Cambridge A Level Psychology 9990: Organisational Psychology (Specialist Option 4)

Organisational Psychology is Specialist Option 4 of Cambridge International A Level Psychology 9990. It studies behaviour in the workplace: what motivates people to work, how leaders lead and followers follow, how groups make decisions and perform, how physical and time conditions affect health and safety, and how job satisfaction is explained and measured. Exam questions often give a workplace scenario and ask you to apply a named theory or study to it.

This guide follows the Cambridge International AS & A Level Psychology 9990 syllabus for 2024, 2025 and 2026, covering sub-topics 4.1.1 to 4.5.3 and the five key studies. Use it with the Organisational Psychology revision notes and Organisational Psychology practice questions. The Specialist Options overview explains how the four options are chosen.

How is Organisational Psychology examined?

On Paper 3, each option has three short-answer questions (14 marks in total) and a structured essay with a 6-mark describe part and a 10-mark evaluate part. On Paper 4 Section A, each option has two structured questions on content, key studies and research methods. The syllabus states that the topic areas on Paper 3 will be different from those on Paper 4.

Syllabus coverage

Number	Sub-topic	Content
4.1.1	Need theories	Maslow’s hierarchy of needs, e.g. Saeednia (2011); McClelland’s achievement, affiliation and power
4.1.2	Cognitive theories	Latham and Locke’s goal-setting theory and SMART goals; Vroom’s VIE (expectancy) theory
4.1.3	Motivators at work	Extrinsic rewards (pay, bonuses, profit-sharing, performance-related pay); intrinsic rewards; Deci and Ryan’s self-determination theory, key study Landry et al. (2019) study 1
4.2.1	Theories of leadership	Great person, charismatic, transformational; Ohio and Michigan behavioural explanations; Heifetz’s six principles for adaptive challenges
4.2.2	Leadership style	Muczyk and Reimann’s four styles; Scouller’s public, private and personal levels; gender, key study Cuadrado et al. (2008)
4.2.3	Leaders and followers	Kouzes and Posner’s Leadership Practices Inventory; Kelley’s (1988) followership
4.3.1	Group development and decisions	Stages of group development, e.g. Tuckman and Jensen (2010); Belbin’s nine team roles; groupthink; Forsyth’s cognitive limitations and errors
4.3.2	Individual and group performance	Social facilitation and social loafing, drive theory, evaluation apprehension, social impact theory; loafing across cultures, e.g. Earley (1993); performance monitoring, key study Claypoole and Szalma (2019) experiment 1
4.3.3	Conflict at work	Four levels of conflict; Thomas–Kilmann’s five modes; bullying, e.g. Einarsen (1999)
4.4.1	Physical work conditions	Productivity and the Hawthorne effect, e.g. Kompier (2006); open-plan offices, e.g. Oldham and Brass (1979)
4.4.2	Temporal conditions	Rapid and slow rotation shiftwork, on-call, flexitime; health and accidents, e.g. Gold et al. (1992)
4.4.3	Health and safety	Human errors and system errors; token economy, e.g. Fox et al. (1987); monitoring accidents, key study Swat (1997)
4.5.1	Theories of job satisfaction	Herzberg’s two-factor theory; Hackman and Oldham’s job characteristics theory; enrichment, rotation and enlargement, e.g. Belias and Sklikas (2013)
4.5.2	Measuring job satisfaction	Job descriptive index (JDI); Walton’s quality of working life (QWL)
4.5.3	Attitudes to work	Sabotage, key study Giacalone and Rosenfeld (1987); Blau and Boal’s absenteeism and commitment model

4.1 What motivates people to work?

Need theories (4.1.1). Maslow’s hierarchy has five levels: physiological, safety, love and belonging, esteem and self-actualisation. Lower needs must be largely met before higher needs motivate. At work, pay meets physiological needs, job security meets safety, colleagues meet belonging, recognition meets esteem, and challenging work allows self-actualisation. Saeednia (2011) is suggested as a study that developed a scale to measure satisfaction of these needs. McClelland’s theory proposes three learned needs: achievement (to succeed at challenging tasks), affiliation (to be liked and accepted) and power (to influence others). People with high achievement need prefer moderate risks and clear feedback.

