368 Industrial-Organizational Psychology
more common after the war (Viteles, 1932). Other labels
wereemployment psychology(Burtt, 1926) and psychotech-
nology(Jenkins, 1935). When the American Association of
Applied Psychology (AAAP) formed in 1937, a section
was created and labeled Industrial and Business Psychology
(Section D). In 1945, the AAAP merged with the American
Psychological Association (APA), and Division 14, Industrial
and Business Psychology, was established. “Business” was
dropped from the division’s name in 1962. In 1973, “Organi-
zational” was added to the name, and APA Division 14
became the Division of Industrial and Organizational Psy-
chology. This label remained when Division 14 incorporated
in 1982 as the Society for Industrial and Organizational
Psychology, Inc. (SIOP), Division 14 of the APA.
In recollection of these name changes, APA-Division 14
(now SIOP) past president (1972–1973) Robert M. Guion
recalled,
In the late 1960s (the decade of the youthful revolt), youthful in-
dustrial psychologists... demanded a Division 14 name change
to indicate a change in the focus of the field. They opted for the
name “Division of Organizational Psychology.” Vocal adherents
did not want to eliminate the heritage.... There were enough
traditionalists and enough “young Turks” to make compromise
necessary. One name that was considered as more descriptive
than any of the others was “Division of the Study of the Psy-
chology of Behavior at Work.” It was never seriously considered
(it defies acronym), and thus I/O was born. I think this may have
been the most important name-change debate in I/O history dur-
ing the last half of the century. First of all, its abbreviation of
general choice was I/O. The slash, /, is a printers’ symbol for
“or.” Most of the next couple of decades were times of division,
with people being either “I’s” or “O’s”—there is still not much
real communication between the two components of the field.
The name of the division and the subsequent Society, however,
used the conjunction “and,” implying integration of these two
components. (Robert M. Guion, personal communication, July
27, 2000)Renewed interest in renaming SIOP to accurately reflect the
scope of the science and practice recently materialized (i.e.,
Church, 2000).
During the early years, definitions described the field al-
most exclusively as a technology with a focus on practical
issues. For example, Kingsbury (1923) stated that business
psychology or psychotechnology is “interested in acquiring
facts and principles only in so far as they can be turned di-
rectly to account in the solution of practical problems, in
industry, selling, teaching, or other fields of human behavior”
(p. 5). Forty-five years later, Blum and Naylor (1968) defined
the discipline as “simply the application or extension of psy-
chological facts and principles to the problems concerning
human beings operating within the context of business and
industry” (p. 4).
Over time, definitions included science (theories and re-
search) and practice, and a wide range of work-related topics.
In both editions of the Handbook of Industrial and Organiza-
tional Psychology,Dunnette stated,Industrial and Organizational Psychology istoday an academic
discipline, an emerging blend of research, theory and practice.
The blend offers great promise, in the years ahead, for further de-
veloping and extending our knowledge of those behavioral
processes which are critical to an understanding of interactions
between persons and the institutions and organizations of a soci-
ety. (Dunnette, 1976, p. 12, 1990, p. 23)Although the definition has expanded, a common underly-
ing theme persists: improving the workplace and work lives.Scope of ContentA discipline is defined by the kinds of questions that are
asked, which can be determined by examining the content of
the field at different points in time. Changes in scope are evi-
dent from reviewing textbooks (e.g., Viteles, 1932) and chap-
ters in the Annual Review of Psychologyand the Handbook of
Industrial and Organizational Psychology(Dunnette, 1976;
Dunnette & Hough, 1990–1992; Triandis, Dunnette, &
Hough, 1994). Table 18.1 contains the contents of Viteles’s
book. Table 18.2 contains a list of topics from the chapter
titled “Industrial Psychology” in the first volume of the An-
nual Review of Psychology(Shartle, 1950). Similar topics
were covered in chapters for the next 10 years. In 1961 and
subsequent years, multiple chapters on related areas, such as
personnel management, industrial social psychology, con-
sumer psychology, personnel selection, program evaluation,
group dynamics, and engineering psychology, were included.
In 1964, the first chapter devoted to organizational psychol-
ogy was published. Table 18.2 displays the broad range of
topics related to I-O psychology from 1961 to 2000.
Dunnette (1976) provided several observations about
changes in content by comparing the 1950Handbook of Ap-
plied Psychology(Fryer & Henry, 1950) and the 1976Hand-
book of Industrial and Organizational Psychology(Dunnette,
1976). He noted that the 1950Handbookconsisted of tech-
niques and applications; scant attention was given to re-
search, research methodology, or theories of individual or
organizational behavior. In contrast, the 1976Handbookcon-
tents, shown in Table 18.3, emphasized research strategies
and methods, theories of behavior, and the psychological
influences and forces of organizational characteristics on
individuals. The earlier handbook covered all areas of applied
psychology, whereas the latter included only I-O, reflecting