Vocational Psychology: Its Problems and Methods Part 2

"Anything which is hard in consistency has comparatively great resistance and persistence. That which is elastic in consistency is adaptable and seems to have spring, life, and energy within it. These principles have been found to apply to human beings."

The existence of quite definite beliefs in these relations between character and physiognomy is readily shown by experiments in which groups of ten people were asked to arrange twenty photographs of women in an order of merit. On different occasions and by varying groups of mature college students, these photographs were arranged on the basis of seven different traits, viz.: intelligence, humor, perseverance, kindness, conceit, courage, and deceitfulness. Different judges show quite striking agreement in their estimates of the characteristics suggested by a given photograph.

Thus, if the average position a.s.signed to each photograph be taken as the standard and the divergences of the ten judges from this standard be averaged in the case of all the photographs, the average divergences for the different traits are as follows[2]:

Intelligence 2.86 places Perseverance 3.32 "

Kindliness 3.55 "

Conceit 3.57 "

Courage 3.69 "

Humor 3.90 "

Deceitfulness 4.14 "

This means that in the long run a stranger will place a given individual in a group of twenty persons not over three or four positions away from the place to which other strangers would a.s.sign him. The individual's physiognomy, however little it may actually reveal of his personality, nevertheless suggests rather definite characteristics to those whom he meets, and to that degree determines their reaction toward him, expectations of him, and belief in him. The definiteness or agreement of these impressions seems also to vary with the trait in question; it is high for intelligence and perseverance, low for humor and deceitfulness, and intermediate for kindliness, conceit, and courage. Our own results, however, must be taken only as suggestive, rather than as general, since they may easily have been determined partly by the particular set of photographs we used and by our particular and diverse sets of judges.[3]

Results of this character, and many similar ones which we are acc.u.mulating, suggest, however, an interesting set of problems. It is psychologically as interesting to inquire just what impressions people actually receive from one's physiognomy and expression, as it is to ask whether these impressions are correct. One's ultimate vocational accomplishment often depends on the first impression he creates, the type of reception his appearance invites, even though there may be no necessary connection whatever between appearance and mental const.i.tution. Vocational success depends not only on the traits one really possesses, but also somewhat on the traits one is believed to possess.

It is also interesting to observe that high correlations exist between some of the traits as judged merely on the basis of photographs. Let 1.00 be taken to indicate complete correspondence between two orders of merit, so that the highest in the one scale is also the highest in the other scale, the second in one the second in the other, and so on; then -1.00 will indicate a completely reversed order, the best in one cla.s.s being the poorest in the other, etc.; a coefficient of 0 will mean only a chance relationship, i. e., none at all. Then from 1.00 through 0 to -1.00 we have represented all possible degrees of correspondence.[4] These figures are called "coefficients of correlation," and can easily be computed by proper statistical methods. In the present case the coefficients for all combinations of two traits are as follows:

-------------------------------------------------------------------------- Intelligence Humor Perseverance Kindliness Conceit Courage -------------+------------+-------+------------+----------+-------+------- Humor .47 Perseverance .88 .33 Kindliness .76 .65 .39 Conceit .28 -.03 .08 -.56 Courage .89 .43 .79 .72 -.25 Deceitfulness -.11 -.28 -.02 -.69 .66 -.49 --------------------------------------------------------------------------

It will be seen that the intelligent, humorous, persevering, kindly, and courageous countenances tend to be the same ones, and that the faces suggesting the opposites or low degrees of these traits also tend to be very much the same ones. This is indicated by the high positive coefficients between these traits. But conceit and deceitfulness show negative or very low positive correlation with all traits except each other. In this latter case the correlation is positive and high (.66).

Other interesting relations between these judgments of character can be inferred from the table of coefficients. But it should be remembered that we are not here dealing with traits as demonstrably present, but only as judged on the basis of facial characteristics and expression. The actual relation between the physiognomic details and the true character of the individual displaying them is a totally different matter. The close correlations between the several desirable traits and between the several undesirable traits, as found in this table of coefficients, seem to have a further significance and suggest that the observers do not judge each trait on the basis of particular and specific physiognomic details. They seem, rather, to get a general impression of favorableness or unfavorableness, and to rank the photographs on the basis of this general impression, no matter which trait is being judged.

