Industrial and Organizational Psychology, or I-O Psychology, broadly refers to the sub-domain of psychology investigating and explaining the emotions, cognition, and behaviors of humans at work. The major orientation of this sub-domain is focused on understanding human psychology at work so as to help in “contribut[ing] to an organization’s success by improving the performance and well-being of its people” (SIOP, 2016). I-O psychology covers several content areas which can be broadly organized into two categories of ‘Industrial’ an ‘Organizational’. Content area under Industrial has greater application focus, mostly in the processes and decisions of human resources departments and managers; while Organizational has greater explanatory focus to help managers and workers understand the psychology of humans at work. Regardless of the content areas, I-O psychology represents the corpus of knowledge rigorously developed through the work of scientists and practitioners. As such the scientist-practitioner model forms the core in every aspect of this course.
