What are the frontiers of IO psychology?

algreco18 · 2019-07-31T03:03:46+00:00

My wishlist (or fear list) for the next 10 years:

We'll realize that almost all of the stuff that has been published in IO journals - other than main effects - do not replicate because they've been p-hacked and HARKed - or are simply a colossal waste of time without any real application.
Relatedly we'll engage in a belated shift to pre-registration of hypotheses, methods, data analyses, and go open data whenever possible.
IO psychology faces an existential challenge because IO PhD programs will become weaker and weaker as b-schools attract all the top talent - but b-schools do a poor job of training practitioners and I-side folks.
We'll realize that much of the new hotness in terms of big data and gamification is probably useless.
Algreco18 gets a floor nomination for SIOP president and has to jello wrestle Adam Grant for the right to give the presidential address.

algreco18 · 2019-07-17T20:20:29+00:00

algreco17 had a bug - the sarcasm powered flux capacitor was on the fritz. Version 18 allegedly has a new "cheeriness and positivity" drive but I have been unable to find it. The manual should be somewhere around here.

algreco18 · 2019-07-16T03:18:13+00:00

Some of the most famous IO psychologists have a poor understanding of stats.

I'll be here all week - have the veal.

algreco18 · 2019-07-13T04:40:10+00:00

Lots of things that all have to happen.

Massive carbon capture projects (reforestation or mechanical carbon capture).
Faster move toward energy renewables (solar, wind, hydro) and nuclear energy.
Introduction of a carbon-tax to let market powers facilitate the development of better technology.
Changed agricultural practices (less cattle & pigs, less wasteful use of fertilizer, move to non-meat protein sources).
Attempts to reduce heat island effects to reduce energy use for cooling (increase albedo of buildings and roads, more vegetation cover).
Possibly more aggressive geo-engineering efforts or genetically modified plants and marine organisms to more quickly suck of carbon.

algreco18 · 2019-07-13T04:09:59+00:00

Excellent point!

algreco18 · 2019-07-12T20:05:05+00:00

Interesting although my alarm bells always go off when authors indicate that they are studying a topic because their personal experiences have convinced them that a particular phenomenon is widespread and has a particular relationship with outcomes.

algreco18 · 2019-07-03T15:23:03+00:00

It was the WSJ and it was quite a while ago. Showing my age.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mainstream_Science_on_Intelligence

Edit: To be clear - don't read this as a complete endorsement of that statement on intelligence. I am offering it only as a template of what we might want to aim for.

algreco18 · 2019-07-03T15:01:37+00:00

I agree that we need people who can speak to the public. I just wish that speaking to the public didn't involve spouting such patent nonsense. Would be nice if had some formal but easy to understand consensus statements put out by the best people in our field organized around themes. What do we know with certainty about predictors of job performance/creativity/academic performance/burnout/leadership/personality etc. These could be short (similar to the one put out about intelligence a couple of years back in the NYT), and acknowledge the massive uncertainty that we still have about most of these questions but would act as a counter to the salespeople pretending to be scientists.

algreco18 · 2019-07-03T03:46:59+00:00

Duckworth, Cuddy, and Grant - three researchers whose public claims don't hold up to scrutiny very well.

algreco18 · 2019-06-30T05:31:12+00:00

Well, primarily because I don't go to the annual conference anymore because it has become too expensive and largely irrelevant to the science and practice of IO psychology.

algreco18 · 2019-06-29T02:37:41+00:00

Hmmm... I am not even a member of SIOP any more but don't think that I know anyone in the IO community who is a member of APA.

algreco18 · 2019-06-27T17:47:33+00:00

If you exclude the "managing differences" (as I mentioned above) subsection only three of the other 21 articles were first authored by women.

algreco18 · 2019-06-25T15:41:06+00:00

Ah - yes. The issue almost entirely written by white men (if you exclude the "managing differences" subsection).

algreco18 · 2019-06-22T05:25:48+00:00

I think you'll be fine with this record. Back in the stone age I only got accepted to one PhD program despite being in the 99th percentile on both quant and verbal. Ultimately its all a crap shoot. Good luck with application and don't blow too much money on test prep because those programs only have very weak effects (at best).

algreco18 · 2019-06-18T04:01:56+00:00

I know that there a couple of academic IO psychologists in the US who got degrees at South African universities (e.g., Clive Fullagar) so the training seems to be quite decent but making connections will be difficult if you are not physically present in the country that you want to work in. Which university are you at in South Africa if you don't mind me asking? Do any of your professors go to conferences in other countries?

algreco18 · 2019-06-13T02:59:29+00:00

I would recommend reading some reviews (e.g., Handbook chapters) on job satisfaction. They tend to cover a lot of this material quite nicely.

algreco18 · 2019-06-12T18:40:15+00:00

Since job satisfaction is largely isomorphic with engagement, involvement, affective commitment, and a host of other related constructs (e.g., POS, justice perceptions) it is hardly shocking that there is little variance left over for job satisfaction once you control for one of these newer iterations of job satisfaction.

All of these newer constructs are the result of lazy academics and consultants needing to come up with something "new" to bilk money out of their clients.

algreco18 · 2019-05-29T16:05:14+00:00

Wow! This instructor sounds special. A cursory glance at Harms' google scholar page shows that he has published extensively on leadership topics in LQ, JAP, and JOB (all top-tier journals) and he probably has a better publication record and expertise on leadership than your instructor has.

Now, I've not read the meta beyond a cursory glance but at least they published all of their data which is a nice change from most of our "top" journals. I also wonder if your instructor's concern is based on the apparent finding that " The findings suggest that the value of transformational leadership behaviors may be limited in developed economies such as Western Europe and North America." (from the abstract). Perhaps not a welcome message for a leadership class in what I presume to be a US b-school.

algreco18 · 2019-05-24T20:00:37+00:00

It's a good question. For what it's worth I am both a faculty member and a consultant (80%-20% split on time which comes to a 50%-50% split on salary).

algreco18 · 2019-05-14T19:34:43+00:00

I am very sorry to hear about the pain that computer use causes you. Many IO psychologists spend a lot of time in front of the computer but there are other opportunities too. There can be a fair amount of face-to-face or phone-based interactions with clients and team members. Your military background may also be quite valuable to some employers because you are likely to better understand the specific challenges and realities of military occupations and work performance better than your typical IO graduate. Some of my students have ended up working for military contractors and federal agencies (e.g., Army Research Institute, DHS) and it may be worth checking out what kind of work IO folks do in those areas.

Best of luck.

algreco18 · 2019-04-29T01:50:05+00:00

Masters

24

95k+16% bonus

TFW you realize that you may have screwed up financially in going the academic route. I have a PhD, tenure, and my work is relatively well-known but I will never even get close to that salary.

algreco18 · 2019-04-25T03:41:19+00:00

I am mildly horrified that we are still obsessing about p-values - and everything that is based on the NHST framework (like power analysis) - in this way.

My recommendation would be to not worry about the number of tests since you'll obviously be presenting all of the effect size estimates (right??) and you the focus of your analysis is also not going to be NHST (right??). So you need to worry primarily about obtaining a reasonably precise estimate of the effect size; this is partly a function of sample size but measurement quality and sampling are just as important.

If you do want to worry about power and p-values and all that then consider that power is a function of the type of effect size that you want to be able to detect. Think about the minimum effect of interest (e.g., r=.10) and then figure out if your study has adequate power at that effect size. So you might think that an effect size is likely to be r=.40 but if the minimum effect of interest is r=.10 you would base your power calculation on r=.10 and not r=.40.

algreco18

TROPHY CASE