It is a common practice for employers, superintendents, agencies, etc., to request the applicant for a position to send his or her photograph for inspection. The urgency of some of these requests and the emphasis placed on them seem to indicate that the photograph is believed to be valuable not only for its service in revealing the general features but also for some further and more specific indications which it affords. Very few attempts seem to have been made to test actually the value of judgments of character when they are based on photographs rather than on acquaintance. Experiments recently conducted yield some interesting preliminary data on this question. The question proposed was: "What relation exists between the judgments which strangers form, on the basis of an individual's photograph, and the judgments which acquaintances make on the basis of daily familiarity and long observation?"[5]

All the members of a group of college women were judged by twenty-four of their a.s.sociates, for a number of more or less definite characteristics.

The twenty-five individuals const.i.tuting the group were arranged in an order of merit for each trait, by each of the twenty-four judges. Only one arrangement, for one trait, was made by any one judge within a given week.

The judgments were thus distributed over a considerable interval so that judgments for one trait might influence as slightly as possible the judgments of later traits. All these twenty-four judgments were then averaged for each trait, and the final position of each person in each trait thus determined by the consensus of opinion of the judges. This measure is then a combined estimate on the basis of actual conduct and behavior.

Photographs of all the members of the group were then secured, all of them taken by the same photographer, in the same style and size. These photographs were now judged, by a group of twenty-five men and a group of twenty-five women, all of whom were _totally unacquainted_ with the individuals who were being judged. These strangers arranged the photographs in order of merit for the various traits of character, just as the earlier group of judges had arranged the names of the members of the group, with all of whom they were acquainted. The various arrangements of the photographs were then averaged, yielding for each photograph an average position in each trait. We thus have three measures of the group of college women: (1) the judgments of their intimate a.s.sociates; (2) the judgments of twenty-five men, on the basis of photographs, and (3) the judgments of twenty-five women, on the basis of photographs. All of these measures may be compared with each other, and correlated so as to show their respective amounts of correspondence. The results are as follows:

---------------------------------------------------- Judgments by a.s.sociates Compared with the Judgments of the Photographs Trait -------------------------------------- By 25 Men By 25 Women Average -------------+------------+--------------+---------- Neatness .03 .07 .05 Conceit .10 .27 .19 Sociability .29 .29 .29 Humor .21 .45 .33 Likeability .30 .45 .38 Intelligence .42 .61 .51 Refinement .50 .52 .51 Beauty .60 .49 .55 Sn.o.bbishness .58 .53 .56 Vulgarity .61 .69 .65 ------------+--------------+---------- Average .36 .43 .40 ----------------------------------------------------

The correspondence between judgments of acquaintance and judgments of photographs is seen to vary with the trait in question. Such traits as neatness, conceit, sociability, humor, and likeability, important as they are for vocational success or failure, show very low correlation. The judgments of the photographs tell almost nothing at all of the nature of the impression which the individual makes on her acquaintances, her true character. With the remaining traits--beauty, intelligence, refinement, sn.o.bbishness, and vulgarity--the coefficients are considerably larger, and suggest that the photographs tend to be judged by the strangers in somewhat the same way as the individuals are judged by their acquaintances.

Two points of special importance should be noted in this connection. The first is that these correlations are not between the judgments of single individuals. It is the combined or group judgment of twenty-five judges which is required to yield these coefficients which even then average only about .40 correlation with the estimates of a.s.sociates. The following table shows the ability of ten judges, chosen at random, to estimate these characteristics through the examination of the photographs. In securing this table the arrangement made by each individual judge was correlated with the established order as determined by the estimates of a.s.sociates, in the case of the three traits--intelligence, neatness and sociability.

+--------+--------------------------------------+ Individual Correctness of Judges in Estimating Judge --------------------------------------+ Intelligence Neatness Sociability +--------+--------------+----------+------------+ I .51 .11 .39 II .11 .10 .08 III .15 .29 .05 IV -.27 .06 .49 V .08 .24 .08 VI .43 .41 .28 VII .04 .11 .02 VIII .39 -.09 .32 IX .22 -.08 .00 X .30 .02 .55 +--------+--------------+----------+------------+ Average .19 .11 .22 +--------+--------------+----------+------------+

These random samples of individual judicial capacity show at once how unreliable individual judgment is in these matters. The individual judges vary widely among themselves and they also depart widely from the established order. Moreover, a judge who may happen to show a reasonable degree of correctness in judging sociability may be very far away from correctness in judging the other traits, or may, indeed, judge in quite the reverse of the correct order. To have accepted the verdicts of a single judge would not only have been manifestly unfair to the individual but also hazardous to the employer. The combined impressions of twenty-five judges is here required for the correlations for even half of the traits to reach over .38.

