Vocational Psychology: Its Problems and MethodsHollingworth, Harry L. (Harry Levi)
Science
Vocational Psychology: Its Problems and Methods
Hollingworth, Harry L. (Harry Levi)
Psychophysiology
Schneider has for many years considered the problems involved in adjusting
human beings to congenial types of work, and prefers to classify both men
and jobs on the basis of certain broad characteristics which refer more
particularly to interests, habits, preferences and similar temperamental
factors than to the technical psychological mechanisms employed in the
work. He writes: "Every individual has certain broad characteristics and
every type of work requires certain broad characteristics. The problem,
then, is to state the broad characteristics, to devise a rational method to
discover these characteristics (or talents) in individuals, to classify the
types of jobs by the talents they require and to guide the youth with
certain talents into the type of job which requires those talents. This is
a big problem, but one possible of measurable solution, or, at worst,
possible of a solution immeasurably superior to our present haphazard
methods."
As an illustration of what Schneider means by "broad characteristics," take
his distinction between the "settled" and the "roving" types. "There is a
type of man who wants to get on the same car every morning, get off at the
same corner, go to the same shop, ring up at the same clock, stow his
lunch in the same locker, go to the same machine and do the same class of
work, day after day. Another type of man would go crazy under this routine;
he wants to move about, meet new people, see and do new things. The first
is settled; the second is roving. The first might make a good man for a
shop manufacturing a standard product; the second might make a good
railroad man or a good outdoor carpenter."
Or, again, consider his distinction on the basis of "scope." "Then there
are two types--one of which likes to fuss with an intricate bit of
mechanism, while the other wants the task of big dimensions--the
watchmaker, the engraver, the inlayer, the painter of miniatures, on the
one hand; the bridge builder, the steel-mill worker, the train dispatcher,
the circus man on the other. One has small scope, the other large scope."
Basing his analyses mainly on the enterprises of manufacture, construction
and transportation, and recognizing that other broad characteristics would
probably be listed if different types of occupation were also considered,
Schneider gives a list of sixteen classifications which may be applied
either to the individual or to the type of work. These are as follows:
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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