Industrial psychology studies the behavior of people in industry.
From the Greek psycho- ( "soul" , "mental activity" ) and -logy ( "study" ), psychology is the science in charge of the study of mental processes in its three dimensions: cognitive , behavioral and affective .
While, for its part, the word industrial we find the fact that it has its etymological origin in Latin. Specifically, it is made up of the sum of three parts: the prefix indu – which is equivalent to “inside”, the verb struo which can be defined as “make or build” and the suffix – ia which is indicative of quality.
Branches of psychology
Over time, psychology divided into various branches and specializations. Scientific psychology , for example, is one that seeks to measure the mental quantitatively and establish links between the psychological and the physical.
Social psychology (studies how psychological processes determine the way society functions and how social processes affect human psychology), educational psychology (analyzes human learning), sports psychology (in charge of behavior during activity sports), developmental psychology (behavioral changes over time), child psychology (the child's behavior) and legal psychology (the psychological phenomena that affect legal behavior) are other branches.
Industrial psychology seeks to optimize work efficiency.
Characteristics of industrial psychology
Industrial psychology , for its part, is the discipline that is responsible for the selection, training and supervision of workers to improve effectiveness at work. This specialization, therefore, analyzes human behavior in the field of industry and business.
However, within industrial psychology itself we find various branches that have different but equally important issues in the workplace as their object of study and work. Specifically, there is personnel selection psychology, the so-called organizational psychology and finally ergopsychology. The latter is what revolves around the design of furniture for offices and companies that takes into account the needs and capabilities of the worker himself.
To carry out its tasks, industrial psychology usually divides people according to whether they are workers, managers or consumers. In this way, you can pay attention to the particularities of their behaviors according to the objective they have within the commercial world .
Issues analyzed
There are many issues that are studied in a general and in-depth manner in the field of industrial psychology. In this way, for example, we find aspects such as job analysis, the adaptation of what the job is to the worker and the opposite aspect, that is, the adaptation of the worker to his job.
In order to fundamentally study these three fields, it is necessary, therefore, that professionals of this type of psychology also have as fundamental pillars of their task such relevant issues as attitudes, behaviors, direction of supervision, motivation, psychological problems that generally occur in the industry or the aforementioned professional selection.
Industrial psychology emerged after the Second World War , to deal with well-being at work and to study motivations and interpersonal relationships within organizations.