Cognitive theories (4.1.2). Goal-setting theory (Latham and Locke) argues that specific, challenging goals lead to higher performance than vague “do your best” goals, provided there is commitment and feedback. SMART goals are specific, measurable, achievable, relevant and time-bound. Vroom’s VIE theory says motivation depends on three beliefs: expectancy (effort will lead to performance), instrumentality (performance will lead to a reward) and valence (how much the reward is valued). If any one is zero, motivation is low.

Motivators (4.1.3). Extrinsic motivators come from outside the task: pay, bonuses, profit-sharing and performance-related pay. Intrinsic motivators include praise, respect, recognition, empowerment and a sense of belonging. Deci and Ryan’s self-determination theory says people are most motivated when three needs are met: competence, autonomy and relatedness. Rewards that feel controlling can undermine intrinsic motivation.

Key study: Landry et al. (2019). Landry, Zhang, Papachristopoulos and Forest used laboratory experiments to test how cash rewards affect motivation through the lens of self-determination theory. The syllabus asks you to focus on study 1. In study 1, 123 French-speaking students on an organisational behaviour course at a Canadian university (mean age 23, 60% women) were randomly allocated to one of two conditions. Everyone was offered the same reward, a $10 coffee-shop gift card, but the instructions framed it differently: in the autonomy-supportive condition it was described as a token of appreciation for their contribution; in the controlling condition it was described as a means to reinforce the performance standards for the task. Participants completed questionnaires on need satisfaction and frustration and on intrinsic and extrinsic motivation, then had two minutes to find words in 25 four-letter anagrams. The autonomy-supportive group reported greater satisfaction of the needs for competence, autonomy and relatedness, which predicted greater intrinsic motivation, and they performed better; the controlling group reported more need frustration, which predicted extrinsic motivation, and extrinsic motivation did not predict performance. So the effect of money depends on its functional meaning, not its amount. The laboratory setting gives control over the reward conditions, but a two-minute anagram task and a small gift card are very different from a real salary, so generalisation to workplaces needs care.

4.2 What makes an effective leader?

Theories (4.2.1). Universalist theories assume certain qualities make a good leader in any situation. The great person theory says leaders are born with special traits. Charismatic leaders inspire through personal appeal and vision. Transformational leaders motivate followers to go beyond self-interest for the group’s goals. Behavioural theories focus on what leaders do. The Ohio studies identified two dimensions, initiating structure (organising tasks) and consideration (concern for people). The Michigan studies contrasted employee-centred and production-centred (job-centred) leaders. Heifetz argued that adaptive challenges (problems without a technical fix) need leaders who follow six principles: get on the balcony (step back to see the whole picture), identify the adaptive challenge, regulate distress, maintain disciplined attention, give the work back to the people, and protect the voices of leadership from below.

Style (4.2.2). Muczyk and Reimann combined two dimensions, how far employees take part in decisions (autocratic or democratic) and how closely they are directed in carrying them out (directive or permissive), to give four styles: directive autocrat, permissive autocrat, directive democrat and permissive democrat. Scouller’s levels of leadership are public (behaviour towards a group), private (one-to-one) and personal (the leader’s own self-awareness and technical know-how), with the personal level at the core.

Key study: Cuadrado et al. (2008). Cuadrado, Morales and Recio tested role congruity theory (Eagly and Karau, 2002), which predicts that women leaders are judged unfavourably when they use stereotypically masculine styles. In a 2 x 2 experiment, 136 psychology students at Spain’s national distance-learning university (53% women) read a story set in a hospital emergency service, chosen as a gender-neutral context, in which the leader was either a man or a woman and used either a stereotypically masculine style (autocratic and task-oriented) or a stereotypically feminine style (democratic, relationship-oriented, individualised consideration). They rated the leader’s competence (leadership capacity), efficacy and a list of traits. The prediction was not supported: leaders of both sexes were rated more competent, more effective and more favourably when they used the feminine styles, and male and female leaders, and male and female evaluators, did not differ. A common error is to say the study showed women being penalised for masculine styles; it did not. Because the leaders were fictitious descriptions, the study controls variables well, but a student sample rating a story is less realistic than employees judging a real manager.

Leaders and followers (4.2.3). Kouzes and Posner’s Leadership Practices Inventory measures five practices: model the way, inspire a shared vision, challenge the process, enable others to act and encourage the heart. Kelley (1988) defined followership as the role of actively supporting a leader and the group’s goals. He used two dimensions, independent critical thinking and active engagement, to describe five styles: exemplary (high on both), alienated (critical but passive), conformist (active but uncritical), passive (low on both) and pragmatist (middle on both).

