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Title: Vocational Psychology: Its Problems and Methods
Author: Harry L. Hollingworth
Leta Stetter Hollingworth
Release Date: February 23, 2012 [EBook #38962]
Language: English
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THE CONDUCT OF MIND SERIES
EDITED BY
JOSEPH JASTROW
VOCATIONAL PSYCHOLOGY
VOCATIONAL PSYCHOLOGY
ITS PROBLEMS AND METHODS
BY
H. L. HOLLINGWORTH
ASSOCIATE PROFESSOR OF PSYCHOLOGY, COLUMBIA UNIVERSITY
WITH A CHAPTER ON
THE VOCATIONAL APTITUDES OF WOMEN
BY LETA STETTER HOLLINGWORTH, PH.D.
CLINICAL PSYCHOLOGIST, BELLEVUE HOSPITAL,
NEW YORK CITY
D. APPLETON AND COMPANY
NEW YORK LONDON
1922
COPYRIGHT, 1916, BY
D. APPLETON AND COMPANY
Printed in the United States of America
TO
THADDEUS L. BOLTON
FRIEND AND VOCATIONAL
COUNSELLOR OF YOUTH
* * * * *
_It is our business to make both a science and an art of human nature. As
in the physical world we select first the material suited to our purpose,
then turn the iron into steel and temper the steel for the knife, so in the
world of human action we must learn to select the right man, to educate him
and to fit him for his exact task. This indeed we try to do in all our
social institutions, religions, commerce, systems of education and
government. But we work by the rule of thumb--blind, deaf and wasteful. The
nineteenth century witnessed an extraordinary increase in our knowledge of
the material world and in our power to make it subservient to our ends; the
twentieth century will probably witness a corresponding increase in our
knowledge of human nature and in our power to use it for our welfare._--J.
MCKEEN CATTELL, "Homo Scientificus Americanus," _Science_, April 10, 1903.
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 analysis" 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 constitution. 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 associates 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.
* * * * *
Transcriber's note:
For Text: A word surrounded by underscores like _this_ signifies the word
is italics in the text.
For Numbers and Equations: Parentheses have been added to clarify
fractions. Superscripts are designated with a caret and brackets, e.g.
11.1^{3} is 11.1 to the third power. Greek letters in equations are
translated to their English version.
Minor typos have been corrected and footnotes moved to the end of the
sections.
* * * * *
CONTENTS
CHAPTER PAGE
I.--MOTIVES AND ANTECEDENTS OF VOCATIONAL PSYCHOLOGY 1
II.--THE SEARCH FOR PHRENOLOGICAL AND PHYSIOGNOMIC PRINCIPLES 21
III.--THE DEVELOPMENT OF PSYCHOLOGICAL TESTS 57
IV.--THE PSYCHOGRAPHIC METHODS 80
V.--SPECIAL VOCATIONAL TESTS AND METHODS 109
VI.--SELF-ANALYSIS AND THE JUDGMENT OF ASSOCIATES 122
VII.--EXPERIMENTAL STUDY OF SELF-ANALYSIS, ESTIMATES
OF ASSOCIATES AND THE RESULTS OF THE TESTS 143
VIII.--THE SCHOOL CURRICULUM AS A VOCATIONAL TEST 174
IX.--THE DETERMINANTS OF VOCATIONAL APTITUDE 208
X.--THE VOCATIONAL APTITUDES OF WOMEN 222
XI.--THEORY AND PRINCIPLE OF PSYCHOLOGICAL TESTS
AS APPLIED TO VOCATIONAL ANALYSIS 245
XII.--CONCLUSION 266
APPENDIX 275
TESTS, BLANKS, STANDARDS, FORMS 283
INDEX 303
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 cumulative acumen 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 accumulation 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 analysis. 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 constituent quality. Professor Hollingworth
presents the results of such analysis, 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 analyze
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 analysis 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-analysis 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 institutions 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 coöperation--to be expected of the two. In all
these ways has painstaking method supplemented and replaced impressionism,
haphazard opinion been supported or overturned by accumulation 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 sex
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
asserts 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 illustrates 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
pronounced 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 petitions, 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 pass 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 superstitious kind are
resorted to in order to predetermine the sex, 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. Petitions that a
neighbor may lose his appetite 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 passing 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 participate
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 analysis based on ancient
astrological pretensions, the following characteristics are asserted 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, Saturday. 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 aptitude for doing small
things well. Their owners analyze 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
space-fillers in a dearth of more serious copy. So firmly are these
superstitions established among large classes 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 institution; and the type of prophecy which medieval clairvoyance
represents continues to provide many with a substitute 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 coöperation 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 aptitudes 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 sex--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.
Under this conception general education, instead of being the prerogative
of the ruling or moneyed class, is urged as a common right, a social duty
and an economic necessity. Learning is not limited to those who expect to
enter the theological, medical, legal, or academic professions. A certain
amount of elementary school-knowledge, or at least of school-attendance,
comes to be required of every prospective worker. Even the feeble-minded
are labored with in the attempt to bring them up to their highest possible
academic level. Boys and girls alike are not only urged but compelled to
equip themselves with the knowledge of the elementary formal subjects; and
the community taxes itself to furnish the teachers, the books, and the
necessary physical paraphernalia. In this earlier form of educational
theory little effort is made to give immediate applicability to the
subject-matter of the curriculum. Classical studies with very little
relevance to contemporary life; dead languages, with only a feeble claim to
concrete serviceability; formal exercises in designing and constructing
useless bric-a-brac; trivial geographical, astronomical, anatomical, and
military details: these are the subject-matter of the "general education."
Back of their selection lies of course the doubtful conception that the
general powers or faculties of the student are thereby cultivated, and that
these may then be brought to bear effectively on any vocational activity
which may be chosen.
The subject-matter is selected, not because of its interest or its utility,
but mainly because of its difficulty and its formal character. Parental
compulsion, vague social tendencies and impulses, petty personal
rivalries, fondness for the teacher, and general cultural aspiration are
relied on to facilitate the work of administration and to provide
incentive. The "life-career" motive is but little utilized, and tends on
the whole to be discouraged as sordid and commercial. But it is
nevertheless believed that the grammatical, geographical, historical, and
arithmetical elements will in the long run enable the pupil not only to
enjoy life but to find it as well, or at least to be of the greatest
possible service in the work into which he or she drifts. Only in the case
of those who are utterly incompetent to deal with the general
subject-matter, the feeble-minded, the blind, and the deaf, is this formal
education willingly abandoned in favor of some definitely serviceable
"industrial" training.
THE METHODS OF INDUSTRIAL EDUCATION
Quickly following this effort of the public schools to guide every boy and
a few girls into successful careers through general education, came the
realization that literary, linguistic, and mathematical information alone
is inadequate to this task. It was felt by many that industrial or
vocational education, calculated to fit the individual directly for his or
her life occupation, should be begun at a much earlier age than that at
which the group choosing the professions entered upon their further studies
in the higher technical schools. It became obvious that many pupils
terminated their public-school education as soon as they had satisfied the
minimal requirements of the compulsory education law. These engaged at the
earliest possible opportunity in some immediately gainful occupation. The
occupations into which they commonly drifted were such as called for only a
slight amount of intelligence and promised proportionately little by way of
further equipment or promotion. They have come to be called "blind alley"
occupations, and refer to such work as that of errand boys, elevator and
telephone operators, small clerks, domestic servants, nursemaids,
messengers, delivery boys, and teamsters.
Meanwhile those who had continued in school and completed the high-school
curriculum emerged without special vocational fitness, and even without any
knowledge of the vocational possibilities of their age and locality. The
further development of vocational and industrial education of special sorts
was then supplemented by general instruction in the vocational
opportunities available. Vocational surveys were initiated for the purpose
of acquiring information which could be placed in the hands of pupils and
of those in charge of their training. These surveys made systematic inquiry
into the vocational opportunities afforded to young people by the
industries and enterprises of the vicinity. The assistance of employers was
sought in the effort to learn the requirements of the various types of
work; the nature of the labor involved; the wages; the general conditions,
such as healthfulness, danger, companionship, and instruction; the rate of
promotion; the prospect of future advancement. Such information has in many
cases been published in pamphlets and bulletins and thus made accessible to
teachers, pupils, and parents.
Along with this tendency went the attempt to give the pupil some first-hand
knowledge of and immediate experience with the materials, implements, and
products of the various industries from among which he or she might be
expected to choose after leaving the school. This has been a difficult step
to bring about, partly because of the various technical and administrative
difficulties which it involved. Occasional hasty visits to mills,
factories, stores, shops, offices, laboratories, and similar busy places
give the pupil but a superficial notion of the actual work of the
operations there observed. More extended and intensive observation, on the
other hand, with perhaps an actual trial at the work, means a corresponding
limitation of the range of institutions inspected. Talks by managers and
foremen are likely to give only a dramatized view of the facts. School
industries, on the other hand, cannot easily be organized and conducted in
a manner technically complete and industrially representative. The result
has been a growing tendency to push the vocational training further and
further back into the earlier years of the curriculum, thus displacing much
of the purely formal subject-matter. With this change have come various
experiments in study-practice methods, in which part of the day or term is
spent at the general academic work, and part in actual service in a
tentatively chosen form of industrial or commercial activity.
In this movement but little recognition was given to the psychological
differences and peculiarities of the individuals concerned. Knowledge of
personal aptitudes and capacities, interests, and satisfactions, was more
or less taken for granted in each case, or at least left to develop in its
own way. It was assumed either that any individual could satisfactorily
pursue any vocation in which he might become interested, or else that
industrial and vocational information alone was needed in order to enable
the individual to make a suitable choice. Nor was there any doubt that the
work which the youth found interesting and attractive at the time was the
work in which he might find a maximum of ultimate success, satisfaction,
and serviceableness. With the vocational surveys, the industrial schools,
and the part-time practice methods of education we shall not be concerned,
in what is to follow. They represent a movement of tremendous social and
educational significance, but their development does not immediately
concern that other field of work which we have designated "vocational
psychology." They proceed mainly by giving the individual a knowledge of
the external series of facts and events, thus replacing the era of
fortune-telling and clairvoyance, with its search for signs and omens, just
as fortune-telling had, in its own day, replaced the practices of crude
objective magic. But the methods of industrial and occupational training
have been found to solve only one aspect of the vocational problem; and it
is more and more coming to be realized that a thorough understanding of the
aptitudes which the individual brings to his work is as important as the
knowledge of the opportunities which the environment affords. In the
remainder of this book we shall be concerned with the various systematic
efforts that have been made or are now being made to study the individual
himself, and to judge from a determination of his mental characteristics
the type of vocational activity which he is best fitted to undertake with
success.
CHAPTER II
THE SEARCH FOR PHRENOLOGICAL AND PHYSIOGNOMIC PRINCIPLES
THE RISE OF EXPERIMENTAL SCIENCE
The primitive magic, directed toward the formation of individual character,
was displaced by the personal clairvoyance which attempted to diagnose the
individual's mental and moral constitution on the basis of his own early
acts, expressions, and physical characteristics. This soon gave way to a
tendency to abandon, for the most part, such signs as did not relate in
some actual or fancied way, to the individual's brain. This limitation of
the field of significant signs may be related to the widespread interest in
human physiology, historically associated with the knowledge of anatomy.
The invention of the microscope, Harvey's proof of the circulation of the
blood, the discussion centering about the automaton theory of Descartes,
and the rapid development of surgical technique, brought about a most
interesting spread of curiosity concerning the nature and mechanism of the
human body. Balls and tournaments gave way to dissections and
demonstrations as means of courtly entertainment. Celebrated surgeons
exhibited their skill and knowledge, and lectured on the facts of
physiology and anatomy in the formal presence of royalty and society. Court
painters executed pictures such as "The Anatomy Lesson," some of them now
cherished as famous masterpieces.
Especially keen became the interest in the skull and brain in which, as
Descartes taught, might be found the seat of the soul. Among the earliest
of the rough discoveries was that concerned with the localization of
special sensory and motor functions of the organism in particular regions
of the brain. It was observed that irritation of certain parts of the
surface or "cortex" of the brain, in cases where a portion of the skull had
been removed, was followed by movement of particular parts of the body, and
that individuals who had suffered from injury to certain parts of the brain
seemed, on recovery, to be quite their usual selves, except that certain
special capacities, as for instance the function of speech, were interfered
with or quite destroyed. The unitary soul, described by Descartes as
probably having its seat in the pineal gland, now bade fair to disintegrate
into various minor faculties, each with its separate brain mechanism and
its particular abode in some region of the skull.
The discovery of these elementary facts of brain localization was at once
hit upon with zeal by those most interested in the means of foresight into
human fortunes. Ignoring the fact that the localized features were simply
the control of other parts of the body, as eyes, ears, limbs, speech
organs, and the like, these enthusiasts leaped to the conclusion that every
trait of character and every mental aptitude, every virtue and vice,
ability, interest and capacity, had each its own shelf or pew in the brain
area. Moreover, it was taken for granted that the relative development of
these various characteristics was indicated by the depressions, projections
and proportions of the skull bones. Here was light indeed on the destinies
of men, their fitnesses and propensities, their appropriate choice of work
and play! The enthusiasm and ardor that went into the elaboration of the
new clairvoyance of phrenology would have meant most valuable increase in
our knowledge of brain physiology had it been directed exclusively toward
further legitimate inquiry. But the urgent desire for control and foresight
was too great for practice to keep the slow pace of scientific fact.
Hastily the prophets drew up complicated and minute maps of the surface of
the cranium and assigned to each recognizable patch some "faculty" which
stood for an important mental or moral trait. Casual examination of the
skulls of friends who chanced to possess particularly marked traits to an
extreme degree was in some cases relied on to give guidance in the
assignment of these patches to the respective traits. In some of the
schemes the human traits conceived were so numerous that the bilateral
symmetry and functions of the brain were ignored, and the two sides of the
skull were assigned quite different functions. Thus arose phrenology, one
of the most persistent fallacies of vocational analysis. This movement was
founded by Gall and Spurzheim, two physicians and anatomists, in the latter
part of the eighteenth century.[1] With the customary naïveté of the
medical science of their time, they overestimated the significance of
casual observations and fragmentary discoveries, and thus gave impetus to
the exaggerated and extravagant claims made by their enthusiastic
followers. "Phrenological societies" developed so rapidly and so widely
that the movement became relatively independent of the scientific
investigations which should have served to qualify and criticize its
doctrines. Its propaganda were so vigorous and the practical needs which it
promised to satisfy were so insistent, that even today many people hold
tenaciously to its dicta. Scores of professionals thrive on their lucrative
practice of its dogmas, and university graduates smile in a guilty way when
asked, "Do you believe in phrenology?"
The tenacious persistence of phrenology, the degree to which it is resorted
to and paid for by inquiring and earnest seekers after satisfactory paths
through life, make it seem worth while to present a brief statement of the
numerous errors and flagrant stupidities on which the practice of
phrenology is based. It may also be worth while to suggest some of the
rather interesting subsidiary reasons for its persistence as a cherished
popular delusion and even as a topic for current scientific discussions and
papers.
THE ASSUMPTIONS AND ERRORS OF PHRENOLOGY
Underlying all of the various phrenological systems were four common
assumptions which briefly stated, were:
1. That such cerebral localization as exists is of fundamental and specific
traits of character or types of ability, such as secretiveness,
circumspection, love of babies, generosity, veneration, constructiveness,
etc.
2. That the more developed any one of these given traits is, the larger
will be the supposed area of the brain which contains its supposed organ.
3. That, since the skull fits fairly closely to the brain surface, the
relative development of a given portion of the brain will be indicated by
the relative prominence or size of the different parts of the cranium, so
that the degree of possession of the trait may be judged from an
examination of the exterior of the skull.
4. That the occasional casual observation of coincidence between
particularly marked mental qualities and particular cranial characteristics
is a sufficient basis for inferring universal and necessary connection
between these two features.
Each of these assumptions involves obvious error and misapprehension in the
light of what is now known concerning the nature of the human mind and the
structure and functions of the brain. In order that these fallacies may be
clearly disclosed the four main assumptions will be examined independently
in the order in which we have here presented them.
1. In the first place, the only sort of localization of functions that has
been authentically established is the projection, upon the brain structure,
of the other parts of the organism, and the localization of sensory-motor
centers which function in the connection of these various organs. Thus it
is known that each of the principal groups of muscles of the body has its
so-called center in the brain. From this part of the brain to the muscles
concerned run bundles of motor-nerve fibers, so that activity in that
particular part of the brain may result in the conduction of nervous
impulses to these muscles, and in their consequent contraction. Thus the
hand, the foot, the eyes, the speech-organs, etc., may be said to be
functionally represented, and in this sense localized, in particular
regions of the brain. The same thing is true of the sense-organs, as the
eye, ear, etc. Each incoming sensory nerve tract runs to or through some
portion of the brain. Injury to this part of the brain results in
functional incapacity of the corresponding sense-organ. The cortex, or
outer surface of the brain, may thus be conceived as a sort of terminal
station for nerves from other portions of the organism, a sort of
projection-center which enables them all to take part in a functional
unity of action. The functions which can be said in this sense to be
localized in the brain are such sensory-motor capacities as the ability to
raise the right arm, the ability to balance the body when standing erect
with eyes closed, the ability to see, the ability to move the eyeball, the
ability to feel pain in a certain area of the skin, the ability to
articulate words, to understand spoken or written language, to call up a
visual memory of a particular thing previously seen, etc.
The integrity of various parts of the brain is essential to the proper
coördination of all the sensibilities and responses of the individual.
Traits of character and types of ability, however, depend on the
characteristic modes of reaction of the organism as a whole to the factors
of its environment. Thus generosity as a human trait does not depend on the
massiveness of any set of muscles, nor on the keenness of any sense-organ,
but upon the characteristic type of reaction and motivation which the
individual as a whole displays. Jealousy, love of children,
destructiveness, etc., are characteristic modes of behavior of the whole
organism, and depend upon reactions which the given situation evokes, and
not upon some special organ.
2. As to the supposed correspondence between size and functional capacity,
no evidence has been presented which demonstrates that even the strength of
a muscle or the keenness of a sense-organ depends in any way on the
absolute size of the brain-area concerned with it. Nor has evidence been
presented to prove the existence, within any given species, of correlation
between volume, shape, or weight of the brain-tissues and even the more
general traits of character or ability. In the absence of such evidence we
are led to believe that functional capacity depends on complexity of
structure, chemical, molecular, and functional, rather than on the factors
of mass or shape. But even the nature of these correlations is as yet
largely unknown. The persistence of the faith in the significance of mass
and shape probably rests in part on the apparent existence of such
correlation when different species are roughly compared with one another.
Thus, among the higher vertebrates there seems to be a relation between
what we may call the general intelligence of the species and the erect
carriage of the body. From the quadrupeds, with their horizontal position,
through the apes, with their semiperpendicular mode of life, to the human
being, with his erect carriage, there is also a progression in prominence
of the forehead, opposition of thumb and finger, relatively greater
development of the cerebral mass, and also in mental capacity. The
intelligent human being walks in a more erect posture than does the stupid
ape. But no one has ventured to assert that a relation exists between
erectness of carriage and mental ability when human beings are compared
with one another, or when apes are compared with one another. Similarly in
the case of the physical features of the brain, the crude relationships
which exist empirically, as between different species, seem to be quite
slight in significance when compared with the differences in chemical,
molecular and functional complexity which are found among members of the
same species. Attempts to discover correlations between mental and moral
characteristics and various brain constants we may expect to continue for a
long time. What discoveries may be in store for us we do not know. But the
important point in the present connection is that, for the purposes of
vocational psychology, the practices of phrenology are based on evidence no
more relevant to its pretensions than were the "proofs" pointed to by
palmistry, horoscopy, and prenatal magic. Through cranial measurements
alone it is impossible to determine with certainty the race, age, or sex
of an individual, or even, indeed, whether he was a prehistoric savage, an
idiot, or a gorilla.
3. As for the third assumption of phrenology, namely, that brain
development is reflected in the cranial size or protuberances, it should be
sufficient to point out that even if this were so it would be meaningless
for our purpose, since we are compelled to abandon the belief in a relation
between mass of tissue and even the simplest sensory or motor capacity. But
such further disproof as may be required is readily furnished by an actual
attempt to remove from their cranial boxes the brains of various animals,
and by noting that the shape and thickness of the bones gives little
indication as to whether brain tissue, cerebrospinal fluid, or supporting
tissues are to be found underneath a given protuberance or depression.
4. The fourth assumption of phrenology, that sparse and casual observation
of striking cases is sufficient ground for generalization, we should be
able to dismiss at once as utterly inadequate and miscalculated. It is
impossible to find consistent recorded instances in which groups of
individuals, selected at random, with definitely determined and measured
mental or moral characteristics, have been shown to confirm, by their
cranial geography, even the most elementary doctrines of that phrenology
which still offers to diagnose the individual's psychic constitution and to
commend to his future consideration the vocation of engineering,
publishing, or preaching, as the case may be. Practicing phrenologists have
repeatedly been invited to submit one bit of objective evidence for their
pretensions, or to submit themselves to tests under controlled conditions.
The invitations are refused, and the inquirer is referred instead to the
dogma of some foreign and deceased authority. Such investigations as have
been recorded have resulted in negative conclusions, or in contradictory
data, or in coefficients with such high probable errors as to make the
figures unreliable.
THE PSEUDO-SCIENCE OF PHYSIOGNOMY
Very often practicing phrenologists and phrenological vocational experts
seek to justify their operations and pretensions by pointing out that they
do not rely solely on the cranial geography, but more often on other
characteristics of the individual's body, such as the concavity or
convexity of his profile, the shape of his jaw, the texture of his skin,
the shape of his hands, the color of his hair and eyes, the proportions of
his trunk, etc. Contemporary vocational counsellors who have enjoyed
considerable vogue and commercial repute are especially given to citing
these criteria; several recently published tables of these clues are
available. Historically, the attempts to formulate principles of
physiognomy antedate phrenology by many centuries. Logically, however,
physiognomy follows phrenology, as a transition from the formulation of
structure to the formulation of behavior. There is a very widespread belief
that many mental and moral characteristics betray themselves in special
facial items. The shifting eye, lofty brow, massive jaw, thin lips, large
ear, protruding or receding chin, dimple, wrinkle, tilted nose, thin skin,
prominent veins, and many other characteristics have come, in fiction and
in table-talk, to symbolize specific characteristics. The same thing is
true of the shuffling gait, the erect body, the protruding paunch, the
curved shoulders, enlarged knuckles, stubby or elongated fingers, the short
neck, the long arm, and the manner and rate of stride. It is but a step
from these to the signs afforded by clothing, its selection, care, and mode
of wearing.
Here is indeed a most confused mass of fact and fancy which finds credence
in varying degrees on diverse occasions. Seldom has it been analyzed into
the definite types of material which it really contains, and its
evaluation is commonly left to the haphazard opinion of each individual.
There is no doubt that we all tend to form our opinion of a stranger's
probable characteristics partly on the basis of these physiognomic,
physical, and sartorial factors. To what degree can these items be
formulated so as to afford reliable criteria in the analysis of
personality, as in the case of vocational selection and employment? We may
perhaps best answer this question by noting the various sources of the
belief in the validity of physiognomic and similar signs.
1. It is first of all true that many of these marks are the result of
habitual activity, and in so far as they originate in the expression of a
trait, they may be said to be signs of it. That the studious come to be
round-shouldered, the cheerful to have smooth countenances, the guilty to
have furtive eye-movements, may well be expected. But it is quite another
thing to reverse the proposition and to take stooped shoulders as a
universal sign of academic interests, dimples as a sign of guilelessness,
and nystagmus as the symptom of a criminal past. It is, however, often safe
to use these traits as reliable signs of the established general habits and
attitude which they express. We have all done this since earliest
childhood; yet any attempt to classify formally the signs and effects of
habit and constant expression would be pedantic. Unfortunately for the
purposes of vocational guidance of youth, these expressions require for
their formation habits of fairly long standing, and the critical period for
psychological guidance is likely to be passed long before these settled
habits have set the features into their identifiable molds.
Somewhat more hopeful is the reliance on expressive movements as indicative
of passing and transient emotional states and attitudes. Not easily can we
conceal from the astute observer the momentary passion that may be stirring
us. Prolonged intimate acquaintance with an individual's emotional
experiences and expressions may in time reveal to such an observer the
deeper lying and more permanent affective trends, the moods and sentiments
which indicate what we are accustomed to call the temperament of the
individual. Insight into the nature of these expressive movements is one of
the useful things to be derived from long and patient study of human
nature, both at first hand and through the classical descriptions of
emotional expression. The more one observes and the more individuals he
observes, the more he is impressed with the final variety and informal
complexity of these expressive movements, and their dependence on a vast
detail of circumstance, which again forbid rule-of-thumb formulation.
2. Another apparent source of these beliefs is in analogy. The clammy hand,
the fishy eye, the bull neck, the "blotting paper" voice, the asinine ear,
the willowy figure, the feline tread, and scores of such phrases indicate
that these characteristics remind us definitely of various species or
objects other than the human being, and that we expect to find back of them
the characteristic traits, habits, and instinctive tendencies of those
species. We seldom proceed so far as to check up our expectations with
facts, under controlled conditions.
3. The affective value of these analogies and their incorporation in
poetry, song, and fiction as adequate figures of speech lead us to react to
these traits in ways determined largely by the traditional usage. We are
humble before the "high-brow," merry in the presence of the dimpled,
cautious and prudent before him of the shifting eye. In so far as human
reactions are determined by the implied expectations of associates and the
demands of immediate circumstances, we should be surprised indeed if the
"high-brow" did not, on the strength of his cranium, evade our office-door
sentinel, the dimpled one respond to our facetious comment, and he of the
shifting eye be forced to steal for a living.
4. Another source of these notions is mainly responsible for such of them
as refer to definitely undesirable traits. This is the belief, so well
played upon by the school of Lombroso in criminology, that many of these
characteristics, along with the so-called physical stigmata, are indicative
of a degenerative or atavistic trend in the constitution of the individual.
Among these stigmata were enumerated every conceivable extreme variation of
every identifiable part of the human anatomy. Lombroso was inclined to
believe not only that the presence of such traits was a certain mark of
criminal propensities, but even that various types of criminals could be
recognized by the cataloging of their stigmata, as thieves, murderers,
forgers, etc. The history of the criticism of this view need not be
repeated here. Suffice it to say that we now understand that the underlying
truth of the matter is only that these stigmata are somewhat more frequent
among the vicious, degenerate, and defective groups than they are among
people selected on the basis of their morality and intelligence. The
criminally inclined individual may possess no stigmata, while an Abraham
Lincoln may possess several of them, and in marked degree. To be sure,
when an unusual number of stigmata are presented by an individual, we feel
disposed to suspect that the abnormal condition is not confined to his
bones and peripheral organs alone, but is probably so deep-seated as to
involve his nervous system as well. But on the basis of these stigmata
alone we are quite unable to decide whether he is an imbecile, a degenerate
criminal, a pervert, a genius, or only an average man, with an undue burden
of physical infirmity; still less can we diagnose his special mental or
moral qualities.
5. A further source of these physiognomic beliefs may be discerned: namely,
the fact that the features of a stranger are very likely to call more or
less clearly to our memory some other acquaintance whose traits we know, to
our sorrow perhaps, and whose features or manner or voice or apparel chance
to be very similar to that of the stranger. At once we are inclined to
endow the stranger with the character of the individual he resembles. We
seldom accurately check up these impressions on the basis of subsequent
discovery. Indeed we are much more likely to evoke the suspected traits by
our own attitude and by our treatment of the stranger, and we are eager to
pounce upon any act that may be construed as a confirmation of our snap
judgment. It is obvious that these impressions will vary from individual to
individual and that any attempt to formulate them would expose their
fallaciousness.
6. Finally, in this analysis of the origin of our belief in the signs of
physiognomy, is the mere insistence that as a matter of fact there are
definite relationships discoverable and formulable between typical features
and typical characteristics of personality. Beliefs of this dogmatic kind
are most likely to be exploited by the professional counsellor, since they
appear to the examinee to be unknown, mysterious, esoteric facts. The
following formulations, taken from an account of the performance of one of
the most widely advertised of professional vocational counsellors, may
serve as an example of this type of dogmatic physiognomic doctrine.
"The sensitive, delicate-minded man usually has a fine-textured skin; the
coarse-minded man a coarse-textured skin. It is an embryological fact that
the skin was and is the original seat of all sensations, and that spinal
cords and nerves are but modified and specialized in-turned skin. Of
necessity a man's skin indicates the texture of his brain.
"Texture is a great classifier of humanity. The individual of fine hair,
fine-textured skin, delicately chiseled features, slender, graceful body
and limbs, as a general rule, is refined, loves beauty and grace, and likes
work either purely mental in its nature or offering an opportunity to
handle fine, delicate materials and tools. On the other hand the man with
coarse hair, coarse-textured skin, and large, strongly formed features
inclines as a general rule to occupations in which strength, vigor,
virility, and ability to live and work in the midst of harsh, rough and
unbeautiful conditions are prime requirements.
"It is no secret to observant employers of labor that blondes, as a general
rule, are changeable, variety loving, optimistic, and speculative, while
brunettes are consistent, steady, dependable, serious, and conservative."
"It turns out as one might naturally expect that the man who resembles the
greyhound in form is quicker, keener, more responsive, and less enduring
than the man who resembles the bulldog in form.
"A most cursory examination of the portraits of poets, educators, and
essayists will show a marked tendency in them to resemble the triangle in
structure of the head and body--both head and body wide above and narrower
in the lower portions. An examination of the portraits of a hundred great
generals, pioneers, builders, engineers, explorers, athletes, automobile
racers, aëronauts, and others who lead a life of great activity will show a
general tendency toward structure on the lines of the square--square face,
square body, square hands. Reference to the portraits of great judges,
financiers, organizers, and commercial kings will show a general tendency
toward structure upon the lines of the circle--round face, rounded body and
a tendency to roundness in hands and limbs.
"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 assigned 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 assign 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 accumulating,
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 constitution. 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 class 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 associates, for a number of more or less definite characteristics.
The twenty-five individuals constituting 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 associates; (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 Associates 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
Snobbishness | .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,
snobbishness, 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 associates. 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 associates, 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 circumstances the
coefficients are far from perfect, even for those traits in which they are
the highest. Only if beauty, snobbishness, 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 snobbish or the vulgar among his
employees, grave injustice would most certainly be done to those many
individuals who constitute 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 aptitudes 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 analytic recording of each detail or by ignoring
these in favor of his own more or less unanalyzed total impression has
never been demonstrated. Under any circumstances 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 pass 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 analyses, 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 constitution 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 analysis 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 substitutions 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
circumstances or on more carefully planned occasions, in the endeavor to
secure more or less exact quantitative expressions of the degree to which
he displayed certain types of ability. Underlying the various abilities and
involved in them there were assumed 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 aptitudes 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 multitudinous 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 analysis 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 analysis 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 instituted 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
aptitudes 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 accumulating
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 analysis of the tests themselves, the
nature of the functions tested by them, or their relation to each other.
Aside from the strictly motor and physical tests those devised were mainly
of so-called intellectual character: measurements of speed and accuracy
with which certain definite tasks could be accomplished. They were,
moreover, very simple in character, not necessarily related to the work of
daily life, with only a single or but a few trials made on each individual.
Tests of affective and volitional factors were slower in developing. Little
account was taken of interests, instinctive and emotional characteristics,
attitudes, adaptation, methods of attack, limits of ability after practice,
or many other aspects of individuality which later work has shown to be
important.
The next step in the development of tests consisted in the coöperative
effort to standardize the nature and methods, the conditions and mode of
record. Many hands had part in this process, until in recent years, through
publication, comparison and discussion of the subject, fairly uniform
principles of technique, record, and treatment of measures have been agreed
upon. This made possible the comparison of results secured by different
investigators, and facilitated the statistical treatment of the data, so
that later work might profit by what had already been tried or accomplished
by earlier workers. After many years of this sort of coöperative work,
another series of studies was inaugurated to attempt what has come to be
known as "testing the tests." These studies proceeded by examining into the
degree to which the various tests correlate with each other, with other
indications of the individual's ability, with age, sex, health, education,
school standing, special training, etc. Such questions as the following
will suggest the problems involved in "testing the tests."
1. Which of the various tests correlate with each other?
2. What correlation exists between mental and motor abilities?
3. Do the tests measure fundamental qualities or general powers of the
individual, or specialized capacities, or perhaps mainly the effect of
general or special training?
4. If they measure general qualities, which of the existing tests are the
best for this purpose?
5. How many trials are needed to afford a reliable index of the
individual's ability?
6. What are the principal incidental factors that influence the result of
tests?
7. Which tests are most easily influenced or disturbed by extraneous
factors?
8. Can tests of the simpler laboratory type be used to indicate the
individual's ability as shown in his daily work and play?
9. How simple or complex should the various tests be in order to give the
best results?
10. How many tests, and which, are required to give a fairly correct
picture of the individual's psychological make-up?
11. To what degree do preliminary trials indicate the final capacity of an
individual?
12. Does the intercorrelation of tests change in any way with practice,
repetition, and familiarity with the material?
13. Just what mental functions may the particular tests be said to measure?
14. How important are these functions in practical, educational and
vocational life?
15. By what amounts and in what various ways do individuals differ among
themselves in such abilities as the tests measure?
16. Are there other important aspects of psychological constitution and
equipment for which there now exist no adequate tests?
The investigation of these numerous problems has resulted in the
accumulation of a considerable literature of mental tests. Many of the
earlier forms of tests were abandoned because of their unsatisfactory or
meaningless character. Others have been retained and improved in form, and
many new ones are constantly being devised and elaborated, described and
standardized. The precautions to be observed, the instructions to be given,
and the methods of record and interpretation have been presented in various
books and manuals. The tests have been developed for more and more complex
functions, and now relate not only to relatively simple capacities but to
highly elaborate and subtle forms of achievement. As rapidly as is
consistent with accuracy, norms and standards of performance for different
ages, school grades, vocational requirements, etc., are being accumulated
and reported. Typical charts of age norms in selected tests are given in
the Appendix.
As the tests have thus developed they have been organized for a variety of
special purposes, such as for school measurement, educational diagnosis,
clinical examination, laboratory experiment, and more recently for the
purposes of vocational guidance and selection. Among the first of these to
develop systematically, and also the ones with the most immediate
vocational application, are the graded intelligence scales, which shall be
our next concern.
GRADED INTELLIGENCE SCALES AND NORMS
An important step in the history of general tests is represented by the
accumulation of norms and standards of performance for the different
selected tests, and the arrangement of scales of tests with increasing
difficulty, as further aids in fixing the individual's status.
After a standardized and tested form of test has been selected, norms of
performance are accumulated by applying the test to large numbers of
persons of the same general type. The classification may be on the basis of
age, school grade, occupation, nationality, etc. In this way it becomes
possible to determine for a given individual how he compares with other
members of his group; whether he is above or below the average, and how
far; whether he would belong among the best ten, or the poorest ten, or the
third ten, etc., of one hundred selected at random. Such norms also reveal
to what degree the tested ability varies with the other factors, on the
basis of which the group was selected, as age, sex, education, size,
health, race, etc.
