Test: Developing Psychological Skills- 1 - Humanities/Arts MCQ

Selection is based on the premise that there are stable individual differences between people, which can be identified, and that these differences have an impact on how effective people are in a particular job (Robertson, 1995). Not surprisingly, psychologists have been at the forefront of developing and using personnel selection methods for some time. One of the aims of selection is to ensure a fit, i.e. a good match, between the person and the organization. Failure to achieve this can not only result in poor job performance, but the well-being of the employee also suffers, and ultimately the employment relationship is likely to end.

Socialization is the process by which members of a society (be it a country, organization or even a family) are taught how to behave and feel by influential members of that society. In the past, theory and research has concentrated on the development of children and adolescents. But more recently it has become clear that we are socialized and resocialized throughout our lives (Wanous, Reichers & Malik, 1984). When employees start work, they learn about their new jobs, the work environment and how they are required to behave – attending meetings on time, dressing according to certain standards, using particular styles of speech.
When employees start work, they learn to align their work values with those of the organization. For example, army recruits are socialized, or indoctrinated, into the ‘army way’, learning not only the rules and regulations but also the values and behaviours that match the army’s distinctive culture. Many commercial organizations emphasize customer service as vital, and require employees to adopt the values, attitudes and behaviours that support such a service strategy.

Training is a learning process structured in a systematic fashion and designed to raise the performance level of an employee (Goldstein, 1991; Tannenbaum & Yukl, 1992). With the marked change in work environments over the last quarter of the twentieth century has come an urgent need to develop and maintain staff skills through continuous training. Furthermore, with the expanded use of new technology (and information technology in particular) most people at work need continual training to update their skills (Ashton & Felstead, 1995; Pfeffer, 1998; Tharenou & Burke, 2002). Yet the approach to training in many organizations is often haphazard and reactive. Psychologists have much to offer organizations in relation to how training can best be used to achieve a fit between the individual and his job.

This is a real-world example of the negative influence of transformational leadership by which a dominant and self-confident leader can influence the behaviour of subordinates with clear communication, strong commitment to own goals and high expectations of subordinates.
Transactional leadership refers to relationships with followers based on exchanges or bargains. Social roles describe normative attitudes and behaviours expected of people who belong to particular groups. The Hawthorne effect refers to the improved performance of workers based on the attention and interest given to them regarding their work. Formalization refers to written rules and regulations governing activities within an organization.

Some of the most relevant factors governing how we react to potentially stressful situations are:

• Knowledge – People who have considerable job knowledge and experience are more likely to be able to cope with stressful situations. This is because they are less likely to experience quantitative or qualitative work overload, and they are likely to have more control over a situation than someone with little experience or knowledge (see below).
• Social support – While poor relationships at work can be a major source of stress, social support from colleagues and supervisors can buffer the impact of stress, mitigating the negative effects (e.g. Cummins, 1990; Manning, Jackson & Fusilier, 1996). Social support may also come from outside the job, from family and from friends.
• Control – There is a widely held misperception that managers have more stressful jobs than others. While they do tend to have heavy workloads, deadlines, responsibility for complex decisions, and many relationships to manage, stress-related diseases are much less common in managers than in blue-collar workers (Fletcher, 1988; Karasek & Theorell, 1990). One important reason for this appears to be that managers have greater control (autonomy) over their work. Karasek (1979) showed that the most damaging jobs have a combination of high demands (volume and pace of work) with low control.
• Personality characteristics – Neurotic people are more likely to see stimuli as threatening than are hardy characters. Hardiness encompasses three personality traits:(i) commitment, (ii) an internal locus of control (believing that you have control over your own life), and (iii) a sense of welcoming challenge (Maddi & Kobasa, 1984. Those who are high in hardiness tend to view events as less stressful than do others, and they are less likely to be overwhelmed by challenging situations.

Power, according to French and Raven (1959), derives from the following five sources:

• • Legitimate power comes from position in the hierarchy and is imposed by authority.
• • Expert power results from access to knowledge and information, so the computer wizard often gains considerable power in an organization.
• • Reward power is illustrated by the person who allocates offices, parking spaces, pay rises, equipment or stationery – such people may have considerable power without being in a senior position in the hierarchy.
• • Coercive power is the power to force others into action or inaction by the threat of punishment, such as delaying the payment of expenses claims.
• • Referent power is wielded by someone whose persuasiveness, popularity or charisma lead others to accede to his/her wishes or suggestions.

One significant problem for women at work is stereotyping: 52 per cent of employed women work in occupational groups in which more than 60 per cent of their co-workers are women, such as clerical and secretarial work, service work and sales. Women are also vastly over-represented in part-time work and pregnancy is still (illegally) treated by some employers as a cause for dismissal. Perhaps most revealing of the pervasive discrimination against women in the workplace is the data on pay: in 2003, women’s average hourly pay was still only 82 per cent of men’s. Although women have increased their representation somewhat in the ranks of executives, they still account for less than 5 per cent of company directors (Equal Opportunities Commission, 2004) in the UK.
One issue, which is much debated, is whether women have different managerial or leadership styles from men. The bulk of the research suggests there are large differences within genders as well as between them, but that women adopt a consistently more democratic and participative style of management than men do (Eagly & Johnson, 1990; Powell, 1993). Some researchers argue that women also have a more ‘transformational’ style, inspiring and encouraging their employees, whereas men tend to use a ‘transactional’ style, punishing and rewarding selectively to achieve the desired task-related behaviours (e.g. Rosener, 1990).

Varied tasks and feedback contribute to how satisfied people are with their jobs whereas type of leadership is not a significant contributor to job satisfaction according to this theory.

Egocentricity, group polarization and production-blocking are three examples of factors that contribute to poor group decision-making. The remaining terms are not used to refer to the consequences of egocentricity, group polarization and production-blocking.

All of the negative psychological effects indicated above have been consistently associated with unemployment in individuals.