The second point to be noted is that even under these circ.u.mstances the coefficients are far from perfect, even for those traits in which they are the highest. Only if beauty, sn.o.bbishness, or vulgarity are the traits which are crucial, are judgments of the photographs reliable enough to be worth considering. It would appear that the vocations which depend markedly on these characteristics are exceedingly few. And even here, although the reliance on coefficients of .55 might in all probability aid the employer in decreasing the percentage of the sn.o.bbish or the vulgar among his employees, grave injustice would most certainly be done to those many individuals who const.i.tute exceptions and keep the correlations from being perfect. Only when correlation coefficients are very high can their indications be applied in the guidance of individuals (as distinguished from the selection of groups) with safety and justice.

Dean Schneider reports an attempt to verify the principles of a certain system of physiognomics by putting them to an actual test. He writes:

"A group in the scientific management field affirmed that an examination of physical characteristics such as the shape of the fingers and shape of the head, disclosed apt.i.tudes and abilities. For example, a directive, money-making executive will have a certain shaped head and hand. A number of money-making executives were picked at random and their physical characteristics charted. We do not find that they conform at all to any law. Also we found men who had the physical characteristics that ought to make them executives, but they were anything but executives. A number of tests of this kind gave negative results. We were forced to the conclusion that this system was not reliable."

We must content ourselves on this point by insisting that the formulated facts of physiognomy are so unsupported, contradictory, and extravagant that the vocational psychologist cannot afford to trifle with them. General impressions on the basis of the totality of an individual's appearance, bearing, and behavior we shall always tend to receive. Whether one judges more accurately by an a.n.a.lytic recording of each detail or by ignoring these in favor of his own more or less una.n.a.lyzed total impression has never been demonstrated. Under any circ.u.mstances one is likely to look about for such details as may lend support to the total impression. But it is quite unjustifiable--though perhaps commercially expedient--to pretend that the judgment is really based on the details selected.

The life of him who bases his expectations of human conduct on the physiognomy of his neighbors is bound to be full of delightful as well as fearful surprises. I shall never forget the practical lesson in the principles of physiognomics I learned when watching a shipload of immigrants pa.s.s the physical and mental examinations at Ellis Island.

Admission to the new land, and to the theater of their vocational plans, depended on the results of these examinations. Ellis Island is perhaps the one place in the world where principles of individual psychology are most in demand, and where such principles as are relied on lead to results of the most serious human consequences. I watched the line file past the preliminary gate, by the inspectors who scrutinized them still more carefully, and on into the inner room where the suspected ones were submitted to more searching examination. One young woman stood out among her companions as easily the most comely and attractive of the women. She was the only one of that shipload who was finally certified as an imbecile, and refused admission to the mainland.

The physiognomic a.n.a.lyses, then, do not merit serious consideration as instruments of vocational guidance and selection. The mere facts of physical structure, contour, shape, texture, proportion, color, etc., yield no more information concerning capacities and interests than did the incantations of the primitive medicine-man or the absurd charts of the phrenologists. In so far as character and ability may be determined by facts of structure, it is by the minute structure of the microscopic elements of the brain and other vital tissues, about which we now know exceedingly little. We shall therefore dismiss from further consideration the futile attempts to diagnose mental const.i.tution on the basis of bodily structure, and turn to the more reliable and scientifically conceived methods of inferring the individual's mental traits from his behavior or his actual performance when tests are made under controlled conditions.

FOOTNOTES:

[1] An interesting review of the origin and development of phrenology and other systems of character a.n.a.lysis is given by Joseph Jastrow, in an article in _Popular Science Monthly_, June, 1915.

