What is I-O?

There are many of us academicians who want to make an impact in the outside world, not just academia. To accomplish our goal we need the help of practitioners. In my opinion, for the field of I-O psychology to have more of an impact in our society, we must foster more communication and collaboration between academicians and practitioners. Academicians need to experience the problems that face practitioners in order to know what deserves attention in teaching and research. We need access to sizable, relevant samples of participants in order to publish research that practitioners want to read. We need opportunities for students and faculty members to work with practitioners through consulting, focused research projects, and internships. When these needs are met, academia is not so far removed from the real world.

So to Allan and all other practitioners, I say please do continue to teach courses when you can. You bring a sense of how things are done in the real world, complete with a thousand stories that make I-O psychology come alive. But don’t just visit the ivory tower. Create a symbiotic relationship where faculty, students, and you benefit. Create a means for academic-practitioner exchanges where I-O psychology benefits. Create an escape from the ivory tower.

Paul M. Mastrangelo, Ph.D.
Division of Applied Psychology & Quantitative Methods
University of Baltimore
pmastrangelo@UBmail.ubalt.edu

360 Feedback: It’s Not Just for Development Anymore

Dear Matthew and Steven,

It was great to see a special treatment of 360 feedback in the last issue of TIP in your Informed Decisions column and your significant questions with responses from significant people.

I was disappointed not to see a more diverse perspective, maybe from someone in industry and/or someone representing the "appraisal" side of the fence. As it stands, your article seems useful but incomplete. I don’t see anyone who endorses its use for decision making straight out, though Walt Tornow seems to hedge his bets here!

To me, "strategic" and "development only" is an oxymoron. How can we be strategic in an application that is used for some people some of the time (which I think fairly describes most development processes)? Your contributors seem to agree it can’t be an "event," but don’t tell us how a developmental process becomes integrated into the fabric of the organization. I realize this was not a question, but maybe should have been!

Maybe where this rubber meets the road is in your question about number of raters. Recent meta-analysis suggest that four raters is far too few to have reliability; for peers a number like 6–8 is needed, more for subordinates. In fact, the recommendation of ALL direct reports makes the most sense for a system that will survive. Arguments about logistics have solutions; if a 360 system is not to become an event, we need to build in design factors which enhance its acceptance not only by raters (who seem to be the primary customers when we limit rating inputs), but more importantly by ratees (and their managers) who must accept the feedback before they will act on it. Without acceptance, you have no behavior change, and one important requirement for acceptance is reliable input from trusted sources.

Hopefully you catch my drift (as it drifts along). If we define successful 360 as focused, sustained behavior change, then the issues must be addressed as a system. Your questions address a few of them but they seem like the trees, not the forest.

Thanks for letting me go on like this, but you can see it is a passion. I don’t expect any particular response but am open to dialogue at any time.

Again, thanks for making the effort to bring this topic to the forefront with SIOP.

David Bracken
DWBRACKEN@AOL.COM

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Industrial (Strength) Psychology

Hi Janine,

Just wanted to congratulate you on your last TIP column "The Real World." I have yet to become a full participant in the I-O field (I’m finishing my Ph.D. this year), but was able to relate quite well to your article. It reminded me of the many strange things that I have heard over the years in reaction to my chosen field. I am always amazed, for instance, by the way people immediately stop conversations with me when they hear "Industrial-Organizational Psychologist"—the psychology part seems to scare people away (even though I would not even begin to know how to "analyze" their childhoods). The other rather humorous comment that I have heard (this is not a lie and I have heard it multiple times) comes after I say that I am an Industrial-Organizational Psychologist. People have actually responded to that by saying "What, is that some kind of industrial strength psychology?" Finally, I am still astounded by how many people seem to think that I should come to their organization to analyze all of the "crazy people" with which they work.

Anyway, just wanted to share some of my experiences and to say how much I enjoyed your article.

Kate Suckow
suckow@lucent.com 

Must-See TV: NYIOP

Dear Janine,

Thanks for your thoughtful and engaging article on the image of psychologists with the public. I wanted to share with you a couple of reactions.

First, I absolutely agree with you regarding the portrayal of psychologists in film and on television. Although I think the field scores some points with the public at times (Judd Hirsch in "Ordinary People," Barbara Streisand in "The Prince of Tides," even as far back as Ingrid Bergman in "Spellbound," for example), the majority of TV and film psychologists are more just as you describe them: quacks.

Second, I would not take this image as lightly as some of your e-mail respondents do. I do not think psychologists have a better reputation than practitioners in other fields. I’ve heard many wonderfully funny jokes about lawyers, but as a field they have many more successful TV shows and films than psychologists, particularly consulting psychologists! (I have tried to think of what an organizational psychology version of "Ally McBeal" or "The Practice" might look like. I can’t imagine "L.A. Consulting" would have much appeal beyond our own incestuous ranks.) On the whole, these shows portray lawyers as thoughtful, intelligent professionals with integrity and courage.

