1 Introduction

Studying psychology has been linked to many reasons that range from a desire to understand how the mind works to a general curiosity. Some people study psychology in order to make careers in the field as a therapist or clinical psychologist, while others are driven by the desire to make a difference. Other people engage themselves in the field because they want to uncover the mechanisms behind human motivation, why we do what we do, and attitudes, develop an understanding of emotions, and inform themselves about the workings of the human mind. Yet others are attracted to the field due to a curiosity in the subject itself. There are also a few who are motivated by the desire to uncover secrets of human behavior. Moreover, there are some who wish to study psychology because they are struggling with mental illness of some sort and they hold the belief that they can better understand their illness and help not only themselves but others too if they have a degree in psychology [27].

Some careers in psychology include working as clinical psychologists, cognitive and perceptual psychologists, community psychologists, developmental psychologists, educational psychologists, engineering psychologists, environmental psychologists, health psychologists, evolutionary psychologists, experimental psychologists, forensic psychologists, industrial-organizational psychologists, neuropsychologists, quantitative and measurement psychologists, rehabilitation psychologists, school psychologists, social psychologists, sports psychologists, counseling psychologists, child psychologists [31].

There are many reasons for pursuing any of these fields and many factors can influence one’s decision. Studies highlight the role of parents, teachers, and friends in influencing students to choose psychology as a career [25]. The role of the father [2, 41], desire for good income and a lavish lifestyle [1, 7, 8, 11, 41], as well as the desire for social acceptance and a good social status [41], were all factors that influenced students’ decision to take up a career, not just in psychology, but in other fields too. The role of environment and personality [8, 11] may influence one’s career choices, and the indecision in choosing a career can also be impacted by one’s personality [12]. Self-efficacy and interests are also important factors in choosing an educational major [22].

Choosing a career is generally based on matching the specific aptitudes and characteristics of an individual (such as skills, knowledge, interests, and disposition) with the requirements of the career one is aiming to enter [3]. However, students may unknowingly opt out of professions that they perceive to be unfit while choosing a career. They may choose to opt out of careers where they perceive they will be at a disadvantage or where they might subject themselves to embarrassment. To avoid such a situation of embarrassment and to save face, they choose careers where they can exert greater control over their work and surroundings. Therefore, they subconsciously engage in self-presentation i.e., they may try to preserve and protect themselves without being actively aware that they are engaging in such behaviors. Therefore, they may unknowingly opt out of careers that they perceive to be unsuitable for them.

Canada's highly ranked University of Toronto offers graduate studies (Ph.D.) in general experimental psychology fields with specialization in behavioral neuroscience, perception, cognition, and cognitive neuroscience; developmental; social, and personality. There is also a counseling psychology program and a counseling and clinical psychology graduate program. However, the university does not offer specialization in I/O psychology [32]. Likewise, at the Canadian University of British Columbia, graduate students can choose among seven sub-disciplinary specializations: Behavioural Neuroscience, Clinical, Cognitive Science, Developmental, Health, Quantitative Methods, and Social/Personality, while I/O psychology is offered as a sub-discipline under the parent category of psychology and cognitive sciences [34]. In Asia, Peking University of China has psychology departments that specialize in Brain and Cognitive Sciences, Clinical and Health Psychology, Developmental, Educational Psychology, and Managerial and Social Psychology—where some aspects of I/O psychology are covered along with social psychology, but no specialized I/O psychology course is offered [37].

As compared to I/O psychology, the other areas such as clinical psychology generally require many years of education and training [38], yet students prefer them over I/O psychology [16]. A study by Stark-Wroblewski et al. [42] assessed the interest and familiarity level of undergrad psychology students in areas of counseling psychology, clinical psychology, school psychology, forensic psychology, and criminal profiling. They reported that undergraduate students of psychology displayed the highest interest in the clinical and counseling psychology field as opposed to other fields of psychology. Even though the study did not include I/O psychology, the research still presented a clear preference for clinical and counseling psychology over other fields.

