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Notes on Business Psychology

Presented To: Madam Muneeza Butt

Prepared By: ARIF Masood – (Roll NO # 50)


BS (Accounting & Finance) - 3rd Semester

Department Of Commerce
Contents OF Notes

Lecture # 1 (Page 3-5)

Psychology – Definition with short history.


Business Psychology – Definition with concise.
Describing Terms

o H u m a n Be i n g
o Hum an Nature

Defining Psychology and characterizing four of its main points

o S c i e n t i f i c S t u dy
o Behaviour
o I n d iv i du a l
o M e n t a l Pr o ce s se s

Lecture # 2-5 (Page 5-7)

Goals OF Psychology

o D e s c r i b in g W h a t H a p p e n s
o E x p l a in i n g W h a t H a p p e n s
o Predicting What Will Happen
o C o n t r o l l in g W h a t H a p p e n s

Lecture # 6, 7 (Page 7-8)

THE Process OF Research

o E x p l a in i n g P r o c e du r a l s e q u e n ce o f R e se a r c h P r o ce s s
o D e s c r i b in g t e rm s o f De t e r m i n i sm a n d H y p o t h e s i s

Scientific METHOD

o S u b je c t i v i t y
o Objectivity

Lecture # 8 (Page 9-10)

Standardization
Operationalization
Variance

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o I n d e p e n de n t V a r i a b l e
o D e p e n de n t V a r i a b l e

“NOTES ON BUSINESS PSYCHOLOGY”

Psychology

Scientific study of human behavior, mental processes, and how they are affected and/or affect individuals
or group's physical state, mental state, and external environment is termed as Psychology. Its goal is to
describe, understand, predict, and modify behavior. Beginning of Psychology can be dated as early as
Hippocrates in 400BC, or even before. German physiologist Wilhelm Wundt is generally considered the
founder of psychology as a scientific discipline. He established the first laboratory for experimental
psychology in 1879 at the University of Leipzig in Leipzig, Germany.

Business Psychology

Business Psychology deals with emotions of different characters of an organization or business society
circle which includes producers, employers as well as customers.

Business Psychology which is also known as Organizational or Industrial Psychology concerns the
application of psychological theories, research methods, and intervention strategies to workplace issues.
Business psychologists are interested in making organizations more productive while ensuring workers are
able to lead physically and psychologically healthy lives. Other relevant concerns include personnel
psychology, motivation and leadership, employee selection, training and development, organization
development, organizational behavior, workplace and family issues. Business psychologists who work for
an organization are most likely to work in the HR (human resources) department. However, many I/O
psychologists pursue careers as independent consultants or applied academic psychologists.

o Human Being

Human Being is the common name given to any individual of the species Homo sapiens and, by extension,
to the entire species. Subject of a psychologist analysis is most often an individual and that individual may
be a newly born infant, teenager, college student, Athlete etc

o Human Nature

Human nature is the fundamental nature and substance of humans. It may also be the range of human
behavior that is believed to be invariant over long periods of time and across very different cultural

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contexts. Some define human nature as “the psychological attributes of humankind that are assumed to be
shared by all human beings”

Definition of Psychology with description


Psychology is the study of nature of experience & behaviour, human and animal, normal and
abnormal, individual and social.

OR

The Scientific study of behaviour of individuals and their mental Processes.

o Scientific Method

Scientific method is a body of techniques for investigating phenomena and acquiring new knowledge, as
well as for correcting and integrating previous knowledge. It is based on gathering observable, empirical
and measurable evidence subject to specific principles of reasoning, and the collection of data through
observation and experimentation, and the formulation and testing of hypotheses. We draw conclusions on
factual basis which we get from observations and experimentations.

The essential elements of a scientific method are operations, observations, models, and a utility function for
evaluating models.

Θ Oper ation: Some action done to the system being investigated.


Θ Ob serv ation: What happens when the operation is done to the system?
Θ Model : A fact, hypothesis, theory, or the phenomenon itself at a certain moment.
Θ Ut ility Function : A measure of the usefulness of the model to explain, predict, and control, and
of the cost of use of it.

o Behaviour

In general behaviour is said to be manner in which one behaves. In terms of psychology the aggregate of the
responses or reactions or movements made by an organism in any situation are referred as behaviour.
Behavior can be conscious or unconscious, overt or covert, voluntary or involuntary. Any action\response of
individuals\organisms to adjust into their environment which they perform behind their mental process will

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be their behaviour.

