Employment psychology; the application of scientific methods to the selection, training and grading of employees

Front matter

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MACMILLAN & CO., Limited

Introduction

Science finds that individuals differ, and differ widely, in any trait or combination of traits. They thus differ in their fitness for certain studies in school, games at play, and jobs at work. Industrial practice finds that a large fraction of this variability remains within a group willing to do a given sort of work at a given wage per hour.

Consequently if there are ten applicants for a certain job there will commonly be a large advantage to the employer who selects the most fit rather than the least fit of the ten. Also if an individual has the choice among ten jobs of equal wage there will commonly be a large advantage to him if he selects the job for which he is most fit rather than the one for which he is least fit. Other things being equal, both the employer and the employee gain in proportion as men work at a job for which they are more fit than any other men are, and as each man is given the job for which he is better fitted than for any other job. The country as a whole, of course, gains very greatly as such a double fit is approximated.

If sufficient ability and effort are expended it is possible to measure the comparative fitness of any number of men for any one given job, or the comparative fitness of any one man for any number of different jobs. These are the tasks of scientific personnel work, the former being the special work of the employment manager and the latter being the special work of the vocational counsellor.

In some cases a direct trial at the job itself is still the best way to measure fitness; but usually the scientific

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X INTRODUCTION

employment manager has some principles of selection which operate in advance of an actual trial. Among these means of provisional selection or limitation of the numbers for actual trial, objective measurements of the candidate's abilities and achievements and aptitudes are being adopted rapidly by progressive employers. Among such objective measurements, those devised by psychologists have recently attracted special attention by their promise of special usefulness. They seem destined to save time, trouble, and money in many cases.

Dr. Link's book is important because it gives an honest, impartial account of the use of psychological tests under working conditions in a representative industry. He has the great merit of writing as a man of science assessing his own work, not as an enthusiast eager to make a market for psychology with business men. Indeed the story of his experiments is distinctly conservative, for in many cases he could have obtained an even better prediction of success at a given job than he did obtain, by applying the technique of partial correlations and the regression equation so as to obtain a weighted composite score from a team of tests.

Dr. Link's book also gives much valuable detail concerning the practical arrangements for investigating the merits of tests and for putting satisfactory ones into operation. It will be read with interest and profit by students of psychology and of business and industrial efficiency.

Edward L. Thorndike.

teachers* College^ Columbia University,

TABLE OF CONTENTS PART I— PSYCHOLOGICAL TESTS

PAGE

Foreword 3

IL A First Experiment 22

IIL Applying the Results 39

IV. Selecting Girls as Assemblers 53

V. The Portable Laboratory 62

VI. Testing Men Assemblers 69

VII. Clerks ^^

VIII. Stenographers, Typists, and Comptometrists 88

IX. Testing to Specification 103

X. Machine Operators . 112

XI. Apprentice Toolmakers 123

XII. General Intelligence, A Dialogue 130

XIII. Language and Literacy Tests 140

XIV. The Technique of Giving Tests 154

XV. The Vocational Value of Tests 171

XVI. The Scope of Psychological Tests 188

With Special Reference to the Selection of Higher Executives.

XVII. The Scope of Psychological Tests (cont'd) 195

Part I Psychological Tests

The practical possibilities of psychological tests are now generally conceded^ both by the professional psychologist and the industrial layman. Thus far, however, the applications of these tests to industry, particularly in respect to employment, have been fragmentary and intangible. Before industrial leaders will commit themselves to any definite psychological program they demand a concrete account of the tangible results arising from a thorough and comprehensive application of psychological tests to typical industrial problems.

Part I is devoted largely to such an account. It describes the results obtained from the application of psychological tests to employment problems under typical industrial conditions. Moreover, it describes the method by which these results were obtained. Results in themselves are of little value unless they are secured by a method which will produce similar results when applied elsewhere. For that reason special pains are taken to make clear the steps by which the results were reached. The psychologist not familiar with shop and office conditions will find these steps very valuable when he attempts to make his own applications to industrial problems. The industrial layman who is not familiar with the exact methods of psychology will find them a practical guide in estimating the value of attempts made to install psychological methods in his special domain.

The immediate future is likely to see a very extensive application of tests to industry, and the methods by which this extension will be made is therefore of utmost importance to all those interested in the problems of employment.

