Vocational Psychology: Its Problems and Methods Part 1

Vocational Psychology: Its Problems and Methods.

by Harry L. Hollingworth and Leta Stetter Hollingworth.

PREFACE

This book has developed from the material presented in a course on "Psychological Tests in Vocational Guidance and Selection" which the writer was invited to conduct in Teachers' College, Columbia University. The widespread interest in vocational psychology which has grown up in recent years, the eagerness with which even the most superficial and absurd systems of "character a.n.a.lysis" are being adopted and tried out, and especially the lack of references, offering conservative evaluation, to which inquirers may be directed, have made it seem advisable to publish the material in systematic form. The book is essentially a presentation of the problems and methods of that branch of applied psychology which deals with individual differences in mental const.i.tution. In the present instance only those differences are considered which may seem to be significant in determining the individual's choice of a vocation, or in influencing the selection of workers from among a group of applicants or candidates. It is the writer's hope that the book may be suggestive to the individual who seeks to know himself better, helpful to the student and parent who may desire to avoid the wiles of the charlatan, encouraging to the investigator or counsellor who is engaged in carrying forward the solution of vocational problems, and useful to the practical man who may be mainly interested in surrounding himself with competent a.s.sociates and employees. To all those whose published works are referred to in the bibliography, as well as to many not therein mentioned, the writer is under heavy obligations. He is especially indebted to Professor F. G. Bonser, of Teachers' College, for the original invitation to formulate the material, and to Professor Joseph Jastrow, editor of the "Conduct of Mind" series, for most patient and helpful editorial criticism and suggestion.

H. L. HOLLINGWORTH.

Columbia University.

INTRODUCTION

In the present volume Professor Hollingworth makes a distinctive and notable contribution to applied psychology. The problem is an ancient one: that of determining the qualities of men with reference to their fitness for the work of the world. The general problem precedes the special one alike in theory and in practice. The earliest solutions were in the nature of ambitious attempts to read the ear-marks of mental ability in outward signs; under the incentive of the growth of science these gave way to such systems as phrenology and physiognomy. Such revelations, decisive if sound, proved to be vain hopes or hopelessly irrelevant. The impressionistic verdicts gained from actual experience reflected the c.u.mulative ac.u.men of discernment which ever was and remains the issue of wisdom, empirical but authentic. It furnishes suggestive clues to investigation and a check upon its results. The problem came to its own when the modern science of psychology gave it its setting in the rapid acc.u.mulation of knowledge and technique for the interpretation of mental qualities. It at once established the futility of ambitious leads and the necessity of careful, patient and discerning a.n.a.lysis. The present volume surveys the field of attained results and the method of their attainment, in this engaging research.

Central in interest and promise stands the psychological test. In so far as psychology has laid bare the fundamental qualities upon which achievement depends, its application has developed a series of tests to determine how the individual compares with the others or with the average in respect to this, that, and the other const.i.tuent quality. Professor Hollingworth presents the results of such a.n.a.lysis, both in relation to the variety of human traits and in the grading of individuals by reference to the measure of the quality which each possesses. The enumeration is at best provisional, but in its totality cannot go far wrong in establishing the measure of a man. It includes the qualities which can hardly be determined otherwise than by an impressionistic judgment, as well as those appraised by actual achievement under test. There results a mental scale of general ability, adequate to gauge normality and to suggest practical standards of superiority or deficiency.

The question at once arises: how far are the qualities desirable for this or that vocation of a general order, and how far are they specific in their demands. In this respect vocations differ widely. The musical vocation exemplifies a specialized profession depending upon a proficiency that is largely a dower of heredity; yet within this field the psychological test has proved its efficiency by determining the still more specialized facilities that jointly compose the psychology of the musician. In further pursuit of insight the psychological laboratory has undertaken to a.n.a.lyze the qualities needed for the several specialties of modern vocational life, by setting up "test" counterparts of practical occupations, by reducing them to their underlying facilities, by testing the correlation of quality and achievement, and by combining the clues or verdicts of several methods.

Conclusions depend for their value upon logical caution and the technical methods which have been developed to meet these applications. All this is as yet but a program or a limited beginning in its execution; but it is a program well founded in principle and already in part available in practice.

