In I/o, doctoral preferably but all info is welcome, I am most interested in the social and behavioral aspect of people. I would do social psych, but the job freedom and ability to improve pals work lives is too appealing. So I emphasize, because it's hard looking through the articles of profs from 200 schools right now, that I am interests in social and behavioral aspects, and relevant stats and psychometrics. Do you know of any programs where I might fit? Thanks in advance, this forum has been very good to me.
Programs that fit these preferences?
- Thread starter lt1196
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Honestly, and this is not to sound at all facetious, the interests you've listed are going to fit pretty much any I/O program: psychology, as a whole, of course studies social and behavioral aspects of people regardless of sub-discipline, and any I/O program is going to be heavy on stats and psychometric training.
Do you have any particular areas of I/O and/or industry that appeal to you, or specific topics in stats/psychometrics on which you'd like to focus? Reading through articles from 200+ professors would obviously be unrealistic, but going through a couple dozen to help narrow your interests (if you haven't already done so) could go a long way in helping you to narrow your search significantly.
Do you have any particular areas of I/O and/or industry that appeal to you, or specific topics in stats/psychometrics on which you'd like to focus? Reading through articles from 200+ professors would obviously be unrealistic, but going through a couple dozen to help narrow your interests (if you haven't already done so) could go a long way in helping you to narrow your search significantly.
As others have said....this is simply too broad. With the exception of animal researchers, one could make an argument that pretty much every psychology researcher in the country falls under that umbrella.
What exactly were you looking for? Selection specialists? Work cultures and counter-productive work behaviors? Occupational Health?
What exactly were you looking for? Selection specialists? Work cultures and counter-productive work behaviors? Occupational Health?
I guess that was too broad to be useful, reading over it again. It was after a sleepless night and really seemed to make sense at the time. Ok, here we go.
1)
By 'being interested in social and behavioral aspects,' I actually meant that professionally, I would most enjoy affecting these elements Directly. Not merely through reports or the like, but something much more hands-on, personal, and social on my part. That may be a professional choice only, and every program may prepare me for such a position equally, but that is very important for me to flesh out.
2) The things I am most interested in musing over on my own time are cognitive. I would go so far as to say that my interests in psychology are almost entirely so. But what draws me to I/o is the applicability of knowledge to specific ends in isolated situations (e.g. Different businesses/problems within a single business). Thus I am drawn to the application of cognitive principles. I have not wanted to pursue cog Psy because it appears (misconception?) to be either experimental, academic, or both. It would give me almost as much joy to read someone else's stimulating study as to carry out my own. It's a hell of a lot faster, too. If this appears to belie my 'hands on' comment above, what I mean is that it is the practical results of an experiment that get me off - I don't care if my work is read by ivory tower psychologists reading obscure journals. Keep in mind that I mean professionally, during school of course I would like that.
Now I'll narrow down 'cognitive.'. What strikes me is the enormous potential people have, and what penchant for they have for disappointing. Think of how easy it is for you to know what you should and could do for maximum effectiveness and success, and just how unlikely it is that you will do that thing if you do not enjoy it. If you're on a dissertation year you might say, man this thing would kick ass if from now on, I worked on it for 14 hours a day, effectively and without exception, for the next year. (that would leave one hour for socializing and nine for sleep). Too extreme? I think it is extreme compared to what people usually do, but of course it could be done. People did SOMETHING with all that time, but why not that? If you disagree, how about this example - smoking. People will smoke until they die, when the withdrawals are short lived, and consist only of irritability, emptiness, mild discomfort or depression - feels quite like being hungry actually, nothing like DT's. And they'll think every day that they shouldn't - but they do, and in many cases, they die. So I wonder how far a person can tailor what they want to do with what they should do. Motivation. This is a single example of something cognitive that is theoretically captivating, but which I would feel my time was best spend applying what I could learn about it to the lives of hundreds of others rather than contributing just a teeny piece of knowledge to the pie.
