CSS Psychology Applied Psychology Syllabus

What are the key principles of Locke and Latham's Goal-Setting Theory?

Specific and difficult (challenging) goals lead to higher performance than vague or easy ones, provided there is goal commitment, feedback, and task knowledge/ability. Mechanisms: direction, effort, persistence, and strategy development.

In Deci and Ryan's Self-Determination Theory, what three innate psychological needs drive intrinsic motivation?

Autonomy (sense of control), Competence (sense of mastery), and Relatedness (sense of connection to others).

What are the five core job dimensions in Hackman and Oldham's Job Characteristics Model?

Skill variety, Task identity, Task significance, Autonomy, and Feedback. The first three create experienced meaningfulness, autonomy creates experienced responsibility, and feedback creates knowledge of results.

Define 'organizational culture' and name Schein's three levels of culture.

Organizational culture is the shared values, beliefs, assumptions, and norms that shape members' behavior. Schein's three levels are: Artifacts (visible structures), Espoused Values (stated strategies/goals), and Basic Underlying Assumptions (taken-for-granted beliefs).

What are the four culture types in the Competing Values Framework (Cameron & Quinn)?

Clan (collaborate, internal/flexible), Adhocracy (create, external/flexible), Market (compete, external/control), and Hierarchy (control, internal/stability).

Distinguish a 'strong' culture from a 'weak' culture.

A strong culture is one where core values are intensely held and widely shared, producing high behavioral consistency and control. A weak culture has values that are not widely shared or strongly held, giving less guidance to behavior.

What is the difference between organizational culture and organizational climate?

Culture is the deep, enduring set of shared values and basic assumptions. Climate is the more surface-level, current shared perceptions of policies, practices, and procedures (the 'feel' of the workplace), and is more changeable than culture.

Define stress and distinguish 'eustress' from 'distress'.

Stress is a physiological and psychological response to demands (stressors) that tax or exceed a person's resources. Eustress is positive, motivating stress; distress is negative, harmful stress that impairs well-being and performance.

Name the three stages of Selye's General Adaptation Syndrome (GAS).

1) Alarm reaction (fight-or-flight mobilization), 2) Resistance (coping and adaptation), and 3) Exhaustion (depletion of resources, illness, breakdown).

In the Karasek Job Demand-Control Model, what combination produces the highest job strain?

High job demands combined with low decision latitude/control produces the highest 'high-strain' jobs. Adding low social support (Demand-Control-Support model) further increases strain (iso-strain).

What are the three dimensions of burnout in Maslach's model?

Emotional exhaustion, Depersonalization/cynicism, and reduced Personal accomplishment (reduced professional efficacy).

What is the difference between problem-focused and emotion-focused coping (Lazarus & Folkman)?

Problem-focused coping targets the stressor itself (planning, action, removing the cause). Emotion-focused coping manages the emotional response to the stressor (reappraisal, seeking support, relaxation, avoidance).

Define organizational conflict and name its main types based on source.

Conflict is a process beginning when one party perceives that another has or is about to negatively affect something it cares about. Main types: Task (content/goals), Relationship (interpersonal/emotional), and Process (how work is done) conflict.

What are the five conflict-handling styles in the Thomas-Kilmann model?

Competing (assertive/uncooperative), Accommodating (unassertive/cooperative), Avoiding (unassertive/uncooperative), Collaborating (assertive/cooperative), and Compromising (intermediate on both).

Define 'organizational socialization' and name Van Maanen and Schein's general phases.

Organizational socialization is the process by which newcomers learn the values, norms, behaviors, and knowledge needed to assume an organizational role. General phases: Anticipatory socialization (pre-entry), Encounter/Accommodation (entry/reality), and Metamorphosis/Settling-in (change and acceptance).

What is the difference between institutionalized and individualized socialization tactics?

Institutionalized tactics are formal, collective, sequential, fixed, serial, and investiture-based, encouraging conformity (custodial role). Individualized tactics are informal, individual, random, variable, disjunctive, and divestiture-based, encouraging innovation.

In socialization, what is a 'psychological contract'?

The psychological contract is the set of unwritten, individual beliefs about the reciprocal obligations between employee and employer (what each owes the other). Its breach reduces trust, satisfaction, and commitment.

Define the three main job-related attitudes studied in organizational psychology.

Job Satisfaction (positive feeling about one's job), Organizational Commitment (psychological attachment to the organization), and Job Involvement (degree to which one identifies with and is engaged in the job).

What are the three components of organizational commitment in Meyer and Allen's model?

Affective commitment (emotional attachment, 'want to stay'), Continuance commitment (cost of leaving, 'need to stay'), and Normative commitment (obligation, 'ought to stay').

According to the EVLN model, what are the four responses to job dissatisfaction?

Exit (leaving), Voice (actively trying to improve conditions), Loyalty (passively waiting for improvement), and Neglect (passively allowing conditions to worsen).

What are the three components of an attitude in the ABC (tripartite) model?

Affective (feelings/emotions), Behavioral (action tendencies/intentions), and Cognitive (beliefs/thoughts) components.

Define Organizational Citizenship Behavior (OCB) and give two of its dimensions.

OCB is discretionary behavior not formally rewarded that promotes effective organizational functioning. Dimensions (Organ) include Altruism, Conscientiousness, Sportsmanship, Courtesy, and Civic Virtue.

What is the difference between counterproductive work behavior (CWB) and workplace deviance?

