Psychology and Industrial Efficiency

Edwaard K. Strong, Jr. branched industrial psychology into guidance with his researches on vocational interests. Hugo Munsterberg, with his researches into industrial accidents and his book “Psychology and Industrial Efficiency”, published in 1913, put psychology into the study of the worker. Such books as Whitting Williams’s “What’s on the Worker’s Mind” and “Mainsprings of Men” started an emphasis on studying the worker.

During World War I psychologists were quite active in the war effort, developing group tests for army recruits and aiding in the development of procedures for the selection of officer personnel. In fact, many of the major postwar developmental areas of industrial psychology such as group testing, trade testing, rating scales and the personality inventory had their roots in the activities of psychologists in the World War I war effort.