Abstract

This study presents an approach to the origins of applied psychology, taking into consideration the social and cultural context surrounding the development of science in Europe from the end of the 19th century. The second part provides quantitative information on the actual contents of applied psychology in its early history through an overview of the evolution of participation, countries, authors**** and subjects at the International Congresses of Applied Psychology from 1921 to 1958, by means of the application of the bibliometric analysis objective methodology on its indexes and proceedings.

Key words: History of Applied Psychology, IAAP, Europe.

In recent years, knowledge about the historical developments of psychological ideas has substantially increased. This fact may partly be explained as an after-effect of the widespread Kuhnian model of science. The idea that scientists deal with phenomena through the handling of theoretical models of only temporally limited validity, brought to the fore the salience of historical views of science as an indispensable means for an in-depth understanding of theories and praxis in the scientific world.

In addition, many centennial celebrations have enabled us to recover the memory of our past. Although a lot of work may be seen as ceremonial, large pieces of the past have been focussed on, and all of us are benefiting from such recoveries.

When contemplating the past development of our science, theory and application have been kept apart from one another as if they were two unrelated disciplines. In our view applied psychology has not been - or has not always been - the mere application of previous theoretical knowledge to the realm of daily life. As Frisby put it in the closing lecture at the Rome congress in 1958,

'basic and applied research... may well go hand in hand, but they can quite easily be prosecuted separately. Nor is it necessarily the case that applied research must wait upon basic research, since it is sometimes the study of applied problems which permits the formulation of a fundamental problem for separate attack' (in Gundlach, 1998b, XIII, 711).

In many cases, concrete demands have preceded the intervention plan, and its authors were forced to create new concepts and instruments in answer to the proposed questions.

Although many scientists did not feel themselves completely secure as they left laboratories and entered the real world, they could not remain in the ivory tower, and stood up to the challenge. They felt the contradiction of building a science that seemed unable to solve real problems in its own field. And little by little applied knowledge was built, which in the long run has largely determined the present day situation in the field.

In what follows, we will mainly focus on the early developments of the IAAP, taking into consideration its recently reissued proceedings (Gundlach, 1998b). This is part of a long-term project of studying its history, in the context of a broader view of applied psychology.

Early developments of applied psychology

At the turn of the 20th century, a positivistic mentality dominated science and culture in western countries. Positivism had been conceived by the French philosopher Auguste Comte as a system of ideas (or philosophy), based on scientific knowledge and looking for general laws in the natural and social world. Its motto was 'see (or to know) in order to foresee, foresee in order to provide'. Knowledge without practical consequences was not worthy of being sought at all.

As a result, 'scientism' overflowed into the rest of culture. Science, mainly conceived as quantitative knowledge of objective phenomena permitting both explanation and prediction, became the latest word to talk about everything. It was accompanied by technical and industrial expansion, which changed all aspects of human life, for both good and bad.

Positivism (and its close companion, pragmatism) approached human life in search of facts and laws. Its ideals permeated all natural and social sciences: physiology, anthropology, criminology, were deeply influenced by the new outlook. It was pretty much the same in literature, where 'naturalism' invaded the field with its romances and fictions. The French novelist Emile Zola, a follower of the teachings of physiologist Claude Bernard, wrote: 'I tell what I see'; and a character from Dickens' Hard Times repeats in those pages: 'Facts, facts, give me facts'.

Psychology had been created as a new science for the study of the human mind. It had been conceived as a science of conscious experience, not centered on objective, empirical facts, as positivists were demanding, nor had it generated a body of technical procedures to solve practical questions, as sciences were supposed to bring forth. So its place as a science was frequently placed in doubt, and many people felt that a fundamental change was needed in the field. It is worth mentioning here Titchener's opposition to applied psychology as he considered theory not yet prepared for such a task. Nevertheless, the transition from science towards techniques soon became irresistible. It is interesting to point out Münsterberg's attitude, who in his psychology for industry, (Psychology and industrial efficiency) claimed imperiously the transition from theory to practice:

'The time has come for mental sciences, in which practice and theory must complement each other' (Münsterberg, 1914, 5).