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Few words in the English language have been more frequently used and more often misused during the past few years than the word psychology. The term psychology is on almost every tongue and page. It is impossible to talk or read for more than a few minutes before running into a reference to the "psychology of this" or the "psychology of that". No problem to-day but has its psychological solution, at least in the minds of psychology's ambitious friends. A new soprano electrifies her audience with the beautiful art of her song; the musical critic on the following morning attributes her success to the psychic quality of her voice. The speaker of the evening wishes to explain a social phenomenon which to most people, including himself, is an unfathomable mystery; he succeeds very nicely with an allusion to the psychology of the mob. An enterprising newspaper wishes to solve one of the most vexed questions of the day, the question of prohibition; it calls upon psychologists to discuss what it is pleased to term: "Alcohol — a soul hunger". A well-known poetess writes a doggerel on "achievement" and calls it "The Psychology of Action". The nature of the problem matters little. Be it financial, political, military, or social, when all other explanations have failed, the psychological solution is the final and hopeful appeal.

Professional psychologists should feel complimented at this wholesale advertising, this widespread confidence

In their profession. No doubt they do. However, many a psychologist to-day, while standing in complacent satisfaction at the greatness of his medium, can not help wondering what all the fuss is about. And not a few must feel like the fisherman of the Arabian Nights tale when he uncorked the flask and let out the genii. They must be wishing the thing had not escaped them quite so fast. This illustration, however, is a misleading one. According to the story, the genii of the flask was an accommodating spirit who did anything which his master required. But psychology will not do everything which the psychologist could require of it. Far from it. Only those who know least about psychology can make it solve every problem and perplexity. As a consequence, professional psychologists are put in an embarrassing position in the eyes of the world. In the face of a prevailing impression that the powers of psychology are unlimited, the psychologist knows full well that his science, like every other science, can do some things particularly well but can by no stretch of the imagination accomplish everything.

How psychology came to be regarded as the panacea for all ills is difficult to explain. We may attribute it to the great American virtue of advertising, or to that other well-known trait, credulity. If Barnum were living to-day, he would undoubtedly have a side show of psychological wonders. However, it has been characteristic of people from times past to put all their eggs into one basket. Five thousand years ago, astrology was the cult which could solve all human ills. The astrologer was succeeded by the philosopher, and for many centuries more, philosophy was regarded as the touchstone of the sciences, and the philosopher as the wisest of the wise. To take things

EMPLOYMENT PSYCHOLOGY DEFINED 7

philosophically was to solve all the problems of life. The mathematician and physicist also had their day. Archimedes could have pried the globe out of its orbit if he had had the necessary fulcrum. Medicine was a universal remedy for all maladies of the flesh and spirit long before it had passed the blood-letting stage. All of these panaceas, however, survived their initial greatness, and to-day are contributing their modest bit to the collective progress of the race.

Psychology, too, when the furor of its debut is over — if one may speak of it in such frivolous terms — will settle down into a less dazzling, but certainly more constructive, existence. It is difficult to predict how soon this will be. It is safe to predict that many fingers will be burned before it does happen. However, psychology will assume its distinct place among the applied sciences. It will also develop that professional caste and dignity which give to medicine and all other well-established professions their standing in the eyes of the world.

But what is psychology? Having made the broad statement which most people will readily admit, that few of those who talk so glibly about psychology have an adequate conception of what it is — we must now answer the question: What is it?

Psychology may perhaps be more clearly defined if it is compared with a similar science, for example, the science of medicine. The general nature of medicine is reasonably well understood, and there are no great illusions as to its powers. Nevertheless, medicine has passed through the same stage of nebulosity through which psychology is passing to-day. A thousand years ago, medicine was an art with almost unlimited powers. There was no ill of flesh or spirit for which the ancient healer did not possess some infallible formula, some unfailing ritual. Among the American Indians, the medicine man was a powerful physician who, by dancing wildly and beating loudly on a drum, was able to frighten off the evil spirit which had taken a temporary abode in the patient's vitals. At a later day, and not altogether beyond our own memory, medicine consisted largely of home remedies. Sage tea, bitters, avoidance of the night air, a rabbit's foot — these and many other cures and preventives are within the memory of the present generation.

