What is occupational psychology? Characteristics and scope of work

Beyond the field of care for patients with psychological problems, there are many other branches of psychology that can be applied to very diverse contexts. In fact, one of those with the most job opportunities has only an indirect relationship with the world disorders: it is about occupational psychology, linked to the world of organizations and business.

Throughout this article we will see a brief summary about what occupational psychology is (also called "work psychology) and what are its areas of intervention.

• Related article: "Types of companies: their characteristics and areas of work"

Characteristics of occupational psychology

As its name indicates, occupational psychology is one that is in charge of studying behavior in the workplace and applying behavior modification programs in this.

Normally, it focuses on work associated with the context of professions and trades, that is, that which is divided into specialists and which forms part of people's career paths, allowing them to get something in return (even if that "something" is not reduced to salary or income economic).

On the other hand, occupational psychology understands that work is almost always carried out in a social context, so It also takes into account team dynamics, leadership processes, and everything that happens within companies and commercial relationships.

That is why this branch of psychology overlaps a lot with the psychology of organizations, to the point that it is sometimes difficult to distinguish them when forming the same field of research and psychological intervention.

Areas of work

These are the main subject areas in which work psychology works.

1. Motivation

Motivation is key both in companies and in one-person professional projects.

Sometimes the idea is good, the material resources are available, the necessary knowledge is available, but the desire to participate in the work project is lacking. In these cases, it is necessary for a specialist to analyze the case and propose changes to generate a work context in which motivation arises finally and everything starts to work smoothly.

2. Leadership

Something as simple as knowing how to lead can make a difference both in the performance obtained and in the feelings produced by working in a certain institution (and, consequently, in the incentives to stay in her). For this reason, labor psychology also works to propose changes in the way to communicate, to manage incidents, to propose incentives, to set an example, etc.

• You may be interested: "Types of Leadership: The 5 most common types of leader"

3. Staff pick

The selection of personnel is essential for a group of workers to function well, since some parts of the organization depend on others. Therefore, experts in occupational psychology can work both performing these filtering processes and defining the job to be covered.

4. Training of workers

Many times, workers do not have to be trained in areas of expertise that they already master, but in other skills that They are necessary to perform well but they are not "the core" of what they do on a day-to-day basis, which defines their position and distinguishes it. the rest. For example: managing emotions, learning safety protocols, communication skills, etc. To avoid imbalances in these areas, many entities promote courses or workshops so that workers can learn and train new knowledge and skills.

5. Performance

This is one of the most important areas of intervention in occupational psychology: knowing how to promote programs to enhance performance is key in many aspects, and this can determine whether a project will be viable in the medium or long term or not.

This is where incentives come into play, the configuration of the teams, the ability to correct defects in the workflow, the degree to which workers know how to manage stress in some situations, and even the design of workspaces and the tools used to to work.

6. Internal communication

Internal communication is also part of the job, since you have to know how to coordinate and, at the same time, be clear about the general way in which you work in the entity you are in. Knowing how to create the routes through which the communication flow will go is complex, because it requires taking into account many variables, and many of them are not technical, but psychological.

7. Working environment

The work environment defines the type of attitudes and feelings that the work context gives off, both from the facilities in which they work, as well as from the way of working and the type of people that make up the team. For this reason, it is an important factor that in practice is essential to the company's values.

Are you interested in training in this field of psychology?

If you are considering training and professionalizing yourself in this field of work, you may be interested in the University Master's Degree in Talent Selection and Management organized by the University of Malaga.

This post-university training program consists of internships in leading companies in their sector and two blocks of theoretical-practical learning that also They can be studied as postgraduate courses individually: University Expert in Talent Selection and University Expert in Training, Personal Development and Organizational. In total, the entire Master consists of 75 ECT credits.

By having a teaching team made up of experts in the world of business and occupational and organizational psychology, in the Master it is possible to learn about aspects as varied as the selection of personnel, the processes of recruitment and retention of talent in the staff, the development of training plans for workers, the use of new technologies in Human Resources, leadership in teams, and more. Therefore, it is not surprising that 80% of graduate students get paid extracurricular internships.

To see more information about the Master, as well as your contact information, go to this page.

Bibliographic references:

• Cooper, C.; Robertson, I. (2004). International Review of Industrial and Organizational Psychology. Chichester, UK: Wiley.
• Dierdorff, E.C.; Surface, E.A. (2008). Assessing training needs: Do work experience and capability matter?. Human Performance, 21: pp. 28 - 48.
• Dormann, C.; Zapf, D. (2002). Social stressors at work, irritation, and depressive symptoms: Accounting for unmeasured third variables in a multi-wave study. Journal of Occupational and Organizational Psychology, 75 (1), 33–58.
• Zedeck, S. (2010). APA Handbook of Industrial and Organizational Psychology. Washington, DC: American Psychological Association.