APPLIED PSYCHOLOGY

the use of the findings and methods of scientific psychology in solving practical problems of human and animal behaviour and experience. A more precise definition is impossible because the activities of applied psychology range from laboratory experimentation through field studies of specific utility to direct services to troubled persons. The same intellectual streams whose confluence produced psychology as an independent discipline in the latter part of the 19th century led to the later development of an applied psychology. Francis Galton's publication in 1883 of Inquiries Into Human Faculty foreshadowed the measurement of individual psychological differences. In 1896 Lightner Witmer established at the University of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia, a clinic that was a forerunner of clinical psychology. Intelligence testing began with the work of Alfred Binet and Thodore Simon in the Paris schools. Group testing, legal problems, industrial efficiency, motivation, and delinquency were among other early areas of application. At the Carnegie Institute of Technology, Pittsburgh, a division of applied psychology was established as a teaching and research department in 1915. The Journal of Applied Psychology appeared in 1917 along with the first applied-psychology text, by H.L. Hollingsworth and A.T. Poffenberger. World Wars I and II fostered work on vocational testing, teaching methods, evaluation of attitudes and morale, performance under stress, propaganda and psychological warfare, rehabilitation, and counseling. After World War II many of the trends in applied psychology were accentuated by the demands of the space age. Educational psychologists applied themselves to the task of early identification and discovery of talented persons, since it was recognized that trained intelligence is an important national resource. Such activities were linked with the work of counseling psychologists, who sought to help persons clarify and attain their educational, vocational, and personal goals. Concern for the optimum utilization of human resources also increased the importance of industrial and personnel psychology in business and industrial organizations. The aviation industry and the various space agencies and organizations were important in the rapid development of the field of engineering psychology; as machines and engineering systems grew in complexity, it was necessary to study manmachine relationships. In response to society's concern for treatment of the mentally ill and for preventive measures against mental illness, clinical psychology showed the greatest absolute growth rate within psychology. Psychologists studied the application of automation, and in the developing countries they helped with the problems of rapid industrialization and manpower planning. Regardless of the applied psychologist's professional focus, his job description is likely to overlap with those of other areas. The applied psychologist may or may not engage in original research and/or teach. In addition to drawing on experimental findings gleaned from psychological research, the applied psychologist utilizes information from many disciplines. The scope of the field is continually broadening as new types of problems (e.g., technological) arise. Other branches of applied psychology include consumer, school, and community psychology. Prevention and treatment of emotional problems in naturalistic settings (i.e., the community) have received a great deal of attention, as have medically related questions (e.g., sports psychology and the psychology of chronic illness). Psychometrics, or the measurement and evaluation of psychological variables such as personality, aptitude, or performance, is an integral part of applied-psychology fields. For example, the clinical psychologist may be interested in measuring the traits of aggressiveness or obsessiveness; the counseling psychologist, areas of career interest or aptitude; the industrial psychologist, work effectiveness under certain conditions of lighting or office design; or the community psychologist, psychological effects of living near a nuclear power plant or radioactive waste disposal site. See also clinical psychology; counseling; educational psychology; industrial psychology.