For those of us who consult, the image of psychologists is, perhaps, even more precarious. The growing image in business is of consultants as self-serving, stupid, and possibly harmful (your own article about "Gurus Under Fire," July 1998 TIP, provides some compelling arguments to this effect). Combine that with the public image of inept psychologists and you have a marketing problem that may be more urgent than we would like to think.

Unfortunately, I’m a bit short on recommended next steps. Perhaps, like practitioners in other fields, we need to balance what we would rather be doing (great scientific and impactful work, for instance), with just a little thought around what will have the greatest long-term impact on the field. Excellent work, of course, seems to be the best first step, but maybe there are some other things that can go along with our valuable endeavors. No one buys a car ONLY because it is advertised as high in quality, but then again, how many people bought a DeLorean or a Tucker (two of the best built cars in history)?

Michael Herron
mikeh@pdi-corp.com

The Placebo Effect

Janine,

I wish I knew you were looking for such comments; I would have been happy to contribute. However, I will give you my comments now. Perhaps you can use them later.

Since the summer of 1997, I have been looking at the research evaluating the effectiveness of psychotherapy and validity of clinical judgment. What I have learned is downright appalling. My regard for psychologists could not be any lower. According to meta-analyses, psychotherapy has an effect size of .85 SD. The typical placebo has an effect size of .56 SD. Reasonable placeboes are as effective as psychotherapy. Untrained, uneducated, and inexperienced people are as effective as psychotherapists (actually there is a slight negative relationship between therapist education and the effectiveness of psychotherapy). Self-help methods are effective and more cost-effective than psychotherapists. Untrained, uneducated, and inexperienced people are as accurate in their clinical judgments as psychologists. The research evaluating psychological assessments of police officer candidates is so bad it is embarrassing. The Rorschach is still widely used even though years of research show that it is completely worthless.

My hypothesis, based on the available research, is that pop psychologists (as well as psychics, astrologers, palm readers, rebirthers, etc.) are every bit as effective as the best psychotherapists. Let’s leave people outside the field alone and clean up our own act. That, alone, should keep us busy for a couple of decades.

Bill Townsend
jwtownsend@sprintmail.com

Demonstrating Competence in Competency Modeling

Hi Michael,

I wanted to thank you for your work to define competency modeling in your last issue of Practice Network. It seemed like you got a nice variety of opinions on this emerging practice within I-O psychology. I especially appreciate the way you contrasted competency modeling with job analysis and pointed out a few clear distinctions. I agree that competency modeling is still a bit vague and undefined, although for I-O psychology I think it’s pretty crisply defined relative to other practices (five OD consultants will give you eight definitions of OD, for example).

I do have a couple comments, for what they’re worth, as you move forward with your exploration of the topic. One distinction that you were toying with, then discarded, was the qualitative nature of competency modeling. I think you’re right: it can’t be characterized as qualitative—just as job analysis can’t be characterized as either qualitative or quantitative. I do think you could say that MOST job analyses are primarily quantitative, and MOST competency modeling techniques are primarily qualitative. Call it a demographic of the two practices, I guess.

I did pick up on your preference for more rating methods to be used in competency modeling. Please excuse me if I don’t agree. I think that your yearning here might be an artifact of the general I-O bias against qualitative research, even though qualitative methods, when used well, are every bit as valid and provide much richer results than quantitative methods.

I’ll try not to sound defensive here, since I am also an external consultant, but I agree that some qualitative procedures, such as interviews and focus groups, are also more practical in some cases than rating methods. We both, certainly, live and work in a field in which more is better most of the time. But I would encourage you to try to get a Senior VP who has already worked 32 hours this week, and it’s only Tuesday, to agree to fill out a JAQ on the job below him or her—especially when that questionnaire asks many relevant and face-valid questions like how often the person in this job needs to control space vehicles or manipulate heavy machinery.

Thanks, Michael, for inviting feedback on your article and for reading my rambling ranting. I do want you to know that I work at PDI, although in a different office and practice area than Jeff Schippmann (I do know him though, so I’m sending this note to him too). Best of luck in your continued efforts to clarify this practice; I think you are doing informative, accessible work (even though it is all qualitative!).

Michael Herron
PDI—Denver
mikeh@pdi-corp.com

Students in Cyberspace

Hi Dawn and Lori,

As an I-O grad student, I want you to know that TIP-TOPics is the first thing I read when the new issue arrives—you two do an excellent job of gathering relevant and useful information. The students in our program have commented that its nice to know that there are other people "in the same boat," so to speak, and to know that our concerns are similar

Along those lines, I have recently created an online forum for I-O graduate students. This forum can be accessed through a "gateway" page located on our web site at: http://www-dept.usm.edu/~psy/io/forum.htm. As it was just created yesterday (10/1/98), I don’t expect too much traffic for the first few weeks (hence not a lot of messages). But with a little time and exposure, I’m hoping for a good response.

Thanks for your time and please don’t hesitate to contact me if you need any further information!