Hugo Münsterberg, answered from the texts and cited to the page.
Industrial-organizational psychology is, at its root, the science I set out to build: the systematic application of laboratory psychology to the problems of commerce and industry, with the aim of placing the psychological experiment at the service of economic life.1 The work divides naturally into three great questions. First, how do we find the best possible man for a given task — that is, how do we measure the mental qualities a vocation demands and match them to the qualities a given person possesses?
Second, how do we secure the best possible work from the man once placed — studying learning, fatigue, monotony, attention, and the conditions that waste or conserve human energy? Third, how do we understand the best possible effect — the psychology of the market, of buying and selling, of the consumer's mind? On the first question, the method is neither simple nor uniform.
For some industrial tasks, the right approach is to resolve the mental process into its components and test every elementary function in isolation, using the familiar instruments of the experimental laboratory. For others — and this is the subtler point — the essential condition is a unified total performance that no mere element-by-element examination can capture.2
We may test the precise combination of attention, imagination, intelligence, will, and memory that a technical vocation demands, and feel justified in predicting whether an individual can fulfill that task — while remaining silent, quite deliberately, on whether he is honest or quarrelsome, because those questions lie outside the vocational fitness we are measuring.3
On the second question — the best possible work — the situation is this: traditions and superficial tendencies, short-sighted economy and indifference establish methods that serve nobody's interest, and the employer and the employee alike suffer from them.4 Experimental psychology has already shown, in fields like typewriting, exactly how skill develops through stages — habits of manipulation, of attention, of association, of decision — and every insight into this formation of mental connections offers guidance for proficient training.5
There is no industrial machine in our factories for which a similar study has yet been performed, and yet every effort in that direction would increase both the effectiveness of the laborer and the profit of the employer.6 The psychological analysis of vocational activities cannot rest on ready-made laboratory measures alone; it demands direct psychotechnical research, because two functions may be technically quite similar and yet psychologically composed of very different factors.7
The classification that simplifies this vast task must be made from a purely psychological point of view — not the similarity of the material worked on, but the similarity of the mental situation is decisive.8 That, in brief, is what I set out to build, and what the field now calls industrial-organizational psychology. The laboratory is the source; the factory, the office, and the market are the field.
Our aim is to sketch the outlines of a new science which is to intermediate between the modern laboratory psychology and the problems of economics: the psychological experiment is systematically to be placed at the service of commerce and industry.Psychology and Industrial Efficiency
The testing of the mental elements would be in such cases as insufficient as if we were to test a machine with reference to its parts only and not with reference to its total united performance.Psychology and Industrial Efficiency
We may examine with psychological methods, for instance, the fitness of an employee for a technical vocation and may test the particular complex unified combination of attention, imagination and intelligence, will and memory, which is essential for that special kind of labor.Psychology and Industrial Efficiency
It is simply untrue to say that those things regulate themselves. On the contrary, traditions and superficial tendencies, short-sighted economy and indifference, a thousand times establish methods that are to nobody's interest. The employer and the employee alike have to suffer from them.American Problems
The essential factor lies in the development of habits — habits of manipulation, habits of feeling attitude, habits of attention, habits of association, habits of decisions in overcoming difficulties; and every insight into this formation of mental connections offers guidance for a proficient training.American Problems
There is no industrial machine in our factories and mills for which a similar study has been performed; and yet every effort in this direction would increase the effectiveness of the laborer and the profit of the employer.American Problems
Two functions may be technically quite similar and yet psychologically composed of very different factors. The mere devices for measuring the mental states may be supplied ready-made by the theoretical laboratory of the psychologist. But the psychological analysis of the vocational activities demands direct psychotechnical research.Psychology General and Applied
Not the similarity of the material, but the similarity of the mental situation, is decisive.Psychology General and Applied