Although some of these primitive home remedies occasionally proved useful they were, in general, a decided failure. Their failure was due to the fact that their use did not rest upon a scientific knowledge of the human anatomy and of the exact effects upon the body of certain drugs and expedients. The physician of that day knew little about the mechanism of circulation, respiration, and digestion. His cures were due more or less to shrewd guesses. To-day the guessing method has been largely if not entirely displaced, and a scientific method has taken its place. A physician to-day would not think of examining a man without registering his exact temperature, using a stethoscope on his heart and lungs, taking his bloodpressure, counting his pulse, making a urinalysis, etc. All of these measures are tests, and it is by means of these accurate tests that the physician is enabled to pronounce a reliable verdict on a man's bodily condition. Medicine is still far from being a perfect science, but it is at least so far perfect that its general superiority over the older methods is universally conceded.

Psychology, like medicine, has had its evolution. The early Greeks thought the mind a fine essence or a very subtle gas, which animated the body with its presence.

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At death, this spirit left the body at its last breath, and departed into some other region. This belief, in a more or less refined form, constituted the heart of psychology as far down as the present decade. Within the memory of most people are the famous experiments conducted by many prominent physicians, in which bodies were weighed on the most delicate scales just before and just after death in order to discover if the departure of the soul was accompanied by any falling off in weight. At the present time, psychology is in what we have called the stage of home remedies. People are believing all manner of queer things and following all kinds of strange advice because they are labelled psychology. Hypnotism and the ability of the psychologist to make people do impossible stunts are still considered a psychological sine qua non. Indeed, it is most common for people to ask whether it is possible for a psychologist to read minds, and they are usually disappointed at a negative answer. The writer once made a deep impression on a group of hard-headed business men to whom he was being introduced as a psychologist. During the introduction he remarked to one of the men: "You are a Cornell man, are you not?** This happened to be the case and all the men marvelled at the uncanny insight of this psychologist, when, as a matter of fact, his question was nothing more than a lucky guess. Instances of this kind, and the frequent misuses of the word psychology which have been pointed out before, are evidence of the nebulous idea which psychology suggests to the majority of those who use the word.

However, within the last fifty years, in secluded and little known laboratories, psychology has been developing very rapidly into a genuine science. The workings of the mind have been subject to a scrutiny as minute and thorough lO EMPLOYMENT PSYCHOLOGY

as that which the body receives at the hands of physicians. To be sure^ it is impossible to dissect the mind as the body can be dissected, and yet, in a way, it is quite possible; for to the psychologist, the mind is first of all the nervous system and the activities which it controls. In order to understand the mind, the psychologist must thoroughly understand that most intricate of all mechanisms, the nervous system. And in order to understand the workings of this mechanism, it is necessary to study not only its structure but its activities as well. The actions of people are the best clue to the nature of their nervous system, or their mental make-up. However, the study of these actions must be of a special nature. Not every study of the mind can be called psychology. The novelist, writing a so-called "psychological novel'*, may make a very extensive and subtle study of the actions and thoughts of the characters which he is portraying; but such a study would not be considered psychology by a psychologist, any more than the autobiography of an invalid would be considered a treatise on medicine by a physician. The psychological study of the mind applies to human actions the same scientific methods which physics applies to the study of matter, medicine to the study of the body, or chemistry to the analysis of compounds. The true psychology, and the core of facts around which the many nebulous ideas of psychology current to-day are clustered, is this exact psychology, this psychology of scientific methods.

What are the applications of this science to the problems of employment.^ Before answering this question it will be wise to consider briefly what we mean by the scientific method; for, if any word is more constantly used and misused than psychology^ that word is science.

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Every propagandist for a new scheme to solve the problems of mankind labels it "The Science" of something or other. Since the value of the scientific method is undisputed, the addition of the word scientific to any scheme whatsoever immediately raises a presumption in its favor in the eyes of the credulous consumer. Science, like psychology, is a word in whose name many sins are committed.

The word science comes from the Latin word scire^ to know; but this fact tells us nothing about the meaning of science; a man may know the entire " Encyclopaedia Britannica " and yet not be a scientist. Science means more than knowledge, however extensive. It means more, even, than accurate knowledge; for an accountant may know every figure and item in his accounts and yet not be a scientist. A scientist is one who can formulate and apply standardized knowledge in a given field. And the scientific method is a method by which knowledge is standardized and refined far beyond the ordinary powers of the human mind. But what do we mean by standardized knowledge ? Is this not carrying even science a bit too far, some one will probably ask? Not at all. An inch is an example of standardized knowledge. How many people could agree on the size of an inch without the use of a rule.^ In the Bureau of Standards at Washington lies the original rule, a metal bar which is used as the standard for every other inch. But this is only a first step in science. What should we say to the tool and gauge maker who measured his work with a foot rule? For his purposes science has devised the micrometer which can measure distances as small as .0001 of an inch and less. The gauge maker is a master of standardized or scientific knowledge in his field. If he were to send the drawings and specifications of his work to another gauge maker on the other side of the continent, that gauge maker could turn out an exactly similar piece of work.

