SOCIAL PSYCHOLOGY - IT'S SCOPE

"Social Psychology is the scientific study of how people's thoughts, feelings, beliefs, intentions and goals are constructed within a social context by the actual or imagined interactions with others". (McLeod; 2007)

"The scientific field that seeks to understand the nature and causes of individual behaviour in social situations". (Baron, Byrne and Suls; 1989)

 Social Psychology encompasses social situational influence on psychological phenomena, personal construction of those situations, and the mutual influence of the person or situation interaction. Therefore, the scope is largely defined by the limits of what is a "social situation". This situation could be considered the relative influence of real or imagined others.

Individual Perspective:

The social psychologists are also interested in the problems of learning, perception, motivation, emotions; but they are interested in these processes only in the context of social interaction. They studies the individual behaviour in the social environment in contrast to the general psychologists who studies these processes in the context of the physical environment. So, one of the scope of social psychology is to build up knowledge so that our understanding of individual behaviour in social setting can be improved.

Social Interaction:

Interdependence usually means the degree to which individuals require one another to obtain goods and services which would not be available otherwise. Other human beings, are the most significant and consequential parts of the environment. Other persons respond to us and we respond to them and so on. Such give-and-take among human individuals is the significant aspect of social interaction. Our character, our concerns and our aspirations are in some way or the other affected by interactions with others. This is why social interaction occupies a central place in social psychology. It is by understanding the processes of interaction that we can understand the broader features of social influence, including the effects of cultural, organizational and group effects upon the individual.

Social interaction refers to the reciprocal relationship between two or more individuals whose behaviour is mutually dependent. It involves the communication process that leads to influence upon the actions and outlooks of individuals.

Interactions take place in an interpersonal situation, that is, in face-to-face relationships. But the memory of another person may also influence our behaviour even when there is no face-to-face relationship.

Social Influence:

Another important scope of social psychology is with the processes of social influence. The individual is born in a group, grows up in a group and lives and works in a group. So by necessity man is oriented toward other human beings in the environment. Social influence occurs whenever one individual responds to the actual or potential presence of other human beings.

The three factors resulting into social influence are:- a) Social interaction process, which is basic to human experience right from birth. Man's personality, his beliefs, attitudes and values are all based, in way or another, on social interaction.

b) Influence of the group on individual give rises to problem of conformity, prejudice, leadership and other group phenomenon.

c) Influence of one group on another group may either lead to cooperation or conflict.

The other variables studied under social psychology are attitude, value, group cohesiveness, group norm and many more.

References:

Kuppuswamy, B. (1961). An introduction to social psychology. Asia publishing house.

Singh, A. K. (2019). Social psychology. PHI Learning Pvt. Ltd..

THE BIOPSYCHOSOCIAL INTERACTION - PERSONALITY

 Personality is often defined as a pattern of relatively permanent traits and unique characteristics that give both consistency and individuality to a person's behaviour. 

There are a number of ways in which we describe personality. And, often when we assess it for an individual, the effectiveness with which he elicit positive reactions under different circumstances are being considered. Or, the other most popular way of ascribing an individual with a personality is by observing the most outstanding or salient impression which he forms on others.

So, personality has often been defined from two separate viewpoints, one is the 'biosocial' perspective, where a close correspondence with the popular use of the term as it equates personality to the "social stimulus value" of the individual is made. Here, the reaction of other individuals is considered to determine the type of personality.

The other is the 'biophysical' perspective which generates from the characteristics or qualities of an individual. This perspective claims for an organic side of personality which is linked to the specific qualities of the individual which are susceptible to generalized description and measurement.

The construction of an individual's personality is the result of the reciprocal interaction of the three vital determinants - Biological factors, Psychological factors and Social factors.

The Biological or Physical determinants plays a vital role in the formation of personality. It has been sub-grouped into heredity and physical features. Heredity contributes towards the sex, physical structure, composition of muscles, facial features, which are reflected through our personality. And, physical features are the external appearance which also plays a key role in the formation of self-conception.

The next is the Psychological factors which involves the cognitive aspect of an individual. The behavioural patterns, thinking and problem solving skills, decision making capabilities - all contributes towards the formation of personality.

The third in the row is the Social factors. Personality and social behaviours result from a blending of heredity and social environmental influences. The Sociobiologists feel that environmental factors have the greatest influences. Heredity, birth order,parents and cultural environment are among the principal factors which influences an individual's personality and behaviour.