Similar trends were observed in India where data from two highly ranked central universities backed the presence of this trend. Students pursuing a psychology master's in one of the universities disproportionately opted for clinical psychology (Jamia Millia Islamia). From the MA applied psychology batch of 2020–2022, only 6 students opted for I/O psychology while a staggering 42 students chose clinical psychology as their specialization (The second author has been teaching in this department for the past 30 years, and has personal experience of observing this trend). A similar trend was observed in the MA applied psychology batch of 2021–2023, where 35 students chose to opt for clinical psychology, while only 5 chose I/O. A similar phenomenon was observed in the Psychology department of Delhi University, Delhi, which is another highly ranked and popular university for psychology students in India. Among the students enrolled in the psychology master’s program at Delhi University between 2021 and 2022, 91 students chose to specialize in clinical psychology, while only 29 students opted for I/O psychology and 9 students chose Indian psychology. In the same university, for the session, 2022 to 2023, 92 students chose clinical psychology, 20 students chose developmental psychology, and industrial-organizational psychology was selected by 28 students (personal communication with the second author). The above data suggest that a vast majority of students did not opt for I/O psychology as a domain of specialization.

To the best of our knowledge, there is just one study from India [26], and the results showed a preference for non-I/O fields among psychology students in India. Over 73% of participants were interested in clinical and counseling psychology, while 12% were inclined to teaching and only 8.2% of participants were in favor of opting for I/O Psychology. The research also concluded that there is a lack of awareness regarding other fields of practice apart from clinical psychology among Indian psychology students. The study though highlighted that there is a trend of opting for non-I/O fields but it did not identify the reasons behind the same. Even the courses offered in the I/O field have been fewer as compared to other fields of psychology. For example, the courses offered by 40 central universities in India, under the Ministry of Education [28], to the best of our knowledge, out of the 40 universities, 13 do not offer any psychology courses at all, and out of the remaining 27, only 12 offer I/O courses at the graduate level.

Tran-Chi et al. [43] analyzed the perspective of psychology students in Vietnam in the areas of psychology. The study found that students who had majored in clinical psychology were more aware of the aspects of clinical psychology as compared to those who had not. A similar trend was identified among students of other psychology majors, where it was found that students had less knowledge of other fields. 108 participants were going with counseling and clinical psychology as their major, while only 75 participants were majoring in l/O psychology. Although, the difference between these two courses was not alarming, however, the study did not make any attempts to find out what motivated the participants to choose their major in the first place. A study by Rajecki et al. [33] analyzed the career plans activity and course preferences among American psychology undergraduates. The study found that regardless of their career plans, students chose human interest courses over methodological courses, and displayed the least interest in choosing a single course on I/O psychology.

Gallucci et al. (1997) examined students’ reasons for choosing psychology as their undergraduate major and found that interest was a major reason behind students choosing psychology. The results revealed that ‘I want to become an industrial or organizational psychologist’ was chosen by the least number of students as a reason being choosing psychology. Reasons like interest in becoming a professional psychologist, academic psychologist, professional social worker, etc., were indicated by a greater number of students. This study also did not probe the motivation behind the preference for specific fields of psychology but analyzed their interest in the field of psychology overall.

The above review highlights that despite the presence of the trend of students not opting for I/O psychology, to the best of our knowledge, the motivations behind the same have not been taken up by psychologists. Understanding these motivations can give an insight into why students are not opting for I/O psychology. Being aware of such motivations is also important as it can help curriculum makers and educators to be better equipped with knowledge of what might and might not motivate students to go into diverse fields of psychology. Consequently, the focus might be shifted to the inculcation of a well-rounded introduction of I/O psychology in the classroom, rather than placing importance on only non-I/O areas. Similarly, knowing and addressing such motivations might help researchers in helping students get interested in pursuing a career in the I/O field, thereby reducing potential stagnation in the I/O field. The presence of this research gap highlights the lack of attention and focus given to I/O psychology, while subsequently showcasing a need for more efforts to be made in this area. The dearth of research in this area shows that this issue has either gone unnoticed by researchers or no efforts have been made to uncover why this trend exists. The present research is a modest attempt in this direction to address this issue systematically.

2 Methods

2.1 Participants and procedure

The present study was conducted in two phases. In phase one, the first author carried out one brainstorming session among M.A. students (n = 15) pursuing applied psychology at a central university in New Delhi (Jamia Millia Islamia), India. Brainstorming is one of the many techniques for fostering group creativity by which ideas and thoughts are shared among members spontaneously to reach solutions to practical problems [17]. The purpose of this brainstorming session was to develop initial themes based on the participant's answers, that could be used to develop interview questions. The ideas and concepts that emerged from the brainstorming session were refined and used as a basis for the formulation of interview questions for collecting data in the second phase.

