Study Industrial Psychology online - start at any time

This course helps develop knowledge and skills for anyone involved in workplace situations, such as managers, supervisors, small business owners, union representatives, etc.

By understanding the thought processes that take place in the minds of people at work, a manager or supervisor can develop empathy with their staff, and apply this empathy to the way they manage the workplace.

What you will learn: 

In this course you will discover how individual traits can impact upon a person's aptitude, how and when psychological testing is used to match employees to job roles, and what managers can do to help motivate employees. We shall look at how groups can be detrimental to work productivity and how they can enhance it. Of course, productivity is not just all about the individual - the environment plays a significant role, so we'll also examine how the work place can be modified to improve overall health and well-being of employees and work satisfaction.   

Find out better ways to manage workers and workplaces to optimise performance and everyone's wellbeing. Discover:

• Why some people work better than others

• Why interrelationships and dynamics within a work place keep changing

• How staff can be better managed to achieve a happier and more productive workplace

Who is this course for? 

This course helps develop knowledge and skills for anyone involved in workplace situations. Develop a foundation for understanding people at work, whether employees or employers, and through this foundation a basis for better performance as a manager, supervisor, or even as an employee.

Others who will benefit from this course include those looking towards a career in organisational psychology, HR or personnel management, people who aspire to taking greater responsibility in the workplace, and those with a general interest in psychology.  

Course Structure and Lesson Content

There are ten lessons in this course, as follows: 

1. Introduction

• Free Will versus Determinism
• Developmental and Interactive Expressions of Behaviour
• Nature versus Nurture
• Influence of Environment on Learning Behaviour
• Modelling and Conformity
• Conditioning involves Certain Environmental Factors which Encourage Learning to Take Place
• Classical Conditioning
• Operant Conditioning
• Reinforcement & Punishment

2. Understanding the Employees Thinking

• Sensation and perception
• Thinking and day dreaming
• The Gestalt approach
• Unconscious and conscious psychic elements
• Explaining behaviour
• Knowledge of brain processes
• Personal interpretation of a given situation
• Instinct.
• Terminology including: Mating, Curiosity, Maternal, Acquiring, Repulsion, Constructiveness, Rivalry, Laughter, Fighting, Walking, Swallowing, Play, Imitation, Sleep, Modesty, Domineering, Religion, Self Asserting, Sneezing, Thirst, Cleanliness, Workmanship, Parenting, Food seeking, Flight, Collecting, Sympathy

3. Personality & Temperament

• Mature & immature temperaments (e.g. Sanguine, Melancholic, Choleric, Phlegmatic)
• Emotional types
• Fear
• Intelligence
• Knowledge
• Deviation, etc.

4. Psychological Testing

• The Application Form
• Psychological Test
• The Interview
• Intelligence Tests
• Laws of Learning
• Devising Tests
• Selecting Appropriate Tests

5. Management & Managers

• Qualities of Managers
• Understanding morale
• Discipline, training, etc.

6. The Work Environment

• Noise
• Space
• Light
• Temperature
• Speed of Work
• Accidents
• Breakages
• Fatigue etc.

7. Motivation and Incentives

• Maslow's model of self actualisation
• Security
• Money
• Ambition
• Companionship
• Social reinforcement
• Labour wastage, etc.

8. Recruitment

• Ways of seeking applicants
• Types of interview
• Ways of selecting staff

9. Social Considerations

• Group Behaviour
• Conformity
• Industrial Groups
• The Hawthorne Effect

10. Abnormalities and Disorders

• Psychosis
• Neurosis
• Personality Disorders
• Variance
• Partial Disability (e.g. arm or leg injuries; epilepsy, digestive disorders etc.)
• The Psycho Neurotic

Duration: 100 hours

 

Course Aims

• Discuss basic concepts  that may be relevant to understanding industrial psychology.

• Identify similarities and differences that occur in the way different employees perceive their workplace.

• Discuss the effect of personality and temperament upon industrial psychology.

• Identify applications for psychological testing in industrial management.

• Discuss the psychology of management.

• Identify ways that the work environment might impact upon the psychology of people in a workplace.

• Explain how motivation influences work productivity.

• Discuss the application of psychology to recruitment.

• Explain the impact of social factors upon work productivity.

• Discuss the significance of psychological disorders or abnormalities in a workplace.

The Workers Mind

Eric Berne an American psychiatrist developed Transactional Analysis in the 1950s and 60s

Eric Berne based much of his system on the theories of Freud and he renamed Freud’s superego, ego and id using the more colloquial terms of Parent, Child and Adult.

Essentially the Child ego state develops in the very first months of life. The Natural Child embodies spontaneity, enthusiasm and a sense of playfulness.

The Parent ego states begin to develop in the chronological child. Depending on what the chronological child’s experience is, the Nurturing Parent and or the Critical Parent ego state will grow.

The Adult ego state, or rational state, begins to develop as the chronological child reaches 10 or so months. At this stage the child begins to test the environment (What will happen if I do this?).

Within the workplace, it is easy to see the roles of Child, Parent and Adult at work. Many workplace conflicts can be seen as unsuccessful transactions between the three ego roles. In an ideal world we would hope that most interactions in the workplace would be Adult to Adult but as you can guess this is frequently not so.

For example, if an employee has not carried out a task properly and their supervisor provides feedback in the Parent ego state, it is likely that this may trigger a child like response from the employee. This can easily become a typical parent child interaction and the conflict is not only not resolved but often these roles will persist in all future communications. This will often become a blame game and the child ego will not only not learn anything new but will also be unresponsive to further well intentioned but unwanted advice.

What our Students are Saying

"Very much valuable [learning experience]. The course is designed in a manner that learning is not limited. I am gaining lot of knowledge through the course. The assignments are really good as it help the students to think out-of-the box and answer. I am very happy doing this course as I am gaining a lot of insight. Also, professionalism and the support being extended by my tutor and admin. team (Elaine and team) is really great and I am thankful to them."

C.V. Lakshmi, Industrial Psychology course.

You can enrol today

You can enrol on our Industrial Psychology course today. If you have any questions, please get in touch with us by

Phone (International) +61 7 5562 1088 or (in Australia) 07 5562 1088, or

Email us at admin@acs.edu.au, or use our 

FREE COURSE COUNSELLING SERVICE.