These three factors are in a continuous interactive relationship and influences one another from the time of an individual's pre-natal stage. The synthesis of these factors determines an individual's personality.

MEASURING ATTITUDE

Attitude has often been defined by psychologists as people's evaluation of almost any aspect of the world.

We often posses either positive or negative responses or actions towards different social stimulus, some of them are quite flexible and can be altered, while some are resistant to alternations; as we hold some attitudes with certainty, while uncertainty prevails towards other social aspects.

Social psychologists have reportedly distinguished two types of attitudes - 

1) Explicit Attitudes - They are the conscious or report able forms. The beliefs which we are aware about and can be easily measured.

2) Implicit Attitudes - These type of beliefs are less controllable and not at all conscious or easily accessible to us.

The measurement of explicit attitude are done following varied scaling techniques or tests. The belief or disbelief, favourable or unfavourable form of attitudes are measured with the help of scales, constructed by experts having short statements dealing with several social aspects like - climate change, sexual abuse, pollution, globalization and many more social constructs.

The scales or tests are constructed following a continuum, where the scale ranges from absolute unfavourable to absolute favourable acceptance of belief. Each statement will portray a specific degree of acceptance or rejection of a belief.

The 2 most popular scales for measuring attitudes are:

1) Thurstone's method of equal appearing intervals - The Thurstone's Scale is a quantitative form of measurement of people's attitude, using 'agree - disagree' format. These statements are assigned with potential numerical values, which helps the researcher to determine the strength of the belief which one holds toward  the specific social aspect.

This is mainly applied when the researcher wants to know the attitude of individuals about a specific topic and wants to compare it with others. It is also a possible technique of collecting data in a group situation.

2) Likert's method of summated ratings - This technique of measuring attitude is much simpler than that of Thurstone, yet follows a long and elaborate steps for analyzing and elemination of weak items.

The Likert scale follows a 5 - point method, having the range from: strongly agree, agree, undecided, disagree to strongly disagree. This method of scaling attitude is much objective in nature and indicates the intensity of the opinion, also in accordance with the direction.

This is also a quantitative technique of measuring attitude, where the response ranges from being agreed upon to disagreement, also having an option of having no belief at all. The responses hold their own values but the interval values are not equal, with the limitation, that individuals can give false responses due to social desirability.

Another technique for measuring attitude is Bogardus Social Distance Scale - following the degrees of social intimacy. This scale was formed keeping in mind the social forms of discrimination which regulates our relationship formation with any stranger.

This scale has been defined, which measures the degree of closeness towards people of other social, religious, ethnic or racial groups.

The characteristics of Bogardus Social Distance Scale are : it is cumulative in nature, a 7 point scale and lastly, it measures social distance. 

     

WORK ENGAGEMENT IN ORGANIZATIONAL PSYCHOLOGY

 Work Engagement has been defined as a positive, affective-motivational state of high energy combined with high levels of dedication and a strong focus on work. (Schaufeli and Bakker, 2010) It is one of the most essential factor in an organization to have engaged workers, as they will provide the organization with high productivity, 'out of the box' ideas, extra effort, commitment and citizenship behaviour.

A number of research studies are being conducted on work engagement to find out the characteristics of an engaged employee, what makes a worker more engaged, and what are the several outcomes of having engaged employees in the workplace. This particular aspect helps to determine an important worker, a more engaged work team, the output of the organization. These, workers due to strong and hard work is beneficial to the organization and show better job-role performance.

CHARACTERISTICS OF ENGAGED EMPLOYEES:

1) Engaged workers have a better attitude towards overall work and organization. They want to be a part of every team, participates in formal and informal events.

2) Engaged employees often show more organizational commitment.

3) Also, more citizenship behaviour are performed by them.

4) They are much higher in belongingnes. These individuals share a good interpersonal relationship with both managers and other coworkers.

5) They are much easier and simple to work with.

6) Engaged workers are better in terms of trust and responsibility.

FACTORS THAT MAKE AN EMPLOYEE MORE ENGAGED:

The organizations always try to keep their employees engaged to elevate the rate of productivity. So, what are those vital factors which keep them high in work engagement? The answer is :

1) Job Satisfaction: Employees who are satisfied with their job, their workplace, job-role, coworkers and employers are more engaged.

2) High Interest or 'of purpose': Employees who are more interested is performing their task and find it meaningful or of some purpose are usually more engaged in their job.