Moreover, he could prove, by means of his instruments, that the work was identical. The chemist does not make up his compounds after a cook-book formula, so many cups of this and so many spoonfuls of that. He weighs his materials on the finest of scales which tell him to a thousandth of a gram what amount he has. The cook-book method is the empirical or home remedies method and many excellent results this method has produced; but no two cooks can obtain the same result from the same recipe. The scientist can, because his method is standardized and minute, and enables him to speak in terms that always mean the same thing. This statement holds true in any field of facts to which the scientific method has been applied. Another excellent example is the weather report. The weather man is still the subject of frequent jibes. It is a common practice to look at the weather report and then believe the contrary. But how many people are willing to have the weather man replaced by the good old-fashioned goosebone prophet? And how many would stake their own empirical judgment against the scientific inductions of the weather man ? Meteorology is the result of applying the scientific method to the study of atmospheric conditions, that is, substituting for the crude and unaided human faculties such scientific tests as thermometers, barometers, rain-fall gauges, and other quantitative tests. Consequently, weather men all over the country, in making up their weather reports, can describe atmospheric conditions to each other in standard and unambiguous terms. There is no Yankee or southern dialect in the science of meteorology.

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The same can be said of any field of facts to which the scientific method has been applied, whether it be astronomy, physics, biology, meteorology, chemistr]^ mathematics, acoustics, or hydrostatics. In every case, science consists of the application of an exact and refined method to the study of the facts, with the result that we have knowledge which has two chief characteristics: first, it is relatively free from the inaccuracies and prejudices of the unaided human faculties; secondly, it is standard knowledge; that is, knowledge which can be transmitted in unambiguous and indisputable form from one person to another, or from one time to another.

It is worth while clearing up some of the ambiguities and misunderstandings which cling to the words science and psychology, because by doing so the definition of our own subject, employment psychology, is made more easy. Psychology has been defined as the application of the scientific method to the actions of the mind in general. Employment psychology, therefore, may be defined as tlTe"application of the scientific method to the mental actions concerned in employment.

The application of science to the problem of employment is just beginning to receive serious attention. The old-fashioned method, and the method which is still commonly in use, is the method of "hire and fire". That is to say, there is no particular method. Every employer uses his own method, and each one obtains various results. In general, the practice is to receive a number of applicants, look them over, ask them a series of general questions, and then hire those that "look good '*. Many amusing strictures on this crude method have been written. A quotation from one of these will suffice to typify the rest: "One large manufacturing establishment has appointed as monarch of the 'hiring-on window' a man who had the misfortune to lose a leg in the company's employ. As a consequence of this loss, he was given his present life job which he performs to the queen's taste. He was induced to describe his methods and they were something as follows: 'On Mondays I turns down all the men with white collars, on Tuesdays all with blue eyes, Wednesday all with dark eyes. Red-headed men I never hires, and there do be days when I has a grouch and hires every tenth man.'" This exaggeration serves at least to bring out into sharp relief the weakness of the old and present method of employing. This weakness, in brief, is due to the absolute reliance upon the particular ability and experience of the individual or individuals who happen to be doing the hiring. This method, like the method of borne remedies in other fields, is not without its virtues. There are undoubtedly people who have an almost uncanny ability to select the right applicant for the right place. However, the most experienced employment manager will admit that its shortcomings more than outweigh its virtues. These shortcomings are the shortcomings of every unscientific or home remedy method, namely, the lack of accurate standards or measurements and the failure to provide a safeguard against the thousand and one prejudices to which the human flesh is liable and by which personal judgments are so frequently vitiated.

A few general instances will serve to bring out these weaknesses more distinctly. In a large employment office there are usually three or four or more men and women taking applications and interviewing applicants. Each of these interviewers has probably had a different kind of experience and training, and each may have different

EMPLOYMENT PSYCHOLOGY DEFINED I5

Ideas on the best way in which to hire applicants. Therefore, even though there is some understanding between them regarding the general character of the applicants they wish to hire, their methods of selection are not standard, and their results are bound to be different. For instance, it is quite within the realm of probability that each of two interviewers should interview in turn and unknown to each other the same applicants, and that one interviewer should hire one-half of those interviewed while the other hired the other half. Even if a corps of interviewers should happen to work together harmoniously, the fact that the personnel of the corps is subject to constant change will result in a corresponding change in its standards of employment. In one year, an entirely new staff of interviewers may come into office, with the consequence that the entire method of hiring is radically changed.