Other examples might be efficient learning and memory. Control of one's cognition is to their experience of, and experiences in life as knowledge of chemistry is to matter - in a word, it's the key.
And of course if a workplace full of people were to harness that kind of change, their work life would of course be happier and more productive, so the company's increase in revenue is really the happy byproduct. If it came down to which was more important, the empowerment of individuals who are in (as so many are) really hopeless states of mind because of there work situations, or some increase in company x's revenue, I should think the answer would be obvious, though fortunately there is no reason to choose between them.
Memory, learning, skill building... People could be so much more than they are, so I emphasize it appears to me that adjusting workplace factors/personnel is the most useful thing I can do with this passion, as compared to pure research or experimentation.
As far as stats go, I just really like the power of stats to distill so much information from lots o data, and I enjoy working with numbers, so that's really the only reason that was in OP.
That should give you a good idea of what drives me, so where do I fit into all of this.
1)
By 'being interested in social and behavioral aspects,' I actually meant that professionally, I would most enjoy affecting these elements Directly. Not merely through reports or the like, but something much more hands-on, personal, and social on my part. That may be a professional choice only, and every program may prepare me for such a position equally, but that is very important for me to flesh out.
2) The things I am most interested in musing over on my own time are cognitive. I would go so far as to say that my interests in psychology are almost entirely so. But what draws me to I/o is the applicability of knowledge to specific ends in isolated situations (e.g. Different businesses/problems within a single business). Thus I am drawn to the application of cognitive principles. I have not wanted to pursue cog Psy because it appears (misconception?) to be either experimental, academic, or both. It would give me almost as much joy to read someone else's stimulating study as to carry out my own. It's a hell of a lot faster, too. If this appears to belie my 'hands on' comment above, what I mean is that it is the practical results of an experiment that get me off - I don't care if my work is read by ivory tower psychologists reading obscure journals. Keep in mind that I mean professionally, during school of course I would like that.
Now I'll narrow down 'cognitive.'. What strikes me is the enormous potential people have, and what penchant for they have for disappointing. Think of how easy it is for you to know what you should and could do for maximum effectiveness and success, and just how unlikely it is that you will do that thing if you do not enjoy it. If you're on a dissertation year you might say, man this thing would kick ass if from now on, I worked on it for 14 hours a day, effectively and without exception, for the next year. (that would leave one hour for socializing and nine for sleep). Too extreme? I think it is extreme compared to what people usually do, but of course it could be done. People did SOMETHING with all that time, but why not that? If you disagree, how about this example - smoking. People will smoke until they die, when the withdrawals are short lived, and consist only of irritability, emptiness, mild discomfort or depression - feels quite like being hungry actually, nothing like DT's. And they'll think every day that they shouldn't - but they do, and in many cases, they die. So I wonder how far a person can tailor what they want to do with what they should do. Motivation. This is a single example of something cognitive that is theoretically captivating, but which I would feel my time was best spend applying what I could learn about it to the lives of hundreds of others rather than contributing just a teeny piece of knowledge to the pie.
Other examples might be efficient learning and memory. Control of one's cognition is to their experience of, and experiences in life as knowledge of chemistry is to matter - in a word, it's the key.
And of course if a workplace full of people were to harness that kind of change, their work life would of course be happier and more productive, so the company's increase in revenue is really the happy byproduct. If it came down to which was more important, the empowerment of individuals who are in (as so many are) really hopeless states of mind because of there work situations, or some increase in company x's revenue, I should think the answer would be obvious, though fortunately there is no reason to choose between them.
Memory, learning, skill building... People could be so much more than they are, so I emphasize it appears to me that adjusting workplace factors/personnel is the most useful thing I can do with this passion, as compared to pure research or experimentation.
As far as stats go, I just really like the power of stats to distill so much information from lots o data, and I enjoy working with numbers, so that's really the only reason that was in OP.
That should give you a good idea of what drives me, so where do I fit into all of this.