CWB is voluntary behavior that harms the organization or its members (e.g., theft, sabotage, absenteeism). Workplace deviance is the same concept categorized by Robinson and Bennett as production, property, political, and personal aggression deviance.

Define workplace harassment and distinguish 'quid pro quo' from 'hostile environment' sexual harassment.

Workplace harassment is unwelcome conduct that creates an intimidating or offensive work environment. Quid pro quo harassment ties job benefits to sexual compliance ('this for that'); hostile environment harassment is pervasive offensive conduct that interferes with work performance.

What is 'workplace bullying' (mobbing) and how does it differ from a single conflict?

Workplace bullying/mobbing is repeated, persistent negative acts (intimidation, exclusion, undermining) directed at a target over time, usually with a power imbalance. It differs from a one-off conflict by its repetition, duration, and the victim's difficulty defending themselves.

Define Human-Computer Interaction (HCI) and state its central goal.

HCI is the multidisciplinary study of the design, evaluation, and use of interactive computing systems and the major phenomena surrounding them. Its central goal is to make systems usable, useful, and safe by fitting technology to human capabilities and needs.

What are Nielsen's main usability components/heuristics? Name five heuristics.

Usability components: learnability, efficiency, memorability, errors, satisfaction. Five of the ten heuristics: visibility of system status; match between system and real world; user control and freedom; consistency and standards; error prevention (also recognition over recall, flexibility, aesthetic minimalism, help users recover from errors, help/documentation).

What does Fitts's Law predict in HCI?

Fitts's Law predicts that the time to move to and acquire a target is a function of the distance to the target and its size: time increases with distance and decreases with larger target size (MT = a + b log2(2D/W)).

In HCI, distinguish Norman's 'gulf of execution' from 'gulf of evaluation'.

The gulf of execution is the gap between a user's intention and the actions the system allows (how to do it). The gulf of evaluation is the gap between the system's state and the user's understanding of it (how to interpret the result). Good design bridges both.

Define 'mental model' and 'affordance' in HCI.

A mental model is the user's internal representation of how a system works, used to predict and explain its behavior. An affordance is a property of an object that signals how it can be used (e.g., a button affords pressing); a perceived affordance communicates possible actions to the user.

What is the focus of the field 'Psychology and Law' (forensic/legal psychology)?

It applies psychological principles and research to the legal system, including criminal investigation, eyewitness memory, jury decision making, competency and insanity evaluations, offender profiling, and the credibility of confessions and testimony.

In Psychology and Law, distinguish 'competency to stand trial' from the 'insanity defense'.

Competency to stand trial concerns the defendant's present mental ability to understand proceedings and assist in their defense. The insanity defense concerns the defendant's mental state at the time of the offense (e.g., inability to know right from wrong under the M'Naghten rule).

What is a false confession, and name the three main types identified by Kassin and Wrightsman.

A false confession is an admission of guilt for a crime one did not commit. The three types are: Voluntary (without external pressure), Coerced-compliant (confessing to escape pressure while knowing one is innocent), and Coerced-internalized (coming to believe one is guilty).

What is the Reid Technique of interrogation, and what major risk is associated with it?

The Reid Technique is a guilt-presumptive, accusatory nine-step interrogation method using confrontation, theme development, and minimization to obtain confessions. Its major risk is eliciting false confessions, especially from vulnerable suspects, because of its psychologically coercive pressure.

What is the PEACE model of investigative interviewing and how does it differ from accusatory interrogation?

PEACE (Preparation and planning, Engage and explain, Account, Closure, Evaluate) is a non-accusatory, information-gathering interview model developed in the UK. Unlike the Reid Technique, it is non-coercive, avoids leading/manipulation, and aims at accurate information rather than securing a confession.

What is the difference between estimator variables and system variables in eyewitness testimony (Wells)?

Estimator variables are factors present at the event that affect accuracy but cannot be controlled by the justice system (lighting, distance, stress, weapon focus, exposure time). System variables are factors the justice system can control (lineup procedures, instructions, interview methods).

What is the 'weapon focus effect' in eyewitness testimony?

It is the tendency for a witness's attention to be drawn to a weapon during a crime, narrowing attention and impairing memory for other details, particularly the perpetrator's face and appearance.

Explain the 'misinformation effect' demonstrated by Loftus.

The misinformation effect occurs when exposure to misleading post-event information (e.g., suggestive questions) alters or distorts a witness's memory of the original event, as in Loftus and Palmer's study where the verb used ('smashed' vs 'hit') changed estimated speed and reports of broken glass.

What lineup procedures reduce eyewitness identification errors?

Using a sequential rather than simultaneous lineup, a 'blind' (double-blind) administrator, an instruction that the culprit may not be present, fair fillers matching the suspect's description, using only one suspect per lineup, and recording the witness's confidence statement at the time of identification.

What is the Cognitive Interview, and name two of its core techniques for improving eyewitness recall?

The Cognitive Interview (Fisher & Geiselman) is an evidence-based interview method that enhances accurate recall without increasing errors. Core techniques include: mentally reinstating the context, reporting everything, recalling events in different/reverse orders, and changing perspectives.

Why is eyewitness confidence considered an unreliable indicator of accuracy in court?

Confidence is only weakly related to accuracy, especially because it can be inflated after the event by feedback, repeated questioning, and suggestive lineup procedures. High confidence is most diagnostic of accuracy only when measured immediately at the time of an unbiased identification.