A group of collateral interests supports the enterprise and yields valuable results. The interest in unusual men has led to the psychograph or psychological a.n.a.lysis of the qualities of great men, as an individual study. Men fall into types, by temperament and achievement, by heredity and career. The type makes definite the larger contours of human differences and reveals their specific combination; the charm of biography is psychological as well as historical. The vital import of heredity--practically expressed in the eugenic movement--finds recognition in the study of correlation of traits in those near of kin. Evolution leads to prediction; early taste, talent, achievement, precocity foreshadow ultimate capacity; we learn how far the child is father to the man, how far we may see the future in the early expressions and with what limitations the environment molds character. The most valued because most authentic type of biography is autobiography. Self-a.n.a.lysis is intimate if unreliable, but by this token worthy of study. Professor Hollingworth's contribution to the measure of reliance to be placed upon one's judgment of self in comparison with one's judgment of others and others' judgment of him forms an interesting original study--one of many--incorporated in these chapters.

Of distinctive status are the tests of ability presented by life itself and by the conventional inst.i.tutions which compose the social environment. The processes of education, the rate of advance, the comparative readiness with which one or another discipline is absorbed and mastered: these are at once preparations for life and accredited tests of ability. For these reasons such "school" qualities are subjected to a special study; and fairly conclusive results indicate to what measure they must be supplemented, if not superseded, by the designed psychological test, to meet the conditions of actual selection and employment of men. At this point the several methods converge; for the vocations have a vital interest in the school, as has the school in vocational application of its discipline and training. The actual comparison of results, especially by the method of correlation, has already established the degree of relation--and eventually of cooperation--to be expected of the two. In all these ways has painstaking method supplemented and replaced impressionism, haphazard opinion been supported or overturned by acc.u.mulation of fact, and the scientific approach to the study of vocational fitness become firmly established. The road from theory to practice, if it is to be well built and enduring, must be laid on careful foundation. To such an end this volume is a worthy contribution.

No question of vocational fitness has been more eagerly discussed than the contrasted fitness of men and women, and the consequent basis of differentiation of career desirable or necessary for the two, both as wage-earners and in every other relation of life. A discussion of this problem from the point of view of this volume is wisely included, and in turn a definite negative conclusion reached. It is shown that in the main capacities tested--with several and significant exceptions--men and women, boys and girls, are comparable; individual differences outweigh s.e.x differences. The interpretation of this result will not be uniform, even when due allowance is made for the range of tests responsible for the conclusion. The biologist will continue to insist upon the significance of fundamental differences; the experiences of life reinforce as they express the fact that men and women live with as well as upon a different perspective of psychological equipment; the psychologist may suggest that the tests and comparisons--based in large measure upon comparable and derivative facilities--naturally bring forth the parallel measure in which secondary qualities yield similar issues. It must be noted how largely a large share of conventional vocations call upon specialized and late varieties of intellectual traits; for these precisely, men and women may have comparable fitness, while none the less psychologically contrasted in realms closer to natural function. Women have proved that they are as fit to study--and, if you like, to vote--as are men; as fit to enter and succeed in vocations in terms of tested qualifications. How far the less measurable and collateral qualities make them fit and successful on a different basis, and still leave them contrasted in fundamental reactions, is a very different question. It is well to understand the bearing as well as the range of the ascertained facts of the case.

The modern man and the modern woman live upon the upper ranges of their qualities, and in no respect more momentously than in respect to those qualities exercised and demanded by vocational fitness. In the biological sense they are all highly specialized, refined, derivative, secondary issues of qualities that had a limited scope in the primitive form of life in which the race achieved its maturity and established its psychology. The problem of civilization is to train these original traits of man to the specific cherished purposes of the work of the world. The life of the mind is as highly artificial as the life of the cities; for such is the condition of the twentieth century. Yet the primitive man survives and a.s.serts his own; life is not all vocation. Social and industrial complexity dominates the expressions of human psychology. To unite a comprehension of their foundations with skill in applying their demands is the business of the "applied" psychologist. The present contribution, it is hoped, will prove a helpful aid to those who are striving to understand as well as to those who must apply with what wisdom they command, the available resources of human nature.