4.3 How do groups behave in organisations?

Development and decisions (4.3.1). Tuckman’s stages of group development are forming, storming, norming, performing and adjourning. Belbin’s nine team roles are plant, resource investigator, co-ordinator, shaper, monitor evaluator, teamworker, implementer, completer finisher and specialist; a balanced team covers all of them. Groupthink (Janis) happens when a cohesive group values agreement over critical thinking. Features include an illusion of invulnerability, collective rationalisation, belief in the group’s morality, stereotyping outsiders, pressure on dissenters, self-censorship, an illusion of unanimity and self-appointed “mindguards”. Strategies to avoid it include appointing a devil’s advocate and inviting outside experts. Forsyth grouped cognitive limitations and errors into types: errors of commission (such as sunk cost bias and hindsight bias), errors of omission (such as base-rate bias) and errors of imprecision (such as relying on the availability heuristic).

Performance (4.3.2). Social facilitation is improved performance on simple or well-learned tasks when others are present; on complex tasks performance can worsen. Zajonc’s drive theory explains this: others’ presence raises arousal, which strengthens the dominant (most likely) response. Evaluation apprehension proposes that it is the fear of being judged, not mere presence, that raises arousal. Social loafing is reduced individual effort when working in a group. Social impact theory (Latané) proposes that the impact of others depends on their strength, immediacy and number, and that responsibility is divided among group members. Earley (1993) found that managers from an individualist culture (the USA) performed best working alone, while managers from collectivist cultures (China and Israel) performed best in an in-group and loafed when working with an out-group.

Key study: Claypoole and Szalma (2019). This study applied social facilitation to electronic performance monitoring (EPM). The syllabus focuses on experiment 1, in which participants carried out a sustained-attention (vigilance) task under different monitoring conditions, such as being alone, being observed by a person or being monitored electronically. Being monitored, including electronically, affected performance compared with working unmonitored, which the authors interpreted as social facilitation working through monitoring as well as physical presence. The laboratory task allows strong control, but a short vigilance task is not the same as a full working day under monitoring.

Conflict (4.3.3). Conflict happens at four levels: intra-individual (within one person), inter-individual (between two people), intra-group (within a group) and inter-group (between groups). Causes include competition for resources, unclear roles and personality clashes. Thomas–Kilmann’s five modes, based on assertiveness and cooperativeness, are competing, collaborating, compromising, avoiding and accommodating. Bullying at work is repeated negative behaviour that the target cannot easily defend against. Einarsen (1999) is the suggested study of its types, phases and causes, distinguishing predatory bullying from dispute-related bullying.

4.4 How do work conditions affect workers?

Physical conditions (4.4.1). The Hawthorne effect is a change in behaviour because people know they are being studied. It is named after the Hawthorne electrical works studies, where productivity seemed to rise whatever lighting change was made. Kompier (2006) argued that the popular story is a myth that oversimplifies what the studies found. Oldham and Brass (1979) studied employees who moved from a conventional office to an open-plan office; satisfaction and internal motivation fell after the move, with problems of concentration and privacy.

Temporal conditions (4.4.2). Rapid rotation shiftwork changes shift every few days; slow rotation keeps the same shift for weeks. On-call work requires being available at short notice. Flexitime lets employees choose start and finish times around core hours. Gold et al. (1992) surveyed hospital nurses and found that those on rotating shifts reported more sleep problems and more accidents and errors related to sleepiness than those on fixed shifts.

Health and safety (4.4.3). Human errors include errors of omission (missing a step), commission (doing something wrong), sequencing (doing steps in the wrong order) and timing (too early or too late). System errors in operator–machine systems arise from poorly designed controls and displays. Fox et al. (1987) reduced accidents in two open-pit mines with a token economy: workers earned stamps for periods without accidents, exchangeable for goods.

Key study: Swat (1997). Swat studied how accidents and risk events can be monitored in industrial plants, as part of a three-year project begun in 1994. He analysed 83 accidents recorded in 1993 in four plants (a foundry, a machinery plant, a meat-processing plant and a furniture factory) employing 2,964 workers, classifying them by frequency, severity and direct and indirect causes. At least 45.8% of the accidents involved breaches of basic housekeeping (for example, cluttered or poorly maintained work areas), and a 1994 follow-up at the meat-processing plant estimated that 95% of incidents were never reported. Swat concluded that minor injuries, especially those needing first aid, and the circumstances of accidents should be recorded so that management problems become visible, and that housekeeping should be part of safety monitoring. The study links to longitudinal and objective data (recorded events over time) and to individual versus situational explanations of accidents.

