Legal and Ethical Requirements

When industrial psychologists of the early twentieth century recommended
hiring or promotion, designed training, or carried out any other of their responsibilities,
they had only to satisfy their employers’ demands. Since the
late 1960’s, I/O psychologists have also had to satisfy legal and ethical requirements
pertaining to a host of problem areas such as racism, sexism, age
discrimination, and discrimination against the handicapped. More than
good intentions are necessary here. The psychologists must work to balance
the societal demands for fairness in work settings (the basing of decisions
about workers’ hiring, salary, promotion, and so on entirely on work-relevant
considerations and not on race, sex, age, or other personal characteristics)
and the practical interests of employers, sometimes having to endure
criticism for even the most ingenious of solutions.
For example, if an employer finds the company must increase its number of Latino workers, vigorous recruiting is an excellent first step, yet it may
prove expensive enough to aggravate the employer. If recruiting is not successful
because would-be applicants doubt the employer’s sincerity, both
they and the employer will be unhappy. If recruiting is successful in generating
interest, but many interested individuals are unqualified, providing
them special training could be a reasonable solution. Applicants might feel
it degrading, however, to be required to undergo more training than others
before them, or the employer might balk at the extra cost involved.
The first industrial psychologists needed little more than solid training in
their discipline to achieve success. Their successors need, beyond training
in a discipline that has enlarged enormously, the talents of diplomats.
Sources for Further Study
Anderson, Neil, Deniz S. Ones, and Handan Kepir Sinangil, eds. Handbook of
Industrial,Work, and Organization Psychology. 2 vols. Thousand Oaks, Calif.:
Sage, 2002. Volume 1 focuses on industrial psychology theories, techniques,
and methods. Volume 2 offers specific case studies in topics such
as motivation, leadership, organizational justice, and organizational development
and change.
Hilgard, Ernest Ropiequet. Psychology in America: A Historical Survey. San
Diego, Calif.: Harcourt Brace Jovanovich, 1987. Chapter 19, “Industrial
and Organizational Psychology,” is a definitive review of about eighty
years of the field’s advancement from a promising application of the new
“scientific psychology” to a major subdiscipline of modern psychology.
The subject is also covered in some of Hilgard’s other chapters (for example,
those on intelligence, on motivation, and on social psychology).
Jewell, Linda N., and Marc Siegall. Contemporary Industrial/Organizational
Psychology. 3d ed. Belmont, Calif.: Wadsworth, 1998. A text for an introductory
college course offering excellent coverage of the discipline’s topics.
Written for students majoring in business as much as for those majoring
in psychology. A book that almost anyone can understand.
Rogelberg, Steven, ed. Blackwell Handbook of Research Methods in Industrial
and Organizational Psychology. New York: Blackwell, 2002. A comprehensive
overview of the field, useful to beginners and experts alike. Addresses
both practical and theoretical issues of industrial psychology.
Rosenzweig, Mark R., and LymanW. Porter, eds. Annual Review of Psychology.
Stanford, Calif.: Annual Reviews. Most volumes of this highly respected
series contain a chapter or two on I/O psychology, indexed under
“Personnel-Organizational Psychology.” Each volume also contains a chapter
title index for at least the previous decade, making location of particular
topics reasonably easy.
Harry A. Tiemann, Jr.