Managerial psychology is a sub-discipline of industrial and organizational psychology that focuses on the effectiveness of individuals and groups in the workplace, using behavioral science.
The purpose of managerial psychology is to aid managers in gaining a better managerial and personal understanding of the psychological patterns common among these individuals and groups.
Managers can use managerial psychology to predict and prevent harmful psychological patterns within the workplace and to control psychological patterns to benefit the organisation long term. Managerial psychologists help managers, through research in theory, practice, methods and tools, to achieve better decision-making, leadership practices and development, problem solving and improve overall human relations.
Managerial psychologists
In early years, managerial psychologists mainly studied fatigue, boredom, and other working conditions that could impede efficient work performance.
More recently, their contributions have expanded to include learning, perception, personality, emotions, training, leadership, effectiveness, needs and motivational forces, job satisfaction, decision-making processes, performance appraisals, attitude measurement, employee-selection techniques, work design, and job stress.
Managerial psychologists can also:
study workplace productivity and morale, screen and train employees perform organizational development. perform consulting
Personality, motivation and job satisfaction
Herzberg et al.’s seminal two-factor theory of motivation theorized that satisfaction and dissatisfaction were not two opposite extremes of the same sequence, but two separate entities caused by quite different facets of work – these were labelled as “hygiene factors” and “motivators”.
Hygiene factors
Hygiene factors are characterized as extrinsic components of job design that contribute to employee dissatisfaction if they are not met. Hygiene factors include:
supervision
working conditions
company policies
salary
relations with co-workers
Motivators
Motivators are intrinsic to the job itself and include aspects such as
achievement
development
responsibility
recognition
Intrinsic factors have long been acknowledged as important determinants of motivation. There is a longstanding debate as to whether hygiene factors really contribute to job satisfaction. Most job satisfaction and motivation research literature is concerned with organisational or situational predictors (such as pay and supervision) while neglecting individual differences. It has also been discovered that individuals’ significantly differ in the way they perceive their jobs, even if the job description and the tasks they had to perform remained constant, thus suggesting that some individual differences must have an effect on work attitudes. Others also argued that individual disposition may have a profound influence over how the working world is perceived (i.e. what is important to the individual), and this is likely to affect the type of jobs that are sought.
The Ten Item Personality Inventory
The Ten Item Personality inventory was introduced in Gosling et al., (2003). The ten items of this measure are scored using a seven-point scale, with two statements (one reversed) used to measure each personality variable. The authors report extensive data showing good reliability and validity of this instrument.
The Work Values Questionnaire (WVQ) The WVQ was introduced in Furnham et al., (2005). It consists of 37 items and requires individuals to report the extent to which intrinsic (e.g. responsibility and personal growth) and extrinsic (e.g. pay and benefits) components are important to them on a six-point scale. The WVQ is a revised version of Mantech's (1983) questionnaire. Previous studies have indicated that between two and four factors tend to be extracted, and that these often correspond to Herzberg et al.’s hygiene and motivator factors.
The Job Satisfaction Scale
The Job Satisfaction scale introduced by Warr et al., (1979). It consists of 15 items, seven of which measure intrinsic satisfaction, whilst the remaining eight measure extrinsic job satisfaction. Responses are given on a seven-point scale and can be summed to create and overall satisfaction score as well as an intrinsic and extrinsic value.