Learning Psychology in English. Учебно-методический комплекс

UNIT 9

From the point of view of social psychology these factors are interesting since they help us to understand why people behave differently at work.

Intelligence and other abilities. Jobs vary in the intellectual and other abilities they require. To select the best person for a job it is obviously important to choose someone who has the necessary abilities. In fact people are found to choose the jobs which require the abilities which they have, and in vocational guidance this is one of the main considerations.

Intelligence is the capacity to solve problems, apply principles, make inferences and perceive relationships. General intelligence consists of a number of abilities which enable a person to succeed at a wide variety of intellectual tasks; it can be measured by intelligence tests with abstract, verbal, mathematical and prob- lem-solving items.

Judgement is the capacity to make realistic assessments of practical situations, and produce workable solutions to particular problems where it is more a matter of weighing different factors and guessing probabilities than of applying logical principles. Judgement can be assessed by interviews, by asking candidates their views about a number of complex practical situations with which they are familiar. Creativity is the ability to see situations from a new point of view and to propose original solutions.

Motivation and interests. It is not enough for a person to have the necessary abilities for a job, he must also be sufficiently interested and motivated to want to do it, or he will not work very effectively and will not find it satisfying. Effective performance is a joint product of abilities and motivation.

These are the main drives which affect performance at work:

(1) Biological needs — hunger and thirst. These motivate work directly for primitive men, and less directly via money for less primitive men. Money appears to be partly a route to such goals, partly an independent acquired drive – which is satisfied by just having it rather than spending it. Under civilized conditions, in

61

LEARNING PSYCHOLOGY IN ENGLISH

which people are rarely hungry or thirsty, it is hard to see that these drives will have much direct effect on work performance.

(2)Social motivation — affiliation, dependency and dominance are among the factors that cause people to work, and under certain conditions affect their productivity .The main effect, however, is on the pattern of social relationships that people seek with each other at work.

(3)Achievement motivation is one of the main drives affecting how hard a person works, in situations where it is possible to achieve success of some kind.

(4)Self-esteem, 'ego-needs'. There appears to be a need for selfesteem and for approval from other people. This can be linked to achievement motivation, when certain targets are set; here work motivation has become part of identity.

Individuals vary in the strength of these drives, and one can see how different kinds of work satisfy such needs. Work with other people, such as personnel and sales work, probably satisfies affiliative needs, while work that gives the oppor-tunity for the accomplishment of great tasks satisfies achievement motivation.

I.Read the text and translate it into Russian.

II.Answer the following questions.

1)What are individual differences between people at work?

2)What is important to select the best person for a job?

3)How can intelligence be measured?

4)What does the term ‘judgement’ mean?

5)When will work be done effectively?

6)What are main drives which affect performance at work?

62

UNIT 9

III. Give your opinion on the subject.

Why do individuals vary in the strength of the drives affecting at work?

IV. Translate these sentences into English using words from the text.

1)Способности человека определяют его пригодность к выполнению той или иной работы, и какой вид работы больше всего подходит именно ему.

2)Интеллект – это способность решать проблемы, применять правила, делать выводы и воспринимать взаимосвязи.

3)Эффективная работа – это совокупность способно- стей человека и его мотивации.

4)Рассудительность – это способность реально оцени- вать обстановку и принимать выполнимые решения в конкретных ситуациях.

5)Творчество – это способность увидеть ситуацию с новой точки зрения и предложить ее оригинальное решение.

6)Чувство голода и жажды является более значимой мотивацией труда первобытных людей, чем циви- лизованных.

7)Человек нуждается в чувстве собственного достоин- ства и одобрения со стороны окружающих.

8)Работа по выполнению значимых для человека задач удовлетворяет его потребность в достижении цели.

V.Choose the noun which can follow this verb.

LEARNING PSYCHOLOGY IN ENGLISH

VI. Find in the text synonyms to the words given below.

evidently, special, to need, complicated, to apprehend, to use, realization, aim, to attain

VI. Derive adjectives from the following nouns by means of suffixes: - ic, -ful, -al, -ive, -ed, -y, -less.

thirst, money, effect, success, job, verb, psychology, condition

TEST

I.Put the words from the box in the sentences.

a)to succeed; b) dominance; c) performance; d) motivation; e) to select;

f)personnel; g) intellectual; h) accomplishment; i) temperament

1)People differ in interests and ... .

2)This is partly a matter of ... – differences of mood, energy, reactions to stress.

3)Jobs vary in the ... and other they require.

4)... the best person for a job it is obviously important to choose someone who has the necessary abilities.

5)General intelligence consists of a number of abilities which enable a person ... at a wide variety of intellectual tasks.

6)Effective ... is a joint product of abilities and motivation.

7)Social motivation – affiliation, dependency and ... are among the factors that cause people to work.

8)Work with other people, such as ... and sales work, probably satisfies affiliative needs.