JOSEPH JASTROW.

VOCATIONAL PSYCHOLOGY

CHAPTER I

MOTIVES AND ANTECEDENTS OF VOCATIONAL PSYCHOLOGY

VOCATIONAL EFFORTS OF PRIMITIVE MAGIC

Among very primitive people we find the recognition already established that the course of the individual's fortune depends on two distinct factors: external forces and personal characteristics. Individuals similar in type experience different fortunes because of the different external events that attend their respective careers. Equally, individuals of however diverse characteristics suffer the same fortunes at the hands of some common or identical external occurrence. Two combatants of equal skill and valor are rendered unequal by a defective lance; two runners equally swift are made unequal by a pebble in the path; a vigorous babe fails to mature properly because of pestilence, war, or famine. On the other hand, both old and young, weak and strong, stupid and cunning, are alike reduced to helplessness in the face of flood, earthquake, and forest fire.

Primitive thinking, in its attempts to control the course of personal fortune, thus had its attention directed to two groups of factors, each of which it sought to control by such means as it could at the moment devise.

A very early stage of such thinking took the form of the belief that _desire_ could impress itself on the course of physical events and also on the development of personal characteristics. The expression of desire, either of the individual immediately concerned or of others more remotely involved, was consequently invoked and declared in more or less emphatic and overt form as a determining factor in personal fortune. In many cases this expression was given some indirect or symbolic form, as in gesture, ritual, tableau, masquerade, and imitative portrayal.

On the side of physical factors this attempt took the form of crude magic, adjuration, sacrifice, and incantation, all of which were calculated to dispose the physical elements favorably toward the individual concerned in the ceremonials. Crude ritual observances and ceremonies, such as sacrifice, mimicry, and tableau, were believed to influence in some occult way the growth of crops, the changes in weather, the health of enemies, the movements of game, the supply of fish, etc. A typical fishing expedition among the natives of the Caroline Islands aptly ill.u.s.trates this point of view. The chief official is not an expert boatman nor a fisher, but the medicine man of the tribe. He owes his authority not to his knowledge of the habits and haunts of fish, but to his store of incantations and exorcisms. Various rites are conducted before embarking.

The fishermen must leave the island without speaking; and especially, the purpose of the expedition must not be mentioned aloud. A "luck" formula is p.r.o.nounced over the boat. Sacrifices of special foods are offered, lest the lines be broken by sharks or tangled in the rocks. In Mexico, an elaborate pantomime, representing the harvesting of crops, was staged annually at a religious festival. This was believed sufficient to produce the good crops which were desired for the next season. Special dances were performed by persons representing the various vegetables which were particularly coveted.

Among primitive races in almost every part of the world one finds magical properties attributed to a sort of toy which anthropologists call the "bull roarer." It consists merely of a flat stick, attached to the end of a cord.

When whirled around it produces a roaring or humming sound which easily reminds one of the rumble of wind, the roll of thunder, or the distant cry of an animal. In various quarters this instrument is used in a ceremonial way. Since its sound resembles thunder, it is used as a charm against that form of physical violence. Because of its resemblance to both thunder and wind, it is incorporated in elaborate rain-making mysteries. Sometimes it is used to drive or call wild or domesticated animals, and hence comes to be used as a means of bringing luck to hunters. Figures and emblems, carved on the slab of wood, are supposed to specify the particular kind of luck or fortune which the individual seeks.

On the side of personal characteristics the same endeavor took the form of blessings, incantations, dedications, curses, prayers and pet.i.tions, the wearing of symbolic charms and the submission of the infant or youth to a variety of prenatal and childhood experiences and ceremonials. Thus it is believed that by appropriating a dead man's spear and thereby expressing a desire for his skill and valor, these traits of character will pa.s.s to the new owner. Boys are tossed into the air to make them grow tall, and rubbed with crystals and snake-skins to make them clever and intrepid medicine men. By scratching lifelike sketches of bison, deer, and fish on rocks, walls, and weapons, the savage hunter sought to acquire otherwise unattainable adroitness and success. "Disease or death may be produced by operating on the cuttings of a person's hair, the parings of his nails, or the remains of his food, when the person himself is far away. By wearing tiger's teeth a man may make himself brave and fierce." By drinking the blood of bulls he may become stalwart and powerful. The Ojibway Indian, in order to hurt his enemy and thus further his own interests, makes a small image of him and pierces it with a needle in the faith that the enemy will suffer. In order to terminate the latter's career he burns or buries the effigy, uttering magic words as he does so.