3) Organizational Culture: If the culture of an organization is positive, employee - friendly, recognizes its worker's efforts and encourages the employees - likely the employees will have more engagement towards their organization.

4) Leadership: A good leader can influence the whole organization. A good leader can encourage the employees and improve the climate of the workplace. A good leader can increase the productivity of the employees and keep them engaged.

5) Pay structure: If the organization pays well then they can keep the workers engaged.

6) Autonomy: If the employees receive freedom in decision making and in performing job-role, that will promote work engagement among them. 

7) Job resources: The physical, psychological and social job resources are if supplied adequately, the work engagement of the employees remains intact.

Work engagement is very much vital for the ultimate growth and development of the organizations. The current research studies are working upon to find out the factors which promotes the counting of engaged workers. 

ORGANIZATIONAL PSYCHOLOGY - AN INDIAN PERSPECTIVE

 Like the advent of mainstream Psychology in India, the Industrial or Organizational psychology also arrived late in comparison to the Western countries. The economical structure is the biggest welcome of this particular field  - where India was lacking at the post-independence era. The main aim of organizational psychology was to raise the performance level of the employees in the western world, which was copied here. The cross-cultural studies and indigenous psychology movements promoted or made it to realize that how much organizational psychology is important in the Indian settings.

The area of Organizational Psychology was mainly based on the 'right fit', turnover or absenteeism rate, job satisfaction, work culture and climate, job performance and other related facts. These are the main concerns on the basis of which, the theories, measurements and researches were constructed in the western countries. India was lacking the advancements in technology, data and organizations, so reprinting the western form of data, theory and measurement was done here. The local touch or involvement was lacking.

During the 1970s, a lot of cross-cultural research studies started in India following western prototypes. The research studies conducted in the Indian organizations followed rigorous collection of data on the managers and their behaviours. The form of relationship they use to built with their employers or 'bosses'.

The other topics of organizational behaviours which were covered in the Indian setting was the effectiveness of teams and groups. It was concluded that the effectiveness of team was depended on the job, environmental factors and the structure of the organization, while group effectiveness is the output of internal and external processes, personality of the members. Several meta-analysis were done on the concepts of individualism and collectivism.

And, several culture-specific research studies were done on the leadership approaches. The type of leadership practiced in the Indian Organizational set-up was clarified and several models were being established and compared to reach conclusions.

Indian Organizational Psychology is a field yet to prosper. Many more researches are to be done in the local set-up, on the basis of local or culture specific data collection. As, globalization has an impact on the worldwide economic integration - Indian philosophy has a lot to contribute to the field of organizational psychology.

Industrial management in India now also have some deficits which results from lack of acknowledgement towards human factors in the industrial set-up which results into a number of issues like increased turnover, absenteeism, lesser job satisfaction, less work commitment, poor working conditions and most importantly poor or low work motivation.

So now-a-days special emphasis are being given upon the development of manpower. Human Resource Management and Development are essential now and the Management and Labour policies are being formed to provide support to the employees. Human engineering is also now focused in the Indian organizational set-up. Organizational changes and developments are being done in the Indian organizations either by following the international models or by hiring professionals from different parts of the world.

The progress in this arena is slow and needs much more financial support and expertise to reach the fullest of its development.

  

 

ORGANIZATIONAL COMMITMENT

 According to Fred Luthans (1998), "Organizational Commitment is most often defined as (1) a strong desire to remain a member of a particular organization; (2) a willingness to exert high levels of effort on behalf of the organization; and (3) a definite belief in, and acceptance of, the values and goals of the organization".

It refers to the interrelation or attachment a personnel shares with their organization or employer. Organizational commitment has also been described as an individual's psychological attachment to an organization.

Meyer and Allen, (1991) has defined organizational commitment as "a psychological state that (a) characterizes the employee's relationship with the organization, and (b) has implications for the decision to continue or discontinue membership in the organization".

While studying organizational behaviour, the researches and real life experiences, several vital actions from the part of the employees have been considered as the key roles behind the rate of productivity or output an organization shows at the end of the day. And, one of the most discussed behaviour among them are organizational commitment. It is an essential determinant for explaining employee's behaviour within the organization.

Organizational commitment shares strong correlations with many other variables like - job satisfaction, turnover rate, absenteeism or loyalty towards the organization. The job characteristics, job enrichment, and the role of the leader in terms of communication, participation and task interdependence plays a vital role in the formation of the commitment towards the organization.