[2] To make clear the way in which these figures are secured, and to show concretely what they mean, suppose that the twenty photographs are lettered A, B, C, D, etc. They are to be arranged in an order by each judge according to his judgment of the intelligence of the individuals, the individuals being unknown to the judges. Suppose that the ten judges place photograph A respectively in the following positions: 9, 11, 5, 8, 9, 12, 7, 8, 7, 14. The average of these ten positions is 9, which we then take as the standard or most probable position of photograph A. Only two of the judges actually place A in the ninth position. The other eight judges all vary more or less from this position. We then find how much each judge varies from the average of the group, and the ten variations are respectively 0, 2, 4, 1, 0, 3, 2, 1, 2, 5 positions. The average of these individual variations is 2.0 positions. This figure indicates how closely the ten judges agree in their estimates of photograph A, a small average deviation indicating close agreement. In this way we find for each of the twenty photographs its average deviation; and if the twenty figures thus secured are in their turn averaged we secure an approximate measure of the disagreement of the judges when estimating the intelligence suggested by the photographs. Similarly we may compute average deviations for any other trait which is judged. These final figures are the ones which are given in the table, each of them being the average of twenty photographs as judged by ten persons.

[3] In such experiments the actual magnitude of the measure of variation becomes larger as the number of judges is reduced, the number of photographs increased, or the photographs so selected as to resemble one another more closely.

[4] Since such coefficients of correlation will be frequently used throughout the book as measures of the amount of correspondence or relationship between two things, it may be well at this point to indicate briefly how they are computed. Suppose that, as arranged in order on the basis of their final averages, the photographs stand in the following positions for the two traits--courage and kindliness.

---------------------------------------------------------------------- Photo Courage Kindliness d d^{2} ------+---------+----------+---+----+--------------------------------- A 2 5 3 9 When the several values B 5 1 4 16 under d^{2} are added their C 10 13 3 9 sum is 376. This, multiplied D 1 4 3 9 by 6, according to the E 7 6 1 1 formula, gives 2256. The F 11 8 3 9 denominator of the fraction G 14 10 4 16 is, since there are 20 cases, H 20 15 5 25 7980. Dividing 2256 by I 16 12 4 16 7980 gives us .28; for 7980 is J 4 2 2 4 20 times 399, which in turn is K 8 14 6 36 20^{2}--1. When this is subtracted L 3 3 0 0 from 1.00 it gives us M 12 20 8 64 .72, which is the measure of N 15 11 4 16 correlation between the two O 17 18 1 1 orders. Since it is very high P 9 7 2 4 it suggests that the two Q 6 17 9 81 traits are judged in much R 13 9 4 16 the same way.

S 18 16 2 4 T 19 19 0 0 ----------------------------------------------------------------------

A formula is provided by mathematicians which enables us to compute the degree of resemblance between these two orders. There are, in fact, several formulae for such purposes, all of which yield substantially the same results. The one used in this case was r = 1.00-(6 Sigma d^{2})/(n(n^{2}-1)).

In this formula _r_ stands for the coefficient of correlation for which we are working; _d_ is the difference between the positions which each of the photographs receives in the two traits; Sigma means the sum of these differences when each has been squared or multiplied by itself; _n_ means the number of cases, which is in this case 20, since there are that number of photographs. When these subst.i.tutions are made and the equation solved, the result will be the measure of resemblance, which will lie somewhere between +1.00 and -1.00, as explained in the text. This calculation is carried out here for the two sample traits, for the convenience of readers who may not be familiar with statistical methods.

[5] These experiments were conducted by Lucy G. Cogan, M. A., to whom I am indebted for permission to use the results in advance of their more detailed publication in her forthcoming paper on "Judgments of Character on the Basis of Photographs."

CHAPTER III

THE DEVELOPMENT OF PSYCHOLOGICAL TESTS

ORIGIN AND HISTORY OF TESTS

Barren as phrenology and physiognomics were of formulable and useful results, they nevertheless served the purpose of directing attention toward the study of individual differences in mental characteristics as a distinct branch of inquiry. The next step consisted in the semi-experimental plan of observing the individual's _behavior_ under a variety of uncontrolled circ.u.mstances or on more carefully planned occasions, in the endeavor to secure more or less exact quant.i.tative expressions of the degree to which he displayed certain types of ability. Underlying the various abilities and involved in them there were a.s.sumed to lie a limited number of faculties or powers of the mind. Each individual was conceived to possess much the same faculties, but in varying degrees or amounts or forms. Attention, memory, apperception, reasoning, will, feeling, etc., were the fundamental "faculties"; and differences in character were thought of as depending upon the varying amounts and interrelations of these fundamental faculties. In the endeavor to discover types of experiment which would measure these "faculties" it was found, in time, that a given "faculty" did not appear, on close examination, to be as unitary as it was formerly supposed to be.

