History CH-8. Applied Psych Or What people did with psychology degrees besides teach and theorize.

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1 History CH-8 Applied Psych Or What people did with psychology degrees besides teach and theorize.

2 Applied Psychology! Applied= practical and usable psych " Apply psychology to situations outside the labs " spurred by growth in American Pysch # Many new Ph. D.s # Many new Labs # Less opportunity for newcomers " Spurred by Economic pressure # University and Public school enrollments growing quickly # ¾ of all psychologist working in education already # Gov t wanted more efficient use of resources

3 G. Stanley Hall ( )! American, student of Wundt " First psych lab in US " Founder of APA " Mentor to many of the American Psychologists! Wanted to apply Psych to Education " Gave many addresses to NEA! Influenced the development of psychology without contributing theoretically

4 James Cattell ( )! o A practical, test oriented (and somewhat hands on) study of mental processes " American, studied under Hall, Wundt, then Galton # Quantification! Even though he couldn t do math well, taught first stats course for analyzing results $ Bolstered scientific cred # Promoted psych as a business! Not economically successful initially

5 James Cattell! Mental testing " Wanted to find correlation between tests and academic achievement # Primarily sensory, two point skin sensitivity threshold, movement rate, JND in weight, etc. # Not the intelligence of Cognitive tasks of later on " Not successful in predicting achievement # Led to further testing of mental function " Greatest contribution to psych # Mental tests to predict attributes # Led to

6 The Psych Testing Movement! Alfred Binet ( ) " French, wealthy, and Innovative " Didn t believe Cattell s approach (sensorimotor measure) would work # Wanted to measure attention, memory, comprehension, etc to assess intelligence! His kids did as well as he did on sensorimotor tasks, but not as well on cognitive ability tasks.

7 Alfred Binet! French gov t wanted to study the learning ability of children having difficulty in school " Constructed an intelligence test consisting of 30 problems focusing on judgment comprehension and reasoning # Introduced mental age! Age at which children of average ability could perform a given task # Later Intelligence Quotient created! Ratio between mental age and chronological age

8 WWI! Harvard Group wanted to help war effort " (without Titchner s help, he disliked applying psych to practical problems) " Army needed a quick, easy, and convenient measure of intelligence # Army Alpha and Beta! Alpha for literate, Beta for illiterate! Enhanced Psych s stature as a science " Led to increased public acceptance # IQ soon became important criterion for placement

9 Mental Testing! Unfortunately, many mistakes were made! Race and Intelligence testing # Only northern European immigrants scored well # Used to restrict immigration of those assumed to be inferior in intelligence? # Should low IQ people be allowed to vote? " Horace Bond ( ) # Northern Blacks scored higher than Southern Whites! Sir Francis Galton! Eugenics! Measuring intelligence? # Thomas Edison

10 Edison s Mental Test! 150 questions long!!!! What is a cast iron pig?! What place is the greatest distance below sea level?! Who wrote the song home sweet home?! Who was Pizarro?! What city leads the US in making laundry machines?! Only 30 out of 500 scored in the top two grade levels " I scored a 53% and do not qualify to work with his great genius!

11 Women and the Testing movement! Many women worked in the applied area " Positions in Academia were not given to women " Not as well paid or respected # Academics viewed applied psych as inferior, so women were accepted # Women made up 1/3 to ½ of psychologists! Contributed to the development of new tests (e.g., non verbal intelligence tests)! Did much of the work, received little of the credit. " Couldn t publish under their name, had to put first initial so that people would buy the book!!!

12 Clinical Psychology! Lightner Witmer ( ) " Student of Wundt and Cattell " Opened first Clinic " Wanted to apply psych to abnormal behavior # Chance came when a boy could not read very well! Witmer thought psych should be able to help people # Spurred him to try to treat children with various problems! Led to opening of many clinics try to help a variety of people

13 Industrial Organizational Psych! Walter Scott ( ) " Another of Wundt s students # First to apply Psych to personnel selection, advertising, and management. # Tests tried to measure intelligence and how it was used # Worked with the army to choose how people were selected, won a medal

14 " Advertising # Thought consumers were not rational! Give direct commands! Buy this Soap!! " Employee selection # Devised rating scales to measure those already successful in a given field # Compared applicants to those already successful

15 I/O! Hawthorne Studies " Started as a study of how temp and light levels effect work efficiency # Found that social and psych were just as (or more) important than physical conditions in productivity! Being observed, singled out, working hours, group pressure, etc

16 I/O! Hugo Munsterberg ( ) " Another of Wundt s students " People need to fit the organization, not the other way around. # Do this with proper psych testing # New equipment could be designed to be more easily used by workers

17 " Managers need to be concerned with questions like fatigue, monotony, interest, learning, work satisfaction and rewards # Consulted, for a price, with many major companies for a variety of reasons (money?)! Alcohol! " Forensic Psych # He didn t believe eyewitness testimony was accurate! Experiments minutes after a scene partic s couldn t get the facts correct

18 Applied Psych! Why do we talk about it in this class? " Very important to the development of psych!! Is applied psych still popular today? " Yes! This is one of the best funded and most lucrative fields in psych for psychologists!