But even in smaller places, where one person does all the hiring, there is no guarantee of uniformity. To begin with, there is the same likelihood that the person who does the hiring will be succeeded by another. But in addition to this source of variability, each man in himself possesses a variety of moods and methods which make it impossible for him to produce standard results. On some days the interviewer will be in a jovial and sympathetic mood, so that he will find it almost impossible to turn away even the most unsuitable applicant. On other days he ^ay be cross enough to turn away most desirable applicants. Moreover, every individual is subject to certain prejudices of religion, race, caste, etc., which affect his judgment. Unconsciously, these prejudices operate in the mental processes by which the interviewer selects from among the available candidates. If two applicants are applying for the same position, and one seems considerably more desirable than the other, the interviewer may be just on the point of hiring this candidate when his eye is suddenly caught by the pin of a fraternity which he heartily dislikes. The sight of this pin may immediately cause him to shift his favorable opinion to the other and less desirable applicant. Anyone familiar with employment conditions knows that the instances given above could be multiplied indefinitely.

The casual methods prevalent not only in employment work but in the handling of workers throughout industry in general is one of the anomalies of the age. For fifty years and more, the utmost attention has been paid to the development and refinement of the mechanical processes of manufacture. The division of labor has been carried to a point which would have been incredible a generation ago. But the division of laborers is almost as haphazard now as it was then. Now every large industry has its chemical and physical laboratory, in which it examines most minutely the quality of the materials which it receives and fabricates. But the effort during all this time devoted to the improvement of methods for handling human material has been ridiculously cheap and inadequate. As a single and a very practical instance of this easy-going policy, as applied to employment problems, the following quotation from an address to a convention of California railroad men is given: "Would you, gentlemen, enter into a contract to buy material from a concern, the excellence of whose product you had grave reason to doubt. ^ Would you place orders to the extent of three and one-half million dollars a year, waive inspection of material, accept whatever was offered you, and make no effort to get your money's worth?

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You would not — not if you expected to hold your job. And yet, that is what you are doing with respect to the public education system of California. In 191 6 the railroads of this state paid in operative taxes ^7,151,583. Of this sum 51 per cent, or ^3,647,300, was used for purposes of public education. "The boys and girls sent you from the public schools you take into your service ^ sometimes after a perfunctory mental examination^ generally with none; in other words, you waive inspection^ and then complain of the character of the material after it has reached you and been paid for."

What has psychology done to solve these problems and to introduce into the employment methods of to-day a more scientific procedure? The greatest single contribution of scientific psychology to the solution of this problem has been the application of mental tests. A mental test is a device, similar to a measuring instrument in any of the sciences, by which certain mental activities can be accurately measured. The use of mental tests is not absolutely new or unfamiliar. All formal examinations may be regarded as coming under the general category of mental tests. A written examination which is absolutely alike for all those taking it, and for which every person is allowed exactly the same amount of time, is a good example of tests in general. Such tests have been used quite commonly in schools, as requirements for entrance into college, and for similar purposes. The civil-service system is a good example, outside of the field of psychology, of the development of standard mental tests. The civil-service tests are standardized for all parts of the country and are given under conditions that approach uniformity. This is what gives them their value. It is evident, therefore, that the use of psychological tests is quite in accord with the dictates of common sense and good practice. However, while similar in principle, psychological tests differ from the general tests just mentioned in being far more refined and accurate. They are developed by a method based on very careful experiments and the use of accurate statistical formulae. The details of this method as applied to employment are explained in subsequent chapters.

This method is gradually making it possible to obtain standard measures of the mental qualities, measures which are infinitely more accurate than those used in the past. By means of these measures or tests, it is becoming possible to set up standard specifications for the kinds of applicants who are desired for a given position, and to fill these specifications exactly as the tool maker would fill the specifications for a tool which he is to make. Not only will it be possible to apply these standards in the particular office or location where they have been originated, but it will be possible to apply them in all places. The psychological tests devised for use in the army, for instance, were distributed throughout every camp in the country, and as a result, the classification of all privates, commissioned and non-commissioned officers, was based largely upon standard measures.