personnel psychology
concerned with theory and applications related to evaluating, selecting, and training workers
organizational psychology
focuses on individual and group processes within organizations and is concerned with the factors that affect such outcomes as job satisfaction, motivation, work effectiveness, and quality of work life
engineering psychology
deals with the relationships between workers and the work context (AKA human factors psychology and ergonomics)
job-oriented techniques
focus on the task requirements of the job (e.g., lifting, repairing, installing)
worker-oriented techniques
identify the knowledge, skills, abilities, and personal characteristics that are required for successful job performance (e.g., high school education, manual dexterity, 20/20 vision, adaptability)
objective measures
direct, quantitative measures of performance;
cons: don’t measure motivation or ability to cooperate, limited by situational factors (e.g., equipment difficulties, number of coworkers, the economy), not useful for evaluating performance in complex jobs
subjective measures
rely on the judgment of a rater;
useful for assessing complex, less concrete aspects of job performance (motivation);
cons: raters not motivated to provide accurate ratings, don’t understand the rating scale, rater biases
“360-degree” performance measures
incorporate ratings from multiple raters such as supervisors, supervisees, peers, subordinates, and customers
personnel comparison systems (PCS)
involve rating an employee by comparing him/her to other employees in a rank-ordered system, from best to worst;
pro: reduce the effects of certain rater biases (central tendency, leniency, strictness)
critical incidents
descriptions of specific job behaviors that are associated with very good and very poor performance
halo effect
tendency to judge all aspects of a person’s behavior on the basis of a single attribute or characteristic
central tendency bias
tendency to assign average ratings to all ratees
leniency bias
tendency to give all ratees positive ratings
strictness bias
tendency to assign negative ratings to all ratees
contrast effect
tendency to give ratings on the basis of comparisons to other ratees
frame-of-reference training
help raters recognize the multidimensional nature of job performance and to ensure that different raters have the same conceptualizations of job performance
average validity coefficient for job knowledge tests
.62
criterion contamination
when a rater’s knowledge of a person’s performance on a selection instrument (e.g., performance in the assessment center) affects how the rater evaluates the person’s performance once he or she is on the job
big 5 personalities
extraversion, agreeableness, openness, emotional stability, and conscientiousness
average validity coefficient of cognitive ability tests when used to:
predict performance ratings;
predict performance on a work sample
.51
.75
adverse impact
a substantially different rate of selection for different groups that are defined on the basis of gender, race/ethnicity, age, etc
80 percent (4/5ths) rule
adverse impact is occurring when the selection rate for a minority group is less than 80% of the selection rate for the majority group
bona fide occupational qualification (BFOQ)
there is a valid reason for hiring a substantially larger proportion of a particular subgroup; if an employer can demonstrate that it is job-related and a business necessity, despite having adverse impact, the employer may be able to continue using the procedure
unfairness
one group consistently scores lower than another group on a selection test, but both groups perform equally well on the job