9)Work that gives the opportunity for the ... of great tasks satisfies achievement motivation.

64

h)inability to exist or operate without the help or support

III.Choose Russian equivalents for the English words.

65

LEARNING PSYCHOLOGY IN ENGLISH

IV. Choose English equivalents to the following Russian word.

66

UNIT 10

UNIT 10

PERSONNEL SELECTION

In all working groups it is periodically necessary to select new members and to promote existing ones. In the past this has usually been done by rather informal methods, which are now known to be extremely inaccurate. New methods of assessment and new statistical procedures for combining the data are now available, though they are not yet very widely used.

There are two main issues to discuss: which tests or measures to use, and how to combine the data in the most effective way. The first stage, however, is to find out the qualities which are required in a job.

Job specification. In order to fill a job it is necessary to know what qualities are needed for success at the job. There are four main ways of discovering these. First, a job analysis can be carried out, by observation or interview, of the detailed activities of which the job consists. This may lead, via statistical analysis, to establish-

67

LEARNING PSYCHOLOGY IN ENGLISH

ing the dimensions along which jobs differ. Judgements can then be made of the personal qualities required to carry out the main components of the job. Second, 'critical incidents' can be recorded by supervisors or others who are familiar with the job. These are occasions when the employee's performance led to clear success or failure. Third, groups of successful and unsuccessful performers in a job can be compared, in terms of observed behaviour, education, age or other demographic data, or in terms of test scores. Finally, follow-up studies can be carried out, in which a number of possible selection measures are validated in terms of their power in predicting success on the job.

There are different methods of assessing the main abilities and traits, each of which has its special advantages and disadvantages.

Interview. An interview is nearly always used in selection, despite scepticism about it on the part of some psychologists. It is generally used as a means of improving on other sources of data; the interviewer has the candidate's dossier in front of him, explores points which are not clear, and bases his questions on the candidate's record. Accuracy can be increased if there are two or three separate interviews, after which the interviewers discuss their judgements and try to arrive at an agreed set of ratings.

Biographical information. Information about candidate's past performance can be obtained from his application form, or from a longer questionnaire covering a number of items of his personal history. This kind of procedure can be a substitute for an interview ; it is more objective and covers more ground, but it is less flexible and does not allow for the possibility of studying problems unique to individual candidates.

Testimonials are another source of biographical information. Referees should have known about candidate's recent performance at work. The main difficulty is that each candidate is reported on by different referees with somewhat different standards, styles of reporting, etc. Testimonials can be more helpful if a questionnaire is devised, and standard rating scales provided.

68

UNIT 10

Tests. Intelligence tests are often used with success for personnel selection; the validity correlations are frequently as high or higher than for any other measure. IQ ( intelligence quotient) test as a measure of human intelligence is very popular in Britain and America.

The validity of selection measures. The validity of a selection test is usually regarded as the accuracy with which it can predict subsequent success at the job.

One problem about measuring validity is the difficulty of assessing success at the job. Sometimes overall ratings or rankings of effectiveness by superiors and colleagues are used, but the agreement between different raters is usually rather low. A better method is to decide on the main areas of performance on the job, and to ask judges to make separate ratings on each of them. Another way of measuring success at the job is by objective indices of effectiveness – sales, output, number of publications, etc. The main difficulty here is that it is often difficult to compare the effectiveness of people working under somewhat different conditions, such as salesmen working in quite different areas.

A great deal of selection is going on all the time. In addition to selecting people who are best able to do the job, it is very desirable to select people with the right interests and temperament for the job, since they will be happier and stay longer.

I.Read the text and translate it into Russian.

II.Answer the following questions.

1)What are main issues in personnel selection?

2)Why is it necessary to know job specification to fill a job?

3)How can job specification be discovered?

4)What methods are used to assess the main abilities and traits?

5)What are the sources of biographical information?

6)When are selection measures valid?

69

LEARNING PSYCHOLOGY IN ENGLISH

III.Think and answer.

What is the difficulty of assessing success at the job?

IV. Translate these sentences into English using words from the text.

1)Во всех трудовых коллективах периодически возни- кает потребность в наборе нового персонала и в по- вышении квалификации сотрудников.

2)Необходимо обсудить два главных вопроса: какие способы тестирования применить, и как обобщить полученные данные.

3)Существуют различные методы оценки основных способностей и отличительных черт людей.

4)При подборе персонала почти всегда используется интервью.

5)Информация о предыдущей работе соискателя кан- дидата может быть получена из анкеты.

6)В Великобритании и Америке интеллект человека определяют с помощью IQ-теста.

7)Очень сложно оценить результативность выполняе- мой работы.

8)При подборе людей на определенную работу целе- сообразно учитывать их интересы и характер.

V. Choose the noun which can follow this verb.

VI. Find in the text synonyms to the words given below.

appraise, methods, exact, problem, sphere, replacement, advisable

70