Hugo Munsterberg essay part 2
As we have previously mentioned, Munsterberg promoted the industrial psychology. The publication under the title “Psychology and the Market” (1909) can be regarded as the beginning of this activity. The article pointed out the areas of production in which psychology could be useful: vocational training, personnel management, etc.; the article also recommended to carry out intelligence tests, to assess the level of motivation of employees, and the impact of monotonous nature of the work on the results of work.
Munsterberg had a number of serious researches in those universities where he worked as a consultant. The results were published in the book “Psychology and Industrial Efficiency” (1913). The book was so popular that entered the bestseller list. Munsterberg (1913) argued in the book that the best way to increase efficiency and productivity is to pick workers’ positions that match character and mental abilities of people who are working at them. Using the methods of psychological screening, such as intelligence tests and modeling of the production process, employers will be able to determine the knowledge, skills and abilities of prospective employees. Moreover, Munsterberg conducted various researches with people of different professions such as the ship’s captain, a tram driver, telephone operator and dealer, demonstrating how psychological screening techniques can improve the work’s productivity. As a result, Munsterberg outlined in “Basics of Psychotechnics” (1914) his views on the organization of vocational guidance and psychological services in the enterprise.
Munsterberg was the first person who formulated the “principle of instrumentalism,” i.e. supposedly impartial attitude of psychologists to political and ethical aspects of their work. The researcher was more interested not in the political consequences of social conflict in the enterprise, but in production results. For instance, he stated that in management, a lot of attention is paid to the problems associated with the effective use of materials and equipment, while mental state of mind is not taken into account in enough degree. Moreover, problems such as fatigue, monotony, demonstration of interest, education, enjoyment, and many such states associated with the psychological state of the individual were considered at unprofessional and low scientific level. As a result, the book “Psychology and Industrial Efficiency” became the answer to many of these problems.
Munsterberg believed that industrial psychology and scientific management must unite their efforts, as they are based on the same principle: high working efficiency can not be achieved by excessive pressure on workers. Scientific methods of work organization must be combined with the satisfaction of spiritual needs; thus, people achieving high industrial efficiency would be able to achieve internal labor harmony. So, Munsterberg was one of the first advocates of psychology in industrial management; he highlighted the specific function of a psychologist because this specialist should be able to work in the place, where exists dissatisfaction of the workers in the absence of obvious deficiencies.
To sum up, Hugo Munsterberg positively impacted on the development of many areas of psychology and his role was especially great in the development of such areas as career choices and professional selection. He was the first in a clear formulation of the two problems of professional suitability: 1) psychological analysis of the profession and detection of professionally important qualities; 2) psychological testing (psychodiagnostics), i.e., determining of the degree of severity of required professionally important qualities of the applicant with the appropriate tests. Munsterberg drew particular attention to the fact that not all people (especially young people) are able to adequately assess their abilities and make the right career choice. He developed a program of psychological study of professions, which included: gathering information from business leaders; it also included observations of psychologists (their role the scientist especially emphasized in the analysis of professions); experimental research, including a special study of the features of successful and unsuccessful activities of workers (method of “polar groups”). Moreover, Diamond (1974) stated that Munsterberg strongly emphasized the need for the establishment of special psychotechnical institutions and laboratories to put barrier to the spread of imaginary psychological means. He predicted that the industry will eventually take the initiative in bringing the work of professional psychologists by itself.
In conclusion, we have explored the contribution of Hugo Munsterberg into psychology and closely related disciplines, and proved that Munsterberg was engaged in a variety of issues, which later became classics of psychology of labor. The term of “psychotechnics” Munsterberg understood as practical psychology that predicts the behavior of people and explores possibilities to influence this behavior in the public interest. The main shortcoming of psychotechnics was hidden in mechanistic understanding of activity as the ability to set properties, unchanging and unrelated. As we have stated, a set of short-term tests, which gave extremely incomplete information about some properties of the psyche, was used for the diagnosis of the human abilities. But even such fact cannot lessen the impact of Munsterberg on the development of psychology because this person opened new horizons for psychologists, showing people that it is always necessary to pay a huge attention to the sphere of human relations and introduction of knowledge into practice in real life situations.
Do you like this essay?
Our writers can write a paper like this for you!
(No Ratings Yet)
Loading...