TOPIC 2

THE ROLE OF PSYCHOLOGY IN IS

Objectives:

· To understand the relevance of some psychological concepts to IS:

? the cognitive process

? cognitive biases

? cognitive style

? change and change management

Readings:

· Cognitive/Leaning Styles http://www.g w u.edu/~tip/styles.html

· Dix et al (1993) Chpt 1 pp9-35

· Adam, P. Incomplete recollections article

· Ahituv (1994) Chpt 2 (not included in reader).

Why is psychology important in IS?

You need to have some understanding of human behaviour to develop successful IS because:

· Macro level - IS are implanted into organisations that possess internal relationships, politics, habits, authority etc. Any system that ignores these factors is likely to fail.

· Individual level - understanding human information processing helps IS design. Both to enable users to interact with systems more satisfactorily and for when manual processing is replaced by computer processing

The cognitive process

Human information processing is achieved through the cognitive process.

Inputs (stimuli)

a

cognitive process

a

outputs (reactions)

· Paying attention is a prerequisite to human perception. Being attentive enables you to detect and identify a stimulus.

· Further processing takes place in short-term memory and then major analysis in long-term memory.

Cognitive process

attention

Stimulus à Sensory Memory à Identification

a

Short-term Memory

a

Reaction ? ? Long-term Memory

Sensory memory acts as buffer for stimuli received through the senses (one buffer for each channel). Information only remains in sensory memory for about 0.5 sec.

Attention refers to how we actively process a limited amount of information from the enormous amount of information available. It includes both conscious and unconscious processes.

· perception involves awareness

· the environment is full of potential signals

· we actively seek and select those with the faculty of attention

· but we subconsciously notice and filter much (e.g. cocktail party effect)

Identification

Identification (or recognition) is the cognitive process that tries to identify the stimulus. There are various theories about how this occurs. Is probably both:

· Data driven – reflects the structure of the arriving data

· Conceptually driven – we use preconceptions to interpret the data

For example: 1 3 0 Y. Data driven identification would categorise it as the number 130 followed by the letter Y, but if that had no meaning in the context it might be perceived as BOY.

Short Term Memory (STM)

· Transitory (few seconds), for working not storage.

· Limited capacity (say) 7 + 2 “chunks”.

· Chunking involves grouping units of information (hierarchical)

Examples

Write down as much of this sequence as you can remember:

2653976208

Now try:

08 9242 6378

What about?

HEC ATR ANU PTH ETR EET

Long Term Memory (LTM)

· Absorbs and stores data

· Must have been through STM processing

· Attention and learning are applied

· Rehearsal (rote) helps retention

· Meaningfulness helps retention

· 2 types: memory of events (episodic memory) and memory of concepts (semantic memory)

· Could it be forever?

Biases in the cognitive process

We often speed up perceptual data processing by conceptual matching - involving preconceptions. But such biases can lead to errors!

Common processing biases:

· confusion (e.g. F and E on eye charts)

· ambiguity (the astronomer married the star)

· information overload (an unbroken, “meaningless” lecture!)

· filtering – we only filter the signals we preconceive to be relevant

Cognitive Styles

Cognitive style is an individual's inherent and consistent way of organising and processing information.

Many different dimensions of cognitive style have been identified. These include:

Preceptive versus receptive

· Preceptive people wish to grasp the whole picture and avoid going into details

· Receptive people are attentive to details

Analytic (systematic) vs intuitive (heuristic)

· Analytic people look for a method to achieve the best solution

· Intuitive people don’t commit themselves to a method

Field dependent versus field independent

· Field dependent information processing is passive.

· Field independent traits include complex and individualistic hypothesis-testing and restructuring skills, used to reason about ambiguous and demanding problems.

Cognitive style and IS

Individual level

Systems must be flexible enough to satisfy individuals with different cognitive styles

E.g.

· Active versus passive help

· Levels of reporting detail for statistical info.

· Optional features for different cognitive styles e.g. verbalisers vs visualisers.

Group level

There is some evidence that various professions tend to possess certain cognitive style patterns – so this may be useful when designing an IS for a particular group.

e.g. auditors are more compatible with the receptive-systematic style.

Question

Do you think IT professionals have a characteristic cognitive style?

Organisational level issues: The psychological climate

New IS can disrupt equilibriums between parties in an organisation. An IS may be opposed because of the psychological climate rather than the technical quality of the system.

Psychological climates (wrt IS) develop out of continuous interactions between individuals and groups in an organisation. The major parties are:

· Users

· Management

· IT professionals

Other important parties include:

· Customers

· IT vendors

Factors that influence the psychological climate include:

· Users’ prior experiences with systems

· Potential impact of the system on individuals’ ‘power’

· Realism of management expectations

· Ability of IT professionals to negotiate the existing psychological climate

Introducing new systems

Many people resist change:

· replacement of functions eliminates jobs

· structural changes rebalance power

· modifying procedures engender confusion

Managing change requires good psychological awareness.

Management of Change Model (Lewin):

Research indicates that change involves the following stages:

· Unfreezing: Disturbing the current stable equilibrium and hence introducing the need for change.

· Movement: Presenting new directions and conducting a learning process until the plans are accepted and new strategies are implemented.

· Refreezing: Integrating the change with existing behavioural networks so that it becomes integrated into the status quo.

Resistance to change reflects an incomplete or unsuccessful refreezing - either participants are not motivated enough or they fear change more than they value probable benefits.

The process of facilitating change is called change management

Responsibilities of change agents:

· Unfreezing: gather data, diagnose problems, decide if change is needed, and make others aware of this. This may involve deliberate attempts to raise the group's level of discontent.

· Movement: Develop a plan, set goals and objectives, Identify areas of support and resistance. Set target dates, and implement the strategies. Be available to support others through the change. Finally, modify (if necessary) and evaluate.

· Refreezing: Support others so that the change remains in place.

Some practical conclusions for IS

· Understanding psychology is vital for IS development.

· Psychology is important at both individual and group levels.

· Important information must attract attention

· Part of information identification is performed by pattern recognition – presentation must take account of this.

· Information overload may lead to important information not being absorbed (STM ~ 7 chunks) – but important information should be repeated (rehearsal needed)

· Develop systems that take advantage of understood formats (spreadsheets etc)

· Design systems to support a wide range of cognitive styles

6 B107 Topic 2