378 Industrial-Organizational Psychology
Interest Inventory. The Carnegie program trained and pre-
pared future applied psychologists, especially women, and
paved the way for research, applications, and collaborative
efforts with industry (Hilgard, 1987). Despite its success, the
Division of Applied Psychology was dissolved in 1924 by a
new university president who did not support the enterprise
(Hilgard, 1987).
Following World War I, opportunities for psychology pro-
liferated because of a heightened awareness of psychological
applications and an increased concern for personnel issues by
management (Baritz, 1960; Hilgard, 1987). Forward-looking
executives wanted to extend techniques and programs devel-
oped for the army into private industry (Katzell & Austin,
1992). Consequently, consulting firms formed to respond to
the needs of business and industry. Scott and colleagues at the
Army’s Committee on Classification and Personnel formed
The Scott Company in 1919. The consultants used techniques
such as mental ability group tests, “job standards for career
progression and personnel planning, a performance rating
system, oral trade tests and apprentice training materials, and
a program of personnel administration” (Katzell & Austin,
1992, p. 807). The company advocated a future-oriented
philosophy of cooperative labor relations that was adopted in
the men’s garment industry (Gordon & Burt, 1981). Mary
Holmes Stevens Hayes, a psychologist, was hired as a con-
sultant (one of the first woman professional consultants)
(Koppes, 1997), and she collaborated with Scott in writing a
book for professional personnel managers entitledScience
and Common Sense in Working with Men(Scott & Hayes,
1921). The Scott Company disbanded in the early 1920s
because of financial difficulties and because its founder left to
become president of Northwestern University.
James McKeen Cattell organized the Psychological
Corporation in 1921. Twenty influential psychologists
were directors, and approximately 170 psychologists held
stock (Cattell, 1923). The organization was formed for the
“advancement of psychology and the promotion of the useful
applications of psychology” (Cattell, 1923, p. 165). Accord-
ing to Burnham (1987), the Psychological Corporation was
created to popularize psychology, and the founders tried to
set standards for applied psychology. The corporation failed
miserably under Cattell’s leadership, however. Although
Cattell espoused the application of psychology, he had never
himself been an applied psychologist. Consequently, he pro-
vided little direction to those who worked under him (Sokal,
1981). Sokal (1981) noted that both Cattell’s ineffective lead-
ership and the context in which the corporation existed ex-
plain the company’s failure. By the end of the 1920s, several
applied psychology endeavors and the mental-testing move-
ment had failed. Subsequent leaders (e.g., Bingham) of
the Psychological Corporation were successful in sharing
and implementing psychological techniques for 50 years
(Katzell & Austin, 1992). For example, the Differential Apti-
tude Test and the Bennett Test of Mechanical Comprehension
are widely used today.
Private companies hired full-time psychologists to handle
personnel problems (e.g., Kaufman Department Store, Aetna
Life Insurance, Procter & Gamble, Milwaukee Railway
and Light Company, Scoville Manufacturing Company)
(Katzell & Austin, 1992). In 1919, R. H. Macy and Company
in New York hired psychologist Elsie Oschrin Bregman to ex-
amine the company’s personnel processes. Bregman (1922)
wrote about disputes over the use of psychological tests for
personnel purposes in industry. She described how the com-
pany took the lead in researching tests in the field: “[A]bout
three years ago, an almost unprecedented experiment was
begun. Almost never before had a psychological laboratory
been equipped in an industrial organization, certainly not a
department store, and a psychologist commissioned to exper-
iment in his own field of science” (Bregman, 1922, p. 696).
Research on personnel issues (e.g., selection, placement, fa-
tigue, safety) in organizations flourished during the 1920s
(e.g., Bregman, 1922; Pond, 1927). The Personnel Research
Federation was created in 1921 under the auspices of the
National Research Council to advance “scientific knowl-
edge about men and women in relation to their occupations”
(Bingham, 1928, p. 299).
A widely publicized research study conducted in an orga-
nization was the Hawthorne studies (e.g., Gillespie, 1988;
Roethlisberger & Dickson, 1939). The original purpose of the
study was to examine the relationship between illumination
levels and productivity. A serendipitous finding was that work
groups and attitudes had an effect on performance. (A detailed
description of the study is presented by Roethlisberger and
Dickson, 1939, and Gillespie, 1988.) These studies were im-
portant to the evolution of I-O psychology for several reasons.
The researchers demonstrated the feasibility of conducting
scientific research in organizational settings. Personnel man-
agement as a specialized function was recognized and legit-
imized (Gillespie, 1988). Supervisory personnel training as
an important management activity was discovered (Gillespie,
1988). In addition, a human-relations movement arose in in-
dustrial psychology because of these studies. When Viteles
revised his 1932 textbook, he found that the field had changed
dramatically and in 1953 had to rename his bookMotivation
and Morale in Industryto better represent the discipline
(Katzell & Austin, 1992).
Beginning in the 1950s and through the 1960s, the nation’s
manufacturing-based economy evolved into a service-based
economy, changing the economic/business objective from