Inclusion criteria: master’s students at the university who were in their third semester and had already chosen the field they were going to specialize in, and students who had not chosen I/O psychology as their specialization.

Exclusion criteria: students who were not in the third semester of master’s studies, and students in the third semester who had decided to opt for I/O psychology.

In the second phase, participants’ motivations for choosing non-I/O psychology subjects following a qualitative approach (conventional content analysis) were examined. Qualitative methods are generally used to get an in-depth understanding of the phenomenon. Purposive sampling was used to recruit participants. Purposive sampling is a commonly used technique in qualitative research and it involves identifying and selecting individuals or groups of individuals who are especially knowledgeable about or experienced the phenomenon of interest [10]. Moreover, availability and willingness to participate in the research, and the participants’ ability to share their experiences and opinions in an articulate, expressive, and reflective manner are some of the requirements that are best achieved by purposive sampling [6]. Semi-structured interviews were used to elicit the required information. The interviews were conducted individually with the participants pursuing applied psychology at one of the central universities situated in New Delhi (Jamia Millia Islamia), India.

There are no specific rules in qualitative research to decide about the sample size, unlike in quantitative research. Sample size in qualitative research can be affected by many factors, such as the purpose of the study, the research question, and the richness of data, however, the concept of saturation should be the guiding principle in deciding the optimal sample size [24], and for Constantinou et al. [9], data saturation is ‘the flagship of validity for qualitative research’ (p. 585). In general, ‘saturation’, can be defined as information redundancy [23]. It implies that it’s a point in the data collection process at which no new information or themes are yielded from data. Well saturated data facilitates the categorization of data and their correct abstraction [14].

Data were collected from 15 participants as no new information/themes were coming from the interview after this. All participants in the second phase (n = 15) were between the ages of 22–26 (mean = 22.60, SD = 1.05). There were 10 female participants and 5 male participants and they came from different economic backgrounds. They described their economic background in terms of their family’s perceived annual income. Despite their different economic backgrounds—ranging from low income to upper middle class—the participants were united by their choice of not opting for I/O psychology.

The inclusion and exclusion criterion for the semi-structured interviews were same as that of the brainstorming session. Each interview lasted for 45–70 min, with total interview time across all participants being 15 h. Each interview was transcribed verbatim in real-time and the interviews were held in the participant’s university, during lunch breaks and/or free classes via offline mode (Table 1).

Table 1 Participants demographic information (second phase)
Full size table

Interview questions and some of the follow-up prompts:

  1. 1.

    What things have prompted your research in the non-I/O field?

  2. 2.

    What is the most prominent reason behind your disinterest in I/O (or interest in another field?

  3. 3.

    How do you evaluate the scope of I/O?

  4. 4.

    Did the popular perception of non-I/O psychology influence your interest in non-I/O fields?

  5. 5.

    What aspects of non-I/O do you find flexible?

  6. 6.

    Are the market requirements of I/O a major reason behind your disinterest?

  7. 7.

    Would you consider I/O as a viable field if the market requirements were not as stringent?

  8. 8.

    Do you know of the difference in package placement between I/O and non-I/O fields?

These questions were supported with the following prompts:

  1. 1.

    How would you describe inflexibility in I/O?

  2. 2.

    Is this scope the major reason behind your interest in I/O?

  3. 3.

    Would you consider I/O if it was more flexible?

  4. 4.

    Have you done any internships?

  5. 5.

    Have you visited any psychology field like a hospital/private clinic?

  6. 6.

    Do you know about the requirements for practice in India like the RCI license? Are you prepared to/want to do a Ph.D.? Do you know of any RCI-approved courses? Are you aware of M.Phil. exam?

2.2 Data analysis

The qualitative content analytic method was used to make sense of data as it provides “knowledge and understanding of the phenomenon under study” ([13], p. 314). In qualitative content analysis, a large volume of qualitative data is substantially reduced by identifying core constituencies and meaning [29]. There are three types of qualitative content analysis [19]—conventional content analysis, directed content analysis, and summative content analysis. In the present research, conventional content analysis was used as the research aimed to explore and describe a phenomenon, in this case, why the respondents did not go for I/O psychology. This method is more appropriate when the existing theory or research literature on the phenomenon is very limited. As already mentioned, the motivation behind not choosing I/O psychology is a neglected area of research. In this method, researchers need to immerse themselves in the data, so that categories and new insights emerge from the data itself [20]. In conventional content analysis, subjective interpretation of the content of text data is done via a systematic classification process in which themes and patterns are coded and identified [19].

