varied from subject to subject with agreement that the affective value became less with habituation. Reviewing the literature, Pressey feels that there is no reliable evidence that hues have a marked effect either upon emotional tone or on ability in mental work.

REFERENCES

I. BOYD, W. A Child's Fears. J. of Exper. Ped., 1919, 5, 128-140.

2. BURTT, H. E. The Inspiration-Expiration Ratio During Truth and Falsehood.

J. of Exper. Psychol., 1921, 4, 1-23.

3. BURTT, H. E. Further Technique for Inspiration-Expiration Ratios. J. of Exper. Psychol., 1921, 4, 106-111.

25. WASHBURN, M. F. & GROSE, S. L. Voluntary Control of Likes and Dislikes; The Effect of An Attempt Voluntarily to Change the Affective Value of Colors. Amer. J. of Psychol., 1921, 32, 284-290.

26. WOODWORTH, R. S. Psychology: A Study of Mental Life. New York: Holt, 1921. Pp. x + 580.

27. YOKOYAMA, M. Affective Tendency as Conditioned by Color and Form. Amer.

J. of Psychol., 1921, 32, 81-108.

28. YOKOYAMA, M.

Comparison.

29. YOUNG, P. T.

The Nature of the Affective Judgment in the Method of Paired
Amer. J. of Psychol., 1921, 32, 357-370.
Pleasantness and Unpleasantness in Relation to Organic Response.

Amer. J. of Psychol., 1921, 32, 38-54

THE PSYCHOLOGY OF VOCATIONAL SELECTION

BY ARTHUR W. KORNHAUSER

University of Chicago

The term vocational selection may be interpreted very broadly or very narrowly. It is sometimes made to include a large part of the vocational guidance field and, on occasion, the fields of educational selection and guidance as well, while at other times it is limited strictly to the matter of choosing men to fill particular jobs. The present review makes use of the more limited definition. We exclude vocational guidance and placement (selecting jobs for individuals in contrast with selecting individuals for jobs), educational guidance and selection (both the selecting of courses of training for individuals and the selecting of individuals for courses or classes), physical examinations for selection, and all the wealth of mental test material where the tests have not been either devised for purposes of vocational selection or actually used for such purposes.1

Vocational selection is a practical affair. True, certain of its methods and tools are distinctly psychological. But any decision as to what may and what may not be labelled the "psychology" of vocational selection must be regrettably arbitrary. The close interrelation existing between applications and "pure" science in this field, or better, between administrative and research activities, bears upon the nature of the present review in several particulars. In the first place, the dependence of the scientific aspects of vocational selection upon the actual progress of employment procedure makes it desirable to sketch, in barest outline, the developments in industrial employment practice before we proceed to a more detailed discussion of the work that has been done on separate phases of the employment problem. Secondly, it is to be noticed that since the literature dealing with employment is almost boundless-much of it composed of popular and semipopular discussions or reports of procedure-no attempt is made to include a large part of it. Rather the policy has been to mention a few of the more representative and significant discussions on the practical side of the several topics treated.

RECENT HISTORY AND PRESENT STATUS OF VOCATIONAL SELECTION IN INDUSTRY

Employment methods have been undergoing a profound change during the last decade, a change which is best summarized in the expression "functionalized and centralized employment". Scientific management, with its emphasis upon specialization and the separation of the various managerial functions, paved the way for the entrance of functionalized employment. The hiring and firing activities which were formerly the prerogative of individual foremen have, in an increasing number of plants, been taken out of the hands of foremen and concentrated under a staff department which deals exclusively with personnel duties (of which hiring is usually the most important). Centralized hiring necessitates the development of two bodies of basic knowledge-a knowledge of the requirements of the tasks for which men are being selected and a knowledge of the equipment of the individual worker. In the days of foreman hiring the need for written standardized job specifications was not felt, nor was the need for technical devices for determining men's abilities. Each foreman knew at first hand the jobs for which he was selecting men. Likewise he could crudely ascertain the applicant's trade skill by asking questions or, as was more usual, by "trying him out". Since records of turnover and employment costs were not kept and since labor was ordinarily plentiful, it mattered little how effective the selection procedure proved. All this changes when costs and records are kept, when one centralized department is responsible for efficient selection, and when the importance of having "the right man in the right place" has once been appreciated.

Centralized employment, then, has emphasized the value of knowing the requirements of jobs and knowing how to determine the qualifications of men. The scientific (may we say psychological?) attack upon this twofold problem, so far as vocational selection is concerned, is scarcely a decade old. The pioneer book in the field was Münsterberg's Psychology and Industrial Eficiency (99) which appeared in 1913. (Substantially the same book appeared in German the preceding year (98).) The problems of vocational selection, it is true, had been prominent before this time among engineers in the field of scientific management (37, 49, 156), in the vocational guidance literature (20, 100, 112, 126), and within some few industrial plants. A small group of employment managers had begun meeting in Boston as early as 1910. But in none of these quarters had an effective effort been made to deal with the problems of vocational selection in any careful and scientific manner. (One exception is on record in the work of Thompson as reported by Taylor (156).)

Aside from Münsterberg's book, probably the most important one for the development of a "psychology of vocational selection" that appeared before the war was Blackford and Newcomb's The Job, The Man, The Boss (17). In spite of the unscientific character analysis methods it included, this book proved distinctly valuable in that it drew attention to the selection problem as it appears in its entirety to the employer, with healthy emphasis upon the human side of scientific management and upon individual differences and their utilization.

During the war remarkable progress was made in meeting selection problems both in the armies and in industry, principally though by no means exclusively in the United States. The direction of progress in the industrial use of psychological methods of selection is illustrated by a comparison of Münsterberg (99) with Hollingworth (59) and still more recently and strikingly with Link (83). The development is well reported in the committee reports of the National Association of Corporation Schools (104, 105, 106, 107, 108). More and more emphasis is placed upon the use of quantitative methods, upon the importance of the job analysis side of the problem, and upon a broad consideration of employment policies and methods in relation to business management and labor problems. In the United States Army unparalleled advances were made (in no small measure by professional psychologists) all along the line of scientific selection-studies of occupational requirements, methods of interview, use of general intelligence tests, special vocational tests, trade proficiency tests, rating scales, and records of individual qualifications and progress. Valuable accounts of these achievements are to be found in official reports (117, 178) and in a number of special articles (14, 163, 180, 181, 182).

The personnel movement in American industry began its period of rapid growth about 1916, favored by the unusual expansion