Learning outcomes

This is mainly a course of psychology, academic discipline dealing with human behavior and its underlying cognitive and emotional constructs. In particular, Work Psychology deals with psychological aspects (of cognitive, emotional and behavioral kind) connected to work and organizational contexts, such as intelligence (which is mainly a cognitive construct), motivation (which is mainly an emotional construct) and commitment (which is mainly a behavioral construct). Following the typical research and intervention line that comes from individuals to organizations through groups, the course specifically deals with:

Program

1.4. The individual at work and in organizations
- Cognitive characteristics: intelligence and convictions:
o Scale for the IQ determination (Stanford-Binet, Wechsler, ecc.);
o Aptitude tests;
o Opinions and attitudes;
o Gardner (multiple intelligences) and Goleman (emotional intelligence).

- Emotional characteristics: needs and motivations:
o Intrinsic and extrinsic motivations, self-centered and other-centered motivations;
o Maslow’s hierarchy of needs;
o Rogers’ self-actualization;
o Herzberg’s two factor theory.

- Behavioral characteristics: abilities and competences:
o Abilities, capacities, skills and competences;
o Job evaluation (job description; job analysis; task analysis);
o Performance evaluation (performance);
o Potential evaluation: from work behaviors to underlying constructs.


1.5. Working group and group work: organizational dynamics
- Cooperation vs. Competition;
- Inclusion vs. Exclusion;
- Cohesion vs. Conflict (functional conflict and pathological conflict, Tajfel);
- Leadership vs. Membership (Lewin, Likert, Fiedler e Bass)
- Dependence vs. Autonomy
- Task orientation (operating effectiveness) vs. relational orientation (interactive effectiveness) – Bass.

Examination Methods