Economic Psychology and Business Psychology

The field of business psychology (in some contexts also called industrial psychology, occupational psychology, or work psychology; in English, business psychology, industrial and organizational psychology, or in the British context occupational psychology) deals with the subjective experience and behavior of people in an economic environment and social contexts. Another definition aims to cover the aspects of this branch of psychology that relate not to the production side (industrial and organizational psychology) but to the consumption side.

History of economic psychology

The concept of "economic psychology" was first introduced by the French sociologist and criminologist Gabriel Tarde in his work "Economic Psychology" (La psychologie économique) in 1903. He, along with the American George Katona and the Hungarian László Garai, is considered a founder of this interdisciplinary science.

Business psychology developed in three "waves":

• Hugo Münsterberg (1863–1916) is known in the German-speaking world as the "father of business psychology." In his book Psychologie und Wirtschaftsleben (1912) he founded industrial and organizational psychology and focused on empirical experimental research.
• The second wave was initiated by George Katona (1951) in the USA and P.L. Reynaud (1954) in France, who were primarily concerned with macroeconomic processes. Above all, Reynaud emphasized the importance of theorizing and criticized the "department-store character" of the business psychology of his time.
• In addition to the Anglo-American "economic psychology" in the Katona tradition, an economic psychology has developed in the German-speaking region since the 1980s that primarily uses social-psychological knowledge to explain and predict economic behavior.

Applications of business psychologists

Business psychologists have many possible applications. Typical areas of application for business psychologists are personnel management, market research and marketing, personnel and management consulting, or working as an independent consultant, trainer, or coach.

The areas of responsibility of a business psychologist include:

• Coaching, training, and professional development
• Marketing consulting
• Market research
• Distribution and sales
• Advertising and market communications
• Organizational development, change management
• Recruitment
• Personnel development
• Business consulting

Course offerings

Business psychology is a branch of applied psychology that can be studied at many universities. You can choose business psychology as a major within a psychology degree, or choose business psychology as an independent master's/bachelor's degree. Both public and private universities offer this type of program full-time or in various forms of distance learning.

Training at accredited universities in business psychology includes a well-grounded basic education in general psychology, social psychology, and personality psychology, as well as methodology and statistics. In some cases, business and psychological aspects are studied equally within business psychology courses.

Due to the high demand for scholars with additional psychological training, continuing education courses for business psychologists are also offered. These range from individual seminars to certified training programs and part-time continuing education courses at the master's level . They offer people in other professions, such as lawyers, economists, computer specialists, or natural scientists, the opportunity for additional psychological training. In Switzerland, under certain conditions, there is also an opportunity for working people without a first academic degree to undergo further training as a master of advanced studies.

In the Anglo-Saxon region (especially in the USA), business psychologists are mostly trained as economists with an additional psychological qualification.

Subfields of business psychology

The main areas of business psychology include:

• Organizational psychology in the context of economics (also called industrial psychology) as a field of research deals with the experience and behavior of employees at work and in organizations, with subregions including human resource development, recruitment, staffing, personnel assessment, organizational development (including change management), and coaching.

• Market psychology (or consumer psychology) deals with the experience and behavior of people participating in the market. This includes, among other things, trading psychology, sales psychology, and advertising psychology. ^[10]
• Economic psychology is a field of research that deals with the fundamental nature of consumption and decision-making in an economic context. ^[11]

• Industrial psychology, as a field of research concerned with the psychological analysis, evaluation, and design of work involved, including health promotion, consulting on application processes, evaluation of work tasks, and work organization. ^[12] In the case of engineering psychology, the main focus is on human-machine relationships.

• Leadership psychology as an independent field ^[13] researching the experience and behavior of people within the goals and situational influence of leaders in the leadership process. The main goal of leadership psychology is to create meaningful theories of leadership. ^{[14] [15]} Leadership psychology also includes group psychology, communication psychology, motivational psychology, and personality psychology.

• Financial psychology, as a younger scientific direction, studies the experience and behavior of people in financial markets, including, among other things, the behavior of small and large shareholders in stock market behavior and of managers in making investment decisions. ^[16]

A more economically oriented perspective is the psychology of macroeconomic processes. ^[17