As rapidly as reliable norms are established, it becomes possible to select
for each age, school grade, occupation, etc., a set of tests which the
average person of that age, schooling or calling should be able to perform
to a certain known degree of proficiency. Failure to accomplish this
indicates performance lower than that expected and in so far as success is
dependent solely on mental ability, indicates inferior capacity. Similarly,
ability to do more than the average or normal record requires indicates a
capacity that is precocious, rare, and superior.
In this way are derived standard graded scales which represent a decided
advance in the science of psychological diagnosis. There are three rather
different forms in which attempts have been made to secure such scales. In
one form the scale consists of a series of steps, each step consisting of
different sorts of performance; that is, different tests or tasks are used.
These tasks are arranged in groups, each group representing tests which
should be passed acceptably by individuals of the given age, school grade,
etc. In another form of scale the type of task is the same throughout, but
the different points on the scale are represented by increasingly difficult
specimens of material. The scale thus presents graded steps of difficulty
in doing the same general sort of thing. In the third form the task remains
precisely the same throughout, and performance is measured in terms of the
time in which the task can be completed and the accuracy which is
displayed. Sometimes, in scales of this type, although the instructions are
always the same, the test is performed with varying degrees of
approximation to a qualitative standard, and the steps may then consist of
these graded qualitative achievements.
As representative of the first form of scale we may refer to the widely
used Binet-Simon scale for the determination of mental age. Whatever we
mean by intelligence, it is a characteristic which is essential to
vocational activity. It is furthermore a characteristic which normally
tends to increase in its degree or manifestation from infancy up to at
least ten or twelve years of age. Beyond that point there are, to be sure,
striking individual differences in that characteristic which we call
intelligence, but beyond this point it does not seem so dependent on the
physical age of the organism. Five-year-old children tend to be pretty much
alike in intelligence. At least, the change from five years to seven years
is commonly attended by very apparent growth in this respect, and a
five-year-old is more like other five-year-olds in the things he can do
than he is like seven-year-olds.
Experiment and observation show that the ages up to ten or twelve tend to
indicate rather definite mental status, in the long run, although, to be
sure, children of a given age vary considerably from one another. But
beyond this point the age of an individual is not by any means an
indication of the sort or degree of ability to be expected of him. The
further we go beyond this point, the less significant becomes the mere
statement of the individual's age. We may thus indicate the mental
attainment of a child of less than twelve years by stating the average age
of children who can do the things, know the facts, display the abilities
that he can. This figure we will use to indicate his _mental_ age as
distinguished from his _chronological_ or _physical_ or _actual age_. A
record-blank which enumerates the tests comprising the Binet-Simon scale is
given in the Appendix. Those who may be interested in using this or similar
scales should familiarize themselves with some of the many books and
manuals that have been written concerning them, the methods of using them,
their characteristic results and their evaluation. These scales will be
again considered in a later section, when we discuss the measures of
general intelligence as they relate to vocational guidance and selection.
Other scales than the Binet-Simon series have been proposed, and this
series has itself undergone modifications at the hands of later
investigators--changes calculated to render it more reliable and adaptable.
Much work is now being done in the attempt to develop scales or sets of
tests which will reveal characteristic differences among people whose
mentality has gone beyond the point which the juvenile scales reach.
The work of Trabue in standardizing the "completion test" so that
individuals may be quantitatively compared on the basis of it may serve as
an example of the second form of scale. This particular test consists in
requiring the individual to supply meaningful words or phrases in the blank
spaces formed by mutilating logical text. It is similar to the simple
exercise sometimes found in elementary text books of grammar and spelling.
It seems that the ability to supply the missing words or phrases quickly in
such mutilated material calls for the exercise of a type of ability which
correlates to a high degree with most other measures of intelligence.
Individual differences as shown by school grades, age, opinion of teachers,
estimates of associates, results of other mental tests, etc., are readily
and with considerable reliability revealed in the individual's ability to
perform this type of test. This investigator has, after much preliminary
labor, constructed a form of this test in which the material gradually
increases in difficulty from beginning to end. Efficiency in the test may
be measured by the point one can reach in the text in a given time. This
test has been standardized, not on the basis of physical age, as in the
case of the Binet-Simon scale, but on the basis of school grade, from the
second grade through the high school, some four or six years beyond the
point where the Binet-Simon scale ceases to be useful. A copy of this test
is also given in the Appendix. Those who wish to use it should consult the
original description of it, for technique, precautions, norms, and
interpretation.
A good example of the third form of scale is to be found in Sylvester's
standardization of the "form-board" test. The "form-board" is one of the
most useful tests in detecting intellectual defect that is so pronounced as
to constitute the individual a "mental defective." Out of a solid base
board are cut various geometrical forms, such as diamonds, stars, squares,
triangular blocks, etc. These blocks are placed alongside the base from
which they have been cut. The task is that of replacing all the blocks in
their appropriate places, with the greatest possible speed. The test tends
to reveal characteristic defects in understanding instructions, perceiving
the general and specific situations, profiting by experience, recognizing
form and size and other space relations, etc. The individual may work
blind-folded or may use his eyes.
In the standardized form the sizes, shapes and positions are uniformly
adopted and the technique of instruction and procedure is specified. Under
these conditions the time required to complete the task by normal children
of the ages five to fourteen years has been recorded. Sylvester presents a
curve based on the examination of 1,537 normal children. The curve shows
the average time of performance for each age and also indicates the range
of performance for each age. In the case of a given individual it is thus
easy, by referring to the standard table of norms, to determine whether he
is up to the normal record for his age, whether he is within the normal
range of variation for this age, and how deficient or precocious he may be
in this respect. Tables of this type are now being accumulated for a great
variety of single standard tests.
In addition to scales of this type, which proceed by setting for the
individual a graded series of tasks and determining his success in their
accomplishment, there is a further type of graded scale which is now
represented by several standard specimens. This is the type of scale which
is designed to afford an instrument for the measurement of such products as
the actual work of the individual incidentally yields. Thorndike's "Scale
for the Measurement of Handwriting" is the model on which many of the later
scales of this type have been based. In this scale actual specimens of
handwriting are arranged in a graduated series in such a way that the steps
from specimen to specimen are equally appreciable or noticeable, and in
this sense uniform. When such a scale extends from an actual zero point, it
is possible to "measure" the quality of handwriting in quite the same way
as that in which one measures the height of an individual or the length of
a table. The quantitative measure consists in the statement of the number
of stages which intervene between that quality of product represented by
the specimen and the zero point of the scale. The position assigned to the
specimen being measured is determined by moving the specimen along the
graded series of standards until a point is reached where the specimen
seems, on the basis of direct inspection, to belong. Such scales have been
formulated for various special forms of school work, such as handwriting,
drawing, arithmetic, literary composition, mechanical construction, etc. By
such means it is possible not only to measure the "general intelligence" of
the worker, but also his actual ability in creating a definite type of
product. There seems to be no limit to the possibilities of scales of this
form, and their value in determining the more definite and particular
capacities, whether from the point of view of original endowment or from
the point of view of the effects of training, is obvious.
These various scales for measuring general intelligence have been used
chiefly for the purposes of educational diagnosis, in determining the
degree of backwardness of children in the grades, their need for special
educational attention, or the hopelessness of further pedagogical effort
with them. But it is obvious at once that tests of this type are of great
use to an employer in eliminating, from among the candidates for work,
those who are hopelessly mentally defective, feeble-minded, and
irresponsible. There are many sorts of work in which the employment of
feeble-minded persons, unrecognizable as such by their physical traits or
by a casual inspection, not only entails loss and annoyance but may
constitute a positive danger and constant menace to those who rely on the
defective individual. Such work as that of delivery boys, messengers,
domestic servants, nurses, elevator operators, drivers, motormen, etc., may
be cited as instances of work into which the feeble-minded easily slip,
unless there is some standardized means of recognizing them.
The importance of detecting these incompetents and keeping them from work
in which their irresponsibility means economic waste and personal and
social danger is of distinct vocational interest. Studies of cases brought
to the Clearing House for Mental Defectives in New York City show that of
the first two hundred and eighty-one feeble-minded women of child-bearing
age, about two-thirds had been engaged in some form of economic labor in
which their incompetence was distinctly dangerous to those associated with
them. The following table shows how these two hundred and eighty-one
feeble-minded women had been employed:
Living at home and assisting at simple tasks 94
Domestic service (families, bars, hotels, etc.) 67
Engaged in factory operations 21
Living in institutions, reformatories, asylums 20
Prostitutes 30
Laundresses 5
Working in stores, clerking, errands, etc. 5
Nursemaids 9
Odd jobs 6
Married and keeping house 11
Housework, with relatives 13
The investigators originally reporting these data write as follows: "These
defective women had borne eighty-nine illegitimate children, which were
acknowledged and could be somewhat definitely located, and sixteen women
were illegitimately pregnant at the time of their examination at the
Clearing House. Twenty-four of the two hundred and eighty-one had married
and these had borne forty-six legitimate children. The average mental age
of the illegitimate mothers was nine years."
The employment of feeble-minded women as domestics, factory operatives,
laundresses, clerks, and nursemaids constitutes not only a nuisance to the
general public, but a real source of inefficiency and danger to the
community. Graded scales for the measurement of intelligence will have
amply repaid the labor devoted to their formulation if they aid us in the
proper segregation and vocational supervision of the mentally defective.
The feeble-minded boy is more likely to be observed in the natural course
of things, because of the more strictly competitive types of work into
which boys customarily go, but it is far from realized how much loss of
property, life, and general happiness is entailed upon the community by the
indiscriminate employment of untested boys and men as floating employees.
But the vocational value of the graded intelligence scales and norms is not
limited to the work of detecting and eliminating the feeble-minded. Many of
the tests as now standardized yield measures of intelligence, capacity and
comprehension ranging far above the level which constitutes the borderline
of mental defect. Some of them reach somewhat higher than the average
intelligence and capacity of the college freshman. It is thus possible,
through the use of the graded scales, to measure in quantitative terms the
general intelligence as well as various more special capacities of
applicants and candidates for positions for which general intelligence is
the chief requisite. Such tests are now used in many places in the
selection of clerical workers, telephone operators, stenographers,
waitresses, motormen, salesmen, office help, inspectors, watchmen,
soldiers, and special types of factory workers. Thus Trabue reports a study
in which Professor Scott tested thirty efficiency experts employed by a
large industrial concern in New England. Ten psychological tests were used,
including a completion test. The men were also judged on the basis of
their relative abilities by the members of the firm. The combined tests
correlated with the combined judgments, giving the very high coefficient of
.87. The completion test alone yielded a coefficient of .64. From the point
of view of vocational selection we may expect the principle of the graded
intelligence scale to become increasingly valuable as more and more norms
are established. The first definite contribution of vocational psychology
is thus not so much toward the guidance of the individual worker as for the
guidance of the employer who may be required to select from a number of
applicants those whose general intellectual equipment is most adequate. But
we shall later have occasion to point out a further contribution which this
makes possible, in so far as it may enable us to classify the operations
involved in various types of work and to align these operations and tasks
along the general intelligence scale. Such alignment will enable us to
specify the approximate degree of general intelligence which a given
position demands, and thus, in the case of the simpler tasks, afford a
means of vocational guidance as well as vocational selection.
CHAPTER IV
THE PSYCHOGRAPHIC METHODS
THE INDIVIDUAL PSYCHOGRAPH
Another application of mental tests has a very direct interest for
vocational psychology. This is the method of the "psychograph," as it is
commonly called. The French and German psychologists especially have been
active in advocating the practice of submitting to careful and detailed
experimental examination the physical and mental characteristics of men who
have achieved marked success in their chosen vocations. By the application
of this clinical method to men of superior attainment it is hoped that
light may be thrown on the psychological foundations of their genius and,
in general, on the relation between mental traits, as shown in the results
of psychological tests, and actual success in life's work. This
psychographic method represents the earliest methodical attempt to
differentiate the various vocations from one another on the basis of
special aptitudes and characteristics, as distinguished from the factor of
general intelligence. Dr. E. Toulouse has already published reports of
such examinations or psychographs in the cases of Zola, Dalou, and Henri
Poincaré. It is the intention of this investigator to continue this line of
work, utilizing from time to time such refinements of technique as may be
available. As an illustration of the psychographic method, an account of
the study of the eminent mathematician, Poincaré, may be given in some
detail.
The investigation of Poincaré took account of such special topics as
heredity, development, physical condition, sensory acuity, various kinds of
memory, attention, imagery, reaction time, association of ideas, language
and handwriting, character, habits and opinions. Although the tests
followed a technique which the investigator recognized to have been quite
imperfect and fragmentary, they are said to have yielded results quite
sufficient to characterize the intellectual type of the man. The account of
the tests is followed by a synthesis in which is attempted a general
picture of Poincaré's type and an interpretation of the conditions of
invention and speculative genius.
From the point of view of heredity, development and general vital
characteristics Poincaré was found to resemble most his mother and
grandmother, who, with collateral relatives, are said to have shown
special aptitude in mathematical calculation. Several male members of the
family have had successful careers in neurology, law, meteorology, politics
and mathematics. Poincaré's development was not precocious, although he was
bright and showed, when quite young, mathematical ability of an unusual
order. His history, up the age of thirty years, at which time he was
elected to the Academy of Sciences, was not unlike that of many other
mathematicians whose freedom from the necessity of experiment allows them
to make rapid progress. He was at one time troubled with rheumatism, and in
his childhood suffered from an attack of diphtheria, followed by paralysis.
This attack is said to have profoundly modified his nervous system, perhaps
providing the neuropathic basis for traits shown later in life, such as
awkwardness, restlessness, flighty attention, distractibility and general
sensori-motor deficiency.
A physical examination which dealt mainly with anthropometric measurements,
strength tests, and with an inquiry into habits of eating, sleeping, and
the use of narcotics, revealed nothing very unusual. Poincaré had head
measurements somewhat larger than the average. He was troubled with
indigestion, also with insomnia. He did not use tobacco, and indulged only
sparingly in wine and coffee. He was able to work for but four hours a day,
in two-hour periods, and the tendency to automatisms and the perseverance
of psychic activity compelled him to cease work for some time before
retiring. He disliked muscular exercise except for the automatic processes
involved in walking. His absent-mindedness was a matter of common comment
among his associates. The examination of his sensory and motor capacity
showed Poincaré to have been rather feeble from a sensory point of view.
Hearing was defective for low tones, but auditory orientation and
localization were fair. He was shortsighted, but had no astigmatism; tests
of the field of vision showed no abnormality. Muscular weakness of the eyes
was present, which led to accommodation spasms. His general bodily
movements were characterized by uncertainty, irregularity, awkwardness and
hesitancy, and his muscular reflexes were prominent.
The greater number of the tests had to do with more strictly mental
characteristics. Poincaré had no visual images or memories, except in the
transition state between waking and sleeping, when he had frequent visual
hallucinations of remarkable distinctness. In his waking life he relied
chiefly on motor images and tendencies, thinking of geometrical forms in
terms of optical or manual movements. He had no visual "schemes," but
represented time, in his thinking, by a rotation of the eyes on their axes.
In his youth he had pronounced colored hearing, which was evoked not by the
form but by the sound of letters and words. He had no other synesthesias.
Tests of recognition memory for length of lines, reproduction of drawings
seen once, etc., are said to have shown exceptional memory capacity. The
memories were held with the aid of motor imagery, and the reproduction was
often not from the image but on the basis of an analysis of the material
which had been presented to him. He had a memory span for digits of about
eleven, as compared with the ordinary record of about eight. In the case of
letters he had an auditory memory span of nine, and a visual span of seven.
Mechanical memory did not seem to be particularly good, and much emphasis
is laid on Poincaré's tendency to use memory devices when remembering this
non-logical material; he employed analysis and incidental schemes whenever
possible. He had a "remarkable facility in mental calculation," which is
said not to be the rule with mathematicians. In tests of logical memory he
was superior to both Zola and Dalou, and here again his memory was found to
be analytical and artificial rather than mechanical. All material was
arranged in a coherent scheme or system, and it was this system, rather
than the material, that was remembered.
A series of cancellation and reaction-time tests showed that the simple
sensory reactions were slower and more regular than those of the average
person, but the motor reactions were much quicker. This accords with
previous indications as to Poincaré's general motor type. The most
significant thing about the reactions is said to be the wandering and
unstable attention which they disclosed. It was difficult to keep
Poincaré's mind on the tests, because his attention constantly wandered to
the apparatus. In receiving instructions for such experiments he did not
seem to comprehend what was being said, but appeared distracted and
uninterested. This is the same impression he is said to have given to those
whom he met in his daily relations. He was restless, could not remain in
one position or stay by one task, had no patience and abandoned his work
whenever it seemed to require any voluntary effort. Tests of reverie
associations and of free paired associates showed absence of voluntary
attention and predominance of purely verbal association tendencies.
Binet's "cigarette description" test was used, and Poincaré was found to
belong to Binet's first type of observer (simple description, with no
evidence of reflection or judgment, no display of erudition, no expression
of fancy or sentiment). His description was remarkably lucid and clear.
Poincaré spoke correctly, never learned his addresses by heart, and made
few corrections either in writing or in speaking. Indications of his
temperament and type are said to be suggested by his handwriting.
Poincaré's opinions on various topics are given, and several peculiar
habits of daily life are recorded, chiefly for the sake of emphasizing his
constant air of distraction, his impatience and restlessness. He loved
music; sketched a little; did not sleep soundly; and often began to work on
a problem only to abandon it in the faith that it would in some way solve
itself unconsciously or that the right idea would come spontaneously on
some later occasion. He often began a memoir without having any conclusion
in mind. He often wrote formulae automatically for the sake of the chance
associations which they might bring.
These tests of Poincaré showed him to present a striking contrast to Zola,
the novelist. Zola's type was found to be characterized by prominent
voluntary intellectual activity, clearly conscious and intense,
concentrated effort, with no tendency to perseveration of ideas after
cessation of work. His thought, as disclosed by the tests, was logical,
methodical, and seemed preëminently fitted for the work of mathematical
deduction. His method of work was quite the opposite of that of Poincaré,
who, when he met with a difficulty or with a point requiring voluntary
effort, abandoned his work or proceeded to another part of it which would
develop more spontaneously. The surprising thing was that a methodical,
logical and persistent worker, such as Zola, should have become the prince
of romance that he was. One might have expected that the mental processes
of Poincaré, which were shown to be flighty, uncontrolled, spontaneous,
unstable and spasmodic, would have particularly fitted him for the activity
of the romancer. Instead, they found their outlet in severe mathematical
and philosophical creation. Poincaré's genius is thus said to be incapable
of explanation on the basis of his sensori-motor equipment, his imagination
and memory, and the speed or control of his psychic activity. If his case
is taken as typical, it suggests the quite unexpected result that tendency
to distraction, automatisms, oscillating attention, restlessness,
uncontrolled association and reliance on chance syntheses and spontaneous
ideas are significant for the type of genius required in mathematics and
philosophical speculation. Certainly in Poincaré's case they seem to have
constituted a definite method of research.
The chief value of this examination of Poincaré does not lie in the
particular results which it yielded, but in its initiation of such attempts
to study in a more or less intimate and intensive way the psychological
processes and type of individuals of marked achievement in special lines of
work. For the purposes of vocational psychology it would be valuable to
know the ways in which such admittedly superior individuals as those now
being studied by Dr. Toulouse, differing as they do in their types of
achievement, would react to the simple and complex tests now employed by
those interested in the measurement of intelligence and special aptitudes.
It is true that these psychographic methods do not yet yield results which
are sufficient to inform us why the particular individuals examined were so
much more successful in their work than were others who seem to have been
equally favored and equally diligent. Nor have they yet revealed in any
adequate way the nature or degree of the qualifications requisite for
success in the vocations from which the representative men have been
selected. Nevertheless the individual psychograph constitutes a suggestive
method of research for the vocational psychology of the future. It
represents the intensive development of the older type of "biography,"
based on direct observational data rather than on hearsay, conjecture and
anecdote.
It is on some variation of this method that we must largely rely in our
efforts to learn to what degree vocational success depends on the presence
of demonstrable personal characteristics, rather than on the accidents of
time, place and circumstance. It was inevitable that the first attempts to
give psychographic accounts of the personality of individuals of genius
should be more or less fragmentary, incomplete and experimental. This has
been due partly to the rapidity with which our knowledge of mental tests
has developed, and partly to the very complex and subtle types of
achievement toward which these early psychographic methods have been
directed. Various investigations are now under way in which these same
methods are being used in the intensive examination of individuals who have
engaged in simpler and more common forms of activity, with varying degrees
of success. In some of these researches, for example, men who have made
their life work the marketing of a specific type of commodity through
direct and personal salesmanship are being submitted to intensive
psychological examinations. The problem is to discover whether there is a
more or less specific and recognizable type of personality which
characterizes the successful salesman and differentiates him from the
mediocre salesman and the utter failure. Directed toward these more
familiar and more easily accessible occupations, the individual psychograph
constitutes one of the most interesting forms of vocational psychology.
Closely related to it, though sufficiently distinct in aim and method to
merit separate presentation, is the method of the vocational psychograph,
in which the work, rather than the worker, is made the object of analysis.
THE VOCATIONAL PSYCHOGRAPH
Closely related to the method of intensive examination described in the
preceding section, and profitable in a somewhat different direction, is the
type of psychograph represented in Professor Seashore's reports on "The
Measurement of a Singer." This may be called the "vocational psychograph"
as contrasted with the psychograph of the individual of genius. It proceeds
by discovering first the necessary abilities and capacities which a given
sort of performance demands. In the case of singing, rather more than in
almost any other vocation, certain definite and fairly identifiable
abilities are quite obviously required, and the degree to which they must
be present for definite attainments is rather more easily discoverable.
Thus, Seashore writes: "Musical power is generally admitted to embrace
certain well-recognized and fairly concrete capacities. In our commonplace
judgments about ourselves and others we say: 'I have no ear for music.' 'I
cannot tell a chord from a discord.' 'I cannot keep time.' 'I have no sense
of rhythm.' 'I cannot tell a two-step from a waltz.' 'I cannot remember
music.' 'I cannot image sounds.' 'I am not moved by music.' 'I do not enjoy
music.' Or, if speaking of someone who has musical ability, we say: 'He has
a deep, rich voice.' 'He never forgets an air.' 'He lives in song.' Such
judgments have reference to generally admitted specific factors involved in
musical capacity by virtue of a musical organization. Corresponding to
these judgments of native capacity we have judgments about musical
education, about musical environment, about special influences and stimuli
for the development of musical talent, and about technique and success in
the rendition of music. When judgments of this kind are based upon
measurements, classified and adequately interpreted, they may constitute a
measure of the individual as a singer.
"The measure of a singer should consist of a relatively small number of
representative measurements upon specific capacities and achievements.
These measurements must be set in a full survey by systematic observation
and other verified information bearing upon the variation of the individual
as a singer. The classification of the measurements must be based upon (1)
the attributes of sound which constitute the objective aspect of music, and
(2) upon fundamental and essential processes in the singer's appreciation
and expression of music. From the point of view of the objective sound, we
must take into account pitch (with its complexes of timbre and harmony),
intensity, and duration. From the point of view of mental processes we may
group the tests under the heads, sensory, motor, associational, and
affective, each of these furnishing natural subdivisions."
The writer then presents an arrangement of these proposed measurements in a
program, which is also recommended as the outline for a systematic
description of the individual in his capacity as a singer. The sensory
group of tests includes five tests under pitch, two under intensity, and
one under time discrimination. The motor group includes seven tests under
pitch, two under intensity, and four under time. The associational group
includes two tests under imagery, three under memory, and four under
ideation. The affective group contains three tests under musical appeal,
and one each under reaction to musical effect and power of interpretation
in singing. A copy of this program of tests is given in the Appendix.
In a chapter of his "Psychology in Daily Life,"[6] Seashore describes these
special tests. He indicates their significance and suggests approximate
norms for those cases for which they are at present available. For the
accumulation of many of these norms, and for the conduct of the tests,
special and elaborate apparatus and methods are required. For several years
the workers in Seashore's laboratory have busied themselves with the
problems concerned in the measurement and accumulation of norms for pitch
discrimination, vividness of tone imagery, span of tone memory, consonance
and dissonance, rhythmic action, intensity discrimination, voluntary
control of the pitch of the voice, and the singing of intervals.
Reference to norms thus acquired shows, for example, that in the case of
discrimination in voluntary control of the pitch of the voice "a record of
.9 vd. means that this ability is within three per cent of the best record
for individuals under similar conditions, and that those who have such
control are thoroughly qualified to render a high class of music in this
respect; while a record of 9 vd. falls within eight per cent of the poorest
ability measured, and is characteristic of an individual who cannot sing;
whereas 3 vd. represents the average ability of an untrained individual."
Again, in another connection, and with reference this time to the
discrimination of tones when heard, the same investigator has suggested
that one who can discriminate a difference, from a given standard pitch, of
3 vd. or less may become a musician; one whose threshold falls between 3
and 8 vd. "should have a plain musical education"; one whose discrimination
is so poor that 9 to 17 vd. is the measure "should have a plain musical
education only if special inclination for some kind of music is shown";
while a measure of 18 vd. or above indicates that the individual "should
have nothing to do with music." These suggestions were proposed for
individuals of equal age, advancement and general ability.
That is to say, there are but three persons in a hundred who, having just
sung the tone which is produced by a tuning fork vibrating two hundred and
fifty-six times per second, can then voluntarily and accurately change the
pitch of the voice to represent the tone of a fork vibrating 256.9 times
per second, a change of .9 of a vibration. But fifty persons of the hundred
can produce voluntarily a change of three vibrations, and ninety-two of the
hundred can produce the very large change of nine vibrations. Seashore, of
course, points out that in addition to these various measurements, "there
must be other measurements, statistical data, biographical information, and
free observations concerning musical training, traits of temperament and
attitude, spontaneous tendencies in the pursuit of music, general education
and non-musical accomplishments, social circumstances and physique," and
that all these in their unity must be considered in the light of expert
knowledge and expert technical insight before they can be said to give an
adequate estimate of the particular individual's various capacities and
qualifications as a singer. Those interested in the use of psychological
tests in connection with musical ability should familiarize themselves with
the many original reports from Seashore's laboratory. The methods there
being followed may well serve as models for future analyses of vocational
demands and individual tests.
If the highly specialized work of singing calls for such complex analysis
and for such varied measurements, technical skill, and arduous collection
of norms and standards, one realizes the utter folly of such vocational
counsel as that which vaguely recommends the candidate to "be a musician,"
"be a writer," etc. Indeed, we may now begin to see that it is only when
each particular aspect of each particular calling is thoroughly analyzed
into its elementary requirements, when reliable tests for the detection and
measurement of these abilities are available, and adequate norms and
standards accumulated in each case, only then can the method of the
vocational psychograph come to have practical application in vocational
analysis and guidance.
How far, we may now ask, has such analysis been able, as a matter of fact,
to proceed with the representative types of work? So far as recorded
enterprise is concerned there have been three different ways of attempting
such analyses. One of these methods is that used by the various vocational
bureaus in endeavoring to learn what type of individual is most in demand
in the different occupations. Futile as these endeavors have been, it is
nevertheless well to have them before us for our future reference and
guidance. In the main the questionnaire method has been used in this
connection; employers have been asked to state, in much their own way, the
necessary or desirable mental and moral qualifications of those who might
expect to succeed in the various kinds of work.
These replies have been collated and attempts made to secure "clinical
pictures" of the type of individuals. These methods result in such
characterizations as the following. The words specifying the vocation
itself are omitted, and the reader is invited to guess which of the large
number of possible callings is being described.
"The girl who enters ---- should be able to use good language, and should
dress neatly and appropriately in order to impress people agreeably. She
should be able to write a legible hand, make clear figures, and spell
correctly; a practical knowledge of arithmetic, especially fractions, is
very important. Prime requisites for success are interest and enthusiasm
and a knowledge of human nature. The born ---- takes a vital interest in
her ----, in her ----, and in her ----. She studies her ----, learns
something of their ----, knows what their good points are, and is able to
---- about them intelligently and truthfully. She is a good judge of
people, and she has the sincerity and the tact which enable her to help a
---- so to ---- as to go away satisfied and come to her again. Such a ----
is alert, energetic, and gives strongly the impression that she is in her
place to ---- and therefore never displays an indifferent manner toward
anyone who may ask her service. Loyal to her work, she is always courteous,
for loss of temper means loss of ---- ----."
Now, if one but insert suitable words where the omissions occur, the
paragraph remains equally applicable and illuminating when applied to any
of the following occupations, diverse as they seem to be: housekeeper,
waitress, stenographer, milliner, teacher, mother, doctor, nurse, cashier,
sales-woman, insurance agent, bookkeeper, clinical psychologist, private
secretary. The following paragraph is equally illuminating:
"If a girl wishes to succeed in ---- she must be possessed with
intelligence [How much?], good judgment and common sense. She must have
good eyesight, good hearing and a good memory. She must have good
perception and be able to concentrate her attention completely on any
matter in hand. In addition to these she must be neat in executing ----
work and accurate to the last degree. It is absolutely necessary that she
have a good education."
It would require several trials to guess of what particular occupation this
is a psychographic picture.
It is clear at once that this method yields little information of the kind
we are here considering, beyond the cataloging of the general sterling
virtues of mankind. The peculiar and distinctive mental functions
presumably involved in the various types of work are just the ones that no
one not an expert in psychological analysis could be expected adequately to
portray. The so-called special qualifications, such as honesty, patience,
attention, neatness, perseverance, etc., do not represent elementary
psychological categories. Moreover, they are qualifications with which no
legitimate sphere of human activity can afford to dispense. In the long run
they are characteristics which correlate to a high degree or, indeed,
perhaps help to make up and constitute what we call general intelligence.
In no case is there any specification of the precise amount of these
various traits that may be needed. Since the days of the faculty psychology
we have ceased to think of attention, memory, will, etc., as homogeneous
powers which play in a general sort of way on all sorts of material. We
usually find that when an individual is inattentive to one set of facts
this is largely due to his being attentively preoccupied with some other
set. Still further, no tests have been proposed which satisfactorily
measure such traits as honesty, perseverance, promptness. Nor is it
certainly known to what degree such traits are fixed characteristics of
individuals and to what degree they represent present habits and tendencies
modifiable in many ways if the circumstances call for such change.
Turning from the employer himself, and his description of the ideal worker,
we may inquire what happens when the professional psychologist undertakes
this analysis? The only case in which an expert psychologist has attempted
this is to be found in Münsterberg's recent book on "Vocation and
Learning." It is there pointed out that every act and experience has its
threefold aspect, the aspect of knowing, that of feeling, and that of
doing. Corresponding to these three aspects, there are to be pointed out in
the case of each occupation the required information, the necessary
technical skill, and the special guiding personal interests and social
satisfactions. In order to clarify our knowledge of the special needs of
the various vocations, and presumably to aid in the guidance of individuals
in their vocational choices, eleven different representative vocations are
analyzed on this threefold basis. Two or three of the analyses may be given
here as an indication of the results arrived at by this method at the hands
of the avowed applied psychologist. The specification of the particular
technical knowledge we need not include for our purpose, since this
consists of information supplied through some form of education. The
outline on the following page brings together the requisite abilities and
the implied motives and interests, as stated for the occupations of
domestic worker, architect, physician, and journalist.
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Occupation| Domestic Worker| Architect | Physician | Journalist
----------+----------------+--------------+--------------+------------
Abilities |Joyful work |Esthetic sense|Social dealing|Sociability
Required |Energy |Imagination |Energy |Energy
|Patience |Industry |Discretion |Memory
|Teaching |Drawing |Tact |Accuracy
|Economy |Modeling |Judgment |Judgment
|Physique |Specification | |Observation
| |Employment | |
| | of men | |
|Housekeeping |Architecture |Dissection |Typewriting
|Sewing |Engineering |Microscopical |Quick
|Cooking |Heating | Observation | Expression
|Nursing |Ventilating |Psychotherapy |Forceful
|House furnishing|Construction |Clinical | style
| | | Activity |
| | |Surgical |
| | | Technique |
----------+----------------+--------------+--------------+------------
Implied |Morality |Honor |Honor |Honor
Personal |Beauty |Beauty |Truth |Truth
Motives |Position |Position |Position |Influence
and Social|Support |Fees |Fees |Salary
Interests |Home Life |Comfort |Influence |Progress
|Family Welfare |Progress | |
| | | |
|Comfort of |Housing |Welfare of |Politics
|Community | | Community |Education
|Family Comfort | |Health |Information
| | |Prevention of |Entertain-
| | | Disease | ment
--------------------------------------------------------------------------
It is obvious that such analysis is inadequate for our purpose. For the
most part the various vocations are said to be actuated by much the same
motives, the leading satisfactions being honor, truth, position, beauty,
progress, fees or salary, and welfare. These enumerations, of course, help
us in no way to distinguish between the particular satisfactions or
interests involved in the different types of work. Quite the same thing is
true of the abilities required. Most of them call for energy, industry,
judgment and ability to deal with people. The same might be said of
prize-fighting, plumbing and peddling. And do not the journalist and the
housekeeper require tact as well as the physician? Is it true that the
architect alone, of the four examples here given, has use for imagination
and an esthetic sense, that the domestic alone needs physical development
and joyfulness? Accuracy is perhaps more necessary to success in
architecture than to the pursuit of journalism, while judgment, discretion
and observation would seem to be of occasional value even to the
housekeeper and the architect.
In short, this type of analysis, which, whether accepted seriously or not,
represents the latest word from a distinguished psychologist on the
differences among the occupations, gives us no more assistance toward the
basis of a vocational psychograph than did the catalogs of sterling virtues
provided by the employers in their replies to the questionnaires.
Various other types of analysis have been proposed, as well as different
criteria, on the basis of which the occupations might be thrown under some
form of psychological classification. Thus it has been pointed out that the
traditional distinctions on the basis of materials handled or type of
product produced, give little indication of the type of activity involved
or of the characteristics necessary for success. As Schneider has remarked:
"If a boy were successful in wood-shop work, he was told he would make a
good carpenter; however, wood-turning in a shop and outdoor carpentry are
dissimilar types, while wood-turning in a shop and metal-turning in a shop
are similar types."
Schneider has for many years considered the problems involved in adjusting
human beings to congenial types of work, and prefers to classify both men
and jobs on the basis of certain broad characteristics which refer more
particularly to interests, habits, preferences and similar temperamental
factors than to the technical psychological mechanisms employed in the
work. He writes: "Every individual has certain broad characteristics and
every type of work requires certain broad characteristics. The problem,
then, is to state the broad characteristics, to devise a rational method to
discover these characteristics (or talents) in individuals, to classify the
types of jobs by the talents they require and to guide the youth with
certain talents into the type of job which requires those talents. This is
a big problem, but one possible of measurable solution, or, at worst,
possible of a solution immeasurably superior to our present haphazard
methods."
