Category Archives: Development

Want increased performance? Provide social support (IO Psychology)

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Topic: Development
Publication: Journal of Applied Sport Psychology (2009)
Article: An Intervention to Increase Social Support and Improve Performance
Authors: Paul Freeman, Tim Rees, and Lew Hardy
Reviewed By: Scott Charles Sitrin, M.A.

Can social support improve performance? According to Rees and Hardy, the four types of social support are emotional support, which refers to listening and talking things through; esteem support, such as emphasizing the positives; informational support, which includes advice and feedback; and tangible support, such as money and resources.

In investigating the relationship between social support and performance, Freeman, Rees, and Hardy tested the efficacy of increased social support on the performance of three golfers. It was found that social support increased the performance of all of the golfers. Though this study had a very small sample size, the results may still be helpful. For example, if employers ask how their employees are doing, congratulate them after their successes, and encourage them after their failures, they may see an increase in the performance of their department and ultimately the company’s bottom line.

Freeman, P., Rees, T., & Hardy, L. (2009). An intervention to increase social support and improve performance. Journal of Applied Sport Psychology, 21(2), 186-200.

human resource management, organizational industrial psychology, organizational management

 

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To Praise or Not to Praise (IO Psychology)

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Topic: Development
Publication: Journal of Personality and Social Psychology (1998) Article: Praise for Intelligence Can Undermine Children’s Motivation and Performance
Authors: C. M. Mueller & C. S. Dweck
Reviewed By: Scott Charles Sitrin, M.A.

Imagine that you are the head of a department and have nine employees that report to you. When one does well, do you praise him or her for performance or effort? Do you say, “Great work on closing that deal,” a type of praise focused on performance, or do you tell your employee, “Way to really work hard,” a praise focused more on effort. While you mull that over, consider a study of fifth graders. Though a school and business are different in the demographics of the population and the task of the organization, as the goal of a school is typically to educate while the goal of a business is to generate profit, they are similar in that they are both contexts in which there is a supervisor-type figure, a teacher in a school and a boss or manager in a business, that is responsible for the performance of his or her direct reports (i.e., students or employees). In their study that explored the relationship between praise and performance, Mueller and Dweck found that when children were praised for effort, they performed better than those who had been praised for ability. Children who were congratulated for their hard work solved more problems successfully than those who were told that they were smart. Further, it was also found that those praised for effort have learning goals (i.e., aspire to improve and learn more), high levels of task persistence and task enjoyment, and a tendency to attribute setbacks to a lack of effort. In contrast, those who were praised for being intelligent had performance goals (i.e., aspire to get perfect grades), low levels of task persistence and task enjoyment, and a tendency to attribute setbacks to a lack of ability. These results were found through six randomized-control studies that examined, among other variables, the goals, persistence, learning goals, task enjoyment, attribution of failure, theory of intelligence, and performance on a problem-solving task of hundreds of fifth graders. These results suggest that praising an individual for how hard he or she worked instead of what a great job he or she did has many benefits, including increasing performance. If these results hold and are applicable to adults in a business setting, managers and heads of departments may want to evaluate how they praise their employees.

Mueller, C. M., & Dweck, C. S. (1998). Praise for intelligence can undermine children’s motivation and performance. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 75(1), 33-52. Author’s Email: dweck@psych.stanford.edu

human resource management, organizational industrial psychology, organizational management

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Making the Most of an Internal Move (Job Performance)

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Topic: Development, Job Performance
Publication: Harvard Business Review
Title: Get ready for your next assignment
Authors: K. S. Milway, A. G. Gregory, J. Davis-Peccoud, and K. Yazbak
Reviewed by: Liz Brashier

How do we make the most of an internal move? While most managers and executives know about internal role changes long before that actually take effect, few actually take advantage of their time leading up to the transition to prepare well. According to Milway, Gregory, Davis-Peccoud, and Yazbak (2011), this is a serious missed opportunity. Viewing role transitions as important steps in one’s career is essential to success in the new position – success that could have lasting impact, and building a knowledge base to help in these transitions is imperative. The authors identify three steps for building knowledge capital in order to thrive in new roles: phase zero, learning tour, and affinity groups.

Phase zero: Use this stage as a chance to use your existing position within the organization to learn about the people, challenges, and opportunities associated with your new position. Hallmarks of this stage include under-the-radar conversations, observations, and solitary study of your new environment.
Learning tour: Identify the people that can be most helpful in your new position, and systematically communicate with them. Work to pinpoint problems and possible solutions, ask questions, and incorporate new, diverse perspectives and experiences to help you.
Affinity groups: Intentionally construct a support network to help you gain the diverse perspectives necessary for success in your new position. Avoid sitting back and hoping a network will simply form on it’s on – you may have to directly create one.

Additionally, the authors give us six common mistakes that crop up throughout each of the three steps:

1) Forgetting to identify necessary people to help you reach success
2) Failing to get to the root of the real questions and roadblocks that need to be addressed
3) Dominating conversations
4) Letting initial impressions influence too heavily
5) Relying on the way things used to work – power dynamics may have shifted
6) Keeping the focus too narrow

In sum, these basic steps – phase zero, learning tour, and affinity groups – can help managers effectively prepare for internal promotions, as well as promoting continued learning on the job.