On the other hand, social problems were there, calling at the door of the laboratories. Western societies were experiencing the natural troubles of an expanding epoch determined by the industrial revolution and tremendous social and political changes. Psychologists had to face a growing and demanding world. What follows here is some evidence related to it.

In many fields new demands had appeared with force. Education, at the end of the 19th century, was in need of an in-depth reform. Democracy extended school education to all social classes. The 'New school', a wide movement spreading all over Europe, promoted active programs in school, and stressed the relevance of motivation for engaging children in individual and collective work (Luzuriaga, 1923). Many voices were raised in society demanding school to be closer to life.

A French educator wrote: 'It is a common topic to repeat that our teaching, on the whole or very nearly, needs to be changed... Workers accuse it of being too much abstract, not taking the real life into consideration... In 1866, the International association of workers gathering in Geneva, socialists asked for... a living knowledge that would substitute a dead one, and for a progressive transformation that would change the play instinct into an instinct of work...' (Fontègne, 1923,1)

Everywhere it was felt that people had to have an opportunity to contribute something from their own experience, and to give their opinion about issues under debate. Individual differences were becoming increasingly important in all fields: in industries, courts of justice, car driving, workers' training and rehabilitation. Each time human behavior of groups and individuals was examined, demand for a scientific understanding of it arose. First, teachers, physicians and physiologists were consulted; then little by little, psychologists became involved.

At the beginning, individual interventions were made, which did not follow a common model. For instance, Binet wanted to help teachers acquire real and predictive knowledge about their students' ability to learn; Decroly and Ferrari became interested in taking care of mentally retarded subjects; Lightner Witmer took care of a child suffering from language difficulties under the demand of one of his students. Such interventions were usually the fruit of some casual contacts with people in need of help. Creative scientists accepted human problems emerging from daily life, not from laboratories. The social value of their science was at stake, and conscientious people tried to do their best.

Early development of psychotechnology

Let us remember here some of the milestones of the early development of psychotechnology in the first decades of the 20th century which began in Europe.

At the end of the 19th century, interest in individual differences gave rise to the construction of instruments for testing people with various purposes. The pioneer work of Cattell in the US. was soon followed by further investigation in Europe by Ebbinghaus (completion test) and Kraepelin, in Germany, or Ferrari and Lombroso, in Italy; but the masterpiece came from the hands of Binet and Simon, in France, who were able to create an intelligence test that has generated endless research until now. Soon afterwards, some test collections were prepared by Whipple (1914), Decroly and Buyse (1928), and Burt (1923/1933).

It is interesting to note that perhaps during the time that elapsed between the two first editions of Whipple's book a change related to testing took place:

'One need not be a close observer to perceive how markedly the interest in mental tests has developed during the past few years. Not very long ago attention to tests was largely restricted to a few laboratory psychologists; now tests have become objects of attention for many workers whose primary interest is in education, social service, medicine, industrial management and many other fields in which applied psychology promises valuable returns' (Whipple, 1914, v).

While some people worked on creating new testing instruments, others began to build specialized centers and institutions where due care would be provided for retarded children, injured workers, while others specialized in road traffic problems, vocational guidance, management or consumer and industrial behavior. The need for a network of social facilities and institutions arose in countries under strongly progressive critical movements, which were demanding protective measures for workers and socially disadvantaged groups. World War I (1914-1918) 'put the applications of psychology on the map and on the front page', wrote James McKeen Cattell in 1937 (Cattell, 1937/1947, II, 496). It is true that the war brought many opportunities for psychologists to show the potential possibilities of their science, from personnel selection to clinical rehabilitation. The assessment that was carried out in the American army was a real success, with more than one and a half million people tested and placed in a more suitable place.