As an illustration of what Schneider means by "broad characteristics," take
his distinction between the "settled" and the "roving" types. "There is a
type of man who wants to get on the same car every morning, get off at the
same corner, go to the same shop, ring up at the same clock, stow his
lunch in the same locker, go to the same machine and do the same class of
work, day after day. Another type of man would go crazy under this routine;
he wants to move about, meet new people, see and do new things. The first
is settled; the second is roving. The first might make a good man for a
shop manufacturing a standard product; the second might make a good
railroad man or a good outdoor carpenter."
Or, again, consider his distinction on the basis of "scope." "Then there
are two types--one of which likes to fuss with an intricate bit of
mechanism, while the other wants the task of big dimensions--the
watchmaker, the engraver, the inlayer, the painter of miniatures, on the
one hand; the bridge builder, the steel-mill worker, the train dispatcher,
the circus man on the other. One has small scope, the other large scope."
Basing his analyses mainly on the enterprises of manufacture, construction
and transportation, and recognizing that other broad characteristics would
probably be listed if different types of occupation were also considered,
Schneider gives a list of sixteen classifications which may be applied
either to the individual or to the type of work. These are as follows:
a--Physical strength; physical weakness.
b--Mental; manual.
c--Settled; roving.
d--Indoor; outdoor.
e--Directive; dependent.
f--Original (creative); imitative.
g--Small scope; large scope.
h--Adaptable; self-centered.
i--Deliberate; impulsive.
j--Music sense.
k--Color sense.
l--Manual accuracy; manual inaccuracy.
m--Mental accuracy (logic); mental inaccuracy.
n--Concentration (mental focus); diffusion.
o--Rapid mental coördination; slow mental coördination.
p--Dynamic; static.
It must be said that the characteristics of the various types of work here
enumerated are pretty much the features which have in the past guided such
individuals as really chose their vocation rather than found it waiting for
them, made a random selection, or seized the first available opportunity.
The paired adjectives probably afford truer descriptions of various types
of work than they do of types of individuals. Most individuals of one's
acquaintance one would have to group neither under the one nor the other
extreme, but in an average group which would show each of the opposed
tendencies under special circumstances or would show no particularly marked
degree of either tendency. Observation of such individuals for long
periods of time and under a variety of circumstances would be required
before these classifications could be made out by a stranger or by a
professional counsellor. Even then such a classification could hardly be
said to be psychological in any technical sense of the word, and it is not
very probable that psychological training or experience would facilitate or
render more reliable such classification. The question of to what degree
the individual's judgment of his own characteristics may be relied on in
such an analysis we must defer until a later section where that is taken up
as the main subject of discussion.
The reliable vocational psychograph, which proceeds by means of a careful
preliminary analysis of the qualities required in the given work, and uses
specially adapted tests with reliable norms for their evaluation, is not
yet available for any single occupation. The preliminary analyses so far
made, whether by employer, psychologist, or engineer, give us little
guidance, and until such guidance is forthcoming the special adaptation of
tests and the accumulation of norms and standards cannot make much
practical progress. The inadequacy of the analyses already offered should
not discourage further effort in this direction. The alignment of the
simple industrial processes along the general intelligence scale has
already been begun. The description of the more complex tasks in terms of
identifiable mental characteristics is a much more difficult task, but this
very difficulty is at once a sign of the importance of the problem.
FOOTNOTES:
[6] "Conduct of Mind Series," D. Appleton & Co., New York.
CHAPTER V
SPECIALIZED VOCATIONAL TESTS AND METHODS
The absence of complete vocational psychographs has not retarded the search
for tests which, though more or less fragmentary, may have vocational
significance. In fact, there are some twenty types of work for which tests
have already been proposed, recommended, and more or less tentatively tried
out. A brief account of these, with references to the more complete
literature, will be given here, and some attempt made to evaluate the tests
themselves.
Substitutes for the vocational psychograph, in the way of partial and
suggestive tests, have been proposed in four different forms. Since the
work of the immediate future will probably develop along these same lines,
these four forms will be indicated here, and typical illustrations cited in
each case.
A. There is first what may be called the method of the vocational
miniature. Here the entire work, or some selected and important part of it,
is reproduced on a small scale by using toy apparatus or in some such way
duplicating the actual situation which the worker faces when engaged at his
task. Thus McComas, in testing telephone operators, constructed a miniature
switchboard and put the operators through actual calls and responses,
meanwhile measuring their speed and accuracy by means of chronometric
attachments. Stern and others recommend tests of the fidelity of report of
a witness in court by letting him observe some rehearsed scene, some motion
picture representation of a series of events, or some pictorial portrayal
of a scene or episode, and examining into the faithfulness with which he
can describe what he there saw.
B. Closely related to this method of miniature performance is that of
taking an actual piece of the work to be performed and sampling the
candidate's ability by his success in this trial. Thus, in connection with
the recommendation of clerks and assistants from among the boys in
commercial high schools it is common to test their ability from time to
time throughout their course by assigning them small pieces of work similar
to that which they might later be required to perform in business offices
and shops. Finding addresses and numbers in a telephone directory, carrying
out involved verbal instructions and directions from memory, computing
calculations, recommending action on the basis of their figures, making out
a trial balance, a trial chemical analysis, etc., are common forms of this
type of test. In certain cases such specimens of work have been devised in
or taken into the psychological laboratory and the worker watched more
closely and measured more exactly. This has been done, for instance, by
Thorndike in the case of clerical workers and salesmen, by Paynter in the
case of judges of trade-mark infringements, by Scott in the case of
salesmen, and by others in the case of tests for handwriting experts.
C. A third method has been that of analogy. Some test is devised which
bears real or supposed resemblance to the sort of situation met by the
worker in the given occupational activity. The material is new, but the
attitude and endeavor of the worker seem to be much the same. There is
indeed usually a tacit or expressed belief that the same simple or complex
mental processes or psychological functions are involved in the two cases,
although the precise nature of this function has seldom been clearly
stated. Thus girls employed in sorting steel ball-bearings, and also
typesetters, have been selected on the basis of their speed of reaction to
a sound stimulus. Münsterberg has suggested that marine officers who can
quickly perceive a situation and choose an appropriate mode of reaction to
it may be selected by letting candidates sort into their appropriate piles
a deck of cards bearing different combinations of letters. The same
investigator has described a test for motormen which, while being neither a
miniature of their required work nor yet a sample of it, is said to produce
in them much the same mental attitude. In another case telephone operators
were tested for speed in canceling certain letters from a newspaper page,
in the belief that this work involved an ability that was also required at
the switchboard, although there directed to different material. McComas has
described a dot-striking test for measuring accuracy of aim or motor
coördination, which forms an essential factor in manipulating a
switchboard.
D. Finally there are cases in which tests having vocational significance
have been sought by purely haphazard and empirical ways. Thus Lough, having
devised a form of substitution test in which certain characters had always
to be replaced by certain others, according to a prescribed key, then
proceeded to apply it to groups of commercial students. Speed of
improvement was chosen as the thing of interest in respect to the test.
Measures of this capacity, as shown by repeated trials with the same test
day after day, were then compared with measures of ability in different
types of work in which the students were engaged. It was found that the
test records agreed very closely with the abilities in typewriting, fairly
closely with abilities in business correspondence and stenography, whereas
there was not such definite relation found between the test records and
ability in learning the German language or in mathematics. The test is
consequently recommended as a useful means of detecting typewriting and
stenographic ability. It is not pretended that the test is a miniature of
the work of such calling, nor that it is a fair sample of such work, nor
even that it involves precisely the same mental functions that come into
play in such work. The test records and ability in the particular type of
work show high positive correlation, which means that an individual who is
good or medium or poor in the one is, as a mere matter of fact, also found
to be good, medium or poor in the other. Hence, without further analysis,
the one may be used as the sign of the other.
Another good illustration of the use of this method is the study of Lahy,
who put good, average and poor typewriters through a great number of tests
of different sorts. He found that the only tests correlating closely with
ability in the practical work were those for memory span, tactile and
muscular sensibility, sustained attention, and equality of strength in the
two hands.
Perhaps the most perfect example of this purely empirical procedure is the
investigation which has now been conducted for several years by Mrs.
Woolley and her co-workers in Cincinnati. Children who leave the grades to
enter directly into some sort of industrial occupation are examined by a
miscellaneous assortment of simple mental tests. These records are
preserved, and the subsequent successes or failures of the pupils in the
various sorts of work undertaken by them in later life are as carefully
recorded as is possible. It is hoped that when a sufficient amount of
material of this nature has been accumulated the two sets of data may be
compared and information thereby secured concerning the relation between
ability in the tests and the types and degrees of industrial fitness. At
present only the test records have been published.
In a recent investigation an attempt was made to discover, by this
empirical method, a set of mental tests which would aid in the selection of
efficient workers in a specific field. Thirty workers who were already
employed under fairly comparable conditions of work were taken as subjects
in a preliminary search for tests of value. These thirty people were each
put through a series of "association tests," of the familiar laboratory
form, naming opposites, naming colors and forms, completing mutilated
passages, following hard directions, giving responses bearing specified
relations to stimulus words, cancellation and number checking, etc. While
these tests were in progress, during a period of several days, the thirty
workers were rated by three supervisors who were familiar with their work
at the actual task, and who had for some time been observing their
performance with a view to making subsequent judgments. Each supervisor
arranged the thirty workers in an order of merit, according to his or her
impression of their relative efficiency. The judgments of these three
supervisors were then averaged and each worker assigned a final position on
the basis of these averages. This was believed to be as accurate a measure
of actual ability as could be secured under the complex conditions of work.
The results of these ratings were then compared with the results of the
mental tests. Some of the tests were found not to correlate with the
ratings for actual working efficiency. Three tests showed definite and
positive correlations, as follows: _Color-Naming_ (thirty-seven per cent),
_Hard Directions_ (forty per cent), _Completion_ (thirty-three per cent).
When results from these three tests were combined, the records correlated
with the ratings by a coefficient of fifty-five per cent. These three tests
were then accepted as having value in the selection of good operators, and
search was continued for further tests which might also yield positive
correlations. This investigation is again an illustration of the purely
empirical method.
These four procedures in the search for useful vocational tests, in the
absence of complete vocational psychographs, are quite generally recognized
to be but tentative expedients of an explorative character. Individual
workers have not always clearly recognized the principles involved in their
work, but have proceeded as best they could under the special
circumstances. Each method has its own defects and advantages. The
miniature model has the advantage of concreteness and apparent relevance,
but, as Münsterberg points out, "a reduced copy of an external apparatus
may arouse ideas, feelings and volitions which have little in common with
the processes of actual life." This writer is inclined to believe, on the
basis of his experiments so far, that "experiments with small models of the
actual industrial mechanism are hardly appropriate for investigations in
the field of economic psychology. The essential point for the psychological
experiment is not the external similarity of the apparatus, but exclusively
the inner similarity of the mental attitude. The more the external
mechanism with which or on which the action is carried out becomes
schematized, the more the action itself will appear in its true character."
The second method we have described, viz., that of using as the test a real
sample of the work done, has certain very obvious advantages. On the other
hand, for the vocational test of this type to be at all significant, either
the sort of work involved in the occupation must be fairly uniform and
homogeneous in all its different circumstances (as in the case of
typewriting at dictation, or in the work of filing clerks, accountants,
etc.), or else there must be included a large number of samples
representing all the various unrelated sorts of work. Moreover, in neither
case is the test in any peculiar sense psychological. Such tests could
perhaps be best conducted by the employer himself. In fact, employment on
trial, which is a common method of selecting operatives and assistants, is
a time-honored form of this test, which is not necessarily improved either
by calling it psychological or by putting it in charge of a general expert
or by removing it to the laboratory.
The third form of procedure is full of all sorts of difficulties and
sources of error, many of which are, at the present stage of our knowledge,
irremediable. In selecting a new test which will involve the same mental
attitude and call for the exercise of the same psychological functions as
are needed in the work itself, we are handicapped by the unreliability of
the introspection of the examinee and also by our inadequate ability to
recognize, identify and classify psychological functions even when we are
confident that these are present. The statement of motormen that the
manipulation of a crank in connection with a strip of checkered paper makes
them feel quite as they do when guiding their cars through a crowded
thoroughfare is far from a guaranty "that the mental function which they
were going through had the greatest possible similarity with their
experience on the front platform of the electric car." It is much more
conceivable that the "mental attitude" referred to was merely the vague
feeling that "Something is happening now," "This keeps me busy," or "What a
nuisance this thing is." And even if we knew the mental functions involved,
as would be demanded by the vocational psychograph method, we are still a
long way from the time when we can exhibit even a single psychological test
and state just what function or functions its performance does or does not,
may or may not, involve. Indeed we do not even know what the various
distinct mental functions are, or whether, as a matter of fact, there are
such distinct functions.
After all, the miscellaneous, random, and purely empirical method of Lough,
Lahy and Woolley seems to be the most promising experimental procedure for
the immediate present, and perhaps for some time to come. This method is,
to be sure, but a rough, provisional and unanalyzed expedient. It calls for
long and patient coöperative labor. It does not at once afford us the
systematic scientific insight which we may wish we possessed. But it will
at least save us from the delusion that we already possess such insight,
and it should serve to check the fervent and semi-religious zeal that leads
us to mistake prophecy for service. Analysis and classification of the
results which this method yields are possible when the results are
accumulated in adequate measure.
It is essential that interest in this eminently practical use of the
psychological laboratory be sustained among those who are responsible for
the further promotion of its methods and problems. But it is undesirable
that public expectation should be strenuously directed toward the
laboratory until it has done more than the outlining of a series of
problems and the initiation of preliminary efforts toward their solution.
These specialized vocational methods, the miniature, the sampling, the
analogy, and the empirical procedure, constitute four definite and
promising instruments of research. They have yielded results of such
demonstrable practical value, in the selection of special types of workers
and in the detection of particular aptitudes and abilities, that the
application of selected mental tests has already come to play an important
rôle in the placement and training departments of a considerable number of
industrial and commercial concerns. While the more slowly developing
individual and vocational psychographs are being perfected, these
specialized vocational tests will not only serve the purposes of temporary
assistance and expedience, but the results derived from their intelligent
use and their further patient elaboration will contribute materially
toward the establishment of more complete and systematic technique.[7]
FOOTNOTES:
[7] In the Appendix is given a list of references to books and articles
which describe numerous tests worth trying out by the empirical method.
Instructions should be carefully followed so that results may be comparable
with those secured by other workers.
CHAPTER VI
SELF-ANALYSIS AND THE JUDGMENT OF ASSOCIATES
THE SELF-ANALYSIS OF THE INDIVIDUAL
We have now reviewed the vocational efforts of primitive magic, medieval
clairvoyance, phrenology, physiognomics, industrial education, the
vocational survey, the individual psychograph of genius, the vocational
psychograph, the graded scales of intelligence tests, and the four proposed
types of specialized vocational tests.
We have yet to consider three further methods available for the purposes of
vocational psychology, that of "self-analysis," and that of the "consensus
of opinion" of one's associates, and that of inferring the characteristics
of the individual from his achievement in the work of the school
curriculum. In the absence of more reliable ways of determining the
capacities, interests and vocational aptitudes of individuals in the past,
and whenever there was any question of selection, fitness, or choice, four
vague methods have often been followed. (1) Either the individual undertook
the first available type of employment, tried it out, and then persevered
in it or abandoned it for a trial at some other type of work until a
suitable occupation was found; or (2) he continued at the original work and
made the most of the results and of the ensuing satisfactions or
dissatisfactions; or (3) he felt more or less clearly drawn to some
particular occupation because of a keen interest in it or because he
believed himself to be particularly likely to succeed in it because of his
own analysis of his aptitudes and characteristics; or (4) he consulted
friends and associates, asking them to advise him on the basis of their
impression of his individuality and powers.
The unsatisfactoriness, waste and misery of the first two of these methods
are largely responsible for the development of a conscious attempt at the
vocational guidance of youth. Perhaps if more use were made of the two
remaining methods we should never have been moved to initiate the laborious
work called for by the psychographic and the test methods. Not enough
critical attention has been given to the methods of self-analysis and to
the validity of the judgments passed on us by our associates. The
difficulty encountered when one seeks for information on such questions as
the following indicates the desirability of further and closer study of
these matters.
1. In the individual's analysis of his own personality, are formal guidance
and method needed, is special terminology useful, and the recorded
experience of others an aid?
2. If so, what sort of guide or scheme or system may such self-analysis
profitably follow?
3. Have such guides to the introspective analysis of the self been
formulated, and by whom, where, and when?
4. How reliable and consistent are an individual's judgments of his own
characteristics, interests, and aptitudes? Has one any constant tendency to
overestimate or underestimate himself?
5. Do the degree of reliability and consistency, and this constant error
vary in any way with the individual, with the circumstances, and with the
particular trait that is being estimated?
6. How is the individual's judgment of himself likely to compare with the
impression of him which his associates form? To what degree does this vary
with the individual, the trait, and the associates?
7. What relation exists between the individual's opinion of himself and the
results of objective measurements of him, such as those afforded by
psychological tests? How do the results of tests compare with the judgments
of associates?
8. Are individuals who themselves possess a given trait in high degree
better judges of that trait in themselves or in others than are those who
possess the trait in less degree?
9. What intercorrelations exist between the estimates of self and others,
when different traits are compared?
10. In the case of people in school, what relations exist between the
self-estimate, the estimate of others, and the results of tests, on the one
hand, and school standing, academic success, and extra-academic activities?
What relation between these factors and successfulness in later life?
On the first three of these questions I shall indicate in following
sections such material as is available, pointing out where the more
valuable and detailed information may be found. On the remaining seven
questions recorded information is much rarer. Here I shall summarize the
available material and shall also present tentative answers based on an
original investigation which was conducted for the express purpose of
calling more definite attention to the problems, as well as to suggest
fruitful methods, and at least make a beginning in the accumulation of
facts concerning these very interesting features of human nature.
There is perhaps no proof required that complete and systematic
self-analysis is more desirable than random and undirected introspections,
whatever value may be attached to the results of such analysis. Whatever be
the purpose of self analysis, it will be the more useful and suggestive the
more completely it compasses the total range of capacities and
inclinations. Comparison of different analyses by different individuals
should result in a synthesis of traits, an acceptable terminology and a
mode of statement better calculated to throw light on individual equipment
than is secured by the methods of casual and unguided rumination. So far as
possible such analyses should proceed in terms of identifiable, comparable
and measurable characteristics rather than by the vague categories of
conversation and literary description. Such categories, traits and
terminology should be used as will best enable the individual not only to
state his own reactions in figures of speech, but also to compare himself
with his immediate associates and with characters less directly known.
One of the first attempts to draw up a list of fundamental qualities as an
aid in the inventory of a given individual's particular nature was made by
Professor Cattell in an article concerning the characteristics of men of
science. Twenty-four traits are enumerated, as follows:
Physical Health Reasonableness
Mental Balance Clearness
Intellect Independence
Emotions Coöperativeness
Will Unselfishness
Quickness Kindliness
Intensity Cheerfulness
Breadth Refinement
Energy Integrity
Judgment Courage
Originality Efficiency
Perseverance Leadership
Of this list Thorndike has written: "These elements of manhood or
components in mental structure hail from a mixture of psychological theory
and general reflection on human behavior. It is regrettable that the list
has not been published more widely and used in a variety of connections. It
seems probable that these significant nouns may in many cases be paralleled
by natural units of mental organization-atoms in the human compound. I
venture to suggest also, as at least a provisional principle of
organization, the instincts or original tendencies of man as a species, it
being my opinion that some of the terms of the above list refer to rather
complex concatenations of traits in man's nature which have only the
artificial unity of producing some defined result in human life."
Partridge, in his "Outline of Individual Study," gives an account of
methods whereby the teacher may assist the young child in discovering his
or her particular physical and mental constitution. The book contains a
brief outline for such study and enumerates many pages of words descriptive
of human nature. The main aspects of the mental life of children are taken
up in successive chapters and discussed in a general way, with suggestions
in the way of tests, problems, questions, points of observation, etc.
The "Family History Book" (Bulletin No. 7) of the Eugenics Record Office
contains a scheme, arranged by Drs. Hoch and Amsden, for the examination of
the personality of persons suspected of mental abnormality. This scheme is
further elaborated by Wells in an outline to be referred to at a later
point in this chapter. In the "Trait Book" (Bulletin No. 6) of this same
office there is to be found a long list of traits descriptive of human
beings, including physical and physiological as well as nervous and mental
characteristics. These traits are classified for convenient reference and
record according to a decimal key. The pamphlet also contains classified
lists of diseases, crimes, and occupations. Various other bulletins issued
by the Eugenics Record Office will also be found both interesting and
suggestive to those interested in the study of self-analysis, heredity and
individual differences. They contain nothing, however, of immediate
vocational applicability.
Dr. F. L. Wells has made a comparative study and synthesis of the schemes
proposed by Cattell, Hoch and Amsden, Heymans and Wiersma, and Davenport,
supplementing these at certain points and suggesting a method of giving
more or less quantitative form to the characterizations. It is obvious that
an outline of this sort can be used in expressing the personality of
another individual as well as for the purposes of self-analysis. Such an
outline is of value not only for general knowledge or for vocational study
but also in the examination into questions of mental health, pathological
tendencies and trends, predispositions leading to or favoring mental
instability, etc. Wells describes fourteen phases or aspects of human
personality, and under each phase presents guiding questions, suggestive
clues, and sub-features. Especially convenient and helpful is the method of
giving an approximate quantitative statement which facilitates comparison
and summation. Suitable marks assigned to the several different
characteristics under each of the fourteen main headings (there are in all
about ninety-five subtraits) serve to indicate marked, distinct or doubtful
presence, or marked, distinct or doubtful deficiency or aversion.
The main headings given by Wells are as follows:
1. Intellectual Processes (5 subtopics)
2. Output of Energy (4 subtopics)
3. Self Assertion (7 subtopics)
4. Adaptability (5 subtopics)
5. General Habits of Work (5 subtopics)
6. Moral Sphere (6 subtopics)
7. Recreative Activities (16 subtopics)
8. General Cast of Mood (3 subtopics)
9. Attitude Toward Self (4 subtopics)
10. Attitude Toward Others (7 subtopics)
11. Reactions to Attitude Toward Self and Others (12 subtopics)
12. Position Towards Reality (5 subtopics)
13. Sexual Sphere (9 subtopics)
14. Balancing Factors (6 subtopics)
The complete outline, accompanied by much suggestive discussion and comment
on the constitution, development and types of human personality, is
published in the issue of the _Psychological Review_ for July, 1914. It
should be carefully read by all interested in this type of individual
analysis.
One of the most carefully planned, easily available and concretely
serviceable outlines for self-analysis is that recently formulated and
published by Yerkes and LaRue under the title "Outline of a Study of the
Self" (Harvard University Press, 1914). The authors of this outline have
found that a study of ancestry, development and present constitution is an
extremely profitable task. They present this guide as an aid to such
systematic and thorough study. The purpose of such study is threefold: (1)
to help the individual understand himself or herself; (2) to help the
individual understand and sympathize with others; (3) to arouse interest in
the study of heredity, environmental influences, eugenics and euthenics.
The "Outline" is put together on the looseleaf system, with blank pages for
records and replies. Under the heading "Ancestral History of the Self" are
given the "Record of Family Traits" of the Eugenics Record Office, and many
supplementary questions concerning physical, mental, moral and social
traits of near relatives, with suggestions as to their classification and
evaluation. Under "Development or Growth of the Self" and "The Self of
Today" the prenatal, infantile, childhood and adolescent periods and the
present time are each provided with questions concerning characteristics,
influences, growth, temperament, inclinations, habits, capacities and
social relations. Under "The Significance of the Characteristics of the
Self" are given questions concerning vocational demands, equipment, and
ambitions; marital propensities and fitness; responsibilities and
preparation for parenthood; and the "Index to the Germ Plasm" of the
Eugenics Record Office is considered. A final section invites reflection on
"The Duties of the Self as a Member of Social Groups" in the light of
physical and mental constitution, moral and religious tendencies,
vocational abilities, and marital and parental relations and duties.
Such attempts to present suggestive outlines for self-analysis or for the
inventory of the traits of others are both commendable and timely. That
they are but beginnings in the right direction their authors commonly
recognize. Their supporting idea is not that employers, teachers or
physicians should take the individual's replies to these questions as
embodying information which the individual did not previously know about
himself. The individual, in attempting to express and analyze his
inclinations and reactions, may find them clarified and ordered in the
process. He is likely to discover at a very early point in his record how
little he is really able to say about himself with assurance. If this
should induce a humility which would lead him to more careful
self-scrutiny, such value as this subjective stock-taking may have will
surely tend to be enhanced.
THE JUDGMENT OF ASSOCIATES
No less important than the correct evaluation of the individual's
self-analysis is the problem of evaluating the judgments which his
acquaintances pass on his mental constitution and qualifications. Not only
does the youth often determine his choice of a vocation by relying on the
advice of his associates, teachers, and friends, but his success in
securing an opportunity to undertake any kind of work whatsoever often
depends on the oral or written estimate of some other person of whom
inquiry is made. Selection on the basis of the testimonial and the
recommendation has come to be a traditional vocational step.
"The problem of judgment of character is one which is continually
confronting people of all classes and stations. In many instances the
correct estimate of a person's character is of vital importance. The
success of officers of administration from the President of the United
States to the school superintendent of a small village depends often on
their ability to choose for their subordinates persons of the proper
character. In everyday life one's happy choice of friends, one's ability to
sell goods, to persuade people to accept a new point of view or doctrine,
to get on harmoniously with people in general in all the various
occupations of life, depend upon one's ability to estimate the powers,
capacities, and characteristics of people. To those who have to make
personal recommendations or to make use of those made by others, this
question of judgment of character is a grave one. Is it possible for one to
judge at all fairly the character of another?"[8]
We are concerned here not with inference from physiognomic features and
anthropometric measurements, but with impressions based on the observed
conduct, expression and achievement of the individual who is in question,
his or her characteristic behavior, attitudes, activities, reactions, and
accomplishments. When the individual being judged is a total stranger and
the judgment is immediate, estimates of character are of course merely of
the type discussed in preceding sections on phrenology and physiognomy.
Professor Cattell once requested twelve acquaintances of five scientific
men to grade these five men in the various traits of character to which we
have referred on page 127. The grades assigned were to represent the
position of the individual in his group. Thus a grade of twenty-five per
cent would mean that the individual belonged in the lowest one-quarter of
the total group of scientific men in the country, in the trait so marked,
three-fourths of the group being superior to him in this trait. A grade of
one hundred per cent would mean that the individual so graded would belong
among the highest one per cent of all the scientific men in the country, in
the trait so marked. When these records were compiled it was seen that in
the case of certain traits, such as energy, perseverance, efficiency, the
twelve judges differed much less among themselves than when judging other
traits, such as cheerfulness, kindliness, unselfishness. It is interesting
to note that the traits on which the judges agreed closely represent the
individual's reactions to objective things, whereas the traits on which
they disagreed most represent the individual's reactions toward other
people.
There are, of course, several reasons for this result. In the first place
the reactions of an individual to objects, as displayed in his daily work,
are matters of common knowledge and are likely to leave objective and even
measurable evidence such as wealth, books, buildings, etc. Reactions to
other individuals are more likely to vary with the occasion and with the
companion, and are also likely to be deliberately controlled, inhibited or
assumed, in the interest of more objective and remote ends. This would mean
that whereas in the first case all the judges were dealing with much the
same material, in the form of actual products of the traits in question, in
the second case they were more or less likely to have in mind rather
different reactions or occasions of a more strictly personal character.
The problem of the validity of judgments of the various traits was
considered in a more detailed way by Norsworthy, from whose account of her
inquiry we have already quoted. She chose the traits enumerated by Cattell,
and performed several experiments to determine the reliability of judgments
of this sort. Thus she had five intimate acquaintances independently grade
a sixth person for her possession of these twenty-four traits, on two
different occasions several weeks apart.
Two things were clearly shown. In the first place the individual judges, in
their second trials, did not diverge far from their first ratings. In the
second place the double judgments of the five different judges did not
diverge far from each other. These two facts "prove that the ratings do
stand for some actual quantitative value and are not subject to mere
chance. The validity of the judgments, in the sense of their correspondence
with the actual character of X is then only a matter of the impartiality of
the group of judges."
Similar results were found in the judgments of nine members of a college
society by five of their comrades, and in the judgments of a teacher by two
hundred college students. It was apparent also that judges differ from one
another in the general accuracy of their gradings. Some of them agree
closely with the consensus of opinion, while others depart, in varying
degrees, from the average or correct estimate. It was also seen that, in
estimating certain individuals, judges with presumably equal acquaintance
with those being judged agreed closely with one another. Other persons had
produced quite different impressions on the different judges and this was
revealed in the greater divergence of the grades assigned to such persons.
As in the case of Cattell's results, figures are presented showing the
degree of divergence among the judges in estimating the different traits.
In the table on page 139 these figures are given, as shown in the records
of five judges in one of Norsworthy's experiments, and the records of the
twelve judges in Cattell's investigation. The average variability or degree
of divergence for all the twenty-four traits is taken as the standard and
each trait compared with this standard. A variability of one hundred thus
indicates the average amount of disagreement. Figures smaller than one
hundred indicate that the agreement was closer than average, and figures
larger than one hundred indicate that here the judges disagreed by more
than the average amount.
Naturally, there is not perfect agreement in these two cases, since the one
set of data is from a group of girls judging one another on the basis of
their acquaintance as social comrades and fellow students, while the other
set is from scientific men judging one another on the basis of less
constant association and largely on acquaintance in lecturing, research,
teaching and the writing of articles and books. Moreover, results from
groups of only five judges in the one case and only twelve in the other are
subject to considerable variable error. In spite of these facts,
interesting suggestions are afforded by the comparison.
TABLE 1
VARIABILITY IN JUDGING DIFFERENT TRAITS
------------------------------------------------------------
| Relative Divergence of Different Judges
Trait |-------------------------------------------
| Cattell, | Norsworthy,| Average of Both
| 12 Judges | 5 Judges | Experiments
----------------+-----------+------------+------------------
Efficiency | 75.0 | 92.4 | 83.7 (Close
Originality | 95.2 | 77.2 | 86.2 Agreement)
Quickness | 90.0 | 88.0 | 89.0
Intellect | 95.2 | 92.0 | 93.6
| | |
Perseverance | 75.0 | 101.0 | 88.1
Judgment | 100.0 | 78.7 | 89.4 (Fair
Will | 85.1 | 98.1 | 91.8 Agreement)
Breadth | 100.0 | 92.4 | 96.2
Leadership | 90.0 | 102.9 | 96.5
| | |
Clearness | 104.9 | 75.7 | 90.3
Mental Balance | 110.2 | 81.8 | 96.0
Intensity | 85.1 | 113.7 | 99.4
Reasonableness | 115.0 | 86.4 | 100.7 (Slight
Independence | 104.9 | 98.5 | 101.7 Agreement)
Refinement | 90.0 | 116.5 | 103.5
Physical Health | 115.0 | 92.4 | 103.7
Emotions | 120.0 | 91.0 | 105.5
Energy | 75.0 | 109.0 | 91.0
Courage | 100.0 | 119.5 | 109.8
| | |
Unselfishness | 115.0 | 106.0 | 110.5
Integrity | 104.9 | 130.1 | 117.5 (Little
Coöperativeness | 125.0 | 113.5 | 119.3 Agreement)
Cheerfulness | 130.0 | 112.0 | 121.0
Kindliness | 120.0 | 125.7 | 122.9
------------------------------------------------------------
It is to be noted that certain traits show small divergence in both cases.
Thus intellect, quickness, originality and efficiency have low measures of
variability, both for the sorority members and for the men of science. The
average percentages of these four traits are, in the order named, 93.6,
89.0, 86.2, and 83.7. These, it is to be observed, are the traits which are
likely to yield objective products. The more personal, social and moral
traits, however, such as coöperativeness, unselfishness, kindliness,
cheerfulness, and integrity, show large divergence of the individual
judgment with both groups. The average measures of variability for these
traits, in the order named, are 119.3, 110.5, 122.9, 121.0, and 117.5.
There is another group of traits which, while showing only about average
variability with one group, show close agreement in the other: such as
will, judgment, perseverance, leadership and breadth. These, it is clear,
are more nearly like the objective than they are like the personal traits.
Then there are several traits which, while showing only average variability
with one group, show large divergences in the other, such as courage and
independence. These would seem to be more nearly like the more strictly
personal traits.
Norsworthy points out that the traits about which inquiries are commonly
made in recommendation blanks sent out by teachers' agencies, employment
bureaus, and employers, tend to be those on which, according to her
results, individual opinion is least reliable. Traits such as originality,
judgment, clearness and quickness, on which judgments are most unanimous
and consistent, are usually omitted from these blanks. This indicates the
desirability of a more careful examination into the general validity of
this type of judgment.
Here, then, as in all the other topics that we have had occasion to
discuss, we find that our present knowledge is far from adequate to meet
the demands of practical life. Available results are tentative only, but
they are so suggestive as to afford a series of interesting problems for
further investigation. The validity of judgments of associates varies with
the judge, with the trait in question, and with the person who is being
estimated. But it does not vary at random; it varies in what seem to be
fairly definite, common, and determinable ways. That we do not know more
about the precise nature of these variations means merely that few persons
have taken the trouble to inquire into the matter.
The use of oral and written recommendations, testimonials, "characters,"
and letters of introduction should be based on a careful study of these
materials. Especially should we know more than we now do concerning the
reliability of judgment in the case of the different traits, the likelihood
that the verdict of a single judge will agree with the consensus of
opinion, the relation of these judgments to the individual's self-estimate,
and the accordance of both these with the results of objective performance.
In the following chapter some of these questions will be further
considered.
FOOTNOTES:
[8] Norsworthy, "The Validity of Judgments of Character," in "Essays in
Honor of William James," p. 553.
CHAPTER VII
EXPERIMENTAL STUDY OF SELF-ANALYSIS, ESTIMATES OF ASSOCIATES AND THE
RESULTS OF TESTS
As we have already remarked, it would be of scientific interest and of
practical value in vocational psychology if we knew something more or less
precise concerning the reliability of the individual's self-analysis. It
would be of equal interest and value to know in what ways the results of
such introspection compare with the judgments of friends and the results of
actual measurement. By way of initiating investigations of these and
related questions the following experiments have been carried out. The
results to be reported are so suggestive as to make very desirable a
continuation and extension of researches of this kind.
