EMPLOYMENT PSYCHOLOGY 
I98 
The subject is then asked to arrange these cards in the 
order in which he considers the actions named most repre 
hensible, placing the least reprehensible first and the most 
reprehensible last. The value and significance of such a 
test are extremely doubtful. Without going into a detailed 
criticism of the efficacy of this test, it may be said that the 
core of its weakness consists in the fact that words and 
actions do not necessarily coincide. Intellectual morality 
and practical morality are two distinctly different things. 
For a time it did seem as though the word association 
tests, made famous by Hugo Muensterberg’s book “On 
the Witness Stand” could bridge these two realms of 
thought and action. However, it has been found since 
that the connection between them is so subtle as to make 
such tests entirely too ambiguous. Even if tests which 
require the subject to express himself in terms of deeds 
rather than opinions could be devised, the results would 
be extremely doubtful. Few individuals could be made to 
reveal their objectionable moral traits during the course 
of an interview or a psychological examination. And on 
the other hand there are few individuals who cannot, 
when the occasion demands, assume a virtue which they 
do not have. Whether looking for the negative qualities, 
such as dishonesty and laziness, or tracing the positive 
virtues, such as honesty and industry, the psychologist, 
in common with all other seekers of facts, is laboring 
under the great disadvantage of the ability of all in 
dividuals to minimize or to exaggerate their good and bad 
points. In none of the moral qualities are there the rela 
tively stable and measurable factors which are to be 
found in the more elementary activities to which tests 
have been so successfully applied. 
Since psychological tests are unable adequately to