In 1913<\/b><\/span>, Hugo M\u00fcnsterberg<\/b><\/span> published Psychology and Industrial Efficiency<\/i>, which addressed employee selection, training, and advertising\u2014topics that remain central to I-O psychology today.\u00a0 <\/span><\/p>\r\n Walter Dill Scott<\/b><\/span> was among the first psychologists to apply psychological principles to advertising, management, and personnel selection. <\/b>In 1903, Scott published two books: The Theory of Advertising<\/em> and Psychology of Advertising<\/em>.<\/span> They are the first books to describe the use of psychology in the business world. By 1911 he published two more books, Influencing Men in Business<\/em> and Increasing Human Efficiency in Business<\/em>. In 1916 a newly formed division in the Carnegie Institute of Technology hired Scott to conduct applied research on employee selection (Katzell & Austin, 1992).<\/p>\r\n When the United States entered World War I in April 1917<\/span>, psychologists\u2019 work expanded dramatically. Robert Yerkes<\/b><\/span>, then president of the American Psychological Association (APA), helped organize efforts under the Surgeon General\u2019s Office to screen and classify recruits.<\/p>\r\n This work produced the Army Alpha<\/b><\/span> test (verbal) and Army Beta<\/b><\/span> test (nonverbal), which were used at an unprecedented scale\u2014nearly two million<\/span> men were tested. However, these tests are also widely recognized as culturally biased<\/span>, reflecting education and familiarity with dominant U.S. culture rather than purely \u201cinnate\u201d ability.\u00a0 <\/span><\/p>\r\n At the same time, Scott<\/span> and Walter Bingham (1880\u20131952)<\/span> worked under the Adjutant General\u2019s Office to develop officer selection methods, including early job descriptions, performance ratings, and occupational skill assessments.<\/p>\r\n After the war, personnel selection research continued to grow. For example, Millicent Pond<\/strong>, who received a PhD from Yale University, worked at several businesses and was director of employment test research at Scoville Manufacturing Company. She researched the selection of factory workers, comparing the results of pre-employment tests with various indicators of job performance. These studies were published in a series of research articles in the\u00a0Journal of Personnel Research<\/span><\/em> in the late 1920s (Vinchur & Koppes, 2014).<\/p>\r\n From 1929 to 1932<\/span>, Elton Mayo and colleagues conducted a series of studies at Western Electric\u2019s Hawthorne Works<\/span> near Chicago. These projects pushed the field beyond selection and placement and toward questions about:<\/p>\r\n The work began as an investigation of physical conditions (like lighting), but researchers became increasingly interested in how social and psychological factors influenced productivity.<\/p>\r\n Analysis of the findings by later researchers led to the term the Hawthorne effect.<\/p>\r\n The Hawthorne effect <\/strong>describes the increase in performance of individuals who are aware they are being observed by researchers or supervisors.<\/p>\r\n<\/section>\r\n\r\n[caption id=\"\" align=\"alignleft\" width=\"492\"] What the original researchers found was that any change in a variable, such as lighting levels, led to an improvement in productivity; this was true even when the change was negative, such as a return to poor lighting. The effect faded when the attention faded (Roethlisberg & Dickson, 1939).<\/p>\r\nWorld War I and the growth of personnel testing<\/b><\/h2>\r\n
The Hawthorne Effect<\/h2>\r\n
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the Hawthorne effect<\/h3>\r\n
![\"An](\"https:\/\/textimgs.s3.amazonaws.com\/ospsych\/m49127\/CNX_Psych_13_01_Hawthorne.jpg#fixme\")
Figure 1<\/strong>. Hawthorne Works provided the setting for several early I-O studies.[\/caption]\r\n\r\n