From a list of about one hundred and fifty students in their third college
year each member of the group was asked to indicate by marking, as 3, 2, 1,
or 0, the degree of her acquaintance with each of the others. From the
total list a group of twenty-five were selected, all of whom were
acquainted with one another. At intervals varying from two weeks to a
month each individual was given twenty-five slips of paper bearing the
names of these acquaintances and including the individual's own name. She
was asked to arrange the members of the group in order of merit, on each
occasion, according to their degree of possession of some one trait, such
as neatness, humor, intelligence, conceit, etc. Thus in the case of
neatness, for example, the twenty-five persons were to be placed in a
series with the neatest at one end, the most slovenly at the other end, and
all the others arranged in their appropriate intermediate positions, as
based on the judge's personal opinion of them. The judge was to include her
own name in the series, placing herself where she believed herself to
belong in relation to her twenty-four acquaintances. The record was then
handed in, in an apparently anonymous way, but, unknown to the individuals,
accurate record was kept, identifying each arrangement. This was done in
order that the judges might be encouraged to the greatest degree of
frankness both in judging their acquaintances and in recording their
self-estimates. The different arrangements were separated by considerable
intervals of time, so that the judgments of the various traits should be
influenced as little as possible by the memory of where the different
individuals in the list had been placed for other traits on previous
occasions.
In addition to this part of the experiment, each person was put through a
series of seven psychological tests, all of which had been rather generally
found to give results which revealed, to a very high degree of correctness,
the general intelligence of people when this was determined in other ways,
as by mental age, school grade, academic marks, opinions of teachers,
judgments of friends, etc. The particular tests used were the Graded
Completion Test, described in a previous section, and six so-called
Association Tests, recommended by the Committee on Standardization of Tests
of the American Psychological Association. They are usually known as
Directions Test, Opposites Test, Supraordinate Concept Test, Whole-Part
Test, Action-Agent Test, and Mixed Relations Test. Copies of the forms used
in these tests are given in the Appendix.
All of these tests involve the demand for the quick and accurate perception
of and reaction to the relations of things or ideas to each other.
Everything indicates that this ability is most important and determining in
the composition of that characteristic which we vaguely call "general
intelligence," especially if we are dealing with people with school
experience.
Furthermore, the academic marks of scholarship assigned to these
twenty-five students by their instructors in different college branches
during three terms of college work were secured from the official records.
Judgments of the degree to which the different students had been prominent
in extra-academic activities during their college career were made by
officers of the college who had known them during this time. Photographs of
the twenty-five persons, of the same general style and size, were secured
also, as well as characteristic specimens of their handwriting.
This experiment having been completed, a similar investigation was
undertaken with twenty-five members of the senior class. The same method of
procedure was followed as in the first case, the same traits judged, the
same tests administered, etc. This second investigation thus affords a
check on the results of the first study. When the results from the two
investigations are averaged we have figures of considerable reliability,
and fairly accurate data on numerous interesting questions.
Probably never before have such diverse ways been employed in attempting to
get intensive measurements of the individuality. The material enables us
to throw preliminary and suggestive light on many of the questions we have
already raised. It should of course be fully recognized that the results of
this little investigation cannot be generalized into final conclusions
which will be true in other cases, without further verification of them.
The results show only what happened in this case, and only to that degree
do they suggest what we may expect to be generally true. Many similar
studies must be made, under all sorts of conditions and by a variety of
methods, before we shall have the final answers to our questions. But the
results are no less valuable because of their lack of finality. Tentative
as they may be, they nevertheless show what happened in the only recorded
attempt to find answers to the questions we have been considering. If the
reader will now turn back to page 124 he will note how numerous, important,
and complex these questions are, and how little is at present known about
them.
Turning now to our experiment, it will be observed that only in the case of
intelligence do we have what purport to be objective measures of a trait,
viz., the results of the psychological tests and the academic records. But
we have, in the average of the judgments of the twenty-five individuals,
in the case of this and also of the various other traits, what constitutes
as valid a measurement as it is possible to secure under the circumstances.
Neatness, conceit, humor, beauty, etc., are not to be conceived as
substances of which the different individuals possess different amounts.
These traits are mainly ways of behaving or ways of impressing our
neighbors. No better measure of them exists than the actual statement of
what this impression is. Just as the value of a commodity depends entirely
on what, as a matter of fact, people can be persuaded to pay for it, so the
beauty, conceit, neatness, etc., of an individual are mainly constituted by
the kind of impression the individual makes on those about him. At least we
may be sure that only to the degree that such traits actually manifest
themselves and thus determine the reactions of others toward the individual
concerned, only to that degree do the traits have vocational significance.
Lovableness is just the degree to which people actually have affection for
us; eminence is just the degree to which the individual becomes approvingly
known; and kindliness and benevolence are present to just the degree that
people are actually gratified and comforted by our conduct.
Let us turn at once to the actual results of our experiments. It will
perhaps be best to ask specific questions about them and in the case of
each question present the data and draw such conclusions as the figures
warrant. In the figures which follow I have averaged together the results
from the two investigations, so that our conclusions or suggestions may
have the highest possible validity. In some other connection it would be
interesting to compare the two sets of data, and to attempt to explain
certain differences which are to be found between them. But in the present
instance it is our chief concern to exhibit the method of procedure and to
indicate the type of information which may be secured from such
investigations. Many more such studies must be made before the results can
be said to apply to human nature at large, or before the tendencies
discovered can legitimately be expected to be present in the case of any
particular individual.
_I. How do the self-estimates of these fifty persons agree with the
judgments passed on them by their acquaintances?_ The following table
gives, in the case of each of the nine traits studied, the average
deviation of the self-estimates of the various individuals from the median
position assigned them by their twenty-four associates, and also the
average deviation[9] among these twenty-four associates in their judgments
of each individual. The figure given is in terms of the number of positions
in the total scale of twenty-five possible positions. Thus, in the case of
neatness, the figures mean that, whereas each individual, in the long run,
displaces herself by 5.8 positions from her true or median position, the
twenty-four associates deviate on the average by only 4.5 places in their
judgments of another person. That is to say, the individual's error in
judging herself is somewhat greater than the average error of her friends
in their judgments of her. The individual does not judge herself as
accurately as she is judged by her friends.
TABLE 2
ERROR OF SELF-ESTIMATES COMPARED WITH ERROR OF JUDGMENTS OF 24 ASSOCIATES
--------------------------------------------------
| A. D. of Assoc.| A. E. of Self-Est.
-------------+----------------+-------------------
Neatness | 4.5 | 5.8
Intelligence | 3.7 | 6.0
Humor | 4.5 | 7.3
Conceit | 4.1 | 5.7
Beauty | 3.8 | 6.0
Vulgarity | 3.5 | 6.1
Snobbishness | 4.8 | 5.1
Refinement | 5.9 | 7.2
Sociability | 4.7 | 5.4
--------------------------------------------------
In all cases the individual places herself farther from her true position
than do her friends on the average. The average of all the deviations of
associates is 4.4 places; that of all the individual self-estimates is 6.1
places. That is to say, in general the error of self-estimation tends to be
half again as great as the average error of the judgments of associates. In
other words, these students do not judge themselves as accurately as their
friends judge them, if the average position assigned the individual by the
group of twenty-four associates may be taken as a fair measure of the
individual's true status in the group.
_II. Is there any constant tendency toward overestimation or
underestimation, in the case of the individual's self-estimates, and if so,
how does this tendency vary with the trait in question?_ It may be said in
answer to this question, first, that in the case of none of the traits do
all the individuals consistently either overrate or underrate themselves.
But if the self-displacements be averaged algebraically, certain very
definite tendencies toward constant errors are revealed. The following
table shows the constant error in the case of each trait. In the case of
"undesirable" traits (conceit, vulgarity and snobbishness) this constant
error is toward underestimation. On the average, these individuals rank
themselves as less conceited, less vulgar and less snobbish than they
really are, as judged by the combined opinion of their associates. In the
case of all the remaining traits (the "desirable" ones) the general
tendency is toward overestimation. The amount or degree of this
overestimation varies considerably from trait to trait. It is greatest in
the cases of refinement and humor, in which traits there are constant
errors of +6.3 and +5.2 places. In the cases of neatness, intelligence, and
sociability the overestimation is only about half as large as in these two
traits, while in the case of beauty there is really no constant error.
TABLE 3
Showing Constant Tendencies Toward Overestimation (+) and Underestimation
(-) of Self
------------------------------------------------------------
| | Number | Number
Trait |Constant Error|Overestimating|Underestimating
| | Themselves | Themselves
------------+--------------+--------------+-----------------
Refinement | +6.3 | 40 | 10
Humor | +5.2 | 39 | 11
Intelligence| +3.0 | 34 | 16
Sociability | +2.2 | 34 | 16
Neatness | +1.8 | 25 | 25
Beauty | +0.2 | 25 | 25
Conceit | -1.7 | 24 | 26
Snobbishness| -2.0 | 18 | 32
Vulgarity | -4.2 | 17 | 33
------------------------------------------------------------
Another way of expressing these constant tendencies is to give in each case
the number of people in the group of fifty observers who tend in each
direction. These figures are given in the last two columns of the above
table. It is clear at once that in the case of the first four traits the
tendency is predominantly in the direction of overestimation; in the next
three traits the two tendencies are evenly balanced, while in the last two
the general tendency is strongly toward underestimation.
It is of course difficult to say, in this connection, just how accurately
the figures given portray the real self-estimation of the different
individuals, and to what degree they indicate merely what the individual
will do with her own name in the case of such an experiment. Natural
modesty might easily lead one to place her own name lower in the scale for
a given trait than she really believed herself to belong. If this were the
case, we might then infer that the figures we have presented, although
qualitatively suggestive, were not quantitatively reliable. They would, in
other words, express smaller degrees of overestimation and underestimation
than were really present in the consciousness of our observers. Here, as in
all the results of this investigation, the figures are given only as
indicating what individuals actually do when asked to rank themselves among
their associates. Our conclusion on this point is that they tend to
overestimate or to underestimate themselves, according to the
"desirableness" or "undesirableness" of the trait in question. Individual
differences in these tendencies are everywhere apparent. Thus, in neatness,
individuals S and H stand about equally high (S being ninth and H being
thirteenth), but S underestimates herself by thirteen places, while H
overestimates herself by ten places.
In a third experiment of this same kind another group of twenty-five
college seniors, in the same school and during the preceding year, had
judged each other, including themselves, for the traits, efficiency,
energy, kindliness and originality. The data from this experiment are not
given here in full, since the method was precisely that of the two
investigations we have just described, and since all of the results must be
held as only suggestive of what may be expected to happen in the long run.
These seniors also showed a general tendency to rate themselves somewhat
higher than they were rated by their associates. The amount of
overestimation varied with the trait, all the traits in this case being of
the "desirable" sort. Since the conditions of this third experiment were
quite the same as those of the investigation just described in greater
detail, except that a different group of individuals were concerned, it is
perhaps fair to treat the results as comparable, and to include the
measures of constant error along with the preceding records. The results
from all the groups are included in the following table, which shows the
constant tendency in the case of thirteen traits.
TABLE 4
CONSTANT TENDENCIES OF SELF-ESTIMATION IN THIRTEEN TRAITS
-----------------------------------------------
Trait |Constant|| Trait |Constant
| Error || | Error
-------------+--------++--------------+--------
Refinement | +6.3 || Neatness | +1.8
Humor | +5.2 || Originality | +1.2
Kindliness | +4.0 || Beauty | +0.2
Energy | +3.8 || Conceit | -1.7
Intelligence | +3.0 || Snobbishness | -2.0
Sociability | +2.2 || Vulgarity | -4.2
Efficiency | +2.1 || |
-----------------------------------------------
Data from certain other investigations also tell us something about these
tendencies in judging ourselves and others. Thus, in an investigation by
the writer,[10] a number of persons were set to work at the continuous
performance of a series of mental and physical tests. After each trial the
performer was required to judge whether he had done better or worse than
usual on this occasion. In each case another person was required to watch
the performer, and to judge, in the capacity of witness, whether the
performance had been better or worse than usual for the individual who was
doing the work.
The data showed that although an observer is no more "sensitive" to gain in
efficiency than he is to loss, he is predisposed to judge both himself and
another performer whom he is watching as having done "better than usual"
rather than "worse than usual." The consequence is that smaller degrees of
superiority tend to be judged as better with higher degrees of confidence,
and that a certain slight degree of inferiority tends to be incorrectly
judged as "better." We seem predisposed to judge "better" rather than
"worse," and in this experiment the observers were, furthermore,
predisposed in favor of the other person, somewhat more than in favor of
themselves. They were disinclined to judge any trial as "worse than
usual," and this disinclination was stronger when judging as witness than
when judging as performer. This results in a combination of altruism and
optimism which, if found to be a common occurrence, would seem to have
interesting implications. Further investigation will perhaps show that
these attitudes are conditioned, under different circumstances, by a
variety of factors, such as competition, education, motive, age or sex of
performer and witness, and perhaps by individual differences of a
temperamental sort.
When Cattell had scientific men arrange their colleagues and themselves on
the basis of scientific merit, he found no constant tendency either to
overestimate or to underestimate oneself. He remarks, concerning this
result: "It thus appears that there is no constant error in judging
ourselves--we are about as likely to overestimate as to underestimate
ourselves, and we can judge ourselves slightly more accurately than we are
likely to be judged by one of our colleagues. We can only know ourselves
from the reflected opinion of others, but it seems that we are able to
estimate these more correctly than can those who are less interested. There
are, however, wide individual differences; several observers overestimate
themselves decidedly, while others underestimate themselves to an equal
degree."[11]
Since these individual differences, in all the investigations that have
been reported, are so conspicuous, we may next inquire whether the
individual who possesses a given trait in high degree is a better or worse
judge of that trait in himself and in others, than is a person in whom the
trait itself is less marked.
_III. Is one who possesses a given trait in high degree a better or worse
judge of that trait than is an individual in whom the trait is less
conspicuous?_ On the basis of the combined judgments of the group we have
secured a final position for each individual, which indicates her most
probable standing in the various traits. Since each individual judged all
the others of the group, we can, by correlating[12] the judgments of each
individual with the combined judgments of the group, secure a coefficient
of correlation which will indicate the "judicial capacity" of the given
individual. This figure will be a measure of the correctness or
representative character of her judgments of her friends. If the figure is
low, it will mean that her own judgments do not agree closely with the
combined or true judgments. If the figure is high it will indicate that
there is close correspondence, and that the individual's judgments of her
friends agree closely with the combined judgment. Having secured these
measures of judicial capacity, and having also measures of the degree to
which each individual possesses the various traits, we may by correlating
these two measures determine whether or not any relation exists between
possession of the trait and ability to judge others with respect to that
trait. In the same way we may determine the relation between possession of
the trait and ability to judge oneself in that trait. The table on page 160
gives these coefficients of correlation in the case of all the traits.
In the cases of neatness, intelligence, humor, refinement and sociability
the coefficients are all positive and fairly high. Thus in the case of
humor the coefficients of .59 and .87 indicate that that individual whom
others consider humorous tends to be the most correct or representative of
the group in her judgments of the humor of herself and of others. The
coefficients of .49 and .59 in the case of intelligence indicate that that
individual who impresses others as being intelligent is a good judge of
intelligence both in herself and in others. The same is to be said of
neatness, refinement and sociability. In the case of beauty the
coefficients, although positive, are very low and hence not very reliable.
They seem to indicate that in this case there is no relation of any sort
between the possession of the trait and the ability to judge it.
TABLE 5
SHOWING THE RELATION BETWEEN POSSESSION OF A TRAIT AND ABILITY TO JUDGE
SELF AND OTHERS IN THAT TRAIT (All coefficients are positive unless
otherwise indicated)
-------------------------------------------------------------
|Judgment|Judgment|| |Judgment|Judgment
Trait | of | of || Trait | of | of
| Others | Self || | Others | Self
------------+--------+--------++------------+--------+--------
Neatness | .22 | .45 ||Vulgarity | -.24 | -.37
Intelligence| .49 | .59 ||Snobbishness| .33 | -.27
Humor | .59 | .87 ||Conceit | .19 | -.22
Beauty | .23 | .15 || | |
Refinement | .38 | .83 || | |
Sociability | .48 | .47 || | |
--------------------------------------------------------------
In the cases of the definitely "undesirable" traits, vulgarity,
snobbishness and conceit, the coefficients tend to be negative, and
although none of them is very high, they suggest that the possession of
these traits to a given degree tends to disqualify the individual to that
degree as a judge of those traits, whether in herself or in others. These
results also confirm the results in the case of certain of the "desirable"
traits, since vulgarity and snobbishness, with low or negative
coefficients, are, grammatically at least, the opposites of refinement and
sociability, which have high and positive coefficients.
In general, then, our results suggest that, in the case of "desirable"
traits, ability to judge a quality accompanies possession of that quality,
whereas in the case of the "undesirable" traits the reverse of this is the
case.
_IV. What relation exists between these estimated traits and the more
objective measurements of the individuals concerned?_ On the basis of the
mental tests we have secured measures which may be compared with these
estimated traits. The same comparison may be made in the case of the
academic records received by the individuals in their college courses. The
following table shows the correlation of all the estimated traits with
these two objective measurements.
TABLE 6
SHOWING THE RELATION BETWEEN ESTIMATED TRAITS AND (A) THE RESULTS OF MENTAL
TESTS; (B) THE ACADEMIC RECORDS OF EACH INDIVIDUAL IN COLLEGE SUBJECTS
(All coefficients are positive unless otherwise indicated)
------------------------------------------------
|Correlation| Correlation |
Trait |with Mental|with Academic| Average
| Tests | Record |
------------+-----------+-------------+---------
Intelligence| .62 | .52 | .57
Humor | .55 | .15 | .35
Refinement | .34 | .34 | .34
Snobbishness| .53 | .13 | .33
Neatness | .36 | .24 | .30
Conceit | .54 | .03 | .28
Beauty | .40 | .06 | .23
Sociability | .25 | -.07 | .09
Vulgarity | .29 | -.31 | -.01
------------------------------------------------
In the case of the mental tests all the coefficients are positive and
fairly high in most cases. The correlation is highest of all with estimated
intelligence, whatever that may mean. As we have used the term it perhaps
means the impression of general capacity which an individual makes on her
associates. It is interesting to find that the mental tests, which can be
administered in a few minutes, give us so close a measure of what this
impression will be; a measure, it should be noted, which is higher than
that afforded by the academic records, in spite of the fact that these
academic records had been from term to term announced in a public way and
might have been expected to contribute toward the general impression on the
basis of which the judgments of intelligence were passed. The high
correlation between tests and estimates suggests that the abilities
displayed in these tests correspond very closely to those characteristics
on which our associates base their estimates of our intelligence. This is
an encouraging result for those interested in the vocational use of mental
tests.
But it is equally interesting that the results of the mental test correlate
to so high a degree with the estimates of various other traits, notably
humor, snobbishness, conceit, beauty, neatness and refinement. This result
suggests either or both of two interpretations. It may be, on the one hand,
that these characteristics are only partial components of that more general
trait, intelligence (with which the correlation of the tests is still
higher), at least so far as the estimates of our associates are concerned.
This would mean that a sense of humor, a tendency toward self-esteem,
physical attractiveness and a gentle manner dispose one's associates to
think favorably of her general mental endowment. On the other hand the
result may mean that an individual who has sufficient distinction to stand
out prominently in any of the estimated traits here considered is possessed
of a nervous system which enables her to accomplish the work of these
mental tests with corresponding efficiency. Such a characteristic as
"general stand-out-ishness" may perhaps be a trait which calls for
recognition, not only in daily life but also in the narrower categories of
psychological classification.
In the case of the academic records this general tendency toward positive
correlation is not present. The only high correlation is with estimated
intelligence. It is impossible to say how far this high coefficient is due
to general knowledge of academic attainments on the part of the individuals
composing the groups. Refinement and neatness are the only other traits
which show any claim at all for correlation with academic records. The
positive direction of these coefficients may afford some consolation to
those who put their faith in the vocational significance of academic
records of college students, but their low values constitute a somewhat
less encouraging commentary.
_V. How do the various measures of intelligence compare with one another,
and what is the reliability of these various measures?_ Frequent studies
have been made of the relation between teachers' estimates of the general
intelligence of pupils and their intelligence as shown by their performance
in psychological tests. The teacher's estimate is perhaps very likely to be
based on that sort of intelligence which shows itself in academic
performance only, since in many cases the acquaintance is limited to
contact in class room and laboratory. In our own case we have teachers'
estimates only in the form of the actual class records. These are, then,
not estimates of general intelligence in the strict sense, but are
conditioned presumably for the most part by the student's performance in
the class room.
The academic marks were reported according to a letter system, in which A
means "very good," B means "good," C means "fair," D means "poor" and F
means "failed." Having secured these marks for all the students in English,
German, Logic, Psychology, Economics and History, we averaged the marks for
each student, by giving A, B, C, D and F values of 90, 80, 70, 60 and 50.
This gave us final averages for all the students, on the basis of which
averages they were arranged in order of merit, the two groups being
separately treated.
We have now the three following measures of intelligence:
a. The results of the psychological tests.
b. The opinion of fellow students.
c. The academic records.
The correlations between these various measures are given in the following
tabulation:
TABLE 7
SHOWING THE CORRELATIONS BETWEEN VARIOUS MEASURES OF INTELLIGENCE
--------------------------------------------------------
| 25 | 25
|Juniors|Seniors
----------------------------------------+-------+-------
Correlation of psychological tests with | |
estimated Intelligence | .70 | .53
Correlation of psychological tests with | |
Academic Records | .42 | .57
Correlation of Academic Records with | |
estimated Intelligence | .22 | .37
--------------------------------------------------------
The most striking result here is the rather low correlation of the academic
records with the other measures of intelligence. The psychological tests
agree closely with the results of the estimates by associates. The
correlation of the tests with the records is considerably lower, while the
correlation of records with estimates is exceedingly low. The full
significance of these results will of course depend on the attitude one
takes toward the various measures. One who has faith in the value of
academic records must of course reject the estimates of associates and be
very sceptical of the value of the mental tests. But vocationally the
estimates of associates must always have value, since these determine or
indicate the reactions of others toward a given individual, and vocational
success will depend to a considerable degree on these reactions. The
ultimate value of the mental tests is still to be determined; in fact, it
was partly in order to aid in their evaluation that these experiments were
performed. Inasmuch as the tests and the estimates agree closely, the tests
and the records less closely, while the records do not correlate to any
marked degree with either of the two other measures, the significance of
the academic marks, or their reliability in this instance, must be
seriously called into question.
TABLE 8
SHOWING THE RELATION BETWEEN JUDICIAL CAPACITY AND (A) ABILITY IN MENTAL
TESTS; (B) ACADEMIC RECORDS
-------------------------------------------------------------
|Correlation of Judicial|Correlation of Judicial
Trait | Capacity and Ability | Capacity and Academic
| in Mental Tests | Records
-------------+-----------------------+-----------------------
Neatness | .05 | .09
Intelligence | .55 | .26
Humor | .48 | -.02
Conceit | .20 | .09
Beauty | .15 | .14
Vulgarity | .18 | .14
Snobbishness | .20 | -.02
Refinement | .15 | .25
Sociability | .26 | .03
-------------------------------------------------------------
_VI. Does the ability to judge the traits of others (judicial capacity)
stand in any relation to proficiency in mental tests or to success in
college work?_ The following table shows the correlation of judicial
capacity in the case of each trait with standing in the tests and with
academic records.
In the case of academic records there is seen to be absolutely no
correlation with judicial capacity, in any of the traits estimated. In the
case of the mental tests, only two of the traits yield high coefficients.
In intelligence and in humor there is fairly high correlation (.55 and
.48). The suggestion here is that those who do well in the mental tests are
good judges of the intelligence and the humor of their friends, but that in
the case of the other traits there is no necessary or probable relation.
_Question VII. Is the individual who is a good judge of others also one
whose self-estimates have high reliability?_ If the individuals are placed
in an order of merit with respect to their judicial capacity in estimating
the characteristics of their friends, and placed also in another order of
merit on the basis of the accuracy of their self-estimates, what relation
will be found between the two arrangements? The following table gives the
coefficients of correlation when such arrangements are compared in the case
of each of the traits.
TABLE 9
SHOWING THE RELATION BETWEEN ABILITY TO JUDGE OTHERS AND ABILITY TO JUDGE
ONESELF
------------------------------------------
|Correlation between Judicial
Trait |Capacity and Accuracy of the
|Individual's Self-Estimates
-------------+----------------------------
Refinement | .54
Humor | .53
Beauty | .47
Sociability | .46
Intelligence | .44
Conceit | .26
Neatness | .22
Vulgarity | .22
Snobbishness | .15
------------------------------------------
All the coefficients are positive, their median value being .44. In the
long run it is true that she who knows herself best is the best judge of
others. The degree to which this is true, however, varies with the trait in
question. With the "undesirable" traits of snobbishness, conceit and
vulgarity, the coefficients are so low as to be quite unreliable and
perhaps represent only chance. The same is true of neatness. But in the
cases of refinement, humor, beauty, sociability and intelligence the
coefficients are fairly high.
_VIII. What correlations are found among various traits of character, as
these are estimated by associates?_ For example, is an individual who is
judged intelligent also likely to be judged to be humorous, or refined, or
snobbish, etc.? If there are such correlations between estimated traits,
what is their direction and amount? The following table shows the average
correlations (from the two groups) in the case of all the traits:
TABLE 10
SHOWING THE INTERCORRELATION OR ESTIMATED TRAITS(1)
-------------------------------------------------------------------
|Neat.|Intel.|Hum.|Con.|Beau.|Vulg.|Snob.|Refin.|Socia.
------------+-----+------+----+----+-----+-----+-----+------+------
Neatness | -- | .39 | .29| .51| .50 | .09 | .57 | .32 | .10
Intelligence| .39 | -- | .59| .44| .34 | .06 | .43 | .49 | .25
Humor | .29 | .59 | --| .32| .50 | .40 | .50 | .23 | .55
Conceit | .51 | .44 | .32| --| .51 | .24 | .75 | .33 | .07
Beauty | .50 | .34 | .50| .51| -- |-.09 | .41 | .56 | .32
Vulgarity | .09 | .06 | .40| .24|-.09 | -- | .40 |-.37 | .18
Snobbishness| .57 | .43 | .50| .75| .41 | .40 | -- | .20 |-.12
Refinement | .32 | .49 | .23| .33| .56 | -.37| .20 | -- | .34
Sociability | .10 | .25 | .55| .07| .32 | .18 |-.12 | .34 | --
-------------------------------------------------------------------
[Note 1: The upper parts of this table and the one following repeat the
figures given in the lower parts, for greater convenience in making
comparisons and in presenting averages.]
Interesting as these coefficients are to one who has the passion for
correlation, it is peculiarly difficult to state precisely what they mean.
Neatness correlates, in varying degrees, with all the traits except
vulgarity and sociability; intelligence with all except vulgarity and
perhaps sociability; humor with all except neatness, conceit and
refinement, where the coefficients are low; conceit correlates especially
closely with neatness, beauty and snobbishness; beauty with neatness,
humor, conceit and refinement; vulgarity correlates positively with only
humor and snobbishness, and negatively with refinement; refinement, with
everything except humor, snobbishness and vulgarity; snobbishness with all
but refinement and sociability; while sociability correlates with nothing
except humor. How far these figures measure definite relations between
different and specific traits, how far they measure the degree to which
one's impressions of various traits conspire to make up one's notion of
other characteristics, or how far they measure only the degree of confusion
that exists as to the precise meaning of the various words, it is
exceedingly difficult to say.
_IX. What degree of correlation exists among the academic records in the
various college subjects?_ Is the individual who stands high in certain
subjects likely to stand either high or low in other subjects or in all
subjects? The following table shows the intercorrelations between eight
subjects as calculated by the rather rough mode of grading and averaging
previously described. Since the correlations are by the method of relative
position, the fallacy of treating the various grades as susceptible of
quantitative treatment is of very slight importance.
TABLE 11
SHOWING THE INTERCORRELATIONS AMONG GRADES IN EIGHT COLLEGE SUBJECTS, ON
THE BASIS OF THE RECORDS OF THE 50 STUDENTS
----------------------------------------------------------------
|Psych.|Log.|Hist.|Econ.|Eng.|Germ.|Chem.|Math.|Avge.
-----------+------+----+-----+-----+----+-----+-----+-----+-----
Psychology | -- | .60| .36 | .52 | .48| .49 | .33 | .54 | .47
Logic | .60 | --| .48 | .57 | .47| .41 | .25 | .57 | .48
History | .36 | .54| -- | .44 | .62| .46 | .52 | .61 | .51
Economics | .52 | .57| .44 | -- | .51| .43 | .45 | .71 | .52
English | .48 | .47| .62 | .51 | -- | .25 | .26 | .46 | .44
German | .49 | .41| .46 | .43 | .25| -- | .39 | .38 | .40
Chemistry | .33 | .25| .52 | .45 | .26| .39 | -- | .57 | .40
Mathematics| .54 | .57| .61 | .71 | .46| .38 | .57 | -- | .55
---------------------------------------------------------------
The correlations between the various college subjects are all positive, and
argue against the commonly expressed belief in rather close specialization
of abilities; the student who does well in one of these subjects tends to
do well in all of them.
As has been frequently stated in this discussion, the data and conclusions
here presented are by no means to be taken as final answers even to the
specific questions asked. One cannot argue from what these groups of
students do under the special conditions of this investigation to what they
or others will do in other circumstances or in general. The results are
presented mainly by way of suggesting the type of investigation which must
be carried much further before we are in position to evaluate properly the
self-analysis of an individual or the judgments of associates as presented
in testimonials, interviews, or other indications based on general
acquaintance. In the case of the psychological tests, a long program of
selection, standardization, and accumulation of norms is laid out for those
interested in the further advance of vocational psychology. So also from
the point of view of introspective analysis, consultation, advice of
friends, the methods of interview, testimonial, etc., there is an equally
inviting though arduous program which must be carried through before even
the most general principles of evaluation and selection are known.
It should also be insisted that the personal experience of this or that
interviewer, adviser, teacher or expert is by no means a sufficient basis
for general practice. Magic, clairvoyance, phrenology, physiognomics, were
all founded on the treacherous basis of "personal observation" and
occasional striking coincidence. Vocational psychology will be safe from
prophets and charlatans only when it is made to rest on a stable structure
of consistent and verifiable experimental data.
FOOTNOTES:
[9] See footnote on p. 42 for an explanation of the computation and meaning
of such measures of deviation or error.
[10] Experimental Studies in Judgment, Archives of Psychology, No. 29,
1913, 119 pp.
[11] "American Men of Science." Second edition, p. 542.
[12] See p. 45 for explanation of the meaning and technique of correlation.
CHAPTER VIII
THE SCHOOL CURRICULUM AS A VOCATIONAL TEST
With certain qualifications the work of the school curriculum may be said
to constitute an elaborate mental test. One important function of the
curriculum is that of selecting and identifying individuals who possess a
certain type of mental alertness or patience. Another function is that of
supplying the individual with certain implements, facts and ideas, certain
subject matter, which may or may not be of direct value in his later life
but which is at least in this way perpetuated and preserved. A third
function is that of affording opportunity for the exercise of such specific
or general abilities as the curriculum may call into play.
All three of these functions have more or less direct vocational relevance.
In the hands of industrial and technical interests, subject matter becomes
more and more prominent as the important item. As this happens the older
idea of discipline and exercise becomes subordinate or implicit. But,
whatever be the underlying educational philosophy, the selective value of
the curriculum is an inescapable fact. The public school system, by its
processes of grading, promotion and certification, tends always to mark off
as a distinct group those individuals who can and will meet its demands. It
also attempts to differentiate the members of this group from one another
on the basis of their ability or their inclination. The high schools,
colleges, professional and technical courses continue this process of
elimination, identification and selection. According to the student's
ability and inclination to satisfy the requirements of the curriculum, he
or she is dropped, graded, retarded, promoted or passed with honors.
Extending, as it commonly does, over many years of the individual's life,
conducted by a considerable number and variety of examiners, and presented
in a diversity of forms and methods, school work constitutes a type of
mental test which is unequaled in its completeness. It is highly important
for vocational psychology to ascertain the degree of correlation between
the individual's record in the curriculum test and his success or fitness
in later life. To what degree is the individual's academic record
prognostic of his industrial, domestic and professional future?
As definite as this question is and as easy of solution as it may seem, it
is only very recently that reliable data, as distinguished from unsupported
opinions, have begun to be accumulated. The problem is complicated by the
difficulty of securing satisfactory measures of success in later life, and
by the difficulties encountered in following up the careers of those
individuals whose early records are known. Shall success be measured by the
obstacles overcome, the income earned, the sacrifices made, the social
usefulness accomplished, the amount of local and contemporary publicity
received, the public recognition accorded, the scope of activities
attempted, or the historical eminence merited? And if more than one of
these elements are to be considered, how are they to be treated
commensurately? Certainly success may be achieved in any or several or all
of these and other forms. For the present our information is limited to a
few studies in which one or other of these aspects has been treated
separately. As work in this field progresses we may be better able to sum
up all the partial results into a statement of the general tendencies.
For our present purpose it may be best to bring together from various
sources the data bearing on certain specific questions which have been
propounded. At least three of these questions are distinctly relevant to
the work of vocational psychology.
_I. With respect to school work itself, what relation exists between the
early success in elementary subjects and the later success in handling more
advanced subject matter?_ This question is important to all those who may
be concerned in advising individuals concerning the desirability and
probable profit of continuing their school experience, and of entering
occupations in which scholastic abilities may be requisite.
Kelley has recently reported a careful study of the relation between the
marks in the fourth, fifth, sixth and seventh grades and the marks received
in the first year of high school work. The results, in the case of
fifty-nine pupils followed through the six years, were as follows:
CORRELATION BETWEEN MARKS IN THE GRADES AND MARKS IN FIRST HIGH SCHOOL YEAR
7th grade .72
6th grade .73
5th grade .53
4th grade .62
His study further seeks to show the relative weight to be attributed to the
work of each grade, by applying a formula known in statistics as a
"regression equation." He says, "The net conclusion which may be drawn from
these coefficients of correlation is that it is possible to estimate a
person's general ability in the first year [H. S.] class from the marks he
has received in the last four years of elementary school with accuracy
represented by a coefficient of correlation of .789, and that individual
idiosyncrasies may be estimated, in the case of mathematics and English,
with an accuracy represented by a coefficient of correlation of .515....
Indeed, it seems that an estimate of a pupil's ability to carry high school
work when the pupil is in the fourth grade may be nearly as accurate as a
judgment given when the pupil is in the seventh grade."