In some countries - France, Germany, Belgium, the United States - new centers and institutions began to spread out at the very beginning of the 20th century. Above all, the War forced all the countries involved to face serious problems of selection and placement of military people, especially with regard to higher officers and specialized jobs.

Selection of pilots, drivers or officers became a matter demanding new psychological techniques, that were then put into question, and the utility of which was clearly demonstrated. Cattell wrote that the War put psychology on the map in the US., as well as in Europe. Laboratories such as Moede's in Charlottenburg, or Mira's Institute for Professional Guidance in Barcelona, (Spain), or the British National Institute of Industrial Psychology, headed by Myers, that had been preceded by the Health of the Munition Workers Committee during the war (Wilpert, 1990), began to spread the 'good news' of psychological intervention all over the continent. The need for joint action was soon felt. Claparède, Lahy, Myers, Moede, Christiaens, Mira and many others began to join together to discuss different topics in applied psychology. And we are still here, following that impulse, putting it into accordance with modern times.

The significance of Edouard Claparède

It is possible to replace all these names with one, that of the Swiss psychologist Edouard Claparède, soul and inspiration of the first international society of applied psychology.

He was to become the founder of the Institute Jean Jacques Rousseau, in Geneva, a well known center for educational research that also turned into the early working home of Jean Piaget and other significant researchers. Trained as a physician, interested in biology, Claparède was a relative of Theodore Flournoy, the Swiss experimentalist, friend of William James and professor at Geneva University. He soon became interested in psychology as a means for a better education that would 'broaden' the lives of the students (Claparède, 1931/1946, 8). One of his most influential books, Psychologie de l'enfant et pédagogie expérimentale, clearly shows the two concepts he wanted to combine in a common project: better education for people, and better people for society to live in peace and progress.

If his very complex, very rich thought could be reduced to a single word, it would undoubtedly be 'functionalism'. He considered 'psychical phenomena primarily from the point of view of their function in life' (Claparède, 1930, 79). Mental phenomena always had to be considered in connection with human behavior, and behavior was understood under the law of need-reduction activity, each need putting the subject into activity to keep himself or herself alive. (Claparède, 1931/1946, 197).

Claparède promoted the 'new school' through his very influential center, the J.J. Rousseau Institute, in Geneva. This was a school largely based on an up-to-date psychology. The task of education should be carried out keeping in mind that the child, like the adult, has his/her own personality and his/her own structure, and must be conceived as an autonomous being governed by the laws of need and interest (Claparède, 1931/1946, 47, 63). The child should not be seen as a mere project of an adult, but as a person, as a being complete in his/her own right, with his/her own world, needs and desires. The motto of the school was 'Discat a puero magister', that is, teachers must adapt themselves to children's nature.

Brought up in Geneva, he acquired an internationalist view of the world. He promoted congresses in search of creating a strong community of colleagues who would work together in peace. His ideal of such events was a 'Congress without reports', a meeting place to get acquainted with masters and colleagues who discussed problems and created personal bonds between them. As he confessed, 'are not bonds of friendship between men of all nations the indispensable affective substructure of the League of Nations work?' (Claparède, 1930, 92).

Claparède was well aware of the negative consequences that an uncontrollable growth of tests and other instruments, and chaotic rules and recommendations made by psychologists could have on their science during its initial development. By promoting the applied psychology conferences, he tried to reach some basic agreements on professional matters, and strengthen bonds between groups. In a broken post-war Europe, with German colleagues off the scene and widespread tensions, it is clear that a Swiss psychologist was in the best position to liaise between people of different psychological trends.

In his undertaking he was supported by some French colleagues. Above all, Jules Fontègne should be mentioned, a technician specialized in educational guidance, who attended the Institute in Geneva and later founded with Piéron the National Office for Professional Guidance in Paris (Trombetta, 1989, 462-3). The story begins with the First Geneva Conference, held in 1920.