Aggression, Crying, touching are usual behaviour examples which we observe in daily life. Psychologists
examine how differently individuals behave in different conditions. Different human beings can obviously
behave differently in similar conditions since every human being has unique reasoning ability, justification,
resistance and willingness.
o Individual

Subject of any psychological study often happens to be an individual. This individual could be anyone from
an infant child to teenager and old man. Subject could be a college student, any illiterate person, a house
wife or any farmer. Individual might be studied in his natural habitat or in controlled condition of research
laboratory.

o Mental Processes

Performance of the some composite cognitive activity like an operation that affects mental contents, the
process of thinking and the cognitive operation of remembering are referred as mental processes. These are
the activities which are performed un-intentionally most of the times. In other words we can say these
activities take place as private or internal events. Thinking, planning, reasoning and dreaming are all
common examples of mental processes.

GOALS of Psychology
Psychology is the scientific study of behaviour & mental processes as psychology attempts to explain, predict
and ultimately improve quality of life of people in specific and the whole world in general. It can improve
quality of life of common person by working on his problems like loose temperament, aggression e.g. After
the observations are made by psychologists they decide to apply positive or negative reinforcement on the
subject in order to solve his problem. Basic goals of psychology are as following.

o Describing WHAT Happens


First task of psychology is to make accurate observations about behaviour. Psychologists typically refer to
such observations as their data.

Θ Behaviour Data

Behavuiour data are reports of observations about the behaviour of individual or organizations and
conditions under which the behaviour occurs. In data collection one must choose an appropriate level of
analysis and device to measure the behaviour in order to ensure the objectivity of data. Observer could

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mould the observation by his subjective point of view like biasness and prejudice, which will obviously
hamper the accuracy of concluded observations. Therefore it is essential to prevent such subjective factors
and keep objectivity while collecting data.

Behaviour data can be measured or analyzed by qualitative method in which we use some standardized
devices and instruments to analyze behaviour.

o Explaining WHAT Happens


Explanations in psychology usually recognize that most of behaviour is influenced by a combination of
factors; some factors operate without individual such as genetic makeup motivation, intelligence & level of
self esteem. Other factors however operate externally such as a biker trapped in a traffic jam gets frustrated
and hostile which shows aggressive attitude of him. So, internal factors could be genetic makeup motivation
and external factors could be anything like fear resulting from some dangerous situation around or
aggression being created after getting trapped in traffic jam.

o Predicting WHAT will happen


Predictions in terms of psychology are the statements about a livelihood that certain behaviour will occur
or that a given relationship will be found. Understanding the causes behind different behaviour often
enables the researchers and psychologists to make an accurate prediction of future behaviour. For example
its not necessarily must that any specific child is not speaking up in class just because of class’s
environmental pressure.

It must be kept in mind that whenever observation is made, it should be objective. Scientific predictions
must be worded precise enough to enable them to be tested and then rejected, if NO evidence is found in
their support. Scientific prediction is based on understanding of events related to one and another. It
suggests that mechanism links these observations and events.

Θ Causal Prediction

Causal Prediction specifies the conditions under which behaviour will change to improve a causal
prediction as a researcher would create systematic variations in environmental condition and will observe
the responses which occur as result of those variations.

For example, observing the responses of a baby child when he faces a monkey of different sizes at different
distances. Studying the level the anxiety and fear of child in different situations and then building
predictions on basis of those observations. Similarly, observing the changes in nature and mode of
conversations of two teenagers when a stranger come and stand near by them. Changes when the stranger is
of their age group, younger or older to them. When stranger is a male and when is a female.
Experimentation and observation help the researcher\psychologist to make a stronger and firm prediction.

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o Controlling WHAT Happens
Once the psychologist had observed, explained and predicted the specific event\subject of study, he comes to
final and most important stage of controlling what happens on basis of his past experiences and observations.
Controlling behaviour means molding it the right way or the way psychologist wants it. Managing, molding,
maintaining, stopping or influencing forms of behaviour is actually controlling it. There are many
techniques practiced to control behaviour but the basic is that one should first create conditions under
which the behaviour could be controlled or worked on. Ability of convincing subject or controlling
behaviour is of crucial importance since it enables psychologists of helping people and improves their
quality of life. For example ability of psychologist to help his patient in controlling his aggression or solving
any problem is of key importance.

THE Process of Research


Research is a human activity based on intellectual investigation and aimed at discovering, interpreting, and
revising human knowledge on different aspects of the world. Research can use the scientific method, but
need not do so. Research Process in psychology can be divided into two categories that usually occur in
sequence.

1. Forming an Idea.
2. Testing It.

Process typically begins when observation believes; information and general knowledge lead some of
thinking about a different phenomenon.