Remnants of this primitive magic still persist in the "psychological underworld," and many an old-wives' practice and incantation is in various quarters still believed or professed to further the course of the individual's fortune, or to jeopardize it, by rendering natural forces more benign or malignant, or by exerting some occult molding influence on the infantile abilities and propensities. Thus it is not at all uncommon, even in these days, for children to be dedicated at birth to the ministry, the missionary field, the service of the king, or to some particular cause or propaganda. A woman of the writer's acquaintance, solicitous for the future welfare of her babe, read solid and serious books during gestation in order to balance the emotional influences due to her absorption in music teaching during that period. Many practices of the most superst.i.tious kind are resorted to in order to predetermine the s.e.x, and hence the vocational prospects, of children yet unborn. Reliance on prayer as an effective agent in changing the course of events or the disposition and habits of some other individual is by no means confined to savages. Pet.i.tions that a neighbor may lose his appet.i.te for drink, recover his lost eyesight, or find his wallet are as current in modern times as are official days of prayer for rain. Seeking to influence public opinion by the pa.s.sing of formal resolutions, and modifying character, curing diseases and prolonging life through "absent treatment," the laying on of hands, the contemplation of relics, visitation of shrines, and concerted supplication, are practices which find high warrant in contemporary life. The essential idea behind all these practices seems to be the simple faith that nothing will interfere with the realization of desire, if only that desire is indicated by a method which has official or traditional sanction. The true nature of cause and effect and the conception of natural law are not yet realized on this level of thought.

THE PRACTICES OF MEDIEVAL CLAIRVOYANCE

A more advanced stage in the development of such thinking is indicated by the recognition that both the series of physical events and the individual endowment follow laws which transcend the personal desires of men. Nature comes to be recognized as a system of facts and connections. Both control and foresight henceforth seek to base themselves on the utilization of these stable laws and relationships. Instead of willing the individual's fortune to be thus and so, there is an earnest endeavor to seek for signs and clues of what that fortune is inevitably destined to be. Fortune-making becomes fortune-telling. The accidents and accompaniments of birth, the momentary positions of the planets, the calendar incidents, the hour or day of birth, the local meteorological conditions, birth-marks, stigmata, physiognomic and anthropometric characteristics, the folds of the flesh, the lines of the hand, the mode of birth: every fact that can partic.i.p.ate in a relation of coincidence with the birth of the individual is selected as a sign of some future state of affairs, desirable or untoward, in the fortune of the individual, of his personal, domestic and occupational career.

Thus, in a recently published guide to character a.n.a.lysis based on ancient astrological pretensions, the following characteristics are a.s.serted to belong to those who are born in the month of February:

"Those born in this month are very intuitive and good judges of character and human nature. They are successes in mercantile interests and enterprises. It is said that the best wives are born in this month, being always faithful and devoted. Great sincerity and power are possible for those born in this month. They rise to great heights and on the other hand are inclined to sink to the lowest depths. At times they are inclined to be melancholy, a tendency which they may overcome.

"Most February persons have good taste, are quick at absorbing information, and intuitive. One of their great faults is that they are inclined to be intolerant and cannot make themselves think from another's point of view.

"Their most common diseases are of the nervous and rheumatic orders. They should guard their actions on the ninth and sixteenth day of each month.

Luck day, Sat.u.r.day. Favorite colors, all shades of blue, pink, and Nile green. Lucky stones, sapphire, opal, or turquoise. Lucky numbers, 5 and 7.

They will excel in music and art, and should marry with those born in October, January, or June."

