Work Psychology: Understanding Human Behaviour in the Workplace

by John Arnold, Joanne Silvester (Contributor), Fiona Patterson (Contributor)

The aim of this established text is to examine the contribution of psychological theory to our understanding of human behavior at work. Its accessible and user-friendly style makes it suitable for readers unfamiliar to the theory of work psychology as well as for those with a basic grounding in the subject. The text covers both personnel issues such as selection and training and organizational issues such as decision making, thus making it a comprehensive study of human behavior in the workplace. Throughout the text, real-life examples and illustrations are used to support the theory, to show how the concepts dealt with actually apply to work settings. Contents Chapter 1 Work psychology -- an initial orientation, Chapter 2 Theory research and practice in work psychology, Chapter 3 Individual differences, Chapter 4 The foundations of personnel selection- analyzing jobs, competencies and selection effectiveness, Chapter 5 Personnel selection and assessment processes methods- what works?, Chapter 6 Assessing people at work, Chapter 7 Attitudes at work, Chapter 8 The analysis and modification of work behavior, Chapter 9 Approaches to work motivation and job design, Chapter 10 Training, Chapter 11 Stress in the workplace, Chapter 12 Decisions, groups and teams at work, Chapter 13 Leadership, Chapter 14 Careers and career management, Chapter 15 Understanding organizational change and culture, Glossary, References.

Genres: Psychology, Reference, Management, Business, Nonfiction

718 pages, Paperback

First published July 28, 1991

About the author

John Arnold is Professor of Organisational Behaviour in the School of Business and Economics at Loughborough University.

Reviews

[camcab · Rating 2 out of 5]

Inn det ene øret, ut det andre 🙂

[Scott · Rating 4 out of 5]

Hard going

[Katerina · Rating 3 out of 5]

I didn't find what I was looking for but in general it is a well structured book with all the basics.

[Mastah Rifu · Rating 3 out of 5]

Good resource for an intro to organisational psychology, but with a slightly confusing presentation of ideas.

[Elise Breivik · Rating 3 out of 5]

fyrste gong ei pensumbok ikkje he fått mej til å ville dø❤️

[Iselin · Rating 3 out of 5]

It’s fine as far as school books go. Definitely not the worst I’ve read so far. I’d have liked there to be definition boxes and not just "you can go look these up in the back of the book yourself." Way to make it unnecessarily difficult for me. A lot of the time these authors liked to use a LOT of text to explain really simple concepts. Like… do we need a 50 page chapter to say "work stress bad?" Some of the chapters were very capitalistic and manbossy… I don’t appreciate it when science has too much value attached to it. Some of the advice in here was borderline sociopathic. Like "make poor-performing employee’s feel inadequate so they’ll change themselves" instead of just… telling them? Jeez. Three of four authors are white men. The last (cited last too so you know she contributed the least) is a white woman. For someone screaming for diversity so much in these chapters, that’s quite hillarious. Anyways… now there’s just the exam to go. Yippie kayee… 🤨

[Jonas · Rating 2 out of 5]

There's a lot in here, but it could have been presented differently:
Chapter titles were a clear differentiation between themes, but the subtitles didn't have any coherent way of splitting everything in between.
Summaries felt randomly placed in between texts; in other books they are focus points, in this one I found them more confusing than the actual text.
Boldened words without explanations (hello margin?)
No real examples, only citations. This could liven it up a lot.
Which bothered me most was the unsure language found in a lot of chapters. Agreed, science isn't set in stone and things could change in years to come, but trying to remember things about which the author isn't sure either, is not a great strategy.
OU-Psychology PB0322

[María · Rating 4 out of 5]

Finally! Lots of theories and information... let's see how memorising them for the exam goes.