3 - The potential of psychology for selecting workers and officers: diagnostics, character, and expression

Summary

The increased attention given to practical questions provided the major impulse for the institutionalization of psychology at the universities. It is possible for a discipline to enjoy such success for some time solely on the basis of fine words and promises. The social sciences live to some extent from the continual promise to develop new remedies for changing social problems. However, if the professionalization of psychology was to be successful in the long term, it could not just make promises, but would have to provide knowledge that could actually be applied.

Not all of the theories and methods of psychology were of professional use, and therefore of importance for its professionalization. Among the mixed bag of psychological wares, practical demand existed mainly for diagnostic assessment and the selection of personnel in industry and the armed forces, the two areas in which the professional development of psychology in Germany started (see Chapter 4). The need was for models and instruments that described and determined the abilities and personality traits of blue-and white-collar workers, soldiers, and officers. In fact, it can be said that in the period under examination the knowledge relevant to the profession was that of the selection and motivation of capable and conscientious workers and army specialists, and of strong-willed, self-controlled officer cadet applicants with leadership qualities, from among seventeen- to nineteen-year-old high school graduates. Psychotechnics, the psychology of expression, and characterology were therefore essential for the professionalization of psychology.