Hardly less common than faith in the horoscope is belief in the detailed prophecies of palmistry. The following is a direct reproduction of paragraphs from a well-known metropolitan American newspaper, of the year 1915 (A. D.), headed, "What Your Fingers Mean:"

"Shorter palm and longer fingers, these show an apt.i.tude for doing small things well. Their owners a.n.a.lyze everything, are supersensitive over trifles, often feeling unintentional slights. When these fingers are slim, as well as longer than the palm, they give to one the quality of diplomacy.

Card sharps and gamblers have these long, slim, smooth fingers. The average-length fingers with an ordinary-sized palm show a well-balanced mind, with a thoroughly commonplace nature. When long fingers (with shorter palm) are knotted at the joints we find an extreme love for the minor parts of construction, whether it be in the building of a bridge or the endless tasks pertaining to a kitchen."

The same thing happens in the case of the individual's own acts. Every petty move and caper is taken to be significant of his future disposition, powers, or achievements. The first word the child utters, the first object for which he reaches, the animal he first imitates, the form of his earliest play activities, nothing that can be identified and described but comes to possess, in someone's mind, some peculiar significance and prognostic value. "Homely in the cradle, lovely at the table," is an oft-quoted maxim among hopeful mothers. "Happy is the bride that the sun shines on," has doubtless served to postpone more than one nuptial ceremony, and being "born under an unlucky star" has equally often afforded a certain consolation for personal awkwardness. A father of the writer's acquaintance believed his boy destined to follow the career of a druggist or pharmacologist, because, as a child, "he was so fond of playing with bottles and of pouring water from one into the other." Any lack of submissive devotion to a rubber doll is calculated to fill the parent's heart with apprehension and dire forebodings for the domestic peace of his daughter. War-babies and infants born on the high seas are envied for their romantic prospects. Illegitimate children are expected to be idiotic or else to be especially gifted with some poetic form of talent.

Belief in vocational magic and clairvoyance is clearly not entirely confined to medieval days. Nor is it true that such instances as those just cited arise only as material for frivolous conversations or as journalistic s.p.a.ce-fillers in a dearth of more serious copy. So firmly are these superst.i.tions established among large cla.s.ses of people that special legislation is required to prevent their exploitation at the hands of crafty fakers. The fortune-teller is far from being a romantic and vestigial inst.i.tution; and the type of prophecy which medieval clairvoyance represents continues to provide many with a subst.i.tute for more rigorous and less exciting inquiry.

MODERN PERIOD OF GUIDANCE AND SELECTION

However, as knowledge develops, a third stage is reached, in which we may be said to be moving, even though somewhat slowly, in our own scientific and educational work. This stage is marked by relative inattention to the series of physical events and by special emphasis on the original nature of the individual and on changes wrought in that original nature through the experiences of school life and other forms of educational process. The conditions and environmental factors of life have become so plastic that individuals can fairly easily find congenial environment and occupational material near at home or far from it, if only they know for what environment and material their natural powers are best adapted. Modern life, whether in city or in country, has become so diversified and labor so divided, that a small community affords the vocational variety which only a few years ago was quite unfamiliar to it. Moreover, the various avenues of communication, transportation and cooperation have become so elaborate that workers in one part of a nation can with little difficulty profit by activities and opportunities existing in distant places. Each branch of industry, commerce and art, as well as each professional and occupational activity, provides not only for a larger number of workers but for a greater variety as well. There is thus a tendency for the individual at an early point in his career, not only to adapt himself to an environment already provided, but to a certain degree to select that environment for which his abilities and interests seem best to fit him.

Attempts at controlling fortune, as now exercised, are neither magical nor clairvoyant. They take the rational, selective form of fitting the individual to the place for which his natural apt.i.tudes best adapt him, so far as these facts of adaptability are discoverable, and so far as the environment is plastic or optional. This is at least the description of the process in democratic conditions of society. In countries in which hereditary aristocracy and caste systems still exist, the fortune of the individual is determined to a considerable extent by his birthright, by the occupation of his father, above all by s.e.x--all dominated by tradition.

Within this field of guidance and selection, activity has developed rather independently in two different directions. There has been on the one hand the notion that all the individual needs for a satisfactory occupational adjustment is knowledge of available opportunities, and appropriate technical training for the occupation of his choice. This point of view is seen in our own country in the popularizing of general education.