The History of Industrial Organizational Psychology.

        World War I brought new innovations and changes to the field of I/O psychology. Robert Yerkes implemented a screening process for new recruits. The process picked out recruits that had mental problems and picked jobs tailored to the individual. The war also encouraged psychologists to study motivation and morale amongst soldiers. At the same time Walter Dill Scott did research on the placement of soldiers. Scott was a faculty member at Northwestern University and argued the managers were not properly using psychology in organizations. He argued that not only are employees economically motivated but also motivated by social issues and feeling like a member of a group. Scott felt that the managers placed to much focus on getting work done and the technology to do so and not enough focus on good employee selection and supervision (behavioral aspects).

        In the years after WWI there were several significant events in the field of I/O. Between the years of 1924 and 1933 gave rise to the Hawthorn Studies conducted in Chicago at the Hawthorne Plant of the Western Electric Company. These studies strongly influenced the behavioral school of management and also helped establish a different way of management and organizational design. The studies focused on the relationship between worker productivity and factors like illumination, length of breaks, length of work, and lunch. The team of researchers felt that improving factors such as these would improve employee morale and in turn improve productivity. However, the results proved inconsistent. Productivity actually increased at times when decreases were hypothesized. The researchers failed to find a relationship between the quality of the work environment and employee productivity. The researchers then decided to interview a large number of workers. The workers stated that they were affected by the researchers from Harvard and were trying to impress them which caused them to be more productive than they normally would have been. After a period of time the workers began to get used to researchers observing them and the production levels went back to what they originally were. This is now known as the Hawthorn Effect which states that there is a change in behavior following the onset of new attention or another novel treatment.  In 1933 Elton Mayo stated that “What actually happened was that six individuals became a team and the team gave itself wholeheartedly and spontaneously to cooperation n the experiment. The consequence was that they felt themselves to be participating freely and without afterthought, and were happy in the knowledge that they were working without coercion from above or limitations from below”.  To put it simple, a satisfied worker equals a productive worker and attitude drives behavior.

        By the start of WWII industrial psychologists had greatly improved there methods of employee selection. The army recruited the I/O psychologists to help with selection of soldiers. As a result the psychologists came up with the Army General Classification Test and a series of tests on performance under stress for the Office of Strategic Services. In 1945 Kurt Lewin started the Research Center for Group Dynamics at MIT which performed experiments on group behavior. One of the most important events during the end of the war was in 1946 when the APA formed Division 14 of the American Psychological Association. It was the Society for Industrial and Organizational Psychology in 1983, and by 1996 it had grown a tremendous amount and had approximately 2500 members. 

        In the years following the war psychologists studied theories of motivation and continued support for the human relations movement. The Human Relations Movement based its model on the theory that employees are socially motivated and have needs for recognition and acceptance. Carl Rogers and Abraham Maslow contributed greatly to the movement and their research is still well known and documented today. In 1954 Peter Drucker came up with the Management by Objectives approach and John Flanigan came up with the Critical Incidents Technique. According to Drucker the purpose of management is to make people capable of performance by giving them a common goal or a common value. Also they must be given an environment and training in order to react to changing conditions.  

        In the 1960’s theories of motivation began to emerge. There were many key figures that contributed to motivation theories including; Douglas McGregor, David McClelland, Frederick Herzberg, Edwin Locke, and Fred Fiedler. All of these figures contributed greatly to the field of I/0 Psychology with leadership models, achievement theories, different approaches and theories of motivation, and thoughts about relationships between employees and organizations. The 70’s brought B.F. Skinner who did much research on behavior modification strategies and how they motivate people in the workplace. With his book Beyond Freedom and Dignity, Skinner argues that the problems of the world can be solved by dealing more directly with human behavior; Skinner feels that the world’s ideas of freedom and dignity must be sharply revised.

        As I/O psychology moved into the 1980’s and 90’s Attention was increased on quality circles, organizational climates, and participatory management techniques. The 90’s also brought the statistical technique of meta-analysis which was developed by Schmidt and Hunter. Meta-analysis enabled the combining of data from previous studies and analyzed overall patterns. Direct evaluations of validity for recent studies were not felt to be necessary.   The attention also seemed to be focused on employment law. Court cases dealt with sexual harassment, Civil Rights, punitive damages, and many other important issues. In more recent times workplace violence has come up as a increasing topic of study and I/O psychology is growing and changing at a rapid pace.