MODELS OF ORGANIZATIONAL COMMITMENT:

1) The Member - Based Model - This particular model suggests that the attachment or bond originates from the behaviours and personal attributes of the employees.

2) Organization - Based Model - The organization - based model puts emphasize on the role of the organization in providing the resources to its employees and in the satisfied ways of reciprocity.

3) Three - Component Model - The most popular model of organizational commitment is the three-component model suggested by Meyer and Allen. The three forms of commitment are - a) Affective commitment - This type of organizational commitment signifies the feeling or emotional aspect.

b) Continuance commitment - The summation of the feeling aspect and cognitive aspect of the employee which leads to the thought about the consequences of leaving the organization.

c) Normative commitment - It refers to the type of commitment an employee has when he feels obliged to retain in the organization.

Lastly, organizational commitment is essential for both the employees and the organization, as it provides certain positive outcomes - listing them below;

Employee productivity, Improved organizational performance, Employee advocacy, Lower absenteeism and Decreased turnover.

References:

Luthans, F., Luthans, B. C., & Luthans, K. W. (2021). Organizational Behavior: An Evidence-Based Approach Fourteenth Edition. IAP.

Meyer, J. P., & Allen, N. J. (1991). A three-component conceptualization of organizational commitment. Human resource management review, 1(1), 61-89.

ORGANIZATIONAL CITIZENSHIP BEHAVIOR

 The field of Organizational Behavior is evolving everyday. Researches are being conducted to explore new arenas of OB. There are already several concepts, theories and models which are been applied to study and promote human behavior in the area of Industries and Organizations.

The popular phrases "going above and beyond" or "giving their all" are almost getting zero application in the human life. We are restricting our behavior within the stipulated boundaries and scaling them with the job role which has been assigned to us by the organization.

The modern era concept of Organization Citizenship Behavior (OCB) is reaching out the field of OB quite prominently. The OCB if explained in simple languages, is the response or actions or behaviors which are not required by the personnel. They are not a job characteristics, but are beneficial to the team and works for the organization's better functioning and efficiency.

OCB has been defined as, "individual behavior that is discretionary, not directly or explicitly recognized by the formal reward system, and in the aggregate promotes the efficient functioning of the organization". (Organ, 1997)

BENEFITS OF PRACTICING OCB: 

1) Finding one's work meaningful. The workers feel more significant and their contribution to the workplace more essential and useful.

2) Organization Citizenship Behavior increase the control ability over one's own tasks. They have a greater grip on what they are performing or how they are performing.

3) This kind of behavior helps in preventing burnout. As, the personnel identifies that his/her contribution of doing something good is of some purpose, it re boosts them.

4) OCB shares a directly proportional relationship with work-performance and productivity.

5) This is a good way to set in the organization. Employees who are new to the field can learn by practicing OCB.

There are very few disadvantages of OCB. Firstly, sometimes the behavior may get unnoticed by the supervisor or the leader. And, secondly it might lead to a poor Family - Work life balance.

TYPES OF OCB:

There are several ways in which an employee can show OCB. Past research studies highlight a few ways which are more commonly portrayed in the field of Organizational behavior.

ALTRUISM: When an employee assists his/her coworkers in finishing a project, though he/she will get nothing in return. The form of OCB where an employee helps another without any expectation, is altruism in OCB.

COURTESY: Personnel when guiding the colleagues to overcome a personal life experience so that it does not effect their job performance. Courtesy is being polite or considerate towards people who work with.

SPORTSMANSHIP: Taking a rejection from the employer's part sportingly. Refraining oneself from showing frustration or hate towards the authority in time of any rejection or disagreement is sportsmanship.

CONSCIENTIOUSNESS: Attending a project work or helping in structuring a pitch which is not a part of assigned job role is showing conscientiousness. Basically putting the phrase "going above and beyond " into use.

CIVIC VIRTUE: Participating in social events organized by the company or following company's principles in personal life is affirming to the virtues of the company. When the worker represents his organization in a golden frame, his/her civic virtue is said to be high.

So, while drawing the conclusion it can be said that OCB is argued to facilitate a positive work environment, which enables organizations to attract and retain employees (Organ, 1988) and increase employee's positive beliefs toward their job and the organization.(Koopman, 2016)

REFERENCE:

Organ, D. W. (1988). Organizational citizenship behavior: The good soldier syndrome. Lexington books/DC heath and com.