Milway,  K. S., Gregory, A. G., Davis-Peccoud, J., and Yazbak, K. (2011). Get ready for your next assignment. Harvard Business Review, 89, 125-128.

human resource management,organizational industrial psychology, organizational management

 

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Intelligence: What’s your mindset?

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Topic: Development,human resource management
Publication: Child Development (2007)
Article: Implicit theories of intelligence predict achievement across an adolescent
transition: A longitudinal study and an intervention
Authors: L. S. Blackwell, K. H. Trzesniewski, & C. S. Dweck
Reviewed By: Scott Charles Sitrin

Let’s take a test. Please indicate your level of agreement with these two statements from Carol Dweck’s Theory of Intelligence Scale. Statement 1: You have a certain amount of intelligence, and you can’t really do much to change it. Statement 2: No matter who you are, you can significantly change your intelligence level. If you mostly agreed with the first statement, you may have a fixed mindset; that is, you generally consider things to be fixed and unchangeable. If you mostly agreed with the second statement, you may have a fluid mindset, you tend to consider things to be fluid and changeable. You may be asking yourself, so what?

In exploring the relationship between mindset and academic performance, Blackwell, Trzeniewski, and Dweck found that those with a fluid mindset had better grades than those with a fixed mindset. The researchers assessed the mindset of 373 students from four successive seventh grade classes. After tracking the math grades of these students for two years, it was found that those with a fluid mindset performed better. Fixed mindsetters, fear not! It was also found that a student’s mindset could be shifted from fixed to incremental.

These results suggest that an individual’s mindset predicts their academic performance. It is suspected that mindset will have similar predictive powers in other domains, such as athletics, performing arts, and business.

Blackwell, L. S., Trzesniewski, K. H., & Dweck, C. S. (2007). Implicit theories of intelligence predict achievement across an adolescent transition: A longitudinal study and an intervention. Child Development, 78(1), 246–263.

 

human resource management,organizational industrial psychology, organizational management

Does Practice Makes Perfect?

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Topic: Teams, Development
Publication: Journal of Applied Sport Psychology (2003)
Article: Sport-specific practice and the development of expert decision-making in team ball sports
Authors: J. Baker, J. Cote, & B. Abernethy
Reviewed By: Scott Charles Sitrin

How long does an athlete need to practice before he or she becomes an expert?  In the 1970s, the amount was 10,000 hours, or, approximately 10 years (sound familiar to you “Outliers” fans?).  As of late, the theory has been refined to reflect the notion that quality is at least as important as the quantity of practice.  Deliberate practice, a high-quality type of practice that focuses on improving performance with a work-like fervor, has been shown to differentiate expert from non-expert athletes, academics, and artists.  

Though there has been research on the relationship between deliberate practice and athletes who play individual sports, such as golf and tennis, less research has been performed on the relationship between deliberate practice and athletes who play team sports, such as basketball.  In addressing this void, Baker, Cote, and Abernethy investigated if sport-specific practice (i.e., deliberate practice) differentiated expert from non-expert athletes in the team sports of basketball, netball, and field hockey.  It was found that the expert athletes had engaged in more deliberate practice than the non-expert athletes, with the expert athletes having practiced over 13 years and in excess of 4,000 hours since the age of 12. 

Though the research was performed on athletes, the findings appear to be applicable to business organizations as well.  A business could, for instance, first determine what constitutes deliberate practice, and then, implement the model into the trainings of new and current employees.  Since deliberate practice differentiates experts from non-experts in both individual and team settings, the training program should improve the performance of the employees, and in turn, the performance of the company as a whole.

Baker, J., Cote, J., & Abernethy, B. (2003). Sport-specific practice and the development of expert decision-making in team ball sports. Journal of applied sport psychology, 15(1), 12–25.

human resource management,organizational industrial psychology, organizational management

Want to up your game? You’re more likely to with a little help from your friends.

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Topic: Development, Sports Psychology
Publication: Journal of Sports Sciences (2007)
Article: Stressors, social support, and effects upon performance in golf
Authors: T. Rees, L. Hardy, & P. Freeman
Reviewed By: Scott Charles Sitrin

Does encouragement and other forms of social support affect the performance of athletes? Tim Rees, Lew Hardy, and Paul Freeman think so.  They hypothesized that social support would affect the performance of golfers.

In investigating this hypothesis, the researchers evaluated the stress, social support, and performance of 117 amateur golfers.  The results were in accordance with the researchers’ hypothesis.  Specifically, stress decreased performance while social support improved performance. These results suggest that social support positively affects the performance of golfers.

These findings seem to be applicable to the development of golfers, and possibly, athletes as a whole.  For instance, if a golfer is underperforming, a possible remedy could be increased social support from the athlete’s coach and manager.  If this intervention is a success, the athlete’s performance may improve.

Rees, T., Hardy, L., & Freeman, P. (2007). Stressors, social support, and effects upon performance in golf. Journal of Sports Sciences, 25(1), 33–42.

human resource management,organizational industrial psychology, organizational management