking lives to working. The sphere of psychology applied to work is an important area. And they place it within psychological science. “… it offers a way of thinking about the world, of formulating questions, gathering and evaluating information, drawing conclusions, and using these conclusions to ask still further questions.”
I have to thank Dr. Kelley Pears, who, while cleaning out his office ran across his copy of Larry’s and Irv’s book (my copy is packed in a box somewhere, I guess). Kelley asked me if I wanted it and I said absolutely. Reading it now is very different, especially because the LSU I/O program has ended after a 60- year run. But it is nice to be able to read the ideas from two great psychologists, and remember.
This article is part of a historical newspaper archive. Read the original issue for its original layout, photographs and graphics.