Θ Direct Observation
Θ Un-assured questions

Psychological varies are an attempt to understand that how brain, mind behaviour and environment
function and how they may be related.

o DETERMINISM

A philosophy espousing that ev ery ev ent in the univ erse is caused and controlled by
natural law . More precisely , all behav ior and observ able events hav e causes. So, the idea
that all events phy sical, mental or behav ioral are results of or is determined by specif ic
causal factors. Causal factors are limited to that ind iv id ual env ironment or within the
person. When a theory is prepared in psychology it is generally accepted both to account for known facts
and to generate new ideas and hypothesis.

o HYPOTHESIS

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Hypothesis is a tentative idea & testable statement about the relationship between cause and consequences.
A hypothesis consists either of a suggested explanation for a phenomenon or of a reasoned proposal
suggesting a possible correlation between multiple phenomena. The scientific method requires hypothesis
to be testable. Hypothesis are often stated as “IF then prediction” specifying certain outcome from specific
conditions. Theories are of fundamental importance for generating new hypothesis. To test hypothesis
researchers rely on scientific methods.

Scientific METHOD

Scientific method is a general set of procedures for gathering evidences in ways that lemmatize sources of
err and yield dependable conclusion. Although procedures vary from one field of inquiry to another,
identifiable features distinguish scientific inquiry from other methodologies of knowledge. Scientific
researchers propose hypotheses as explanations of phenomena, and design experimental studies that test
these hypotheses for accuracy. These steps must be repeatable in order to predict dependably any future
results. Theories that encompass wider domains of inquiry may bind many hypotheses together in a
coherent structure. This in turn may assist in the formation of new hypotheses, as well as in placing groups
of hypotheses into a broader context of understanding.

o Subjectivity
Subjectivity is judgment based on individual personal impressions and feelings and opinions rather than
external facts. It must minimize in data collection and analysis phase of scientific research. Procedural
safeguard are used to increase objectivity. Secrecy is banned from research procedure because all data and
methods must be opened for public verifiability. Other researchers must have opportunity to inspect,
criticize, replicate or disapprove the data and methods, if they found it unsupportive. This practice, called
full disclosure, also allows statistical measures of the reliability of these data to be established.

o Objectivity
Objectivity of any research describes the degree to which the diagnosis is independent of the investigator.
When different people observe different events, they usually don’t see the same thing. An observer bias is
an error due to personal motive and expectations of viewers. At times people see and hear what expect
rather than what is. The biases of observer act as filters through which something are noticed as relevant
and significant and others are ignored as irrelevant and not meaningful.

While practicing Objectivity Expectations, Biased ness must be avoided. Practicing remedy in psychology
means an effort to minimize researcher or observer biases. Researcher relies on standardization and
operationalization.

Standardization

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A standard is that which has been selected as a model to which objects or actions may be compared. While
doing data collection it is necessary to have some standard so that observations could be compared with that
in order to draw conclusions. Procedure of setting standards is termed as standardization.

It means using uniform consistent procedure in all phases of data collection. All features of the test or
experimental situation should be sufficiently standardized so that all research participants experience same
experimental conditions. It means asking questions and scoring responses according to pre-established rules.
Having results printed or recorded helps to ensure their comparability across different times and places and
with different participants and researchers.

Operationalization
Operationalization is the process of defining a concept as the operations that will measure the concept
(variables) through specific observations.

In terminology of Psychology operationalization is used as part of the scientific method. For example, a
psychologist may wish to measure "anger." Its presence, and the depth of the emotion, cannot be directly
measured by an outside observer because anger is intangible. Rather, other measures are used by outside
observers, such as facial expression, choice of vocabulary, loudness and tone of voice.

If a psychologist wants to measure the depth of "anger" in various persons, the most direct operation would
be to ask them a question, such as "are you angry", or "how angry are you?” This operation is problematic,
however, because it depends upon the definition of the individual. One person might be subjected to a mild
annoyance, and become slightly angry, but describe themselves as "extremely angry," whereas another
might be subjected to a severe provocation, and become very angry, but describe themselves as "slightly
angry." In addition, in many circumstances it is impractical to ask subjects whether they are angry. Since
one of the measures of anger is loudness, the psychologist can operationalize the concept of anger by
measuring how loudly the subject speaks compared to their normal tone.

Variable

Any factor which has the potential to influence another factor in a research study or any characteristic that
can assume multiple values or can vary in participants. Variables can include age, gender, body weight,
alcohol consumption, attitude and many, many other attributes. Related terms included Independent and
Dependent variables. In simple words variable is any factor which can vary in amount. In experimental
setting, researcher often wishes to demonstrate cause & affect relationship between two types of variables.

o Independent Variable

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Independent Variable is a factor that researcher manipulates its functions as the causal part of the
relationship.

o Dependent Variable

Dependent Variable is a factor which is effect part of relation. This is – what the experiment measures. If
researcher claims about cause & effect are correct the value of dependent variable will depend on value the
value of independent variable.

___________________

Notes: Class Lectures


en.wikipedia.org
Alleydog.com
Introduction to Psychology
hds.canberra.edu.au

Submitted By: ARIF Masood.


(Roll.No.50)

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