Miles finds that the correlation between the average elementary school
grade and the high school grade is .71. Dearborn also finds that high
school efficiency is closely correlated with success in university work. He
studied various groups of high school students, the groups containing from
ninety-two to four hundred and seventy-two students each. These were
grouped into quartiles on the basis of high school standing, and compared
with similar classifications on the basis of university work. Dearborn
summarizes his results in the following words:
"We may say then, on the basis of the results secured in this group (472
pupils) which is sufficiently large to be representative, that if a pupil
has stood in the first quarter of a large class through high school the
chances are four out of five that he will not fall below the first half of
his class in the university.... The chances are but about one in five that
the student who has done poorly in high school--who has been in the lowest
quarter of his class--will rise above the median or average of the freshman
class at the university, and the chances that he will prove a superior
student at the university are very slim indeed.... The Pearson coefficient
of correlation of the standings in the high schools and in the freshman
year, for this group of 472 pupils, is .80.... A little over 80 per cent of
those who were found in the lowest or the highest quarter of the group in
high school are found in their respective halves of the group throughout
the university.... Three-fourths of the students who enter the university
from these high schools will maintain throughout the university
approximately the same rank which they held in high school."
Lowell's investigation, which is discussed in later paragraphs, also bears
directly on the question of the relation between college entrance records,
college grades, and later work in professional schools. A rather different
method of procedure was adopted by Van Denburg, who studied the relation
between the first-term marks of high school pupils in New York City and the
length of time the pupils continued in school work. The following table
gives a general idea of his results:
TABLE 12
SHOWING THE RELATION BETWEEN FIRST-TERM MARKS IN HIGH SCHOOL AND THE LENGTH
OF TIME PUPILS REMAIN IN SCHOOL (VAN DENBURG)
------------------------------------------------------------
|Percentage Leaving School in Various Years After
| Entrance into the High School
First-Term |------------------------------------------------
Mark | Left |Left in 2nd, 3rd, or|
|During First |4th Years, or Failed| Graduated
| Year |to Graduate in 4th |
-----------+-------------+--------------------+-------------
Below 50% | 61 | 39 | 0
50 to 59% | 49 | 46 | 5
60 to 69% | 39 | 58 | 3
70 to 79% | 20 | 62 | 18
80 to 89% | 17 | 46 | 37
90 to 100% | 6 | 40 | 54
------------------------------------------------------------
Thorndike, in referring to the significance of such results, says: "Ten
times as many of those marked below 50 leave in the first year as of those
marked 90 or above. Of 115 pupils marked below 50 not one remained to
graduate in four years. As the marks rise the percentage leaving in the
early years steadily falls and the percentage graduating rises. Such
prophecies... could easily be worked out for any community. They show that
in the important matter of the length of stay in school a pupil's career is
far from being a matter of unpredictable fortuity.... It will not be long
before [we] will remember with amusement the time when education waited for
the expensive tests of actual trial to tell how well a boy or girl would
succeed with a given trade, with the work of college and professional
school, or with the general task of leading a decent, law-abiding, humane
life."
Prompted by Dearborn's study of the relation between work in high school
and work in the university, Smith made a somewhat more intensive study of a
group of students in the University of Iowa. Dearborn had investigated the
academic careers of pupils from eight large and four small high schools in
Wisconsin, and concluded that three-fourths of the students entering the
university from these high schools would maintain throughout the university
approximately the same rank as they had held in high school. When the
groups were divided into upper and lower halves, about seventy per cent of
those in the upper high school section were found in the upper half of the
university section; about the same number of those in the lower high school
half were found in the lower university half.
Smith's data showed almost precisely the same figures as those of Dearborn.
From the Liberal Arts class of 1910 (one hundred and sixty students) those
were chosen whose records were complete in both high school and university.
This gave a total of one hundred and twenty students. On the basis of their
standing, as based on the grades assigned in all subjects studied, they
were ranked in order for each year of high school and university. They were
then separated into quintiles on the basis of these rankings, and their
standing in these various quintiles observed from year to year.
When the students, on the basis of their general high school average (for
the four years), are distributed through their respective quintiles in the
university (general average again) the results are as shown in the table on
page 183.
TABLE 13
SHOWING THE RELATIONS BETWEEN HIGH SCHOOL RECORDS AND UNIVERSITY RECORDS
(SMITH). _See Text for Explanation_
------------------------------------------------
| University Average
H. S. Average|----------------------------------
| 1st | 2nd | 3rd | 4th | 5th
|Quint.|Quint.|Quint.|Quint.|Quint.
-------------+------+------+------+------+------
1st Quintile | 54% | 17% | 17% | 4% | 8%
2nd Quintile | 25% | 29% | 17% | 13% | 16%
3rd Quintile | 17% | 25% | 20% | 21% | 17%
4th Quintile | 0% | 25% | 25% | 33% | 17%
5th Quintile | 4% | 4% | 21% | 29% | 42%
------------------------------------------------
In considering this table it is apparent that if the high school students
were distributed through the various university quintiles on a purely
chance basis, and without any reference to their high school records, there
would tend to be twenty per cent of each high school quintile in each of
the university quintiles. Any percentage higher than this twenty per cent
thus indicates some significant relation between the two sets of grades. On
the whole there is a close relation indicated. The tendency is clear for
those in a given high school quintile to be found in or near the same
quintile in their university work. The relation is particularly close in
the highest and lowest quintiles. In the intermediate quintiles there is
more or less shifting about.
In the same way it is possible to classify all students in quintiles during
their first high school year, and then to trace their careers through the
following three years of high school and four years of college. The
following tabulation shows the results when this was done. The figures show
the percentage of each quintile in first year high school who were found in
the same quintile in the various later years.
TABLE 14
SHOWING THE RELATION BETWEEN RECORDS IN THE FIRST HIGH SCHOOL YEAR, AND
RECORDS IN SUBSEQUENT YEARS IN HIGH SCHOOL AND COLLEGE (SMITH)
---------------------------------------------------------
| High School | University
Quintiles|-----------------------|-----------------------
| 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 1 | 2 | 3 | 4
---------+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----
First | 100%| 70% | 67% | 67% | 52% | 36% | 43% | 25%
Second | 100%| 54% | 33% | 29% | 35% | 33% | 22% | 8%
Third | 100%| 41% | 37% | 21% | 35% | 20% | 22% | 21%
Fourth | 100%| 29% | 25% | 21% | 48% | 28% | 17% | 25%
Fifth | 100%| 50% | 59% | 50% | 45% | 32% | 39% | 38%
|-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----
Averages| 100%| 49% | 44% | 38% | 43% | 30% | 29% | 23%
---------------------------------------------------------
Here again, if the subsequent distributions were on a chance basis with
respect to the first year high school grades, there would tend to be but
twenty per cent in each of the various quintiles. As a matter of fact, the
percentages never fall so low as twenty per cent, although in the senior
college year they approach very close to this figure.
It is to be noted that changes so small as from one quintile to the
immediately adjacent one are not taken into account in this table. The
figures show only those who were in precisely the same quintile all the way
through. The indication is then that a student's performance in the first
high school year is very significant of what his performance will be
through the rest of the high school course, and also of significance with
respect to what he will do in his university work. The significance of the
early work, as has appeared in other studies also, becomes less and less
the farther through the course one goes, so that in the senior year in
college there is approximately a chance distribution with reference to the
work of the first year high school.
Smith also presents his results in the form of coefficients of correlation
between various rankings. The following are the most interesting in the
present connection:
TABLE 15
CORRELATIONS (SMITH)
H. S. Average and Univ. Freshman Average .48
H. S. Average and Univ. Sophomore Average .39
H. S. Average and Univ. Junior Average .47
H. S. Average and Univ. Senior Average .28
1st and 2nd Year High School .77
1st and 3rd Year High School .67
1st and 4th Year High School .66
University Freshman and Sophomore .73
University Freshman and Junior .61
University Freshman and Senior .45
These figures of course indicate the same facts as those derived from the
previous methods of expressing the data. The high school (H. S.) average
correlates throughout with the college ranking, the correspondence becoming
less apparent in the later college years. Similarly, the good students in
the first high school year are the good ones all through the high school
course, and the able college freshmen are able as sophomores, juniors and
seniors. But both in high school and in college the significance of early
standing becomes less and less as the years progress.
A. L. Jones[13] compared college entrance examinations with work done later
in the college course, in the freshman and sophomore years. Two hundred men
from the entering classes of 1907, 1911 and 1912, in Columbia College, were
selected for study. These men were arranged in four groups, fifty in each
group, on the basis of (a) their marks in entrance examinations, (b) their
college marks in the first and second college years. Group I contains the
best fifty individuals, Group II the fifty next best, etc. The following
compiled table shows where the members of each group in entrance
examinations stood in their college work:
TABLE 16
SHOWING RELATIONS BETWEEN ENTRANCE RECORDS AND COLLEGE STANDING (JONES)
See Text for Explanation
-------------------------------------------------------------
| On Basis of Freshman Ranking
On Basis of Entrance|---------------------------------------
Examinations | Group I | Group II|Group III| Group IV
---------------------+---------+---------+---------+---------
Group I (50 men) | 30 | 13 | 5 | 2
Group II (50 men) | 16 | 17 | 12 | 5
Group III (50 men) | 3 | 13 | 16 | 18
Group IV (50 men) | 1 | 7 | 17 | 25
---------------------+---------------------------------------
On Basis of Entrance |
Examinations | On Basis of Sophomore Ranking
---------------------+---------+---------+---------+---------
Group I (13 men) | 7 | 4 | 2 | 0
Group II (13 men) | 4 | 5 | 2 | 2
Group III (13 men) | 2 | 4 | 3 | 4
Group IV (14 men) | 0 | 0 | 6 | 8
-------------------------------------------------------------
It appears from this table that there is a fairly well-marked tendency for
the men to remain in the group in which they start. At least the larger
number of men are found in college in about the same group in which they
occurred on the basis of entrance examinations. Jones writes, "It is
evident from an examination of these... data that entrance examinations,
aside from other important uses claimed for them by their advocates, may
fitly be taken as an important indication of the future career of the
candidate for admission. They should of course be supplemented, and so
should any other means of determining preparation for college. Those who
have studied the question tell us that there is a high degree of
correlation between intellectual qualities and others. A good test of
intellectual fitness is, therefore, in some degree a test of other
qualities also. Entrance examinations have their imperfections but there
can be no doubt that they may serve as a solid foundation on which to
build."
Thorndike, on the other hand, in studying the relation between entrance
marks and later college standing (Columbia College classes entering in
1901, 1902 and 1903), finds results which lead him to say, "The important
facts concerning the relationship of success in entrance examinations to
success in college work... prove that we cannot estimate the latter from
the former with enough accuracy to make the entrance examinations worth
taking or to prevent gross and intolerable injustice being done to many
individuals.... The records of eleven entrance examinations give a less
accurate prophecy of what a student will do in the latter half of his
college course than does the college record of his brother! The correlation
between brothers in intellectual ability is approximately .40, but that
between standing in entrance examinations and standing in college of the
same person is only .47 for junior year (130 cases) and .25 for senior year
(56 cases).... From many facts such as these... it is certain that the
traditional entrance examinations, even when as fully safeguarded as in the
case of those given by the College Entrance Examination Board, do not
prevent incompetence from getting into college; do not prevent students of
excellent promise from being discouraged or barred out altogether; do not
measure fitness for college well enough to earn the respect of students or
teachers; and do intolerable injustice to individuals."
The apparent striking contradiction between these two reports is not,
however, so serious when it is noted that the records of Jones were taken
from freshman and sophomore years, while Thorndike's, as here quoted, were
taken from junior and senior years. Thorndike has also presented, in
another connection, comparisons of entrance examinations with the work of
freshman and sophomore years, and in these cases his correlations are
considerably higher, more nearly approximating the results of Jones. The
correlations, for the four college years, were as follows: freshman year,
.62; sophomore year, .50; junior year, .47; senior year, .25.
Apparently the only safe conclusion at present is that the entrance
examinations are fairly useful in predicting the early college work, their
prognostic value becoming less and less as the interval between the two
measures is increased. This result is of course to be expected. In another
section of this book occasion is taken to show that preliminary trials are
of little value in indicating the relative abilities of individuals when
they have reached or approximated their limit of practice.
_II. Are the school subjects in which one is most interested in any way an
indication of the interests and values of later life? What, in general, are
the facts concerning the permanence of interests and the relation between
interest and ability?_ These questions are of immediate interest to
parents, teachers and vocational counsellors.
Here again we must turn to the work of Thorndike for almost the only
available information, and even this is only preliminary and tentative, the
results being subject to various sources of error. This investigator
studied the interests and abilities in mathematics, history, literature,
science, music, drawing and manual work. The original records are the
judgments of one hundred individuals concerning the order of their own
interests and abilities in these subjects at each of three periods in
their school career, elementary school, high school and college. These
various judgments having been made as conscientiously as possible,
correlations were determined between interests at different times,
interests and abilities, etc.
Individual relative interests at different times, according to these
records, do not vary according to mere caprice. "A correlation of .60 or
.70 seems to be approximately the true degree of resemblance between the
relative degree of an interest in a child of from ten to fourteen and the
same person at twenty-one." The resemblance between ability in elementary
years and ability in college is found to be .65. The correlation between
interest in the last three years of elementary school and capacity in the
college period is computed to be about .60. This would mean that the early
interest would serve as a useful indicator of adult capacity. "The
correlation between an individual's order of subjects for interest and his
order for ability is one of the closest of any that are known (about .90)."
"A person's relative interests are an extraordinarily accurate symptom of
his relative capacities."
In concluding his report Thorndike writes, "Interests are shown to be [not
only permanent but also] symptomatic, to a very great extent, of present
and future capacity or ability. Either because one likes what he can do
well, or because one gives zeal and effort to what he likes, or because
interest and ability are both symptoms of some fundamental feature of the
individual's original nature, or because of the combined action of all
three of these factors, interest and ability are bound very close together.
The bond is so close that either may be used as a symptom for the other
almost as well as for itself. The importance of these facts for the whole
field of practice with respect to early diagnosis, vocational guidance, the
work of social secretaries, deans, advisers, and others who direct
students' choices of schools, studies, and careers is obvious. They should
be taken account of in such practice until they are verified or modified by
data obtained by a better method; and such data should soon be collected.
The better method is, of course, to get the measurements of relative
interest and of relative ability, not from memory, but at the time, and not
from individuals' reports alone, but by objective tests."
_III. Is there any relation between general or particular academic aptitude
or inclination and general or particular proficiency in the later domestic,
industrial, commercial, professional or civic activities?_ This question is
of importance not only to the individual and his guide but also to
employers, agencies and society at large.
An interesting and significant study bearing on this question has been
reported by Nicholson, who investigated the relation between academic
success and prominence in later life. The men graduating from Wesleyan
University during the years 1833 to 1899, 1,667 in number, were arranged in
three groups. In the first group were the 140 "honor" men, who were
valedictorians or salutatorians of their classes. In the second group were
placed all the men elected to Phi Beta Kappa, on the basis of high
scholarship. Of these there were 461. In the third group were placed the
remaining 1,206 men. It was then determined how many of these men were
found in the current edition of _Who's Who_, or were judged, by faculty or
fellow students, as having been or about to be of sufficient distinction to
be included in such a directory. The results are given in the following
tabulation.
TABLE 17
SHOWING THE RELATION BETWEEN COLLEGE HONORS AND INCLUSION IN _Who's Who_
(NICHOLSON)
See Text for Explanation
---------------------------------------------------------
643 Students, of the| Per Cent Judged by Faculty to
years 1833-1859 | be of _Who's Who_ Rank
---------------------+-----------------------------------
Honor Men (53)| 50
P.B.K. Men (167)| 32
Remainder (476)| 6
---------------------+-----------------------------------
604 Students of the | Per Cent Found in 1914-15
Years 1860-1889 | Edition of _Who's Who_
---------------------+-----------------------------------
Honor Men (59)| 48
P.B.K. Men (185)| 31
Remainder (419)| 10
---------------------+-----------------------------------
420 Students of the |Per Cent in Who's Who or Judged by
Years 1890-1899 |Classmates as about to be There.
---------------------+-----------------------------------
Honor Men (28)| 50
P.B.K. Men (109)| 30
Remainder (311)| 11
---------------------+-----------------------------------
Total of 1667 |Per Cent with Distinction Entitling
Students | to Inclusion in _Who's Who_.
---------------------+-----------------------------------
Honor Men (140)| 50
P.B.K. Men (461)| 31
Remainder (1206)| 9
---------------------------------------------------------
Referring to these results, Nicholson remarks, "From this study of the
careers of sixteen hundred and sixty-seven graduates, living and dead,
where three different methods are employed in determining distinction in
after life, it appears that the results are fairly constant, and we are
justified in assuming that, for this college at least, the chances of
distinction for a high honor graduate, one of the two or three leading
scholars of the class, are just even; that one out of three of those
elected to Phi Beta Kappa is likely to achieve pronounced success in life;
and that each of the remaining members of the class has less than one
chance in ten to become famous. In other words, roughly speaking, the
quarter (or the fifth) of the class elected to Phi Beta Kappa are likely to
supply just as many distinguished men as are the remaining three-quarters
(now four-fifths) of the class."
The study of Nicholson includes only that type of success which would be
likely to lead to inclusion in _Who's Who_, viz., the more strictly
literary, professional, political, and academic success. The commercial,
industrial and business careers are not so likely to lead to inclusion in
this directory, and yet success in them is no less definite than in the
professional work. It is rather difficult to determine the degree to which
success in these fields is determined by ability alone, and to what degree
it is a function of chance, inheritance, social charm, prestige, and
geographical and economic circumstance. Nevertheless it would be
interesting to know whether such measure of success as can be secured
correlates in any way with success in the work of school years.
In an unpublished study of the graduates of Pratt Institute, Dr. D. E. Rice
has compared the grades achieved by students in the courses in Mechanical
Engineering and Electrical Engineering with the salaries the men were
receiving several years after graduation. There were in all six classes of
men, numbering about forty each--three classes from Mechanical Engineering
and three from Electrical Engineering, for the years of 1907, 1908, 1909.
The salary reports were asked for in 1913, four to six years after
graduation.
The men were ranked according to the grades they received in the eight
different subjects included in the curriculum, the grades being 10, 9, 8,
and 7, corresponding to the ordinary grade system of A, B, C, D. They were
then ranked according to the salary reported at the time of the
investigation. Results for each class were treated separately so that the
time elapsing since graduation was not a factor in the results. The
following table gives the results when these two rankings were correlated
by two statistical methods of computing correlation.
In every case the correlation between grades and salary is positive,
although the coefficients are all small. This means that in the long run
there is a general tendency for the good salaries to go to the men whose
grades were high, but that there are many exceptions to the rule. Certainly
in no class is the opposite tendency shown, for the good salaries to go to
the poor students. It is probable that the correlations found here are as
low as they are partly because in this technical school there is no special
effort made to encourage high grades for their own sake, the emphasis being
rather on getting a good average rating.
TABLE 18
SHOWING THE CORRELATION BETWEEN SCHOOL STANDING AND SALARIES EARNED IN
LATER LIFE (RICE)
See Text for Explanation
------------------------------------------------------------
| | Correlation by | Correlation by
Class and Year| Cases | Pearson Method,| Per Cent of Unlike
| | and P.E. | Signs, and P.E.
---------------+-------+----------------+-------------------
Mechanical '07 | 35 | .36 .08 | .22 .09
Mechanical '08 | 41 | .25 .09 | .34 .08
Mechanical '09 | 39 | .21 .09 | .06 .10
| | |
Electrical '07 | 26 | .16 .13 | .25 .12
Electrical '08 | 36 | .46 .08 | .51 .08
Electrical '09 | 41 | .16 .10 | .28 .09
| | |
Averages | | .267 | .277
------------------------------------------------------------
Just what these degrees of correlation mean is made somewhat more apparent
if we treat the data in another way. If instead of computing coefficients
of correlation we divide each class of men into four quartiles, and
determine the average salaries of the men in these quartiles, we get very
definite results. The upper quartile or group will now contain that fourth
of the class whose grades were highest. The second, third and fourth
quartiles will in turn represent decreasing degrees of academic
proficiency. If the average salaries are the same for all quartiles, this
will mean that there is no relation between salary and school grades. But
if the salary varies with the grades, this will be a significant result.
The actual data are as follows:
TABLE 19
RICE'S DATA PRESENTED IN A REVISED FORM
------------------------------------------------------------
| | Average Salaries of the
Class and Year|Cases|--------------------------------------
| | 1st | 2nd | 3rd | 4th
| |Quartile|Quartile|Quartile|Quartile
---------------+-----+-----------------+--------+-----------
Mechanical '07 | 35 | $1800 | $1675 | $1362 | $1387
Mechanical '08 | 41 | 1450 | 1512 | 1512 | 1275
Mechanical '09 | 39 | 1375 | 1262 | 1313 | 1137
| | | | |
Electrical '07 | 26 | 1750 | 1675 | 1675 | 1412
Electrical '08 | 36 | 2147 | 1437 | 1262 | 1262
Electrical '09 | 41 | 1462 | 1212 | 1387 | 1200
| | | | |
Averages | | $1664 | $1462 | $1418 | $1279
| | | | |
Percentages | | 100% | 87% | 85% | 76%
------------------------------------------------------------
If the separate classes be now considered the results are seen to be more
or less irregular, although the general tendency is apparent. If the
average results from all six classes are considered the results are more
reliable as well as more uniform. The average salary varies in the same
way as do the grades. If the average salary of the men of the first
quartile ($1,664) be taken as a basis of comparison and considered one
hundred per cent, then the salaries of the men in the second, third and
fourth quartiles are respectively only eighty-seven, eighty-five and
seventy-six per cent of this amount. In general terms, the salary of the
men in the lower or poorest quarter of the class, from the point of view of
school grades, will be only three-fourths the salary of the men in the
upper or best quarter. The two middle quartiles will differ but little from
each other, although the second has the advantage, by two per cent, or $44,
over the third quarter.
If the class be divided into a better and a poorer half, then the average
salary of the men in the upper half is seen to be $1,563, while that of the
men in the lower half is only $1,348. The men in the upper half earn $215
more in a year than the men in the lower half. This way of expressing the
results is both clearer and more concrete than the mere statement of the
coefficient of correlation.
Interesting data on all three of these preceding questions are to be found
in A. Lawrence Lowell's study of the academic careers of students in
Harvard College, Law School and Medical School. This investigation
included an examination into the college entrance examinations, the records
attained during the college course, the subjects elected in this course,
and the subsequent achievement of the men in the professional schools of
law and medicine. The statistics cover the cases of all men who took the
degree of A. B. at Harvard and then graduated from the two professional
schools connected with Harvard. Only men who had taken at least three years
of college work in residence were included. The records for the Law School
cover the twenty years from 1891 to 1910. Those for the Medical School
cover the sixteen years from 1895 forward.
The college gives degrees indicating four grades of distinction on the
basis of scholarship. These are indicated as "plain," "cum laude," "magna
cum laude" and "summa cum laude." The two professional schools grant
degrees with two grades of distinction, viz., "plain" and "cum laude."
Lowell assumes that the grade attained on the college entrance examinations
indicates with a certain degree of correctness the natural scholarly
abilities of the student. The course of studies elected during college
reflects roughly the general interests of the student at that time. The
college records indicate his ability in the pursuit of those studies,
including under ability such things as persistence, patience, fidelity,
zeal, as well as native intelligence. The records in the professional
schools are taken as indicating quite approximately the student's real
ability to achieve success in the particular professional work of the
technical sort.
All students are consequently classified according to these various
factors. The entrance examinations are divided into "clear" and
"conditioned." The college degrees and the professional degrees are
classified on the basis of the degree of distinction awarded. All students
are also classified on the basis of their election of the four possible
college courses: (a) literature and languages; (b) natural sciences; (c)
history and political science; (d) philosophy and mathematics. The
relations between these various classifications are then presented, and
analyzed in various ways.
Thus it is shown that there is very little or no relation between the
college course elected and the probability of achieving a degree "cum
laude" in the professional schools. The figures are summed up in the
following table:
TABLE 20
SHOWING RELATION BETWEEN COURSE ELECTED IN COLLEGE AND HONORS RECEIVED IN
SUBSEQUENT YEARS IN PROFESSIONAL SCHOOLS (LOWELL)
---------------------------------------------------------
| Degree in Law | Degree in Medical
| School | School
Course Pursued |-----------------+------------------
|Plain|"Cum Laude"|Plain|"Cum Laude"
--------------------+-----+-----------+-----+------------
Lit. and Lang. | 801 |180 (18.4%)| 145 |166 (53.4%)
Nat. Science | 19 | 3 (13.6%)| 75 | 81 (51.9%)
Hist. and Pol. Sci. | 627 |129 (17.1%)| 30 | 20 (44.4%)
Phil. and Math | 8 | 11 (57.9%)| 6 | 7 (53.8%)
---------------------------------------------------------
The figures suggest that "as a preparation for the study of law or medicine
it makes comparatively little difference what subject is mainly pursued in
college." That is to say, college interests in natural sciences, as
indicated by the election of that course, does not indicate special
aptitude for the work of medicine; nor does the election of courses in
history and political science indicate a necessary superiority in the more
or less related work of law. Lowell shows that only during the first year
or so of the medical school do those who have already specialized in
natural sciences have any advantage over those medical students who have
specialized in other subjects.
What is the relation between the men's records in college and their
achievement in the professional schools? In the following table are given
the number of college men of each degree of distinction who were awarded
"cum laude" in the professional schools:
TABLE 21
SHOWING RELATION BETWEEN COLLEGE HONORS AND HONORS IN THE PROFESSIONAL
SCHOOLS (LOWELL)
-----------------------------------------------
Record in College |Number Awarded "Cum Laude"
| in Law
--------------------+--------------------------
609 Plain Degree | 40 6.6%
305 Cum Laude | 68 22.3%
200 Magna Cum Laude | 80 40.0%
33 Summa Cum Laude | 20 60.0%
--------------------+--------------------------
Record in College |Number Awarded "Cum Laude"
| in Medicine
--------------------+--------------------------
239 Plain | 86 36.0%
85 Cum Laude | 65 76.5%
39 Magna Cum Laude | 34 87.2%
2 Summa Cum Laude | 2 100.0%
-----------------------------------------------
It is apparent at once that there is a close relation between the college
records and the records in the professional schools. Both in law and in
medicine those who are awarded honors tend largely to be those who were
awarded honors in college. And the higher the college honors, the greater
the percentage of men receiving honors in the professional schools.
We may now ask how far back in the academic careers of these men it is
possible to predict their probable achievement in the professional
schools. Have those who are awarded the professional honors already
distinguished themselves from their fellows at the time of their entrance
into college? The following summary of the results presented by Lowell in
much more detail will help answer this question:
TABLE 22
SHOWING RELATIONS BETWEEN VARIOUS ACADEMIC RECORDS (LOWELL)
Men Graduating from the Law School and Receiving "Cum Laude" in Law
Per cent
------------------------------------------------------------
Entered college "clear" 26.4
Entered college "conditioned" 9.0
Graduated from college with distinction 31.2
Graduated from college without distinction 6.5
Entrance clear and college distinction 37.9
Entrance conditioned and college with distinction 18.1
Entrance clear and college without distinction 11.1
Entrance conditioned and college without distinction 2.9
------------------------------------------------------------
Men Graduating from the Medical School and Receiving "Cum Laude" in
Medicine
Per cent
------------------------------------------------------------
Entered college "clear" 59.1
Entered college "conditioned" 43.0
Graduated from college with distinction 80.1
Graduated from college without distinction 36.0
Entrance clear and college distinction 78.1
Entrance conditioned and college distinction 84.6
Entrance clear and college without distinction 42.4
Entrance conditioned and college without distinction 31.4
------------------------------------------------------------
Here the result is clearly suggested that early merit in academic work
means success in the professional schools, whether one considers entrance
examinations or college records. And the most probable group for
professional honors is made up of those men who combined both entrance and
college distinction. This is especially striking in the case of the law
school. In the case of the medical school the differences are not quite so
great, although the general tendency is quite the same. This is said to be
due to the lower standard required for medical honors during these years.
Lowell concludes: "The men who are destined to take the highest rank in the
law and medical schools are markedly better scholars, both in the
preparatory schools and in college, than their fellows. In intellectual
power, as in other things, the boy is father to the man."
On the whole, then, all these studies point in a consistent direction;
those who are destined to achieve distinction and success begin to do so at
an early age. Whether measured by achievement in academic courses, honors
in professional and technical courses, salary earned after graduation, or
inclusion among lists and directories of eminent men, success in later life
is suggested by success in the early work of the school curriculum. In
spite of frequent comments to the contrary, the school curriculum would
seem to constitute a useful test in prognosticating at least the most
probable quality of the individual's later work.
But our original three questions are at present answered with very unequal
reliability. With respect to the relation between early success or failure
in elementary school subjects and success or failure in handling more
advanced subject matter, the evidence is clear and definite.
On the question as to the permanence of interests and the relation between
interest and ability, the evidence is far from adequate for vocational
purposes. While the conclusion suggested is positive in Thorndike's study,
the investigator recognizes that the results require confirmation or
refutation at the hands of more reliable and verifiable information. It has
appeared fairly certain that interest, as reflected in choice of college
subjects, bears no relation to ability to undertake the work of at least
two definite branches of professional training.
On the third question, concerning the relation between general or
particular academic aptitude or inclination and general or particular
proficiency in later domestic, industrial, commercial, professional or
civic activities, the data, although consistent, are far from complete.
Here, then, as in so many other aspects of vocational psychology, we find
an inviting field of research and an abundance of interesting problems.
FOOTNOTES:
[13] _Educational Review_, September, 1914.
CHAPTER IX
THE DETERMINANTS OF VOCATIONAL APTITUDE
Without attempting to distinguish between the different detailed
occupations, either on the basis of materials dealt with, the social or
individual purposes realized, or the special qualifications demanded, we
can still divide vocations broadly into five general types, depending on
the degree to which they are likely to call for complete and normal
psychological equipment. Such a classification is of little service in the
concrete guidance of individuals, since the general types include work of
the most diverse sorts; but it may be useful in suggesting the various
types of qualities that are of vital importance in determining aptitude for
any work at all, and may in this way aid in outlining the work of further
investigation.
1. In the first place there are many useful and remunerative types of labor
which can be performed by a domesticated animal or an imbecile, when
working under constant or close supervision. Hauling loads, mowing grass,
felling timber, sawing wood, digging holes, breaking stone, weaving
doormats, and the simple types of work commonly performed in institutions
for the mentally deficient are instances. The detection of individuals thus
poorly equipped, their congregation and segregation under supervision, and
their useful employment, are at once psychologically easy and economically
desirable, as has already been indicated in detail in Chapter III.
2. Somewhat more abundant and diversified are those forms of employment for
the unspecialized mental competent. This requires only a sufficient degree
of intelligence to enable the individual to escape classification as a
mental incompetent. One who is capable of earning a living under favorable
circumstances, in the absence of aggressive competition and without close
supervision, can find his or her level in the "blind alley" occupations.
These offer no prospects of promotion to positions of responsibility and
skill, and by definition, this group of individuals afford suitable workers
for these occupations. They fill the gap between the feeble-minded and that
degree of intelligence which the most moderately endowed _average_
individual typifies. Rough clerking and attending, simple personal and
domestic service, delivering goods of small value, laundry work of the
mechanical sort, supervised manual and agricultural labor, waiting on
domesticated animals, standardized and mechanical factory operations,
wrapping, cleaning, polishing, petty shop-keeping, running errands and
freight elevators, street cleaning, janitorial assistance, etc., are forms
of work about equally difficult and satisfying. They do not involve the
acquisition of special skill or technical knowledge and they are capable of
performance, in the main, by almost any physically able person above the
status of feeble-mindedness. We may expect that in the very near future
there will be provided standardized scales for the determination of general
intelligence of this degree. Even now it is fairly easy to select from a
group of children those who, while not positively mentally defective, are
nevertheless slow of comprehension, stupid, unable to acquire new knowledge
and skill with facility, and perhaps disinclined or unable to form the
moral and social habits of honesty, cleanliness, promptness, truthfulness
and economy. Since these can fill the "blind alley" occupations with fair
satisfaction they should be "guided" into the first available positions of
this kind.
Thorndike has advocated a series of tests, experience with which leads him
to say:
"Suppose that the general intellectual ability of the dullest men who are
able to support and look after themselves (men who though temperate and
strong earn say $400 a year in good times in New York City) be represented
by a and that of Aristotle or Goethe by _a_+_b_, the difference, _b_, being
100. Then the amount of such ability assigned by the tests alone would not,
on the average, vary from the individual's true amount by more than 5; and
would not vary therefrom by more than 14 in one case out of a hundred. The
5 and 14 are very cautious estimates, 4 and 11 being probably nearer what
such an experiment would in fact reveal."
He further remarks, "There is excellent reason to believe that it is
literally true that the result of two hours' tests properly chosen from
those already tested gives a better diagnosis of an educated adult's
general intellectual ability than the result of the judgments of two
teachers or friends who have observed him in the ordinary course of life
each for a thousand hours."[14] Interesting applications of tests of this
general character have been reported by Scott. Workers of various kinds,
such as salesmen and clerks, were graded by their employers or supervisors
on the basis of their actual ability at their task. It was possible in
some cases to get very accurate objective measures of ability to sell
goods, etc., by keeping records of achievement over a considerable period
of time. These objective measures have been compared with the results of
psychological tests administered at the time the men were employed.
Positive correlations ranging in several instances as high as .80 to .90
were secured. This means that ability in the performance of the particular
mental tests used was a very reliable sign of ability in the field. Various
instances similar to these have already been described in Chapter 5.
3. If, as seems quite likely, it be ultimately demonstrated that there are
some characteristics, aptitudes and capacities that depend directly on
congenital endowment, special nervous and sensory characteristics of a
valuable kind, we may mark off another group of occupations for which
particular individuals are well adapted, though not exclusively so, by
original nature. Among the traits which have been said to occur in some
such direct hereditary way, or as the result of unexplained mutation or
deviation from type, are: mathematical aptitude, ability in drawing,
musical composition, singing, poetic reaction, military strategy, chess
playing. Maternity, as a vocation, is of course strictly sex limited.
Pitch discrimination seems to depend on structural factors which are not
susceptible of improvement by practice. The same may be said of various
forms of professional athletic achievement. Color blindness seems to be an
instance of the conspicuous absence of such a unit characteristic. "Poets,"
it is said, "are born, not made." Many of these apparent unit
characteristics are so relatively independent that they often occur in
quite surprising degree in individuals who are otherwise imbecilic.
Mathematical, musical, graphic and decorative aptitudes, mechanical memory,
and certain types of manual dexterity and mechanical cunning are frequently
exhibited by the _idiot savant_. By the _idiot savant_ is meant an
individual who is in most respects mentally defective, who perhaps cannot
dress himself, cannot adequately learn to speak or write, but who possesses
some particular ability to a surprising degree. Such individuals may be
able to perform on various musical instruments, to compose music, to sketch
designs and objects in an imitative manner, to remember long lists of
disconnected names or numbers, to weave acceptably such articles as rugs
and scarfs, or to construct complicated mechanical objects such as
furniture, pumps, and sailing vessels.
Cases of rare possession of unit characters constitute the "genius" of
ordinary conversation. These seem to present no problem for vocational
psychology. Their marked unusualness renders them sufficiently obvious,
even to the individual who does not systematically analyze himself. Such a
prodigy requires a generous friend and an opportunity rather than a
vocational expert.