4.5 What explains job satisfaction?

Theories (4.5.1). Herzberg’s two-factor theory separates hygiene factors (pay, supervision, working conditions, company policy, relationships, security), which prevent dissatisfaction but do not motivate, from motivators (achievement, recognition, the work itself, responsibility, advancement), which produce satisfaction. Hackman and Oldham’s job characteristics theory proposes five core characteristics: skill variety, task identity, task significance, autonomy and feedback. These create three psychological states: experienced meaningfulness, experienced responsibility and knowledge of results, leading to motivation and satisfaction. Job design techniques: enrichment adds responsibility and control (vertical), enlargement adds more tasks at the same level (horizontal) and rotation moves workers between jobs. Belias and Sklikas (2013) is a suggested source.

Measuring (4.5.2). The Job Descriptive Index (JDI) asks workers to respond yes, no or “?” to adjectives describing five facets: the work itself, pay, promotion opportunities, supervision and co-workers. Walton’s quality of working life (QWL) has eight conditions: adequate and fair compensation; safe and healthy working conditions; opportunity to use and develop capacities; opportunity for growth and security; social integration; constitutionalism (rights at work); work and the total life space (balance); and social relevance of work. A QWL evaluation scale rates how far a job meets these.

Attitudes (4.5.3). Sabotage is deliberate damage to an organisation’s property, products or reputation, from slowing work to breaking equipment.

Key study: Giacalone and Rosenfeld (1987). Giacalone and Rosenfeld asked unionised factory workers to rate how far a range of reasons would justify sabotage in an organisation, and how justifiable four general methods of sabotage were: slowdowns, destructiveness, dishonesty and causing chaos. Workers who accepted a wider range of reasons were more ready to justify every form of sabotage except dishonesty, which received little justification from anyone. The study is useful for showing that sabotage is often explained by employees as a reasoned response to their situation at work, which links to the situational explanation, but it measures attitudes about sabotage through self-report, not actual sabotage, and the sample came from a single unionised workplace.

Absence. Blau and Boal’s model combines job involvement and organisational commitment into four categories of employee: institutionalised stars (high involvement, high commitment), lone wolves (high involvement, low commitment), corporate citizens (low involvement, high commitment) and apathetic employees (low on both). The model predicts different types and amounts of absence for each category, with apathetic employees expected to be absent most.

How should you evaluate Organisational Psychology?

• Application to everyday life: theories such as goal-setting, Herzberg and Hackman and Oldham are used directly in job design and management training.
• Cultural differences: Earley (1993) shows loafing differs between individualist and collectivist cultures; Maslow’s hierarchy may reflect individualist values.
• Individual and situational explanations: great person theory is individual; Heifetz’s adaptive leadership and accident system errors are situational.
• Reductionism: VIE theory reduces motivation to three beliefs; real decisions involve emotions and social factors.
• Generalisation: many studies use one workplace or laboratory tasks.

Frequently asked questions

What are the five Organisational Psychology key studies? Landry et al. (2019) on cash rewards and self-determination theory, Cuadrado et al. (2008) on leadership style and gender, Claypoole and Szalma (2019) on electronic performance monitoring, Swat (1997) on monitoring accidents, and Giacalone and Rosenfeld (1987) on reasons for sabotage.

Which parts of Landry et al. and Claypoole and Szalma do I need? For Landry et al. (2019), focus on study 1. For Claypoole and Szalma (2019), focus on experiment 1. The syllabus says the methods of the second study or experiment are not needed.

What is the difference between hygiene factors and motivators? Hygiene factors, such as pay and conditions, stop people being dissatisfied but do not make them satisfied. Motivators, such as recognition and responsibility, actively increase satisfaction.

How is Vroom’s theory different from Maslow’s? Maslow’s is a need theory: motivation comes from unmet needs in a fixed order. Vroom’s is a cognitive theory: motivation depends on a person’s beliefs about effort, performance and rewards.

Official syllabus

Cambridge International AS & A Level Psychology 9990 syllabus for 2024, 2025 and 2026, Specialist Option 4: Organisational Psychology — cambridgeinternational.org.

Related resources

• Organisational Psychology revision notes
• Organisational Psychology practice questions
• Specialist Options overview