The interviews were read word by word by first highlighting the exact words from the transcriptions that were capturing key thoughts or concepts. This led to the initial analysis by making notes, based on the first impressions of data. This would result in the emergence of labels for codes which paved the way for the development of the initial coding scheme. Codes are then organized into categories based on how diverse codes are related and linked. These emergent categories/themes are then used to create group codes (key themes) [29]. Care was taken to see that all the themes were properly coded. Any sub-theme that did not fit its code was re-coded. At last, the key themes and subthemes were established. Steps were followed sincerely as suggested by Hsieh and Shannon [19] to ensure that the research process is free from biases. To increase comprehensibility and to provide sound data interpretation, both authors independently examined the key themes and subthemes as they emerged in the analysis and evaluated whether they captured the essence of the participants' transcripts [39]. Any disagreement on coding between them was thoroughly debated and discussed before arriving at any conclusion [36].

Moreover, relevant excerpts from the participants have been quoted to increase the trustworthiness of the results [30]. This would ensure that the findings reflected the participants’ perspectives on the ‘issues being explored’, and not the researcher’s perspectives, and biases [23].

3 Results

The analysis yielded three main themes “practicality”, “interest”, and “personality and motivation”. Further subthemes emerged from the key theme of “practicality” and included “course requirements”, “flexibility”, “lack of growth”, and “scope”. The results are also presented briefly in Table 2.

Table 2 Key themes, sub themes and relevant excepts
Full size table

3.1 Key theme 1—practicality

Practicality is the quality of being practical. It is the state of usefulness associated with the task or object in question. Practicality is one of the three key themes identified in this study. This has been presented in the form of four subthemes. In the following paragraphs, each one of the subthemes is explained briefly and the relevant excerpts are presented.

3.1.1 Sub-theme 1—course requirements

This refers to the requirements that had to be fulfilled by the participants for the partial fulfillment of their Master of Arts degree. The participants were directed by the department to select their areas of interest and carry out the internship, which is a part of their course requirement, in the same field. For one of the participants, course requirement was the major reason for selecting the non-I/O psychology field (clinical psychology). The participant described feelings of confusion and uncertainty when it came to choosing which field to pursue as highlighted by the following:

No specific reason for it…. am confused and unsure…. Chose clinical psychology because it aligned with my internship…. There are certain social expectations linked to psychology that led me to choose the Clinical area (Participant 9).

3.1.2 Sub-theme 2—flexibility

Flexibility refers to the ease of modification or change. In this context, flexibility refers to the participant's ability to expand and shrink various elements associated with their career according to their terms. All the participants expressed that there is less flexibility in I/O psychology jobs. For six participants work schedule and work timings were a concern. Two participants explicitly stated money or potential income as a factor. Similarly, flexibility in employment was important for six participants. Three participants said that they can switch from a non-I/O psychology to an I/O setting more easily than vice versa. Likewise, setting up independent practice was another element of flexibility as explained by the participants.

Flexibility in work schedule, timing, no 9–5 jobs…. independent practice, teaching, and side hustles (Participant 1).

I have not considered flexibility or inflexibility…. but clinical psychologists can hike their prices and so that’s flexible (Participant 2).

In clinical psychology, I can choose my own clients. I can decide what population I want to work with and what methods I want to utilize…. I can venture into I/O from the clinical field (Participant 6).

I can have my own practice which is the major selling point of clinical psychology…that would be very flexible (Participant 7).

3.1.3 Sub Theme 3—lack of growth

In this context, lack of growth refers to an inability to gain promotions and/ or performance incentives. Many participants perceived that there is a lack of growth in I/O psychology jobs. After a certain point in I/O careers, the participants felt that the Indian market limits their growth. One of the participants said there is a lack of growth in India. While another participant went on to state that the scope is limited in the field due to a lack of growth.

I think the scope here is limited due to the lack of growth in this field (Participant 5).

Lack of growth and the scope in India is limited…. An MBA has to be done… to increase the chances (Participant 7).

