Notes, summaries, assignments, exams, and problems for Psychology and Sociology

Steps in the Job Analysis Process

1. Determine who will do the analysis and get top management buy-in the process.

2. Choose jobs that are critical to the success of the company and have a sufficient number of employees in them.

3. Review what has already been written about the job. One important source of information is the Occupational Information Network.

4. Select job agents, people who will provide job information, such as incumbents (people currently doing the job), supervisors, or job analysts (experts).

5. Collect job information through interviews, questionnaires, and observations.

Job Analysis Techniques

Job analysis interview: Face-to-face meeting with the purpose of learning about a worker’s duties and responsibilities.

Job analysis questionnaire:... Continue reading "Job Analysis Process: Steps, Techniques, and Results" »

What is communication? And its objective and significance

Communication is the process of exchanging information, ideas, thoughts, or feelings between individuals or groups using various methods and mediums. It is a fundamental aspect of human interaction and plays a crucial role in conveying messages, sharing knowledge, building relationships, and achieving various objectives. Communication can occur through verbal and non-verbal means, including spoken or written language, body language, gestures, facial expressions, and more.

Objectives of Communication:

1. Information Sharing: One of the primary objectives of communication is to convey information from one party to another. This can include sharing news, updates, instructions, or data.

2. Understanding:

Common Sociological Concepts

• Achieved Status
• Agents of Socialization
• Aggregate
• Alienation
• Anomie
• Apartheid
• Appearance
• Ascribed Status
• Assimilation
• Authoritarianism
• Belief
• Blue-Collar
• Body Language
• Bourgeoisie
• Bureaucracy
• Capitalism
• Capitalist Class
• Caste System
• Category
• Class System
• Clique
• Commoners
• Communism
• Conflict Theory
• Conformists
• Control Theory
• Counterculture
• Crime
• Crime Against the Person
• Crime Against Property
• Cultural Diffusion
• Cultural Relativism
• Culture
• Culture of Poverty
• Culture Shock
• Democracy
• Deviance
• Dominant Culture
• Dyad
• Economy
• Education
• Ego
• Endogamy
• Ethnocentrism
• Ethnomethodology
• Exogamy
• Formal Organization
• Gender Role
• Gender Socialization
• Global Stratification
• Globalization of Capitalism
• Government
• Group
• Group Dynamics
• Id
• Ideal Type
• Ideology
• In-Group
• Inner Controls
• Institution
• Law
• Macrosociology
• Manner

Understanding Race and Ethnicity in Society

Defining Race: A Social Construct

• A socially constructed category of people who share biologically transmitted traits that members of a society consider important.
• Scientists invented the concept of “race” in the nineteenth century and identified three racial types: Caucasoid, Negroid, and Mongoloid.

Racial Categories and Genetic Variation

• The three racial categories differ in only 6% of their genes, which is less than the genetic variation within each category.
• The Canadian census asks people to identify themselves as Aboriginal, Black, and Visible Minority.
• Many people have multiracial ancestry.

The Trend Toward Mixture and Multi-Ethnic Identities

• Over many generations and throughout the Americas, genetic

Understanding Workflow Definitions

Workflow analysis is the process of describing and registering a job's goals, its principal accountabilities and activities, the conditions under which it is performed, and the required knowledge, skills, and aptitudes.

It is used when establishing:

• The organization's structure
• Job structure
• Levels of authority
• Control levels
• Performance criteria
• Redundant employees
• Counseling

There are strong relations between job analysis and:

• Organization's goals
• Technology
• HR planning
• Employee recruitment and selection
• Performance evaluation
• Training
• Compensation
• Career planning and management
• Health and life quality at the workplace

The influence that job design has on employee satisfaction, motivation, and performance has been known since... Continue reading "Job Analysis and Recruitment: Best Practices" »

Chapter 1

1.1 How Psychologists Acquire Knowledge

Studies of behaviors

- Animals

- People

Research methods

- Research question dependent

What Do you want to know?

- Wide variety of methods

Which One to use depends on the research question you want to answer

Quiz Questions

1. How do psychologists know things?

- Systematic study using scientific method

2. What drives the development of a research design?

- The research question you’re trying to answer

3. How do you know what research method to use?

- Pick the method that will best answer your question

1.2 The Research Process

(1 Of 11) • Finding a Problem

- Beginning of a project (e.G., Not all students enjoy classroom success)

What Variables lead to higher levels of achievement?

 (2 of 11) • Reviewing the... Continue reading "Purpose and content of" »

Thus, we can assert that the results from these and other school-based studies (see Singleton for a review) cannot support the claim that the level of attainment in children is greater than that of adolescents/adults. According to Singleton, one of the possible explanations might be that environments based on formal learning do not offer learners the necessary amount of exposure which would allow the age advantage of young learners to take place.

Naturalistic Learning and the Critical Period Hypothesis

On the other hand, studies of learners in naturalistic learning situations demonstrate that "younger is better" and, therefore, could support the critical period hypothesis. This theory states that there is a precise period of years in which students... Continue reading "Age and Second Language Acquisition: Key Factors" »

Describe various approaches to job design

Job design focuses on determining what tasks will be grouped together to form employee jobs. There are four general approaches to grouping work tasks: mechanistic, motivational, perceptual, and biological.

1. Mechanistic Approach:
   • Job design is viewed from the perspective of creating an efficient machine that transforms labor inputs into goods and services.
   • Industrial engineers often use analyses designed to find the work methods that take the least time, such as Time and Motion studies.
2. Motivational Approach:
   • The motivational approach is aimed at increasing employees' enjoyment of their work and thus increasing their effort.
   • Jobs are designed not simply to get work done as quickly as possible, but also to provide

Review Questions & Answers

Unit 2

1. What information should be in a well-written job description?

• Job Title
• Brief summary
• Work activities
• Tools and equipment used
• Work context
• Work performance
• Compensation information
• Job Competencies (KSAOs)

2. What groups/people are most likely to conduct a job analysis?

• Internal Department
• Human resources
• Compensation
• Training
• Engineering
• Internal task force
• Supervisors
• Employees
• Consultants
• Interns/class projects

3. Briefly describe job analysis.

Job analysis is the systematic study of a job's tasks, duties, and responsibilities, and the knowledge, skills, and abilities needed to perform the job. Job analysis is the starting point for many important personnel functions. A job analysis yields several products.

4. List and

In the late nineteenth-century Britain, girls were taught domesticity, while boys learned mathematics for work. Women's entry into higher education was very slow. The situation began to change in the 1960s and 1970s. Today the secondary school curriculum no longer distinguishes between boys and girls. However, there are various other points of entry for the development of gender differences in education.

Some History

Until recently, it was common for storybooks in primary schools to portray boys as showing initiative and independence, while girls, if they appeared at all, were more passive. Stories written for girls take the form in a domestic or school setting. Boys' adventure stories are more wide-ranging, having heroes who travel off to distant... Continue reading "Gender Inequality in Education: Past, Present, and Future" »