It was seen that to have a good memory for one kind of material did not at once signify a good memory for every sort of thing. Determination in one direction did not imply the general quality of resoluteness. It began to be realized that attention, memory, discrimination, and the other "faculties"

are very much more highly specialized than these general names indicate.

The unitary soul had early been split up into the list of "faculties" or categories, and now these in turn came each to be split up into finer and finer apt.i.tudes and tendencies, until, in the radical reaction of recent years, we find the human mind described as made up of an infinite number of independent connections or bonds between more or less specific stimulus and more or less definite response. The old "faculties" came now to be looked on as descriptive terms for certain rather general and abstracted characteristics of these mult.i.tudinous and detailed reaction tendencies, rather than as in themselves agents or powers or forces, as they were formerly conceived.

During this change in theoretical description and continuing into our present era of compromise and revision, methods were developed of measuring the amount and quality, or, more simply conceived, the speed, strength and regularity of mental and motor ability. Beginning in the form of experiments on sensory discrimination, reaction time and imagery type, and combined with physiological measurements of motor strength, rapidity and fatigue, these experiments developed, in certain hands, into what are now known as "mental tests." Since the principle and method of mental and physical tests is the chief characteristic of the present status of vocational psychology, and since the work of the immediate future seems destined to develop mainly in this same direction, we may profitably consider at this point the history and development of the mental test. We may later take up the general principle and theory of the test as an instrument of psychological a.n.a.lysis and diagnosis, with special reference to the requirements and implications of such tests as may be of service in vocational psychology. We shall then be in position to review the special vocational tests that have as yet been proposed, to evaluate their outstanding results, and to point to some of the more immediate prospects and problems under consideration by those interested in the application of psychological tests in vocational a.n.a.lysis and guidance.

We may begin with an account of the first definite attempt to explore systematically the personality of individuals by the method of tests. The "Columbia Freshman Tests" are of especial interest in the history of vocational psychology, since in their formulation and plan explicit thought was given to the practical use to which the results of tests might be put by the individuals examined, and by the statistical study of the results by students of the subject. In 1894, under the guidance of Professor Cattell, there was inst.i.tuted the plan of testing the students of Columbia College during their first and fourth academic years. A description of the tests employed was published by Cattell and Farrand in 1896, and a statistical study of results was published by Wissler in 1901.

The motive back of these tests is well expressed in the following paragraph which was also used as material for a test of logical memory:

"Tests such as we are now making are of value both for the advancement of science and for the information of the student who is tested. It is of importance for science to learn how people differ and on what factors these differences depend. If we can disentangle the complex influences of heredity and environment we may be able to apply our knowledge to guide human development. Then it is well for each of us to know in what way he differs from others. We may thus in some cases correct defects and develop apt.i.tudes which we might otherwise neglect."

The nature of these Columbia tests and the method of recording and reporting them are indicated in the forms which were printed and used for this special purpose. (Samples of these are given in the Appendix.) They are given here not so much for the sake of the enumeration of the tests, since many of these are no longer in common use, but because of their historic interests for vocational psychology and because of the general plan outlined in them. In general this plan is that of acc.u.mulating measurements of a large number of individuals and thus showing each one how he compares with the normal or average, or where he stands in the general curve of distribution of the members of the group. These tests were applied to the same individuals on their entrance to and their graduation from college, in order to indicate changes that might have been made during the intervening period.

Especially interesting also are other blanks containing additional data, such as age, health, physical characteristics, physiognomic features, enumeration of stigmata, etc. In addition to the tests and measurements, the examiner, both before and after the interview, recorded his general impression of the individual, in the terms indicated on the blank form. We shall have occasion to refer to these judgments of general impression in more detail when we come to consider the use of the interview and the testimonial in vocational psychology. Account was also taken of the gymnasium records of the student, as to nationality, birth, parentage, habits, health, etc.

The Columbia tests may be thought of as representative of several similar projects developed in this country and in Germany, France and England by many workers. The names of Galton, Cattell, Kraepelin, Binet, Henri, and Jastrow stand out conspicuously in the early history of mental tests. The first step was thus the invention, description and trial of a great number of miscellaneous tests, with little a.n.a.lysis of the tests themselves, the nature of the functions tested by them, or their relation to each other.