3.1.4 Sub Theme 4—scope

Scope includes aspects of employment, income, job description, duties, and all related aspects where potential growth and development can be witnessed. Four participants talked about employability when asked about the scope of I/O. They further described employment in terms of diverse opportunities like counseling, teaching, research, and client-practitioner therapy in clinics, hospitals, and even private practice. Two participants highlighted that an MBA is preferred by employers in India which deters students from pursuing I/O. Likewise, one participant mentioned a lack of knowledge about I/O psychology as a factor behind not opting for the same. Continuing with that the participant mentioned that the theory taught to students is not adequate when it comes to applying them in the market.

I like to study and I want to do research later, maybe in therapeutic interventions…. I am interested in forensic clinical psychology…. scope is higher as I can practice independently, do research, teach…. can also do side hustles apart from clinical work (Participant 1).

I/O is more cashable for MBA graduates….so the scope is minimalized….my understanding of the corporate world is limited (Participant 4).

The scope is not far-reaching…. there is a gap between what is actually practiced and what is taught…. the lack of knowledge limits employability (Participant 8).

On the other hand, participants who did view the scope of I/O to be high still did not favor I/O psychology, indicated by the fact that they opted non-I/O domain for their specialization. One participant talked of ease in getting employed, while another said that the scope in I/O is vast but skill dependent. Yet another participant mentioned that the scope in I/O psychology is good as the field is upcoming while clinical psychology has job saturation in the Indian market but the participant still chose the non-I/O field due to his course requirements.

I/O is better in terms of money but clinical psychology has more flexibility…. there are more areas where one can practice…. employability is high and diverse in clinical psychology (Participant 6).

The scope is higher in I/O…. it is easy to get a job after only a master’s degree. People prefer psychology to HR. The scope and employability are not a problem…but I am interested in psychology since 11th class. (Participant 2).

I think the scope is vast but it mostly depends on your own skills (Participant 4).

The scope is good because of its upcoming nature…. clinical psychology is saturated in terms of job availability….…. chose clinical psychology because it aligned with my internship (Participant 9).

3.2 Key theme 2—interest

The participants looked at interest in the context of liking something and being curious about it. Interest was an unvarying theme among all the participants. Three participants said that they were interested in clinical psychology. One of them attributed it to the fact that it is easy to understand disorders, while another said that the vast scope of clinical psychology is the reason for their interest in it (and subsequent disinterest in I/O). For one of the participant's prospects of exploring human nature was what drew him to psychology and there was no interest in I/O psychology. Another participant highlighted a lack of interest in the corporate world and I/O. A different perspective was offered by a participant who said that his actual interest lies in social psychology but he chose to study clinical psychology because it is closer to it than other areas like I/O and he finds I/O to be boring.

I am interested in clinical psychology. I like abnormal psychology. It is interesting to listen to people and I want to help them. I think of it as my life purpose…. And my interests don't align with I/O psychology (Participant 1).

I am interested in human nature…. I grew up as a curious person and I wish to explore the human nature (Participant 8).

I am actually interested in social psychology and clinical is closer to it than I/O…. Moreover, I/O is boring (Participant 7).

To be honest, I don’t feel interested in corporate world (Participant 13)

3.3 Key theme 3—personality and motivation

According to the American Psychological Association’s Dictionary of Psychology (2022), personality consists of the enduring characteristics and behavior that comprise a person's unique adjustment to life, including major traits, interests, drives, values, self-concept, abilities, and emotional patterns [31]. Motivation is the impetus that gives purpose or direction to behavior and operates in humans at a conscious or unconscious level.

The personality and motivation of the participants were important reasons for them not choosing I/O psychology. Despite differences in the level of concern about money, overall income was not a major motivator behind participants’ choices. One participant expressed that she has chosen clinical psychology due to her empathetic nature. Later she added that she would not consider I/O even if it had more flexibility because she lacks the soft skills that she thinks are required in the I/O setting. For another participant, her personality match was a reason for not selecting I/O and she mentioned that she has a highly sensitive personality and she does not have the diplomatic skills that can help in navigating the I/O field. A participant with a history of psychological trauma hinted towards her personal experience as the motivation behind choosing clinical psychology and not I/O psychology. She further added that she has the desire to understand human behavior. One participant talked of her aim to work with children who have special needs or have some learning disability as she has a learning disability issue. Her motivation was further fuelled by her grandparent who suffers from bipolar disorder. One participant thought of helping people as her life mission and for the same, she gave preference to clinical psychology over I/O psychology. These themes are highlighted by the following statements:

I am interested in clinical psychology because I have an empathetic nature and this field would suit me.… I would still not…my temperament and nature do not align with I/O…I don’t have the soft skills for the corporate world (Participant 3).

