Employment psychology

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Monograph

Identifikator:: 1028407564

URN:: urn:nbn:de:zbw-retromon-47263

Document type:: Monograph

Author:: Link, Henry Charles; Thorndike, Edward L. http://d-nb.info/gnd/118802127

Title:: Employment psychology

Place of publication:: New York

Publisher:: MacMillan

Year of publication:: 1924

Scope:: 1 Online-Ressource (XII, 440 Seiten)

Digitisation:: 2018

Collection:: Economics Books

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Document type:: Monograph

Structure type:: Chapter

Title:: Part II. Trade tests and other applications of employment psychology

Collection:: Economics Books

XIX THE OBSERVATIONAL METHOD OBSERVING APPEARANCES Judging by appearances plays a large part in all em ployment work, and yet, of all methods of estimating character, it is the most unreliable. Every language is full of proverbs to the effect that beauty is only skin deep, fine feathers do not make a fine bird, and handsome is as handsome does. That appearances must be relied on to some extent, nobody will deny. There are innumerable instances in daily life in which the only method open to us is to judge people by means of a fleeting impression. As long as not much is at stake in such judgments, we may indulge in them as far as we like without suffering any consequences more serious than an occasional blow to our self-esteem on discovering that our original impres sion has been totally wrong. Mistakes like these are easily forgotten by the ordinary optimistic human being. However, in the case of large organizations, where the process of estimating individuals involves very important stakes, the observational method is extremely dangerous and inadequate. The mistakes which such organizations make in their estimates cannot be forgotten but are au tomatically translated into an economic loss. Let us take some instances to illustrate this statement. Most people would probably not hesitate to assert that they can pick the healthy individuals of a group in the majority of cases—let us say nine times out of ten—by 231

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