Some present-day trends in vocational psychology / by Charles S. Myers.

  • Charles Samuel Myers
Date:
[1936?]
Catalogue details

Licence: In copyright

Credit: Some present-day trends in vocational psychology / by Charles S. Myers. Source: Wellcome Collection.

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    assume, for convenience, its existence) in relation to special abilities. It may be for this reason that the vocational advisers at the National Institute are by no means confident of the intelligence test as an infallible guide to subsequent success or failure in a university career. A whole is more than and prior to the sum of its abstracted parts. Whether we are dealing with mental abilities or with temperamental or character qualities, the effects of interrelation—conflict, facilitation, integration, etc.—and the effects of artificial abstraction have to be taken into account. In the second place, vocational guidance cannot be compared to the fitting of “ pegs ” of abilities and temperament into suitable holes. Social and financial considerations, the dearth of openings in certain occupations, unwillingness to take responsibility, insufficiency of drive, interest, or emotional stability—any one of these may contra-indicate an occupation which in other respects of temperament, ability, physique and health seems suitable. Thirdly, an applicant is seldom found to be ideally suitable for any one occupation. Vocational guidance must be nearly always a com¬ promise, and the effectiveness of that compromise depends on the sympathy, insight and intuition of his vocational adviser. For these and other important reasons the Institute’s advisers tend often to give their recommendations in somewhat general rather than in too specific terms, first indicating broadly (with reasons) those occupations for which they regard the applicant as unsuitable and then enumerating, in order of preference, the three or four broad occupations which they consider to be the most suitable. Moreover, we have at present no adequate analysis of the psycho¬ logical and physiological requirements of different occupations. Our ignorance is perhaps particularly obvious in the case of occupations taken up by elementary school-leavers. We know something (but we need to know much more) of the degrees of intelligence required for different occupations. We can class an adolescent as having a high “ verbal ” or a high “practical” intelligence. An examination of his temperamental and character qualities may lead us to recommend him for an occupation which brings him into intimate touch with others or for one which gives him an opportunity of enjoying his predilection for a more solitary life. On medical grounds we may recommend him for an occupation which does not involve undue exposure to the weather, or for one which is spent in the open air. We can divide the occupations which elementary and central school-leavers will adopt under the heads clerical and manual, and into skilled, semi-skilled and unskilled. We may ply them with selection tests devised for clerical, dressmaking and engineering work.