I am interested in clinical psychology because my personality matches this field…. I can still have a career in the corporate sector after clinical psychology but cannot do the opposite…. I am a highly sensitive person and I can't be diplomatic…. I feel that diplomacy is needed in I/O and even though it also there in clinical but not on the same level…. there's too much stress in industrial organizations (Participant 6).

Personal reasons are behind it…. I am from Kashmir (India)…. also, there is a desire to understand human behavior (Participant 4).

I have a learning disability… I am a slow learner which is also a type of disability…. I also have a bipolar grandparent…. so, these are my reasons for choosing clinical…. I am interested in working with children who have special needs/learning disabilities…. want to make education affordable for them somehow…. also, I want to work as a school counselor and later maybe have my own practice….so clinical was the only viable option (Participant 5).

4 Discussion

As presented above, the participants identified a wide range of factors that influenced and motivated them to not opt for I/O psychology. The key themes of practicality, interest, as well as personality, and motivation heavily relied on the participants’ personal preferences and choices. These key themes were highlighted by the participants in the context of the job and career prospects that they associated with particular fields of psychology. For instance, they associated the job of a therapist with clinical psychology and a human resources job with I/O psychology. Even when questioned on the income aspect of their chosen field (clinical psychology), the participants, despite being from economically diverse backgrounds, did not seem to mind the income disparity that favored I/O graduates. For participants who came from a high economic background, this aspect did not hold as much relevance. Similarly, despite some contemplation, participants from relatively weaker economic backgrounds also put their interest ahead of money. For instance, participant 8 described his economic background as rich and did not mind the financial aspects, he was instead focused on the gap between theory and practice in the area of I/O, and highlighted his curiosity towards human nature to be a reason for not opting for I/O psychology. Likewise, participant 6, who described her economic background as middle class did contemplate the financial aspect of I/O psychology, but it did not influence her decision to pursue I/O psychology.

When selecting a major for specialization, the focus of all the participants, was also on adaptability and compatibility with their potential work environments. This component is consistent with person-environment (P-E) fit, where personal characteristics are thought to be primarily responsible for one’s behavior [15, 18]. The participants perceived their personality, skills, and interests to be different from the personality, skills, and interests of those individuals who are employed in the I/O fields. Supplementary fit is another conceptualization of P-E fit and it happens when an individual supplement, embellishes, or possesses features that are similar to others in an environment [40]. The participants repetitively hinted at their personal preference being influenced by the potential work environment associated with their preferred field of psychology. They focused on soft skills like diplomacy, which they found to be necessary for I/O fields as a characteristic of people employed there, but found it to be absent in them, which further contributed to their perception of them being incongruent with I/O fields.

Likewise, the participant's desire for job flexibility, scope, and growth in a career did not align with the perceived necessities of the I/O field. Therefore, there was no perceived person-job (P-J) fit. P-J fit is defined by Sekiguchi [40] as the fit between the desires of a person and the attributes of a job or the fit between the abilities of a person and the demands of a job. These happen to be the extended concepts of complementary fit which is another dimension of P-E Fit, along with supplementary fit [40]. Therefore, the participants of the study did not see themselves fitting in within the I/O workplace setting. They saw their attributes and objectives to be different from individuals employed in the I/O setting, the demands of the I/O setting, as well as the overall I/O workplace. So, there is no perceived person-organization (P-O) fit, which is a lack of overall compatibility between individuals and organizations [21]. Even though P-O fit and P-J fit have traditionally been seen in the context of employees’ selection, they can provide a strong basis for understanding potential employee perspectives, especially in the context of students’ reflections.