4. There remain two further types of work, in which vocational psychology
really finds its true task. There are on the one hand a large number of
occupations that require neither unusual intelligence, special aptitude,
nor technical training, such as those of the small tradesmen, responsible
clerks, collectors, watchmen, agents, solicitors, motormen, conductors,
soldiers, cashiers, cooks, nursemaids, etc. Above all, these types of work
require the moral and social virtues, such as honesty, courtesy,
truthfulness, patience, promptness, cleanliness, etc. Their lack of need of
special technical knowledge is indicated by the apprenticeship method by
which most of them are commonly begun. Also, the absence of simple and
direct tests of the presence of these moral and social virtues and habits
requires that for a long time to come this method of trial, combined with
the judgments of associates in the form of testimonial, personal
recommendation, etc., must be continued. If psychology, in the immediate or
remote future, shall ever discover or invent expedient tests for the
measurements of these moral characteristics, it will have done a work that
is at present equaled only by the formation of the various graded scales
for measuring more strictly intellectual capacities. At present no such
tests are vouched for by even the most enthusiastic of prophets.
5. Finally, and closely related to these occupations calling mainly for
moral habits and social reactions, come the bulk of the world's
occupations, those adequately performed by and constituting the permanent
task of the man or woman of average intelligence. By average intelligence
we do not of course imply any uniform or standardized homogeneous
equipment. We mean those varying degrees of intellectual proficiency,
educative docility, social coöperativeness and instinctive adequacy which
fill the major section of the curve of distribution, that between the
feeble-minded and obviously stupid, on the one hand, and on the other the
genius, with special and distinguished traits or capacities.
In these occupations the degree of intelligence is by no means the sole
determinant of either successful or satisfactory performance.
Temperamental characteristics, such as those enumerated by Schneider and
by Thorndike, the local and wandering inclinations, active and sedentary
dispositions, tendencies to competitiveness, imitation, suggestibility,
sympathy, curiosity, and the entire series of instinctive propensities,
dominant original or acquired types of satisfaction and annoyance,
attitudinal, volitional and emotional differences, and the moral and social
traits, such as persistence, frankness, piety, loyalty, zeal, all these may
be expected to combine in varying relations of compensation and
reënforcement, substitution and facilitation. What one lacks in quickness
it is often possible to make up in persistence; what another lacks in
ambition and competitiveness he may supply in the form of loyalty and zeal;
relative intellectual inferiority is often and easily balanced by the
display of social charm; persistent, well-directed and enthusiastic effort
or even a good vocabulary may enable one to compete successfully with the
exceptional genius who does not display these incentives or advantages.
In the proposals to direct individuals into their proper life careers, the
advocates have quite commonly failed to make sufficient allowance for the
overwhelming importance of incentive, motive, attitude and purpose, and the
large rôle they play in determining the possible achievements of a nervous
system. It is well enough to test the memory span, attention type, and
reaction time of an applicant for a job as motorman on a street car. It is
still more important to learn the strength of his instinctive competitive
reactions, to measure the degree of his belief in hell or in socialism, or
the firmness of his intention to effect the higher education of his
children. By "more important" I mean better calculated to reveal his
fitness for the work. I would rather trust my life and limb to a motorman
whose feeble memory span is reënforced by a loyal devotion to the comfort
of his grandmother than to a mnemonic prodigy whose chief actuating motive
in life is to be a "good fellow."
These comments should not be construed as an underestimation of the
usefulness of the simple intellectual test as a preliminary precaution in
engaging employees or in detecting extreme departures from the mode or
average. The use of such tests in discovering such departures and variants
as idiocy, imbecility and general stupidity has been amply justified by
experience with them. But we are primarily concerned here with the
determination of individual differences and qualifications within the large
middle range of the curve of distribution. My conviction is that, in the
case of the average individual, we must either:
1. Demonstrate that these important non-rational determinants of vocational
aptitude and satisfaction correlate very, very closely with more strictly
intellectual capacity;
2. Postpone the entire work of vocational guidance in these cases, on the
basis of psychological examination, until that distant day when these
characteristics can be approached by means of scales and norms; or
3. Otherwise guidance must rest, as it now largely does in democratic
communities, on the broad knowledge of opportunity afforded by industrial
and pre-vocational training, the encouragement of thorough and systematic
self-scrutiny, and the method of repeated trials.
The first of these alternatives has scarcely been attempted; the second
will probably not occur in our immediate generation; the third we have had
always with us.
It is important to note that the employments here referred to are not
"blind alley" occupations. They all offer possibilities of promotion and
advancement which in the main are so open to competition that the
individual inevitably tends to reach that level of responsibility,
independence, opportunity and remuneration which his total equipment
merits. It is also important that promotion or advancement by no means
implies the continued use of the particular traits which distinguished the
individual from his fellows on the lower levels of achievement. Thus the
boy who enters business as a responsible clerk may often move on through
the work of sales management, buying, general promotion, superintendency,
and ultimate partnership. The capable artisan or mechanic may proceed from
the work of general helper to that of special expert workman, foreman,
superintendent, inspector, contractor, and commissioner of public works or
postmaster general. Marked boyhood propensities for wood-work indicate
neither that the lad is capable of moving through these very diverse steps
of promotion, nor, on the other hand, that he must forever remain a
journeyman or an expert workman.
Progress in these vocations does not then imply, in fact almost never does
imply, merely increasing the quantity or quality of the work at which one
starts. The promotion of a teacher is often from teaching and disciplining
classes satisfactorily, to clerical assistance in the principal's office,
the principalship, general school superintendence, administrative
counselling and public lecturing, or the college or national presidency.
The case of the teacher of biology who becomes the principal of a
commercial high school is not at all unprecedented. For occupations of this
character and for this main group of average individuals it is indeed
hopeless to seek for vocational psychographs. It is here if anywhere that
the general principle holds that one who does anything well could have done
almost anything else well if he had cared to try. But the degree to which
one _cares_ is not measured by reaction time or cancellation tests. The
question of the degree to which ability of one sort implies ability of
other sorts is one of the several matters to be considered in a later
chapter.
This fivefold division of the vocations is based on the degree to which the
tasks involved require complete and normal psychological equipment. The
foregoing consideration of these five main occupational groups may be said
to constitute a brief summary of the present outstanding results of
vocational psychology. The mentally incompetent can easily be discovered at
an early age by the use of the graded intelligence scales. Their subsequent
direction into forms of useful work appropriate to their degree of defect
is not a psychological enterprise, but, rather, a civic obligation and
industrial economy. The apparently small group of individuals who are by
original nature fitted for the pursuit of work involving special or unit
characters will, whether otherwise incompetent or generally capable,
commonly demonstrate their unique abilities without the application of
psychological technique. The much larger group of unspecialized workers,
requiring rather higher degrees of mental competence, may be chosen without
difficulty with the aid of the standard mental scales and norms, their
academic records, and the judgments of their associates. These may be
guided into such tasks as involve mainly a moderate degree of intellectual
capacity and make no notable demand for the exercise of the social and
moral virtues. The vocational psychology of the future will find its chief
problems in dealing with the numerous and permanent tasks requiring workers
who, in addition to their varying degrees of strictly intellectual
proficiency, possess particular or complete instinctive, emotional and
volitional equipment, and who are amenable to those social and educational
agencies which seek to impress upon them the moral virtues of their
community and age.
FOOTNOTES:
[14] The series of tests proposed, and an especially clear discussion of
the problems, methods and characteristic results of these tests, is to be
found in Science, Jan. 24, 1913, pp. 133-142, in Thorndike's article on
"Educational Diagnosis."
CHAPTER X
THE VOCATIONAL APTITUDES OF WOMEN
By
LETA STETTER HOLLINGWORTH, PH. D.
_Bellevue Hospital, New York City_
It is customary for authors, in discussing vocational problems, to assume
that the vocational future of girls is determined in advance by the fact of
sex. Not infrequently the lack of provision for domestic training in our
high schools and colleges is indicated at length, and suggestions for
establishing the domestic arts and sciences on a firmer basis in the
educational system are advanced. Some paragraphs may be devoted to a
discussion of the statistics which show that thousands of girls go from
school into industry, and to an inquiry as to what training is best fitted
to assist them in earning a living for the period intervening between
graduation and matrimony. With this the discussion of vocational problems
ends, so far as girls are concerned, and the remaining space is given over
to more adequate consideration of the vocational aptitudes and guidance of
boys.
It is the purpose of this chapter to inquire whether there are any innate
and essential sex differences in tastes and abilities, which would afford a
scientific basis for the apparently arbitrary and traditional assumption
that the vocational future of all girls must naturally fall in the domestic
sphere, and consequently presents no problem, while the future of boys is
entirely problematical, and may lie in any one of a score of different
callings, according to personal fitness. We shall try to determine whether
the present expectation that all women will follow the same vocation, i.
e., housekeeping, is founded on any fact or facts of human intellect, or
whether it arises merely from ideas of traditional expediency connected
with the care of the young, and whether it leads to a waste of energy and
of intellectual talents.
The discussion will take the form of five general questions, together with
the answers which are to be made to each in the light of experimental
psychology: (1) Are there innate sex differences in average intelligence?
(2) Is either sex more variable than the other in mental traits? (3) Are
there any special causes of intellectual inefficiency affecting one sex
but not the other? (4) Are there any sex differences in affective or
instinctive equipment which would naturally lead to vocational
differentiation of the sexes? (5) What explanation is to be given of the
traditional division of labor between the sexes?
It will be necessary at the outset to draw a clear distinction between the
_literature of opinion_ and the _literature of fact_. The literature of
opinion includes all written statements, made by scientific men and others,
not based on experimental evidence. The literature of opinion on the
subject of sex differences in mental traits is voluminous. It appears in
the writings of Nietzsche, Schopenhauer, Mill, Möbius, and others. By the
literature of fact is meant those written statements based on experimental
data, which have been obtained under carefully controlled conditions, and
which may be verified by anyone competent to understand and criticize them.
In this chapter we shall seek the answers to the propounded questions in
the literature of fact alone, neglecting as irrelevant to the discussion
the entire literature of opinion.
Since the discussion is limited to the literature of fact, it will of
necessity refer only to literature of a comparatively recent date. Until
about fifteen years ago there had been practically no attempt to collect
precise data on the subject of sex differences in mental abilities. Before
experimental data were sought the hypothesis was accepted that human
females are, by original nature, different from and inferior to human
males, intellectually. The factor of sex determined everything; the way to
discover whether a given individual was capable of any given intellectual
task was not to let the individual undertake the task and to judge by the
result, but to indicate the sex of the person in question.
Coincident with the intense controversy which rose in the nineteenth
century over the higher education of women, a number of statistical studies
were carried on by the questionnaire method. These were followed by
experimental studies, and at the opening of the twentieth century several
experiments were being made to investigate the matter of sex differences in
intellect. About this time also the idea began to gain headway that
whatever differences exist between the sexes as we find them in the world
may be due to training and not to original nature; and it began to be
pointed out that this aspect of the matter complicates even experimental
investigation in ways difficult to control.
We may speak here of the experiments on brain weight which were published
and much discussed about thirty years ago. Romanes, among others, insisted
that the male brain was, on the average, several grams heavier than the
female brain, and for a time it was supposed that the fact of innate female
inferiority had been thus satisfactorily established. However, it was later
demonstrated that relative to total body weight the female brain is as
heavy as the male brain. It was also found that no positive correlation can
be established between brain weight and intellect.
In 1906 Helen Bradford Thompson published her dissertation, from Chicago
University, entitled "The Mental Traits of Sex." This volume gives a
summary of the scattered bits of experimental work done previous to that
time, and presents her numerous experiments on a group of men and a group
of women at Chicago University. The result of her tests in various mental
traits is that the differences between the sexes were in no case as great
as the individual differences within either sex. Men differed from each
other in these experiments (as did women also, among themselves), as much
as men differed from women. In only two of the many traits tested was a
reliable difference found between the central tendencies of the sexes. In
speed of voluntary movement (tapping) men were quicker than women, and in
memory women were superior to men. On the whole, however, the result
indicated equality of mental ability between the sexes.[15] It will be
enough for the present purposes to say that after about twenty years of
collecting data by scientific experiment, the hypothesis that there is any
innate sex difference in average intellectual ability has been abandoned by
all psychologists who base their statements on scientific evidence. For
example, Dr. E. L. Thorndike, in the most recent edition of "Educational
Psychology" (1914), writes as follows, in summing up the experimental work
on sex differences in average intellectual ability:
"The most important characteristic of these differences is their small
amount. The individual differences within either sex so enormously outweigh
any difference between the sexes that for all practical purposes any such
difference may be disregarded.... As is well known the experiments of the
past generation in educating women have shown their equal competence in
school work of elementary, secondary and collegiate grade.... The
psychologist's measurements lead to the conclusion that this equality of
achievement comes from an equality of natural gifts, not from an
overstraining of the lesser talents of women."
Thus our first question, Are there innate sex differences in average
intelligence, which would call for differentiation of vocations on the
ground of sex? may be thus answered: So far as the literature of fact tells
us, we know of no considerable sex differences in average mental ability.
The evidence of experimental science (and on this point there is now a
large amount of evidence available) shows that by the test of averages the
sexes have equal ability to perform mental tasks.
Our second question, Is there a sex difference in variability in mental
traits which would call for a differentiation of vocation on the ground of
sex? has not been so long, nor so thoroughly investigated by
experimentalists as has the first question. What we are trying to discover
here is whether, when tested in any given mental trait, a group of boys
will differ more from one another than will a group of girls (similarly
selected and equal in number) differ from one another. In other words, are
the members of one sex very much alike in tastes, interests and abilities,
while the members of the other sex differ over a wide range of tastes,
interests and abilities? Obviously this might be the case, though the two
groups yielded an average exactly the same in such traits. The answer to
this second question will be of decided significance for vocational
guidance. For example, if it were shown by experimental data that human
females are, by original nature, rather closely alike, whereas human males
differ from one another by wide extremes, we should have scientific grounds
for concluding that social justice and social economy are well served by
the present policy of guiding all females into a single occupation, while
males are encouraged to enter the greatest possible variety of callings.
The first discussion of the comparative variability of the sexes was
broached about a century ago by an anatomist, Meckel. It is very
interesting (as well as amusing), in view of subsequent ideas about
variability, to note what Meckel said. He thought the human female to be
more variable than the human male, and he opined that, "since woman is the
inferior animal and variability is a sign of inferiority," the conclusion
was justified! Fifty years later, when Darwin put a different face upon
variability, showing it to be an advantage and a characteristic affording
the greatest hope for progress, the greater variability of the male began
to be affirmed everywhere in the literature of opinion. Karl Pearson alone
took issue with this view, which was current in the nineteenth century and
is still widely credited, and pointed out that there existed as yet no
literature of fact regarding comparative variability (though men of science
had not on this account restrained themselves from uttering the most
positive statements concerning it). Pearson thereupon actually gathered and
computed hundreds of measurements of human beings, and presented his
results in 1897, in a comprehensive article entitled "Variation in Man and
Woman." He clearly demonstrated that there is, in fact, no indication of
greater male variability, when actual anatomical measurements of adult
human beings are treated with mathematical insight. Immediately Havelock
Ellis, whose opinions were chiefly affected by Pearson's article, replied
that when adults are made the subject of investigation, no information is
gained regarding the matter of inherent or original differences in
variability. Since birth, life and death, on account of social customs,
etc., affect the sexes unequally, no one can say, in the case of adults,
how much may be due to environment and how much to original nature. If
Ellis had thought of this criticism before he wrote his own book, "Man and
Woman," his chapter on "The Variational Tendency of Men" would certainly
not have been published. However, his criticism of Pearson's material is no
less just because he failed to apply it in his own case. It is true that
measurements of adults do not tell us what might be the case with infants,
who have not yet been subjected to the formative and selective influences
of environment and training. Yet Pearson's article remained practically the
only literature of fact regarding the comparative anatomical variability of
the sexes until the year 1914. In 1914 Montague and Hollingworth published
in the _American Journal of Sociology_ an article setting forth in full the
measurements of two thousand new-born infants, one thousand of each sex.
The statistical result shows no difference whatever in variability between
the sexes.
It may seem irrelevant to dwell upon anatomical data, when the purpose of
this chapter is to deal with mental aptitudes. The pertinence of the data
cited, however, lies in the fact that if any sex difference in physical
variability could be established, this would suggest (though it would not
prove) the existence of a sex difference in mental variability also. No
experimental studies have ever been made for the express purpose of
determining whether there exist sex differences in mental variability. Such
scattered data as we possess have come incidentally from studies made with
some other chief purpose in view. Such data were collected and summarized
in the _American Journal of Sociology_ for January, 1914. There was at that
time very little evidence that could be cited on this subject, but such as
there was gave no ground for maintaining the existence of any sex
difference in variability. Since 1914 Trabue's experiments, with
"completion tests," performed on about 1,300 school children, have been
published; the Courtis arithmetic tests on several thousands of school
children in New York have been made public; Terman has tested 1,000
unselected children by the Binet-Simon tests; and Pyle has undertaken his
study in the measurement of school children. The evidence from these
extensive experiments is in all cases that there is no sex difference in
mental variability, as thus measured.
It is necessary also for the reader to bear in mind that there is as yet
much controversy among those best equipped to understand the problems of
variation, as to the proper methods of measuring comparative variability.
The mathematical considerations involved need not be rehearsed here. But
until it has been definitely determined just how comparative variability
can be scientifically measured, it would seem premature to make any final
statement as to sex differences in this respect.
We can therefore answer our second question thus: There is little or no
agreement among those best qualified to speak, as to what constitutes the
scientific method of measuring comparative variability. But according to
the methods now deemed the most reliable, and according to those studies
wherein presumably correct methods of measurement have been employed, there
is no reason to suppose that there is any sex difference in variability, so
far as the numerous traits tested are concerned. There has never been an
experimental study made in which the sampling from both sexes was large,
random, equal, and from groups of equal homogeneity socially and racially,
that showed any reliable sex difference in variability. If we adhere to the
literature of fact, we must conclude that, so far as we know, human females
differ from each other as much as do human males in abilities and
aptitudes.
We now come to the inquiry as to whether there are any special causes of
intellectual inefficiency which affect one sex but not the other. Under
this topic we may consider the periodic function, which characterizes girls
and women, but which does not characterize boys and men. This periodic
function has always been the object of superstition and taboo, and is such
even among the civilized peoples of today. The literature of opinion is
replete with references to it as a source of intellectual weakness and
irresponsibility. We may let Frederick Harrison speak for a large group of
writers on this point:
"Supposing all other forces equal, it is just the percentage of periodical
unfitness which makes the whole difference between the working capacity of
the sexes. It is owing to a very natural shrinking from hard facts, and a
somewhat misplaced conventionality that this fundamental point has been
kept out of sight."
The literature of opinion abounds in different notions, inconsistencies,
and contradictory instances in the matter of the periodic function, and its
alleged enormous influence on the intellectual and vocational life of
women. Much of the opposition to the education of women was based on it,
and it has even been exploited as a good reason why political freedom
should be denied to women. It is positively stated that women are on this
account unfitted to pursue professional and commercial life; yet it is not
proposed that cooks, scrub women, mothers, nursemaids, housekeepers or
dancers should be periodically relieved from their labors and
responsibilities.
There is almost no literature of fact concerning the periodic function as
related to the mental abilities of women. No effort had ever been made to
subject this matter to study by instruments and methods of precision until
very recently. Psychologists, while often stating the influence of
periodicity on mental life to be fundamental and characteristic, entirely
neglected to consider it when performing experiments on women subjects. In
1909 Voitsecovsky, at Petrograd, performed an experiment on six women by
means of instruments of precision. He thought he found a positive result
and that there was shown to be an actual influence of periodicity on
certain mental functions. His conclusions are, however, largely invalidated
by the fact that all his subjects knew the purpose of the experiment, and
by the fact that he neglected to use, as a control, human beings not
subject to the phenomenon in question. He also neglected to present his
data in full, so that the reliability of his conclusions might be
calculated.
Two studies of this phenomenon appeared in 1914. The first was a study by
Dr. A. E. Arnold, as to the effect of school work on the periodic function,
and this is reported in the January number of the _American Physical
Education Review_. This investigator suspected, from his experience as a
physician and teacher, "that much of the incapacity claimed was
fictitious," and he determined, as an experiment, to institute a régime
whereby no student under his supervision would be excused periodically from
mental or physical duties, except in cases where some pathological
condition existed. In summing up the data he says: "So far our results show
all improvement [in the health of students]."
The second study, which appeared in 1914, was by the present writer. She
made a prolonged and careful experimental study of twenty-three women
(using as a control the records of men subjects), and failed to demonstrate
any influence of periodicity on those mental abilities which she tested.
These included speed and accuracy of perception, controlled association,
steadiness, speed of voluntary movement, fatigability, and rate of
learning.
A great amount of scientific work remains to be done before any final
answer of any kind can be given to the question, Does functional
periodicity exercise a fundamental and characteristic influence on the
intellectual abilities of women? We must answer our third question in this
way: There is very little experimental evidence on which to base a reply,
but the few data which we do possess show no influence, either detrimental
or beneficial.
Our fourth inquiry is this: Are there any innate sex differences in
affective or instinctive equipment that would naturally lead to a
vocational differentiation of the sexes? Here we must acknowledge ourselves
to be entirely without a literature of fact. The literature of opinion is
very extensive on the subject, and it would be an interesting and no doubt
an instructive task to collect and summarize the various and conflicting
opinions of men as to the affective and instinctive differences between the
sexes. Men and women as we see them in the world do differ in affective
behavior, but no one can say whether these differences in behavior are
original or acquired. There are different conventional standards of
emotional behavior for men and for women, but no one would be justified in
saying that such standards arose from inherent affective differences
between the sexes. The very variety that characterizes the statements on
this subject constitutes proof of the ignorance of mankind in regard to
it.
Since exact data are entirely lacking, the discussion of this last question
need not detain us. We may, however, glance at one instinct which has
repeatedly been stated to characterize women, and to constitute in itself a
natural justification for differentiating the sexes vocationally. This is
the "maternal instinct." Since the period of helpless infancy is very
prolonged in the human animal, and since the care of infants is an exacting
and onerous labor, it would be natural for those who are not biologically
attached to infants, to use all means at their disposal to fasten the whole
burden of infant-tending upon those who are originally so attached. We
should expect this to happen, and it does happen. There has been a
continuous social effort to establish as a norm the woman whose vocational
proclivities are completely and "naturally" satisfied by child-bearing and
child-rearing.
In the absence of all data, it would seem most reasonable to suppose that
if it were possible to obtain a quantitative measurement of "maternal
instinct," we should find this trait distributed among women just as we
have found all other traits distributed, which have yielded to quantitative
measurement. It is most reasonable to assume that we should obtain a curve
of distribution, varying from an extreme where individuals have a zero or
negative interest in the care of infants, through a mode where there is a
moderate amount of impulse to tend infants, to a second extreme where the
only vocational interest lies in such activity. The bearing and rearing of
children is in many respects analogous to the work of soldiers. It is
necessary to national existence, it means great sacrifice of personal
advantage, and it involves suffering and danger, and, in a certain
percentage of cases, the actual loss of life. Thus, as in the case of
soldiers, every effort is and must be made to establish as a norm the
extreme end of the distribution curve, where there is an all-consuming
interest in patriotism, in the one case, and in motherhood in the other. In
the absence of all scientific data, we should, therefore, guard against
accepting as an established fact about human nature a doctrine that we
might expect to find in use as a means of social control. It is also
fitting to raise the question as to just what is meant by the term,
"maternal instinct." Does it mean desire for offspring which are as yet
non-existent? Does it mean only the tendency to care for helpless offspring
after they are actually in existence? Does it mean an interest in children
as such, regardless of their origin? Or does it consist in a mingling of
all these elements? Above all, does it involve, as an essential element, an
interest in waiting personally upon infants? One certainly gains the
impression from a perusal of the extensive literature of opinion that to
most persons the term is quite unanalyzed, and that it calls for analysis.
We have now considered four of our inquiries in the light of experimental
evidence. We have discovered that a great amount of work remains to be done
before we can answer most of them conclusively, and that to one question,
at least, no answer at all can be given from the literature of fact. We can
only say that, so far, scientific experiment has revealed no sex
differences in the original nature of intellect that would imply a
necessary differentiation of vocations on the ground of sex. There exist no
scientific data to show (1) differences in average intellect; (2)
differences in mental variability; (3) special causes of intellectual
inefficiency affecting one sex but not the other; (4) differences in
affective or instinctive equipment, implying a "natural" division of labor.
The division of labor between the sexes, which has existed through historic
times and still persists, originated, so far as we know, in physiological,
not in psychological differences. The momentous physiological fact that
women bear and nourish infants and men do not, is the great primary sex
difference on which our economic and vocational organization has been built
up. It might be supposed that natural selection would have evolved an
intellectual (or unintellectual) type in women, which could find its
complete natural satisfaction in the vocation of child-bearing and
child-rearing. But such a selection could take place only if mental traits
were sex-limited in inheritance, or existed as secondary sex
characteristics. No mental trait has ever been proved to be sex-limited in
inheritance, or to exist as a secondary sex character. So far as we know,
daughters inherit mental traits from fathers as well as from mothers, and
sons inherit them from mothers as well as from fathers. Under such
circumstances the law of natural selection can never become operative to
solve the vocational problems of women.
The fact that women have not in the past equaled men in "philosophy,
science, art, invention and management" is frequently adduced as evidence
of their innate unfitness for pursuits other than the domestic. From such
evidence, however, we glean in reality no information whatever about the
vocational aptitudes of women. We should not expect any notable
achievement by women in the fields mentioned above, for the following
reasons. Women must bear and nourish infants, and men cannot. The period of
gestation and the period of infancy are very protracted in the human
species, together covering, for each infant reared, about six years. Until
very recently no scientific methods of controlling procreation have been
generally known or utilized. Thus women have borne great numbers of
infants, all their youth and maturity being consumed by bearing and rearing
young. The small minority of women whose lives happened not to be so
consumed would be very unlikely to make any contributions in extra-domestic
vocational achievement for two reasons. In the first place, all women were
expected to mate and thus to procreate and rear offspring, and no provision
was made by society for their training in lines other than those they would
be expected to use. In the second place, those women who did not meet the
common fate failed to do so for some special reason, such as ill health,
mental disease, or the necessity of caring for decrepit relatives. The very
causes of their celibacy would operate also against any vocational
achievement on their part.
In the irrational trial and error method by which our human institutions
have been developed, the logical expectation would be that the great
physiological sex difference in reproductive function would probably
influence vocational activities just as it has done. We find in the
traditional division of labor between the sexes exactly what we should
expect to find, even though there were an identity of intellectual
abilities and interests. It seems both psychologically and socially
desirable that the one incontestable conditioning factor in the vocational
differentiation of men and women be raised clearly to consciousness, rather
than submerged, as in the past, by an elaborate system of defense
mechanisms and traditional devices of social control. It would be going
afield from the immediate purpose of this chapter to offer constructive
suggestions for such changes in economic and domestic management as might
be necessary to overcome this conditioning factor, and thus to give free
vocational opportunity to both sexes alike. To effect these changes in such
a way that the maximum social betterment may be achieved thereby will be a
task not simple but complex. It will call for the best thought and the most
enlightened effort of which we are capable, and will be accomplished only
with the passing of years and decades.
The essential thing at present is to know whether any basis for future
action may now be found in the established facts of human nature. In the
present state of scientific knowledge it would be as dogmatic (and
therefore as undesirable) to state that significant sex differences in
intellect do not exist, as to state that such differences do exist. All we
can say is that up to the present time experimental psychology has
disclosed no sex differences in mental traits which would imply a division
of labor on psychological grounds. The social gain would be very great if
the public could be brought to recognize intelligently that to many of the
questions regarding the vocational aptitudes of women no definite answers
can at present be given, because the necessary data for the formulation of
answers have never been collected. So far as is at present known, women are
as competent intellectually as men are, to undertake any and all human
vocations.
FOOTNOTES:
[15] There was published in the October (1914) issue of the _Psychological
Bulletin_ a summary of all important experimental work done on sex
differences in recent years. Any reader wishing to take up the evidence
greatly in detail will do well to consult all of the references there
given.
CHAPTER XI
THEORY AND PRINCIPLE OF PSYCHOLOGICAL TESTS AS APPLIED TO VOCATIONAL
ANALYSIS
The more general questions of the theory of tests, their selection,
evaluation, and technique of application and record, need not be considered
here. The reader unfamiliar with these matters will find them fully treated
in the various standard manuals of tests, and in numerous special articles
and monographs referred to in the bibliography.
There are, however, certain particular aspects of the theory and use of
mental tests which have special importance for vocational psychology. These
are:
1. The question of the degree to which proficiency in one respect or
ability or test implies proficiency in others.
2. The degree to which these intercorrelations are revealed by preliminary
trials and modified by continued practice.
3. The question of the significance of preliminary trials in revealing the
relative abilities of individuals as these would be shown after all the
individuals had acquired their maximum skill or practice level of
proficiency; that is, the relation between momentary capacity and ultimate
achievement.
Attempts to intercorrelate mental or motor abilities as measured by
laboratory tests have usually produced more or less irregular results. Some
of the coefficients have been positive, some negative, but in only a few
cases have many of them been large when the individuals tested have been
chosen at random or with no deliberate intention of measuring only the
extremes of the curve of distribution. Thus in a recent report of the
correlations of abilities among several hundred adult individuals it is
remarked that a certain test for logical memory is "one of the very best
tests," partly because of "its high correlation with other tests" (an
average correlation of .29).
Two reasons are largely responsible for these low coefficients. The first
is the fact that the measures correlated have usually been initial trials,
or at most averages of a very few trials. This means great individual
variability and considerable consequent unreliability of the data. A more
important factor, perhaps, is the fact that these preliminary trials do not
necessarily represent the final capacities of the individuals. They are
determined by a host of incidental or accidental influences and reveal only
momentary ability, not ultimate capacity. There is every reason for
expecting to find positive correlation of "desirable" traits, and we may
well expect to find this increasingly true the more our measures test the
final limits of capacity in the various tests. In other words, the only
real correction for unreliable measures is to be made by continuing the
test until the individual has reached the limit of practice in it.
Only occasional attempts have been made to determine the influence of
practice on the correlation of abilities, and those that have been reported
have been based on so few practice trials that no review of them need be
given. In the present chapter I shall present the results of an experiment
in which a group of observers were repeatedly tested until in each test a
practice limit was approximated, a limit which, in most cases, one hundred
further trials failed to improve. The results have a real interest for
vocational psychology.
The experiment consisted in putting each of thirteen individuals through
205 repetitions of seven different mental tests. The trials were
controlled as thoroughly as possible with respect to such factors as
_interim_ occupation, exercise, food, rotation of tests, temperature,
illumination, and incentive and interest. The subjects, four women and nine
men, ranging from eighteen to thirty-nine years in age, were mature,
zealous, and faithful. Competition was stimulated by the award of desirable
prizes, and each worker received a daily wage. Records were announced to
the subjects only after each thirty-five trials. So far as previous
practice in these particular tests is concerned, all the subjects were
naïve. Five trials were made daily, these trials being distributed through
the day at about two-hour intervals. The tests themselves occupied about
forty minutes at each sitting.
The tests used were the following familiar laboratory forms:
1. Adding. Adding seventeen mentally to each of fifty two-place numbers and
reciting aloud the correct answer. Order of numbers random at each trial.
Record with stop watch, time required for perfect score.
2. Naming Opposites. Correctly naming opposites of each of fifty adjectives
which occurred each time in random order. Record, time required for a
perfect score.
3. Color Naming. The Columbia laboratory form of this test, with ten
repetitions of each of twelve colors. Position of card changed at each
trial. Record, time required for perfect score.
4. Discrimination Reaction. Discriminating between red and blue, and
reacting correctly with appropriate hand. Record, average time, in _sigma_,
and number of false reactions.
5. Cancellation. Crossing out digits from the Woodworth-Wells form of this
test. Record, time required for 75 correct cancellations of equally
difficult digits.
6. Coördination. The familiar three-hole test, for accuracy of aim. Record,
time required for one hundred correct strokes.
7. Tapping. Executing four hundred taps at maximal speed, with hand stylus,
right hand, elbow support. Record, time required.
Each test has been correlated[16] with all the remaining tests at various
points in the curve of practice. Correlations were made at each of the
following points:
1. Preliminary trial designated 1st trial
2. Median of first 5 trials designated 5th trial
3. Median of trials 20 to 25 designated 25th trial
4. Median of trials 75 to 80 designated 80th trial
5. Median of trials 200 to 205 designated 205th trial
At each of these points the thirteen individuals were arranged in an order
of relative ability for each of the tests, and these orders were correlated
with each other. Table 23 gives, for each test, at each point, the average
correlation with all the other tests, and also the grand average
correlations of all tests.
TABLE 23
SHOWING THE AVERAGE CORRELATION OF EACH TEST WITH ALL OTHERS, AT VARIOUS
POINTS IN THE CURVE OF PRACTICE
--------------------------------------------------------------
Trial|Adding|Opposites| Color|Discrim-|Coördi-|Tapping| Final
| | |Naming| ination| nation| |Average
-----+------+---------+------+--------+-------+-------+-------
1 | .19 | .10 | .15 | -.07 | -.15 | .17 | .065
5 | .41 | .26 | .15 | .35 | .21 | .32 | .280
25 | .50 | .35 | .43 | .27 | .03 | .35 | .320
80 | .55 | .43 | .53 | .31 | .18 | .34 | .390
205 | .48 | .62 | .61 | .35 | .34 | .52 | .490
--------------------------------------------------------------
Except in the case of discrimination the effect of practice is to increase
to a marked degree the intercorrelations of the various tests. Adding
increases steadily up to the eightieth trial. Opposites and color naming
gain even more steadily to the very end of the experiment, the increase in
the coefficients being four to six fold. Tapping increases more slowly but
no less certainly. In coördination the increase is very irregular, but the
coefficients show, on the whole, a change from -.15 at the first trial to
.34 at the finish. Only in the case of discrimination is there failure to
increase after the fifth trial. In no case, after the preliminary trial, is
there a negative coefficient among the average correlations, and indeed in
only one case is there a coefficient smaller than .15. The final averages
show steady increase from .065 at the preliminary to .28 at the fifth, .32
at the twenty-fifth, .39 at the eightieth, and .49 at the
two-hundred-and-fifth trials. _With practice, then, the average
correlations of all tests become positive, and the coefficients become
greater the longer the practice is continued._
In producing this increase in the intercorrelation of specific abilities
through the medium of practice, at least three different factors probably
coöperate. These factors have not an equal significance for vocational
psychology and its interests in tests.
One of the least important of these factors is the variability of
individual performance. In the beginning of the experiment each individual
is more variable than at later points in the curve. This momentary
variability need not be supposed to affect all the tests in the same way
nor all individuals in the same direction. This fact may then tend somewhat
to reduce the correlation of the preliminary trials and may in some cases
materially affect the first five or ten trials. Beyond the twenty-fifth
trial the variability in these tests is much reduced, and particularly so
in the measures here used, which are in all cases, after the preliminary
trial, the medians of five successive trials.
Another factor that deserves mention is the possibility of change in the
character of the tests themselves, through practice with them. It is quite
probable, for example, that the opposites test comes, after many
repetitions, to resemble more and more that type of process or function
involved in color-naming. The responses become more and more intimately
associated with the stimulus words, the suggested responses to each word
become more and more limited in number and in most cases reduced to a
single word for each stimulus. This state of affairs is true of
color-naming at the very beginning of the experiment. As the order of the
stimulus words is changed at each trial, the test may come to involve more
and more the simple task of giving merely the quickest possible association
of the right response, and the overcoming of inhibitions and interferences
of a more or less general sort, with less and less emphasis on the element
of selection. Much the same may also be true of the addition test. It is
in these three tests that the increase in correlation is most marked, and
the actual coefficients highest at the end of the experiment. Careful
analysis of what takes place as one improves in these simple tests would no
doubt yield interesting material.
But these two factors--decrease in variability and change in the character
of the tests--seem to be far from sufficient to account for the results.
The tapping test remains much the same type of process throughout, the only
apparent modifications consisting of slight changes in method and perhaps
some gradual changes in the muscles. There is certainly no reason for
suspecting that tapping and opposites or tapping and discrimination become,
as tests, more alike because of frequent repetition. But the increase in
correlation is clear in both these cases. Again, it is well established
that the discrimination reaction, in the form here used, also tends to
become reflex through practice, the conscious discrimination coming only
after the correct reaction is made. These experiments called for between
3,075 and 4,100 single discrimination reactions on the part of each
observer, which would afford ample time for such a change to show itself.
Mere change in the character of the test would then lead us to expect
color-naming, opposites, and adding to come more and more to resemble
discrimination reaction. But they do not, if the coefficients may be taken
as evidence. The coefficients of these tests with discrimination show no
tendency to increase, even by the end of the experiment. The assumption of
increasing similarity in the character of these pairs of tests would seem
gratuitous. Moreover, if there were such increase in similarity, and this
be also supposed to account for the higher correlation of color-naming and
opposites with adding, coördination and adding should show the same
increase in correlation. Just the reverse is actually the case, the
correlation of coördination and adding decreasing consistently.
Some further factor must then be responsible for the general increase in
correlation, aside from decrease in variability (which affects only the
first few trials) and progressive qualitative approximation of the tests
(which is seen to be inadequate). The doctrine of "general ability" or
"general intelligence" at once suggests itself in this connection. If there
is such a thing as "general ability" or "general intelligence," we should
expect all samplings of that ability to correlate more and more as the
measures came to be truer samples. We might indeed expect to find
evidences of this general ability only when measuring the "ultimate
capacity" of the individuals concerned. The momentary ability revealed in
initial trials, or even in the first half-dozen trials, in a given set of
tests might well be expected to show only low degrees of correlation. These
trials would not be measures of ultimate capacity, but would be largely
determined by previous practice, chance variability, momentary attitude and
initial method of attack. They would, in short, be samplings only of
momentary ability, not of final capacity.
Or if the assumption of a common factor be rejected, the present evidence
tends strongly to support our earlier conclusion concerning the positive
correlation between desirable mental functions. Some form of the doctrine
of "general ability," at any rate, seems to be supported. But the
conclusion seems to call for the qualification that "general ability" shall
have reference to _final capacity_ rather than to _momentary performance_,
if the correlations are to be high. If each individual be given the
opportunity to attain his limit of efficiency, his highest level of
performance, then, when these final limits are reached, individuals who
excel their fellows in one type of work will also tend to excel in other
types of work.
The theory and practice of tests has in the past been too content to rest
its claims on the meager results of a few preliminary samplings of an
individual's ability. The fact that, even when a great variety of such
samplings of a given individual are aggregated and balanced off against one
another, few results of real diagnostic value are achieved should be
sufficient warning against this tendency. My conviction is that for this
purpose we shall find it necessary to determine the individual's "limit of
practice" in the various tests before we shall secure diagnostic results
which will be verified by the individual's subsequent achievement in daily
life. We should know much more than we now know concerning the tendency and
meaning of such correlations as show close relation between initial
performance and ultimate capacity. This is particularly true if we wish to
extend the method of tests beyond educational diagnosis and to use them as
a means of vocational guidance or of industrial selection. For educational
diagnosis we wish primarily to know what kind of practice the individual
most needs. For vocational and industrial purposes we need rather to know
what limits the individual can eventually reach, in given kinds of
performance, as the result of practice, and to what degree his present
equipment of incentive renders probable the actual achievement of this
limit.
On the question of the significance of preliminary trials and the effects
of practice on the relative standing of individuals in their group, there
are important facts to be considered. In the direct application of mental
tests it has too often been assumed that the actual performance of an
individual, in one or a dozen trials at a given task, is in some way or
other significant of that individual's final capacity in such work. It is
true that several investigators have studied the effects of practice on
individual differences. These workers were interested above all in
questions as to relative rate of improvement, or amount or permanence of
gain. Such studies have produced suggestive results, although they have
been based, for the most part, on records of only a few subjects or on
relatively few practice trials.
To what degree are individual differences after a given number of trials
indicative of the final maximum capacity of the individuals concerned? At
what various rates do the determining factors enter into the practice
curves of a group of workers? What manner and amount of displacement in
their relative order of ability are thus produced? At what point or points
in the curves do the individuals assume their final order of relative
capacity after training? How do the replies to these questions vary with
the character of the task?
In the case of the experiments already described, record has been here
taken of the following points in the curves of practice:
Preliminary trial called initial trial
Median of trials 1 to 5 called 5th trial
Median of trials 20 to 25 called 25th trial
Median of trials 46 to 50 called 50th trial
Median of trials 76 to 80 called 80th trial
Median of trials 126 to 130 called 130th trial
Median of trials 171 to 175 called 175th trial
At each of these points the thirteen subjects were arranged in order of
relative ability for the test at the given stage of practice. Each of these
orders, or cross sections, of the group of practice curves was then
correlated with the final order of position as shown in trials one hundred
and seventy to one hundred and seventy-five. Table 24 gives the
coefficients of correlation derived in this way. A careful study of this
table will prove instructive.
TABLE 24
SHOWING THE CORRELATION OF ULTIMATE CAPACITY WITH CAPACITY AT DIFFERENT
POINTS IN THE CURVE OF LEARNING
(See Text for Explanation)
-----------------------------------------------------------
| | | | | | |Final
The Test |Prelim-| 5th | 25th| 50th| 80th| 130th|Trial
| inary |Trial|Trial|Trial|Trial| Trial|175th
--------------+-------+-----+-----+-----+-----+------+-----
Adding | .15 | .19 | .87 | .87 | .97 | .96 | 1.00
Opposites | -.08 | .62 | .49 | .83 | .94 | .98 | 1.00
Color Naming | .68 | .89 | .86 | .91 | .97 | .97 | 1.00
Discrimination| .68 | .62 | .60 | .50 | .50 | .79 | 1.00
Cancellation | .67 | .68 | .88 | .69 | .93 |(1.00)| --
Coördination | .52 | .79 | .77 | .90 | .95 |(1.00)| --
Tapping | .23 | .48 | .63 | .68 | .69 | .89 | 1.00
|-------+-----+-----+-----+-----+------+-----
Averages | .41 | .61 | .73 | .77 | .85 | .92 | 1.00
-----------------------------------------------------------
It is at once evident that the preliminary trial is by no means always a
measure of the final relative capacities of the individuals tested. The
average of all seven coefficients increases from .41 at the preliminary
trial to .92 at the one hundred and thirtieth trial. As the trials proceed
then, the relative positions of the thirteen individuals become more and
more definitely fixed, but in the beginning the indication is obscure. The
rate of this process, however, varies with the test, and to a considerable
degree. Adding shows changes in position which effect a correlation of .87
only after the twenty-fifth trial. Beyond this point there is little
change, the eightieth and one hundred and thirtieth trials correlating
equally well, and practically perfectly, with the final order. After
twenty-five trials, then, the final capacities of the individuals in the
adding test may be said to be indicated fairly accurately. Opposites, in
the fiftieth trial, yields a coefficient equal to that of addition in the
twenty-fifth trial, and by the eightieth trial the correlation may be said
to be complete. Only after fifty trials, then, can the test be said to
yield comparative measures which reflect the individual's final capacity in
this form of controlled association. In the case of tapping it is only at
the one hundred and thirtieth trial that the correlation with final
position exceeds .69.
These results may be easily comprehended by thinking of each test (as for
instance the tapping test) as a prolonged race, consisting of a large
number of heats (205 separate trials). All individuals begin with a running
start, their respective initial speeds depending on the momentum they have
acquired through a certain amount of previous practice, and on such
momentary ability and zeal as they possess at the time. But as the
succeeding "heats" or trials occur some individuals who were originally in
the lead begin to lose ground in relation to others who, though initially
slower, are now speeding up and overtaking the leaders. Still others may
retain their original relative positions to the end of the race. In the
table of coefficients, a correlation of 1.00 indicates that at that point
the ultimate relative positions of the contestants have at last become
established. The nearer the figure approaches zero the more uncertain are
the relative positions at the particular trial. To terminate the race at a
point where the correlation is low and to reward the contestants according
to the position they had reached at that point would be manifestly unfair
to those who were still speeding up and partial to those who were losing
ground.
Color-naming, discrimination, cancellation, and coördination show up to
much greater advantage. Even the preliminary trials in these tests show
fairly high correlations with the final orders. The first two of these show
little change as practice proceeds. In the case of the latter two tests,
although the initial correlations are fairly high, there is nevertheless
considerable increase as the trials proceed.
The meaning of these results seems to be that before one attempts to
interpret individual differences as disclosed by performance in such a
series of simple tests, he should have clearly in mind the distinction
between temporary proficiency and ultimate capacity. If he is interested,
for example, in determining the vocational prospects of a youth, or the
relative merits of candidates or culprits, it is important that he realize
that relative abilities in many of these laboratory tests may be changed
quite beyond recognition by continued work. It is highly desirable to know
more than we now know concerning the degree to which initial and
intermediate trials in these tests reflect final capacity. In the past the
question seems hardly to have been asked. Individual differences in early
trials, in some tests, are fairly significant of the working level to which
the performer may be brought later. In other tests this is not the case. On
the significance of these early trials may depend, in many cases, the
vocational value of the particular test.
Changes in the nature of the tests, variations of methods of attack, and
specific improvement in the directness, independence and rapidity of the
special nervous connections concerned--these three factors would all
declare themselves in the form of "changes in ability." A useful piece of
work in the case of all tests will be the analysis of the nature of the
changes resulting from practice. But in any case the presence of these
changes in correlation shows that we are not, in early trials, measuring
the same tendency or capacity in all performers. The concrete tasks of
daily life doubtless show just such qualitative changes, during practice,
as we may suppose to be present in some of these tests. Just as it is
ultimate capacity in daily life that is, with a given set of incentives,
most important, so in the laboratory the measurement of "ability after
practice" ought to be more emphasized than it is at present.
If it is true that with practice all tests correlate with one another, so
that an individual who is good in one type of work is also, when his
practice level has been reached, good in other types of work, the task of
vocational psychology is at once enormously simplified. In place of further
search for special occupational tests adapted in some peculiar way to
particular types of work, our task is rather that of extending the general
intelligence scales until they represent higher and higher degrees of
general ability.
It is quite probable that further advance in this direction will come, not
from the elaboration or invention of more tests, but by the selection of a
very few tests, and the examination of the final limits of practice with
respect to them. The problem will then be the selection of sets of tests in
which initial performance shows high correlation with ultimate capacity in
the tests themselves, or else the laborious and undramatic, but perhaps
preferable, alternative of continuing every test until the practice limit
is reached by the individual. In the latter case it would be well to learn
more about the nature and range of these limits than we know at present.
In so far as particular tasks are actually found to call for highly
specialized aptitudes, for the detection of which tests are sought, there
will be the further problem of correlating these various tests with the
particular aptnesses or fitnesses toward the detection of which diagnosis
is directed.
There will also be the problem of the alignment of the various types of
work along the general intelligence scales, as rapidly as these are
extended and elaborated. In so far as this method is followed, the task of
selecting from candidates those best fitted for the accomplishment of
special types of work will be easily handled. Vocational selection will
readily find methods suited to its purposes. But vocational guidance, as
distinguished from vocational selection, must for some time to come depend
largely on the determination of interests, incentives, satisfactions,
emotional values and preferences, and the discovery and direction of these
through general channels of information and through the methods of
industrial and pre-vocational education.
This is a hard and an arduous program. It calls for strenuous work on the
part of investigators, patience and faithfulness on the part of observers,
and wide coöperation of investigators with each other. From the immediately
practical point of view it also offers an inviting opportunity to those
foundations and individuals who are interested in supporting the further
development of "the arts of social control over human nature."
FOOTNOTES:
[16] For explanation of the technique and meaning of correlation see the
footnote on p. 45.
CHAPTER XII
CONCLUSION
The leading problems of vocational psychology we have seen to be three in
number: First, how may the individual achieve the most adequate knowledge
of his own peculiar mental and instinctive constitution, his equipment of
capacities, tendencies, interests and aptitudes, and the ways in which he
compares, in these respects, with his fellows? Second, how may the
individual acquire information concerning the general or special traits
required for successful participation in the various vocations, in order to
select a line of activity for which he is constitutionally adapted? Third,
how may the employer determine the relative desirability, fitness and
promise of those who may offer themselves as his associates and assistants,
or for minor positions in his employ? Obviously, if vocational psychology
were in its maturity, rather than in its infancy, these various questions
would resolve themselves into a single problem. The traits required in the
various types of work would be fully known and specified, so that both the
choice of the individual and the selection by the employer would proceed
directly, once the individual's characteristics were known.
From this goal we are very far, but by no means hopelessly, removed. As we
have seen in the preceding chapters, the line of attack is being advanced
very unevenly at its various points. It is indeed characteristic of any new
branch of science that it does not advance symmetrically and at a uniform
rate, but moves ahead, now in this direction, now in that, so that the line
of complete development is some distance behind the outposts of
exploration. So in the case of vocational psychology we may draw a rough
line which shall represent the main region of advance, and may indicate the
various points where the line lags behind or goes conspicuously forward.
The main line of advance has left far behind it the magical ritual of
primitive thought, the medieval search for significant omens and
clairvoyant signs, the pseudo-scientific faith in the structural
characteristics elaborated in physiognomy and phrenology, and has taken its
stand firmly at the point where emphasis is laid on the objective study of
the individual's behavior. Educationally this position shows itself in the
abandonment of the purely disciplinary ideal of abstract training, and the
substitution of training in specific forms of conduct, exercise, and
occupation, accompanied by concrete experience with industrial
opportunities, rewards, and satisfactions. From the more strictly
psychological point of view the position shows itself in the experimental
application of mental tests. In the measurement of the more strictly
intellectual capacities, the line has shown a very decided advance since
the beginning of the present century. The available intelligence scales
make possible the diagnosis of intellectual defect, normality or precocity
in units of considerable reliability, in the case of pre-adolescents. This
step in itself is sufficient to put educational, industrial and social
enterprise deeply in debt to the new science of experimental psychology.
But this by no means constitutes the only point of marked advance. Thanks
to the elaboration of more complex and more diversified tests, and the
gradual accumulation of norms, it is now possible to make mental
measurements in the case of individuals considerably beyond the age of
adolescence. By means of such methods, degrees of sensitivity, dexterity,
accuracy, speed, comprehension, docility, discrimination, ingenuity,
information, observation, and numerous other general aspects of mental
alertness may be recognized. Comparison of such measures, in the case of
adult workers with actual success in the field of their activity, tends
constantly to show high degrees of positive correlation. The fact that the
correlations are not perfect raises numerous problems, the solution of
which is now being attempted.
The evidence now at hand suggests that the incomplete correlation comes, in
part at least, from the fact that some of the tests of momentary
achievement do not fully represent the ultimate capacities of the
individuals measured. At this point the line is relatively slow in
advancing. The obstacles encountered consist partly in our incomplete
information concerning which of the tests at once reveal final capacity and
which do not. This information must necessarily come slowly because of the
difficulties involved in securing the coöperation of subjects who will
submit to the prolonged series of measurements which such investigations
involve. Such data as are available, while inadequate to constitute proof,
suggest very strongly that those tests which are now in most common use
correlate closely with each other when the limit of practice is reached in
all of them. If subsequent work confirms this suggestion, the determination
of the factor of general intelligence may proceed on either of two bases.
Either we may use a very few trials of tests in which such trials may be
found to indicate ultimate capacity, or we may use a small number of tests,
but continue the measures until the limits of practice are reached.
But there is probably another factor in part responsible for the
incompleteness of the correlations between test records and direct measures
of vocational success. This is the fact that characteristics other than
general intelligence play a conspicuous part in daily life. The interests,
the incentives, the emotions, and the equipment of instinct and habit,
which show themselves in such traits as curiosity, competition, honesty,
loyalty, promptness, patience, the play impulse, etc., do not count for
nothing in vocational activity. Moreover, it is quite likely that, in
addition to the common fund of intelligence, each individual possesses in
his or her own degree, certain more specialized capacities and aptitudes,
for the complete measurement of which the available tests are inadequate.
The graded "product scales," however, represent a definite step toward the
measurement of many of these specific capacities.
Another difficulty encountered at this point is the fact that such direct
measures of vocational success as have been utilized in these comparisons
are in themselves subject to very large error. Only in recent years, and as
a result of the emphasis of the human factor in industry, has it come to be
the common practice to secure adequate records of the work of the
individual as contrasted with the work of the gang. Even today such records
are available in accurate form for only the simpler operations, in which
standardized conditions of work can be maintained. The relative success of
salesmen, for example, is not fairly measured in terms of the amounts of
their sales, the number of prospects interviewed, or the frequency with
which the assigned tasks are accomplished, unless the local trade
conditions of the respective territories are fully taken into account.
Inasmuch as such errors of measurement tend to reduce the apparent
correlation between the traits measured, it is extremely probable that the
psychological tests are even more significant than their present results
indicate. Refinement of the tests must be accompanied by more accurate and
precise measurement of the actual working efficiency of individuals in the
industrial field, if the results of the one are ever to represent the
amount of the other. In this as in many other respects, the development of
vocational tests depends as much upon the active and intelligent
coöperation of industrial concerns as it does upon the enthusiasm and
diligence of the psychological investigators.
From the point of view of the employer, the incompleteness of the
correlation between tests and direct measures is of little concern. Even a
very small positive correlation affords him a degree of guidance in the
selection of his workers that was far from forthcoming under the haphazard
methods of employment that have been traditional. But from the point of
view of the individual who is seeking guidance, or who is accepted or
rejected on the basis of his performance in psychological tests, any
correlation which is imperfect may lead to occasional injustice and
misdirection.
The diagnosis of the instinctive and attitudinal characteristics and the
recognition of the more specialized aptitudes constitute two points at
which the line of advance is relatively slow. It is at these points that
the psychographic methods find their task. As we have already seen in
detail, the methods of the individual and the vocational psychograph are
still in the stage of empirical procedure. In this stage of their
development nearly any effort to amplify or apply them is certain to
contribute results of positive value. The recent studies that have
contributed most notably toward the further development of the
psychographic technique have been in the form of the specialized vocational
tests and methods. Such studies, in addition to yielding results of
immediate applicability in the description and analysis of the special
tasks at which they are directed, also constitute positive progress towards
the more elaborate psychographic pictures of individuals and of tasks.
Meanwhile groups of further problems have been definitely organized, and
preliminary steps taken toward their solution. The formulation of
systematic guides to self-analysis and introspection and the study of the
reliability to be placed in the individual's estimates of his own
characteristics are making definite and interesting progress. The
examination of the time-honored "recommendation" and the estimates of
associates and friends, and the investigation of the accuracy of such
judgments as are based on these testimonials, on letters of application, on
the school records, etc., have already thrown long-desired illumination on
several aspects of vocational psychology. The effort to base the vocational
endeavors of women on the data of exact inquiry, rather than on the
maintenance of primitive taboos and domestic and literary traditions, has
played its own valuable part in one of the most vital economic adjustments
of our age.
The very fact that a systematic presentation of the problems and methods of
vocational psychology is possible signifies an enormous advance beyond the
very recent stage in which all vocations were mysteries, all choices a
serious form of gambling, and all employment confessedly a matter of
impressionistic prejudice. To those who become familiar not only with the
program of this new branch of applied science, but as well with the
outstanding definite and positive contributions which that program has
already yielded, the words of a constructive pioneer in this branch of
scientific inquiry seem to be already becoming a statement of fact, rather
than the mere expression of a hope. "The nineteenth century witnessed an
extraordinary increase in our knowledge of the material world, and in our
power to make it subservient to our ends; the twentieth century will
probably witness a corresponding increase in our knowledge of human nature,
and in our power to use it for our welfare."
APPENDIX
CLASSIFIED BIBLIOGRAPHY FOR VOCATIONAL PSYCHOLOGY
1. MOTIVES OF VOCATIONAL PSYCHOLOGY
Bloomfield, M.: The Vocational Guidance of Youth
---- Readings in Vocational Guidance
Davis, J. B.: Moral and Vocational Guidance Hollingworth, H. L.: Vocational
Psychology
Münsterberg, H.: Psychology and Industrial Efficiency
Parsons, F.: Choosing a Vocation
Puffer, J. A.: Vocational Guidance
Thorndike, E. L.: "Educational Diagnosis," Science, Jan. 24 1913
2. THE METHODS OF INDUSTRIAL EDUCATION
Bonser, F. G.: Fundamental Values in Industrial Education
Bonser and Russell: Industrial Education
Hanus, P.: Beginnings in Industrial Education
Righter and Leonard: Educational Surveys and Vocational Guidance
Weeks, R. M.: The People's School; a Study in Vocational Training
3. PSEUDO-PSYCHOLOGICAL METHODS
Those interested in the historical features of vocational psychology will
find innumerable books and monographs on magic, clairvoyance, astrology,
chiromancy, palmistry, phrenology, physiognomics, character-analysis, etc.
All of these have only historical interest. See also an interesting survey
of the development and motives of these systems, by Prof. Joseph Jastrow,
in _Popular Science Monthly_, June, 1915
4. HISTORY OF PSYCHOLOGICAL TESTS
Cattell and Farrand: "Physical and Mental Measurements of the Students of
Columbia University," _Psychological Review_, Nov., 1896
Stern, W.: Die Differentielle Psychologie
---- The Psychological Methods of Testing Intelligence
Thorndike, E. L.: Educational Psychology, Vol. III
Whipple, G. M.: Manual of Mental and Physical Tests
Whitley, M. T.: Tests for Individual Differences
Wissler, C.: "Correlation of Mental and Physical Tests," _Psychological
Review Monograph Supplement_, No. 16, 1901
5. GRADED INTELLIGENCE TESTS AND PRODUCT SCALES
Binet and Simon: A Method of Measuring the Development of Intelligence of
Young Children
Hillegas, M. B.: "Scale for Measurement of Quality in English Composition
by Young People," _Teachers College Record_, Sept., 1912
Pyle, W. H.: The Examination of School Children
Sylvester, R. H.: "The Form Board," _Psychological Review Monograph
Supplement_, No. 65, 1913
Thorndike, E. L.: "Handwriting," _Teachers College Record_, March, 1910
Thorndike, E. L.: "Measurement of Achievement in Drawing," _Teachers
College Record_, Nov., 1913
Trabue, M. R.: A Graded Series of Completion Tests, _School and Society_,
April 10, 1915
----"Completion-test Language Scales." _Contribution to Education_,
Teachers College, Columbia University, No. 77, 1916
Whipple, G. M.: Manual of Mental and Physical Tests
Yerkes and Bridges: Point Scale for Measurement of Intelligence
6. THE INDIVIDUAL PSYCHOGRAPH
Hollingworth, H. L.: "Review of Toulouse," _Psychological Bulletin_, Nov.,
1912
Stern, W.: Die Differentielle Psychologie
Toulouse, E.: Henri Poincaré
7. THE VOCATIONAL PSYCHOGRAPH
Münsterberg, H.: Vocation and Learning
Parsons, F.: Choosing a Vocation
Schneider, H.: "Selecting Young Men for Particular Jobs," Bulletin 7,
_National Association of Corporation Schools_
Seashore, C. E.: "The Measurement of a Singer," _Science_, Feb. 9, 1912
Seashore, C. E.: Psychology in Daily Life
Trade Educational League Bulletins, Boston
8. SPECIALIZED VOCATIONAL TESTS AND METHODS
Ayres, L.: "Psychological Tests in Vocational Guidance," _Journal of
Educational Psychology_, April, 1913
Hollingworth, H. L.: "Specialized Vocational Tests and Methods," _School
and Society_, June 26, 1915
Lahy, J. M.: "Les conditions psychophysiologiques de l'aptitude au travail
dactylographique," _Journal de Physiology_, 1913
Lough, W. H.: "Experimental Psychology and Vocational Guidance,"
_Proceedings Second Conference on Vocational Education_
McComas, H. C.: "Some Tests for Efficiency of Telephone Operators,"
_Journal of Philosophy, Psychology and Scientific Methods_
Münsterberg, H.: Psychology and Industrial Efficiency
---- Business Psychology
Scott, W. D.: "The Scientific Selection of Salesmen," _Advertising and
Selling_, October, 1915
Taylor, F. A.: Scientific Management
Woolley and Fischer: "Mental and Physical Measurements of Working
Children," _Psychological Review Monthly Supplement_, No. 77
9. SELF-ANALYSIS OF THE INDIVIDUAL
Cattell, J. McK.: "Homo Scientificus Americanus," _Science_, XVII
Davenport, C. B.: "The Trait Book," _Eugenics Record Office_
Partridge, S. E.: An Outline for Individual Study
Parsons, F.: Choosing a Vocation
Thorndike, E. L.: The Original Nature of Man
---- "Professor Cattell's Relation to the Study of Individual Differences."
In _Psychological Researches of J. McKeen Cattell, Archives of Psychology_,
30
Wells, F. L.: "The Systematic Observation of the Personality,"
_Psychological Review_, July, 1914
Yerkes and LaRue: Outline for a Study of the Self
10. THE JUDGMENT OF ASSOCIATES
Cattell, J. McK.: "Homo Scientificus Americanus," _Science_, XVII
Cogan, Lucy G., Conklin, Agnes M., and Hollingworth, H. L.: "Self-Analysis,
Estimates of Associates, and Psychological Tests," _School and Society_,
Vol. II, 1915
Norsworthy, N.: "On the Validity of Judgments of Character," _Essays in
Honor of William James_
Simpson, B. R.: "Reliability of Estimates of General Intelligence, with
Applications to Appointments to Positions," _Journal of Educational
Psychology_, April, 1915
11. THE SCHOOL CURRICULUM AS A VOCATIONAL TEST
Dearborn, W. F.: "The Relative Standing of Pupils in the High School and in
the University," Bull. 312, Univ. of Wisconsin, 1909
Jones, A. L.: "The Value of College Entrance Examinations," _Educational
Review_, Sept., 1914
Kelley, T. L.: Educational Guidance
Lowell, A. L.: "College Studies and the Professional School," _Harvard
Graduates' Magazine_, Dec., 1910; _Educational Review_, Oct., 1911
Miles, W. R.: "Comparison of Elementary and High School Grades," _Iowa
Studies in Education_, I, 1
Nicholson, F. W.: "Success in College and in After Life," _School and
Society_, Aug. 14, 1915
Smith, F. O.: "A Rational Basis for Determining Fitness for College
Entrance," _University of Iowa Studies in Education_, N. S., 51, Dec., 1912
Thorndike, E. L.: "Educational Diagnosis," _Science_, Jan. 24, 1913
---- "The Future of the College Entrance Examination Board," _Educational
Review_, May, 1906. Also _Science_, Vol. 23, p. 289
---- "The Permanence of Interests and Their Relation to Abilities,"
_Popular Science Monthly_, Nov., 1912
12. THE DETERMINANTS OF VOCATIONAL APTITUDE, AND THE VOCATIONAL APTITUDES
OF WOMEN
Castle, Cora Sutton: "A Statistical Study of Eminent Women," _Archives of
Psychology_, No. 27, August, 1913
Hollingworth, Leta S.: "An Economic Study of Feeble-minded Women," _Medical
Record_, June 6, 1914
---- Functional Periodicity, _Teachers College Studies_, No. 69, 1914
---- "Variability as Related to Sex Differences in Achievement," _American
Journal of Sociology_, Jan., 1914
Jastrow, J.: Character and Temperament
Montague, Helen, and Hollingworth, L. S.: "The Comparative Variability of
the Sexes at Birth," _American Journal of Sociology_, Oct., 1914
Münsterberg, H.: Vocation and Learning
---- Psychology and Industrial Efficiency
Pearson, K.: "Variation in Man and Woman," in "Chances of Death," 1897
Schneider, H.: "Selecting Young Men for Particular Jobs," _Bulletin 7,
National Association of Corporation Schools_
---- "The Problem of Selecting the Right Job," _National Association of
Corporation Schools_, Bulletin June 9, 1915
Thompson, Helen B.: The Mental Traits of Sex
Thorndike, E. L.: Educational Psychology, Part III, 1914
Wells, F. L.: "The Principle of Mental Tests," _Science_, Aug. 22, 1913
Woolley, Helen: "Sex Differences in Mental Traits," _Psychological
Bulletin_, Oct., 1914
13. THEORY AND PRINCIPLE OF MENTAL TESTS AS APPLIED IN VOCATIONAL ANALYSIS
Brown, W.: Habit Interference, _University of California Publication in
Psychology_, I, 4
Hollingworth, H. L.: "Correlation of Abilities as Affected by Practice,"
_Journal of Educational Psychology_, Jan., 1912
---- "Individual Differences Before, During and After Practice,"
_Psychological Review_, Jan., 1914
Stern, W.: Die Differentielle Psychologie
Thorndike, E. L.: "Educational Diagnosis," _Science_, Jan. 24, 1913
---- Mental and Social Measurements
Wells, F. L.: "The Principle of Mental Tests," _Science_, Aug. 22, 1913
Wells, F. L.: "Systematic Observation of the Personality," _Psychological
Review_, July, 1914
Whipple, G. M.: Manual of Mental and Physical Tests
Whitley, M. T.: Tests for Individual Differences
TESTS, BLANKS, STANDARDS, FORMS
EARLY COLUMBIA TESTS
LABORATORY OF PSYCHOLOGY OF COLUMBIA UNIVERSITY PHYSICAL AND MENTAL TESTS
On the back of this sheet will be found the record of the student to whom
it is sent, together with the results obtained with about 250 college
freshmen. The individual student may thus see how certain of his physical
and mental traits compare with those of other students. Some of the records
are given in percentages: Thus, in the case of eyesight, if the student has
a record of 44 cm. or under he is among the third or fourth having the
worst eyesight and should consult an oculist. Others of the records are
given in averages, and the student can readily see whether he is above or
below the average. After the average is given a number in parenthesis which
is the probable error. If the record of an individual departs from the
average by less than this quantity he belongs to the half of the students
who are medium or normal. Thus in the case of the reaction-time, if a
student has a time more than 0.019 sec. below 0.159 sec. he is among the
quarter of the students who are the quickest.
In several of the tests, especially sensation-areas, force of movement,
perception of pitch, of size and of time, and memory for size, the number
of trials is not sufficient to establish certainly the place of the student
among the others.
Tests such as these are of importance for science. They teach us the normal
type of individual and the normal variation from this type. They show us
how different classes in the community differ, and on what conditions of
heredity, education, etc., these differences depend. They show us how
physical and mental traits are interrelated, how they alter with growth,
and on what conditions development depends. The tests should be of interest
to the individual as they show how he compares with his fellows, indicating
defects and special aptitudes, and if repeated later in the college course
or in after life the comparison may prove of great value. This record
should be compared with the measurements taken in the gymnasium.
EARLY COLUMBIA TESTS
Record of ________________________________________________________
Together with the averages and percentages of about 250 students.
* * * * *
----------------------------------------------------------------------
Head: { length, 19.4 cm. (0.43) |______________
{ breadth, 15.3 cm. (0.38) |______________
Vision: Right eye, 72 cm. and over, 15%; 61 to 52 cm., |
52%; 44 cm. and under, 33% |______________
Vision: Left eye, 72 cm. and over, 16%; 61 to 52 cm., |
60%; 44 cm., and under, 24% |______________
Color vision: Normal, 94.5%; defective, 4%; blind, 1.5%|______________
Preference for color: Blue, 42%; red, 22%; violet, 19%;|
yellow, 2%; green, 7%; white, 3%,; none, 5% |______________
Hearing: Right ear, abnormal, 3% |______________
" Left ear, abnormal, 2% |______________
Perception of pitch: Error less than 1/10 tone, 10%; |
1/10 to one tone, 53%; more than one tone, 37% |______________
Sensation areas: Correct 4 or 5 times, 63%; 3, 2, 1 or |
0 times, 37% |______________
Force of movement: Error, 1.44 cm. (0.51) |______________
Sensitiveness to Pain: Right hand, 5.9 kg. (2.4) |______________
" " Left " 5.6 kg. (2.2) |______________
Strength: Right hand, 36.3 kg. (4.9) |______________
" Left " 33.5 kg. (4.7) |______________
Fatigue: Work done 284.3 kg |______________
" Amount of fatigue, 65% (27) |______________
Reaction-time: 0.159 sec. (0.019) |______________
Marking 100 letters: 100 sec. (12) |______________
Naming 100 colors: 85 sec. (14) |______________
Making 100 movements: 34 sec. (4) |______________
100 accurate movements: {time, 49 sec. (47) |______________
{av. error, 0.8 mm. (0.3) |______________
Perception of size: Error, 2.4 mm. (2.0) |______________
Perception of time: " |______________
Memory: Numerals, heard, 7.6 (0.4) |______________
" " seen, 6.9 (0.5) |______________
" logical, 44.5% (11) |______________
" retrospective, error, 4.5 mm. (2.6) |______________
Association time, 55.4 sec. (22.9) |______________
Association of opposites |______________
Imagery: Visualization, distinct, 83% |______________
" Auditory, distinct, 23% |______________
NORMS AND STANDARDS
The following tables illustrate the principle of norms and standards for
mental and physical characteristics. In these cases various traits or
measures of performance have been recorded on large numbers of children at
each age from six years to eighteen years. The figures under a given age
column indicate what should be expected from the average or normal person
of that age, in the trait in question. If the individual is precisely "at
age" in all the traits measured, all his records will fall in the vertical
column under the figure indicating age. Deviation above or below the
average will be indicated by position above or below this column. For
description of the tests and instructions for their administration the
reader should consult the references given on pages 275-282.