Self-presentation theory can also be used to explain the findings of the present study. According to Baumeister and Hutton [5], self-presentation is behavior that attempts to convey certain information about oneself or some image of oneself to other people. Actions are seen in the context of these motivations and these often happen when one knows they will be evaluated, even potentially. Baumeister [4] identified two types of self-presentation motivations. First, in the context of matching one’s self-presentation to other’s expectations and preferences, i.e., trying to fulfill other people’s expectations about one’s self. The second type of self-presentation refers to matching one’s self-presentation to one’s ideal self, i.e., fulfilling one’s expectations. In the case of participants from the present study, there was a focus on a lack of soft skills, lack of personality match, lack of knowledge, and inadequate information in the context of I/O psychology, and hence, the participants were shielded away from I/O psychology. The participants might be thinking along these lines because they felt that these factors would cause them to be negatively evaluated by their peers and supervisors in I/O workplaces. Therefore, the participant's reasons for not pursuing I/O psychology could have been consciously (or even subconsciously) influenced by a motivation for self-presentation. There is some evidence that self-presentation can be subconsciously triggered by stimuli [44]. The influence of sub-conscious presentation was found to be the same as that of consciously triggered self-presentation [44]. In the context of the present result, it can be said that participants were consciously or subconsciously trying to protect their self-presentation to others as well as to themselves. This could have caused the participants to perceive the I/O workplace as a potentially stressful environment where they would not be able to meet the expectations that are set out for them by their colleagues and the nature of the work itself could mean that they were bound to be unsuccessful in some way. This is possible that self-presentation to one’s ideal self was also happening. This could also motivate them to stay away from the I/O area as they imagined not being able to fulfill their expectations. Many of the participants have already stated that their personality, and interest are incompatible with I/O psychology. Self-determination theory [35] can also be used to explain some of the findings of the present research. According to this theory, there are three universal human needs—competence, relatedness, and autonomy. There is evidence to show that fulfillment of these needs will lead to growth, development, and personal well-being [35]. In the context of the present results, all three key themes-practicality (with its sub-themes of flexibility, lack of growth, and scope), interest, personality, and motivation, do not seem to promote competence, relatedness, and autonomy. Taking all these into perspective into account as to why the participants of the present study did not take I/O psychology, it can be said that participants of the present study did not see a match between their personality, interest, motivation, and the requirement of the I/O field. Moreover, they were also trying to deal with their conscious and subconscious self-presentation to others as well as to themselves by not opting for I/O psychology. Furthermore, they were also perceiving that their basic human needs of competence, relatedness, and autonomy would not be fulfilled in I/O-related fields.

5 Limitations

Despite some of the important contributions of the present study, the present study also has certain limitations. Firstly, the brainstorming session and the interviews were conducted with students from a single university in a metro city in India, thus unintentionally disregarding other students' perspectives that might have influenced their decisions for not choosing I/O psychology, especially from the non-metro and rural contexts. The gender lens was not used in explaining the reasons for not choosing I/O psychology could be another limitation of the present research. The current study utilized brainstorming and conventional content analysis techniques only, this could be another limitation as some other methods would have provided more perspectives on why participants did not opt for I/O psychology.

6 Conclusion

As this research aims to shed light on the reasons behind I/O psychology not enjoying the same popularity among students as other psychological fields, the findings of the present study would help in providing relevant insight into areas that need to be focused upon for I/O psychology to grow. It would also help psychology to prosper in India and elsewhere as a diverse field whose popularity is not concentrated in only one or two sub-fields. Being aware that students lacked interest and were not motivated in the I/O field due to the reasons highlighted in this research can help educators teach the subject in a better way by redirecting some of their efforts toward making students aware of this area of psychology. The findings of the present research would also encourage students to apply and aim for I/O psychology as a graduate specialization and envision I/O as a career prospect. Studying the subject will help boost opportunities for students in the field, allowing them to apply for licensure wherever necessary, enabling them to be certified in the field, and enhancing their ability to secure jobs in the I/O market. Studying this area of psychology can expose an individual to a high-paying field and competitive salaries, while also allowing one to impact change in the workplace. A specialized degree in the field can allow students to collaborate and work with professionals from diverse fields. Moreover, a large number of students being interested in I/O psychology would reduce the stress on graduate school resources of subfields like clinical psychology, specifically about resources and time that can be saved on reviewing graduate applications alone, and reduce the rat race that is observed in graduate school admissions. On the contrary, a reduction in the number of students studying this field could lead to fewer people being employed in the field which can affect the ability of organizations to effectively interact with their employees and optimize operations, as well as reduce the efficacy of employees by hampering work culture, work dynamics and overall environment of the workplace.