PSYCHOPHYSICAL NORMS
_Physical_
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
| Year
Trait |----------------------------------------------------------------
| 6 | 7 | 8 | 9 | 10 | 11 | 12 | 13 | 14 | 15 | 16 | 17 | 18
---------------+----+----+----+----+----+----+----+----+----+----+----+----+----
Height (cm) | | | | | | | | | | | | |
Boys | 111| 116| 121| 126| 131| 135| 140| 146| 152| 158| 164| 168| 171
Girls | 110| 115| 120| 125| 130| 135| 141| 148| 154| 157| 158| 159| 159
Weight (kg) | | | | | | | | | | | | |
Boys | 20| 22| 24| 26| 29| 31| 34| 38| 43| 48| 53| 57| 61
Girls | 19| 21| 23| 25| 28| 31| 34| 39| 44| 48| 51| 52| 53
Skull L. (mm) | | | | | | | | | | | | |
Boys | 177| 179| 180| 181| 182| 183| 183| 184| 187| 188| 191| 191| 192
Girls | 172| 174| 175| 176| 177| 180| 180| 181| 183| 184| 184| 185| 186
Skull W (mm) | | | | | | | | | | | | |
Boys |142 | 142| 143| 144| 144| 145| 145| 147| 147| 148| 149| 150| 151
Girls |139 | 140| 140| 141| 142| 142| 143| 144| 145| 146| 146| 146| 147
Vital Capacity | | | | | | | | | | | | |
(cc) Boys |1023|1168|1316|1469|1603|1732|1883|2108|2395|2697|3120|3483|3655
" Girls | 950|1061|1165|1286|1409|1526|1664|1827|2014|2168|2266|2319|2343
Tapping | | | | | | | | | | | | |
(Right Hand) | | | | | | | | | | | | |
(30 sec.) | | | | | | | | | | | | |
B | ...| ...| 147| 151| 161| 169| 170| 184| 184| 191| 196| 196| 197
G | ...| ...| 146| 149| 157| 169| 169| 178| 181| 181| 184| 188| 193
Grip (kg) | | | | | | | | | | | | |
Right, Boys | 9| 11| 12| 14| 17| 19| 21| 24| 28| 33| 39| 45| 49
" Girls | 8| 10| 11| 13| 15| 17| 19| 22| 25| 27| 29| 30| 30
Pain Limen (kg)| | | | | | | | | | | | |
Boys | 1.3| 1.4| 1.7| 1.7| 1.7| 2.0| 2.0| 2.1| 2.1| 2.4| 2.7| 2.8| 2.9
Girls | 1.2| 0.9| 1.2| 1.4| 1.5| 1.6| 1.5| 1.7| 1.8| 1.8| 1.9| 1.9| 1.8
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
_Mental Tests_
------------------------------------------------------------------------------
| Year
Trait |----------------------------------------------------------------
| 6 | 7 | 8 | 9 | 10 | 11 | 12 | 13 | 14 | 15 | 16 | 17 | 18
-------------+----+----+----+----+----+----+----+----+----+----+----+----+----
School Grade | 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 | 8 | 9 | 10 | 11 | 12 | #
Form Board | | | | | | | | | | | | |
(sec.) | 27 | 23 | 21 | 19 | 17 | 15 | 14 | 13 | 12 | 12 | # | # | #
Knox Cube | | | | | | | | | | | | |
(lines) | 4 | 5 | 5 | 5 | 6 | 6 | 6 | 6 | 7 | 7 | 8 | # | #
Memory, Span .| | | | | | | | | | | | |
Aud. Dig. | 4 | 5 | 5 | 5 | 6 | 6 | 6 | 6 | 6 | 6 | 6 | 7 | 7
Memory, | | | | | | | | | | | | |
Concrete Words| # | # | 31 | 32 | 36 | 37 | 38 | 39 | 42 | 42 | 43 | 43 | 50
Abstract Words| # | # | 22 | 25 | 29 | 31 | 32 | 34 | 37 | 37 | 40 | 40 | 40
Pictures | 5.3| 6.1| 6.0| 7.3| 7.5| 7.5| 8.4| 9.2|10.0| # | # | # | #
Logical Memory| | | | | | | | | | | | |
(Items of 67)| | | | | | | | | | | | |
Boys | # | # | 24 | 29 | 30 | 33 | 35 | 37 | 36 | 37 | 34 | 35 | 37
Girls | # | # | 29 | 31 | 34 | 36 | 38 | 39 | 39 | 39 | 37 | 37 | 38
Visual Range, | | | | | | | | | | | | |
under special| | | | | | | | | | | | |
conditions | ...| ...| 4 | ...| ...| 13 | ...| ...| 18 | ...| ...| 27 |
Cancellation | | | | | | | | | | | | |
(A) (In 2 | | | | | | | | | | | | |
minutes) | 18 | 21 | 25 | 33 | 35 | 41 | 41 | # | # | # | # | # | #
Size-Weight | | | | | | | | | | | | |
Suggestion | | | | | | | | | | | | |
(gr) | 42 | 45 | 48 | 50 | 44 | 40 | 40 | 38 | 35 | 35 | 34 | 27 | #
Association, | | | | | | | | | | | | |
Percent Common| 55 | 62 | 68 | 75 | 73 | 82 | 84 | 81 | 84 | 79 | 86 | # | #
Word Building | | | | | | | | | | | | |
(5 min.) | | | | | | | | | | | | |
a-e-i-r-l-p | # | # | 7 | 8 | 9 | 11 | 12 | 14 | 14 | 16 | 16 | 17 | 18
Substitution | # | # | 12 | 15 | 17 | 18 | 21 | 23 | 24 | 26 | 26 | 27 | 28
Words in 3min.| # | # | 23 | 29 | 31 | 35 | 35 | 36 | 36 | 40 | 41 | 42 | 48
Part-Whole | | | | | | | | | | | | |
(1 min.) | # | # | 5 | 6 | 7 | 9 | 10 | 11 | 12 | 14 | 16 | 16 | 19
Opposites | | | | | | | | | | | | |
(1 min.) | # | # | 8 | 8 | 9 | 11 | 13 | 15 | 16 | 17 | 19 | 19 | 23
Fable | | | | | | | | | | | | |
Interpretation| # | # | # | 38 | 45 | 53 | 55 | 70 | 73 | # | # | # | #
Vocabulary, | | | | | | | | | | | | |
Per cent of | | | | | | | | | | | | |
18000 | 12 | 14 | 18 | 23 | 26 | 30 | 36 | 42 | # | # | 54 | # | 72
------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Spelling Ability Special Scales, Ayres, Buckingham. Arithmetic Ability
Special Norms, Courtis, Woody, Starch. Language Ability Special Graded
Scales, Trabue. Composition Ability Special Scale, Hillegas. Handwriting
Ability Special Scales, Thorndike, Ayres, Starch. General Mental Age
Standardized Intelligence Scales, Binet, Yerkes, etc.
GRADED SCALES
A ROUGHLY GRADED TEST FOR CHILDREN WHO ARE LESS THAN THREE YEARS OLD
_Normal Course of Development_
(After Preyer, Church, Peterson and Paton)
1st Week--Sensitive to light, reaction to touch, evidences
of audition, sensibility to taste.
2nd Week--Notices candle, facial reaction suggesting pleasure.
3rd Week--Tears.
4th Week--Smiles and vowel sounds.
1st Month--Taste, smell, touch, sight, hearing. Sleeps
two hours at a time, 16 hrs. out of 24.
2nd Month--Occasional strabismus, recognizes human
voice, turns head toward sound, pleased with music
and with human faces. Laughs at tickling. Clasps
with four fingers by 8th week. First consonants.
3rd Month--Cries with joy at sight of mother or father.
Eyelids not completely raised when child looks up.
Knows sound of watch at 9th week. Listens with
attention.
4th Month--Eye movements perfect. Sees objects move
toward eye. Joy at seeing itself in mirror. Opposes
thumb. Head held up permanently. Sits up
with support to back. Begins to imitate.
5th Month--Discriminates strangers. Pleasures of
crumpling and tearing papers, pulling hair, or ringing
bell. Sleeps 10 or 11 hrs. without food. Consonants
l and k. Seizes and carries objects to mouth.
6th and 7th Month--Raises self to sitting posture.
Laughs. Raises and drops arms when pleasure is
great. Teeth begin to appear. Astonishment shown
by open mouth and eyes. Turns head as sign of
refusal.
8th and 9th Months--Stands on feet without support.
Claps hands for joy. Has fear of dogs. Turns over
when laid face down. Turns head to light when
asked where it is. Questions understood before child
can speak. Voice more modulated.
10th, 11th, 12th Months--First attempts at walking.
Sitting has become a habit. Stands without support.
Whispering begins. Pushes chair. Obeys command,
"Give the hand."
13th, 14th, 15th Months--Says "Papa" and "Mama."
Raises itself by chair. Imitates coughing, and
swinging of arms. Walks without support. Understands
ten words.
16th, 17th, 18th, 19th Months--Sleeps 10 hrs. at a time.
Associates words with objects and movements.
Blows horn, strikes with hand or foot, waters flowers,
tries to wash hands, to comb and brush hair, to
execute the other imitative movements.
20th to 24th Months--Marks with pencil and paper. Executes
orders with surprising accuracy.
25th to 30th Months--Distinguishes colors. Makes sentences
of several words. Begins to climb and jump
and to ask questions.
30th to 40th Months--Goes up stairs without help.
Clauses formed. Words distinctly spoken. Influence
of dialect appears. Much questioning.
Beyond 40th Month--See Binet-Simon and other tests
and norms.
TRABUE LANGUAGE SCALE C(1)
_Write only one word on each blank Seven minutes time allowed_
_Name_ _________________
1. The sky ---- blue.
2. Men ---- older than boys.
3. Good boys ---- kind ---- their sisters.
4. The girl fell and ---- her head.
5. The ---- rises ---- the morning and ---- at night.
6. The boy who ---- hard ---- do well.
7. Men ---- more ---- to do heavy work ---- women.
8. The sun is so ---- that one can not ----
---- ---- directly ---- causing great discomfort to the eyes.
9. The knowledge of ---- ---- use fire is ---- of
---- important things known by ---- but unknown
---- animals.
10. One ought to ---- great care to ---- the right ----
of ----, for one who ---- bad habits ---- it
---- to get away from them.
[Note 1: This scale is intended for the measurement of children. The steps
from sentence to sentence are of approximately equal difficulty.]
TRABUE LANGUAGE SCALE K(2)
_Write only one word on each blank Five minutes time allowed_
_Name_ _______ _________
1. The boy will ---- his hand if ---- plays with fire.
2. Hot weather comes in the ---- and ---- weather ---- the winter.
3. The poor little ---- has ---- nothing to ----; he is hungry.
4. Very few people ---- how to spend time and ---- to the best advantage.
5. One ---- not, as a ----, ---- attention ---- uninteresting things.
6. To eat ---- one is ---- is a ---- pleasure.
7. ---- they ---- us ---- not, nature's ---- are ---- and unchangeable.
[Note 2: This scale is intended for the measurement of young people and
adults. The steps between the sentences are of approximately equal
difficulty.]
RECORD BLANK FOR
NAME BORN ADMITTED
======================================================================
III
1 Points to nose, eyes, mouth.
2 Repeats "It rains. I am hungry."
3 Repeats 7 2.
4 Sees in Picture 1. 5.
2. 6.
3. 7.
4. 8.
----------------------------------------------------------------------
IV
1 Knows sex, boy or girl. (girl or boy.)
2 Recognizes key, knife, penny.
3 Repeats 7 4 8.
4 Compares lines.
----------------------------------------------------------------------
V
1 Compares 3 and 12 grams. 6 and 15 grams.
2 Copies square. (Draw on back of this sheet.)
3 Repeats, "His name is John. He is a very good boy."
4 Counts four pennies.
5 "Patience."
----------------------------------------------------------------------
VI
1 Morning or afternoon. (afternoon or morning.)
2 Defines fork horse
table mama
chair
3 Puts key on chair; shuts door; brings box.
4 Shows R Hand. L. Ear.
5 Chooses prettier? 1 & 2. 4 & 3. 5 & 6.
----------------------------------------------------------------------
VII
1 Counts 13 pennies.
2 Describes Pictures. (See III 4.)
3 Sees picture lacks eyes, nose, mouth, arms.
4 Can copy diamond. (over.)
5 Recognises red, blue, green, yellow. (Time 6".)
----------------------------------------------------------------------
VIII
1 Compares (Time 20")
Butterfly Wood Paper
Fly Glass Cloth
2 Counts backward 20-1. (Time 20".)
3 Repeats days. M. T. W. T. F. S. S. (Time 10".)
4 Counts stamps. 111222. (Time 10".)
5 Repeats 4 7 3 9 5.
----------------------------------------------------------------------
IX
1 Makes change 20c-4c.
2 Definitions. (See VI 2.)
3 Knows date.
4 Months. J. F. M. A. M. J. J. A. S. O. N. D. (Time 15".)
5 Arranges weights. (2 correct.) (1 min. each.) 1. 2. 3.1
----------------------------------------------------------------------
X
1 Money 1c. 5c. 10c. 25c. 50c. $1. $2. $5. $10.
2 Draws design from memory. (show 10 seconds.)
3 Repeats 8 5 4 7 2 6. 2 7 4 6 8 1. 9 4 1 7 3 8.
4 Comprehends.
(1st Series time 20") (2nd Series time 20")
(2 out of 3) (3 out of 5)
a. (Missed train.) a. (Late to School.)
b. (Struck by playmate, etc.) b. (Important affair.)
c. (Broken something.) c. (Forgive easier.)
d. (Asked opinion.)
e. (Actions vs. words.)
5 Sentence: New York, Money, River. (Time 1'.)
----------------------------------------------------------------------
XI
1 Sees absurdity. (3 out of 5.) (Time 2'.)
a. Unfortunate painter. d. R. R. accident.
b. Three brothers. e. Suicide.
c. Locked in room.
2 Sentence: New York, Money, River. (See X 5.)
3 Give sixty words in three minutes. (Record on back.)
4 Rhymes (Time 1' each.) (3 rhymes with each word.)
day mill
spring
5 Puts dissected sentences together. (Time 1' each.)
a. b. c.
----------------------------------------------------------------------
XII
2 Repeats 2 9 6 4 3 7 5. 9 2 8 5 1 6 4. 1 3 9 5 8 4 7.
Defines Charity
Justice
Goodness.
3 Repeats, "I saw in the street a pretty little dog. He had curly brown hair,
short legs and a long tail."
4 Resists suggestion (Lines). 1. 2. 3. 4. 5. 6.
5 Problems: (a) Hanging from limb. (b) Neighbor's visitors.
----------------------------------------------------------------------
XV
1 Interprets picture.
2 Change clock hands. 6.20 = 2.56 =
3 Code. COME QUICKLY.
4 Opposites.
1 good 3 quick 5 big 7 white 9 happy
2 outside 4 tall 6 loud 8 light 10 false
ADULT
1 Cutting paper.
2 Reversed triangle.
3 Gives differences of abstract words.
4 Difference between president of a republic and a king.
5 Gives sense of a selection read.
SUGGESTIONS TOWARD A VOCATIONAL PSYCHOGRAPH
_List of Measurements on a Singer_
(Prepared by C. E. Seashore, University of Iowa)
I--SENSORY
_A--PITCH_
1--Discrimination at a, 435 vd.
2--Survey of register of discrimination.
3--Tonal range, (a) Upper, (b) Lower.
4--Timbre--discrimination.
5--Consonance and Dissonance.
_B--INTENSITY_
1--Sensibility
2--Discrimination
_C--TIME_ discrimination for short intervals
II--MOTOR
_A--PITCH_
1--Striking a note
2--Varying a tone
3--Singing intervals
4--Sustaining a tone
5--Registers
6--Timbre
a--purity
b--richness
c--mellowness
d--clearness
e--flexibility
7--Plasticity; curves of learning
_B--INTENSITY_
1--Natural strength and volume of the voice.
2--Voluntary control.
_C--TIME_
1--Motor ability
2--Transition and attack
3--Singing in time
4--Singing in rhythm
III--ASSOCIATIONAL
_A--IMAGERY
1--Type
2--Rôle of auditory and motor imagery
_B--MEMORY_
1--Memory span
2--Retention
3--Redintegration
C--IDEATION_
1--Association type and musical content
2--Musical grasp
3--Creative imagination
4--Plasticity: curves of learning
IV--AFFECTIVE
_A--LIKES AND DISLIKES_,--character of musical appeal
1--Pitch, timbre and harmony
2--Intensity and volume
3--Time and rhythm
_B--REACTION TO MUSICAL EFFECT_
_C--POWER OF INTERPRETATION IN SINGING_
_V--SUPPLEMENTARY DATA_,--biographical information,
musical training, temperament and attitude, spontaneous
tendencies in pursuit of music, general education and non-musical
accomplishments, social circumstances, physique.
THORNDIKE'S PROPOSED TESTS FOR THE MEASUREMENT OF INTELLIGENCE OF ADULTS
(_Science_, Jan. 24, 1913)
Series to consist of eight tests, four trials of each being given.
1. Supplying words to make sense in mutilated passages, the four trials
being of four grades of difficulty. (See Trabue's Completion Test for
sample of this material.)
2. Giving the "opposites" of words, each trial comprising twenty words, the
four trials being of four grades of difficulty. (See Woodworth-Wells:
Opposites Tests for sample.)
3. Memorizing a given word in connection with a given form, so as to be
able to give the former when the latter is presented, there being 10 pairs
in each "trial." (See special blanks.)
4. Selecting from 50 forms a group of 25 of these which have been
previously seen and examined for a minute or two. (See special blanks.)
5. Marking the necessarily false statements in mixed series of false and
true statements, the four trials being of four grades of difficulty. (See
special blanks.)
6. Addition. (See Woodworth-Wells: Addition Tests.)
7. Directions Tests. (See Woodworth-Wells: Hard Directions.)
8. Selecting valid from invalid reasons for a given fact, the four tests
being of four grades of difficulty. (See special blank.)
MISCELLANEOUS EMPIRICAL TESTS
The following samples, chosen from the Report of the Committee on
Standardization of Tests of the American Psychological Association (see
Woodworth and Wells: Association Tests), are given as illustrations of
tests which have been carefully prepared and standardized as to content and
procedure and which are slowly being correlated with various types of
occupational activity.
_Following Instructions Test_
With your pencil make a dot over any one of these letters, F G H I J, and a
comma after the longest of these three words: BOY MOTHER GIRL. Then, if
Christmas comes in March, make a cross right here ----, but if not, pass
along to the next question, and tell where the sun rises ----. If you
believe that Edison discovered America, cross out what you just wrote, but
if it was someone else, put in a number to complete this sentence: "A horse
has ---- feet." Write "yes," no matter whether China is in Africa or not
----; and then give a wrong answer to this question: "How many days are
there in the week?" ----. Write any letter except G just after this comma,
and then write "No" if two times five are ten ----. Now, if Tuesday comes
after Monday, make two crosses here ----; but if not, make a circle here
---- or else a square here ----. Be sure to make three crosses between
these two names of boys: GEORGE ---- HENRY. Notice these two numbers: 3, 5.
If iron is heavier than water, write the larger number ----, but if iron is
lighter write the smaller number ----. Now show by a cross when the nights
are longer: in summer? ----; in winter? ----. Give the correct answer to
this question: "Does water run uphill?" ----, and repeat your answer here
----. Do nothing here (5 + 7 =) unless you skipped the preceding question;
but write the first letter of your first name and the last letter of your
last name at the end of this line:
Naming Opposites Verb-Object Test
In the case of each word, name In the case of each verb, supply
the word having the OPPOSITE an appropriate OBJECT, as:
MEANING, as: tall--short bake--bread
long north sing read
soft sour build tear
white out wear throw
far weak shoot paint
up good scold mail
smooth after win light
early above answer sail
dead sick weave spin
hot slow wink lock
asleep large mend wash
lost rich pump bake
wet dark learn spill
high front open kiss
dirty love eat polish
east tall climb sweep
day open lend fill
yes summer smoke sharpen
wrong new singe write
empty come dig chew
top male sift drive
_Mixed Relations_
Give a fourth word which shall have the same relation to the third word
that the second has to the first, as:
Box--Square :: Orange--Round
East--West :: Over--Under
Man--Woman :: Boy--Girl
Eye--see :: Ear-- | Good--bad :: Long--
Monday--Tuesday :: April-- | Eagle--bird :: Shark--
Do--did :: See-- | Eat--bread :: Drink--
Bird--sings :: Dog-- | Fruit--orange :: Vegetable--
Hour--minute :: Minute-- | Sit--chair :: Sleep--
Straw--hat :: Leather-- | Double--two :: Triple--
Cloud--rain :: Sun-- | England--London :: France--
Hammer--tool :: Dictionary-- | Chew--teeth :: Smell--
Uncle--aunt :: Brother-- | Pen--write :: Knife--
Dog--puppy :: Cat-- | Water--wet :: Fire--
Little--less :: Much-- | He--him :: She--
Wash--face :: Sweep-- | Boat--water :: Train--
House--room :: Book-- | Crawl--snake :: Swim--
Sky--blue :: Grass-- | Horse--colt :: Cow--
Swim--water :: Fly-- | Nose--face :: Toe--
Once--one :: Twice-- | Bad--worse :: Good--
Cat--fur :: Bird-- | Hungry--food :: Thirsty--
Pan--tin :: Table-- | Hat--head :: Glove--
Buy--sell :: Come-- | Ship--captain :: Army--
Oyster--shell :: Banana-- | Man--woman :: Boy--
----------------------------------------------------------------
_Cancellation Test_
Cancel the specified digit whenever it occurs. There are five occurrences
of each of the digits in each of the horizontal lines.
51684923701275048693418902563717560892437869043125
78051342692409761538320415796848126739053790865214
35978461025182374960859324107693452086179316758402
27396508149736150284047859621309315648724235679081
42530179863860915472936748012564931207586127490538
94703856216093827145781096435252794163801048237956
09825617438354692017602137958421849570360952186743
10462795380628439751274560389135078421695681924370
86149230574517286309195683274086207354912473501869
63217084957941503826563271840970683915248504312697
79621340584251938607904817236562830514975948071236
96810537421945370268047238659190368271547503294168
07342918659612487053198306547215793482608359726401
34768125906307594812485973120671029645383471652890
65973284010836149725253469018754172839061265830749
83509472168570213946521084763927451906836897103524
18097653242784651390312695874048205163794180569372
20485761397169025439670142395806947328152016487953
41256809735093762184869751402383516790429624315087
52134096873429806571736520981439684057210732948615
--------------------------------------------------
SUBSTITUTION TEST
Write in each figure the number assigned it in the key line.
[Symbol: star] 1 [Symbol: Circle] 2 [Symbol: square] 3 [Symbol: cross] 4
[Symbol: triangle] 5
circle star square cross triangle star circle square triangle cross
square cross star triangle cross circle star triangle square circle
star circle square star square cross triangle circle cross star
cross square triangle circle cross square star square circle triangle
square star cross triangle star triangle circle star triangle square
cross circle triangle star circle square star triangle cross circle
triangle cross circle cross square star cross circle square triangle
circle triangle cross square star triangle circle star triangle square
star cross square circle triangle star square cross circle star
triangle square circle star circle cross triangle square star cross
SOURCES FOR TESTS
Those who desire to make use of mental tests for vocational purposes, or in
vocational investigations, will find suggestive material, sets of tests,
instructions, norms, and similar useful directions in the following
places. The list is by no means exhaustive but contains those references
which in the author's experience have been most useful.
Pyle, W. H.: "The Examination of School Children." The author describes
numerous tests of a simple type, and gives age norms for each.
Reports of Committee on Tests of the American Psychological Association.
These appear from time to time in the _Psychological Review Monograph
Series_, and contain accounts, instructions and frequently norms, for
carefully planned and standardized tests.
Woodworth and Wells: "Association Tests." This is one of the reports
mentioned above, and contains an especially suggestive group of tests which
should have widespread use because of their standard character.
Woolley, Rusk and Fisher: "Psychological Norms of Working Children." This
is a monograph in the _Psychological Review Series_ and gives an account of
the tests in use in Cincinnati, with tables of norms for thirteen- and
fourteen-year-olds.
Simpson, B. R.: "Correlations of Mental Abilities," _Columbia University
Contributions to Education_, No. 53. The Appendix contains descriptions of
the tests used; many of them are worth trying out.
Whipple, G. M.: "Manual of Mental and Physical Tests." By far the most
useful and complete compendium of tests, norms, and bibliography available.
Contains also chapters on methods of using tests and the statistical
methods of scoring and evaluation.
Teachers College, Columbia University, _Contributions_. These monographs
appear at irregular intervals and frequently contain reports of the
construction and use of mental tests as instruments of educational and
vocational measurement. Several of them in particular are concerned with
scales and standards for the measurement of school abilities. Numerous
tests may also be secured in the form of printed blanks, from the
Publication Bureau of Teachers College.
Thorndike Tests: Numerous forms of mental tests devised by Prof. E. L.
Thorndike and his associates may be secured through the Teachers College
Bureau of Publications, New York City.
Stoelting and Co., 3047 Carroll Ave., Chicago, manufacturers of scientific
apparatus and materials, supply material and forms for many of the tests
described in the above references.
The Morningside Press, 3000 Broadway, New York City, supplies materials,
instructions, record blanks, and tables of norms for a large number of
psychological tests, especially those intended for vocational, educational
and clinical application, and for use in the class room and laboratory.
INDEX OF AUTHORS
AMSDEN, 128
ARNOLD, 236
BINET, 62, 70, 72, 86
CATTELL, 60, 62, 126, 129, 135, 136, 138, 157
COGAN, 48
COURTIS, 232
DARWIN, 229
DAVENPORT, 129
DEARBORN, 178, 181, 182
DESCARTES, 21
ELLIS, 230
FARRAND, 60
GALL, 24
GALTON, 62
HARRISON, 234
HARVEY, 21
HENRI, 62
HUYMANS, 129
HOCH, 128
HOLLINGWORTH, 231
JASTROW, 24, 62
JONES, 186, 189
KELLEY, 177
KRAEPELIN, 62
LAHY, 113, 119
LARUE, 131
LOMBROSO, 37
LOUGH, 112, 119
LOWELL, 179, 199, 200, 202, 204, 205
MCCOMAS, 110, 112
MECKEL, 229
MILES, 178
MILL, 224
MÖBIUS, 224
MONTAGUE, 231
MÜNSTERBERG, 100, 111, 116
NICHOLSON, 193, 195
NIETZSCHE, 224
NORSWORTHY, 134, 136, 138, 141
PARTRIDGE, 128
PAYNTER, 111
PEARSON, 230
PYLE, 232
RICE, 195
ROMANES, 226
SCHNEIDER, 53, 103, 216
SCHOPENHAUER, 224
SEASHORE, 90, 93, 95, 96
SIMON, 69, 70, 72
SMITH, 182, 185
SPURZHEIM, 24
SYLVESTER, 72
TERMAN, 232
THOMPSON, 226
THORNDIKE, 74, 111, 127, 180, 188, 189, 190, 191, 206, 210, 216, 227
TOULOUSE, 81, 88
TRABUE, 71, 78, 232
VOITSECOVSKY, 235
VANDENBERG, 179
WELLS, 128, 129, 130
WIERSMA, 129
WOOLLEY, 114, 119
YERKES, 131
INDEX OF SUBJECTS
Advancement in industry, 219
Analysis, of belief in physiognomic signs, 32 ff.
of character, 49, 121 ff., 133 ff., 143 ff.
of educational changes, 11
of effects of practice, 345 ff.
of individuals, 18, 121 ff., 143 ff., 245 ff.
of maternal instinct, 238
of medieval clairvoyance, 7
of mental tests, 64, 245 ff.
of occupations, 78, 80, 92, 96 ff., 109 ff., 208 ff.
of phrenology, 26 ff.
of primitive thinking, 2
of school curriculum, 174
Antecedents of vocational psychology, 1
references, 275
Aptitudes, of the average individual, 215
of the feeble-minded, 208
of the mentally inferior, 210
of the specially gifted, 212
of women, 222 ff.
Attitudinal factors, 15, 63, 65, 104, 149 ff., 190 ff., 210, 214 ff., 237, 270
Behavior, judgment of, 134
study of, 57
Bibliographies, 275-281
Binet tests, nature of, 69
record blank for, 290
Brain, functions of, 22, 27
measurements of, 30
size of, 29
Character analysis, 8
Clairvoyance, 7 ff.
Correlation, formula for, 45
meaning of, 44
of ability to judge self and ability to judge others, 168
of elementary school standing and later academic achievement, 177 ff.
of estimated traits and objective measures, 161 ff.
of initial and final trials, 246 ff.
of judicial capacity and possession of traits, 158, 167
of mental tests and vocational ability, 113, 116, 212
of mental traits, 46, 50, 52, 161, 164, 169, 171
of school standing and success in later life, 192 ff.
Curriculum, as a vocational test, 174 ff.
bibliography on, 279
Determinants, bibliography on, 280
of vocational aptitude, 208 ff.
Division of labor between the sexes, 223, 240, 242
Education, industrial, 15
popularization of, 13
theory of, 14
Employment bureaus, 47, 141
Experiments, on abilities and interests, 190
on brain, 22, 226
on college students, 60, 137
on effects of practice, 245 ff.
on eminent men, 81, 87, 135, 138
on functional periodicity, 236
on judgments of character, 135-173
on mental defectives, 76
on mental measurement, 67, 74
on mental tests, 59, 64
on musicians, 94
on photographs, 41, 48
on physiognomies, 53
on selecting employees by psychological methods, 78, 110-121, 211
on self-analysis, 114 ff., 156
on sex differences, 226 ff.
Form board, 72
Fortune telling, 7
General intelligence, 69, 255 ff.
Individual differences, 18
as affected by practice, 245 ff.
in vocational aptitudes, 208 ff., 222 ff.
Intelligence scales, bibliography on, 276
nature of, 67
types of, 69
vocational use of, 75 ff.
Judgment, of associates, 48, 79, 121 ff., 133 ff., 143 ff.
of character, 133 ff., 139 ff., 143 ff.
of photographs, 41, 47, 48
of scientific men, 135
of self, 122, 124-133, 143 ff.
of students, 137, 143 ff.
of teachers, 136
Localization of functions, 22, 27
Magic, examples of, 3 ff.
vocational efforts of, 1 ff.
Maternal instinct, analysis of, 238
Mental age, 70
Mental defectives, detection of, 75
education of, 14
in industry, 75, 213
menace of, 77
vocational aptitudes of, 208, 213
Motives of vocational psychology, 1
bibliography on, 275
Norms of performance, 61, 66 ff., 73, 79, 91, 94, 285-293
bibliography on, 276
Occupations, analysis of, 92, 96 ff., 102, 103, 208 ff.
blind alley, 16, 210, 218
Periodicity
effect of, on mental and motor ability, 234 ff.
Photographs, experiments with, 41, 48
judgments of, 41, 47, 48
vocational use of, 48, 52
Phrenology, assumptions of, 26
errors of, 27-32
origin of, 23
practice of, 25
Physiognomies, analysis of, 34
dogmas of, 39
experiments in, 41, 49, 53
practice of, 32
vocational futility of, 54
Practice, effect of, on individual differences, 257 ff.
limits of, 256
on correlation of abilities, 247
Primitive thinking, examples of, 3
stages of, 2 ff.
vocational efforts of, 2
Product scales, bibliography on, 276
nature and use of, 74
Psychograph, bibliography on, 277
nature of, 80, 88
of individuals, 80
of a mathematician, 81 ff.
of a novelist, 86
of occupation, 90, 97, 98, 102
of a singer, 92
vocational use of, 96, 99, 107
Psychological tests, bibliography on, 276
method of, 61
of adults, 210, 248
of children, 69, 114
of clerical workers, 110, 111
Psychological tests, of college students, 60, 145
of efficiency experts, 78
of factory operators, 111, 115
of judges, 111
of marine officers, 112
of motormen, 112
of musical ability, 94
of Poincaré, 81 ff.
of a singer, 92
of stenographers, 113
of salesmen, 111
of telephone operators, 110, 112
of typesetters, 111
of typewriters, 113, 114
of Zola, 86
origin and history of, 57 ff.
samples of, 284-300
scales of, 67 ff.
standardization of, 63, 67
sources of, and instructions for, 300-302
tests of, 64
theory of, 245 ff.
vocational use of, 60, 66, 75, 78, 80 ff., 90, 109-121, 210, 218, 261
Scales, bibliography on, 276
for measuring intelligence, 67
for measuring special achievement, 74 ff.
samples of, 285-293
use of, 75
School records, as indicative of interests, 190 ff.
as related to later academic achievement, 177 ff.
School records, as related to success in later life, 192 ff.
bibliography on, 279
correlation of, with tests, 165
intercorrelation of, 172
vocational significance of, 174 ff.
Selection, of an occupation, 12 ff., 102, 104, 123
of employees, 53, 75, 78, 99, 110-113, 115, 133, 210, 211, 219, 240
Self-analysis, bibliography on, 278
method of, 122
problems of, 124
reliability of, 149 ff.
systematic guides to, 125-133
Sex differences, bibliography on, 280
in average intelligence, 225 ff.
in instinctive equipment, 237
in physiological function, 242
in special handicaps, 234
in variability, 228 ff.
in vocational opportunity, 240 ff.
Testimonials, 142, 173
Tests. _See_ Psychological tests
Theory, bibliography on, 281
of mental tests, 245
Variation, in ability, 228 ff.
in judgment, 43, 51, 134, 136, 138 ff.
Variation, measures of, 42
of individual performance, 251
of self-estimates, 149 ff.
Vocational aptitudes, bibliography on, 280
determinants of, 208 ff.
of women, 222 ff.
Vocational guidance, 11
Vocational methods, bibliography on, 278
specialized forms, 109 ff.
analogy, 111, 118
correlations, 112 ff.
miniature, 109, 116
samples, 110, 117
Vocational psychology, bibliography on, 275 ff.
motives and antecedents of, 1 ff.
present status of, 267 ff.
problems of, 266 ff.
progress of, 274
Vocational surveys, 17
Vocational training, 16
Women, bibliography, 280
biological handicap of, 242 ff.
future of, 244
in industry, 222
instinctive equipment of, 237 ff.
mental abilities of, 228
special disabilities of, 234 ff.
variability of, 228 ff.
vocational aptitudes of, 223 ff.
* * * * *
BY HARRY L. HOLLINGWORTH
JUDGING HUMAN CHARACTER
THE PSYCHOLOGY OF FUNCTIONAL NEUROSES
ADVERTISING AND SELLING Principles of Appeal and Response
VOCATIONAL PSYCHOLOGY
APPLIED PSYCHOLOGY (With A. T. Poffenberger, Jr.)
D. APPLETON AND COMPANY
Publishers New York
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