The First Conference. Geneva 1920

The first International Conference on Psychotechnology (French 'psychotechnique', as it was called) is a provisional starting point that may help to approach the field of applied psychology in its initial stages. This First Congress for Psychotechnology was held in Geneva, September 27-28th, 1920, sponsored by both the Institute for Educational sciences 'Jean Jacques Rousseau' and by the Laboratory for Experimental Psychology of Geneva University.

It was Edouard Claparède, then professor at the Geneva University, and Pierre Bovet, psychologist and educator, head of the Rousseau Institute in Geneva, who seem to have first had the idea of holding an international meeting for the applications of psychology, in 1920.

The opportunity came as a newly created Swiss Association for Vocational Guidance and Apprentice Welfare decided to run a course in its speciality in Geneva, 24-25 September 1920 (Gundlach, 1998b, I, 18).

About 60 people attended the meeting. They came from Belgium, France, Italy, the Netherlands, Greece, Switzerland, Spain, Bulgaria; three countries were absent: the United Kingdom, Germany and the United States (Gundlach, 1998b, I, 32: he discusses the possibility of the presence of a US member, Id. 36). Among the participants, we find the names of Arthur G. Christiaens, Ovide Decroly and V. Brabant, from Belgium; Jean M. Lahy and Jules Fontègne (France); Gerard van Wayemburg (Netherlands), E. Claparède and Pierre Bovet (Switzerland); Emilio Mira and José Ruiz Castellá (Spain); and Giulio C. Ferrari (Italy).

This congress became a landmark in the history of psychotechnology. Here the creation of an International Association for Psychotechnology took place. This was strongly supported by the French 'Ligue d'Hygiène Mentale de Paris', an association founded by Dr. Toulouse, and of which Dr. J.M. Lahy was an important member. The President was Henri Piéron, and JM. Lahy the secretary general, and the society was established in Paris (from where it moved to Bern at the beginning of World War II). They also decided to meet the following year in Barcelona, where an exemplary center for applied psychology was being run by Emilio Mira.

The meeting served to discuss some aspects related to ability assessment and training, as well as to the usefulness of instruments for studying and recording individual performance.

Claparède was convinced that a very important point for vocational guidance was 'that of the possibility of modifying original aptitudes by practice'; he wondered: 'Can a certain individual, whose initial output is superior, be surpassed, after a time of practice, by others, whose initial output was inferior?' (Claparède, 1930, 96). Are innate abilities always superior to the learned ones, or the other way round under convenient training?

Some measures -such as the percentile ranks method- were proposed by Claparède. This appears as a symbol of all the effort of standardization and unification that seem to have been inspired by that meeting.

The first thirteen congresses of the IAAP

The history of applied psychology has been scarcely studied for more than half a century, but in the last decade there has been a new-found interest in it. One of its results has been the reprinted edition of the proceedings of the first 13 Conference/Congresses of the International Association of Applied Psychology (Gundlach, 1998b). This fact has provided us with valuable data that gives us first hand information on the origins and development of institutionalized applied psychology, as well as about the roots of the IAAP organization.

Between 1920 and 1958 thirteen congresses or conferences were held, at very irregular intervals, mainly because of political obstacles, some overlapping dates between IAAP and IUPsyS programs, and above all the long term effects of the Second World War that prevented any meeting between 1934 and 1949. All the meetings took place in Europe until the Kyoto (Japan) Conference in 1990. The first Conference held in America was in San Francisco (USA) in 1998.

This review will put aside the first Geneva conference (1920), as no proceedings remain from it and information about it has been presented above.

a) Communications and papers

Data related to the global volume of presentations made at the conferences are provided in Fig. 1. A total of 1134 papers (presentations, lectures, invited lectures etc.) have been found (20 contributions, that had been counted twice in the Moscow Congress, have been eliminated). When split into two halves, before and after the Second World War, the growth of production for the second period can be clearly seen: it doubled after the war: 470 works in the first half, with an average of 67.1 papers per meeting, compared to 664 in the second, with an average of 132.8.

b) Collaboration among authors.

Collaborative work in a field, identified through the presence of joint authors working on the papers, appears everywhere as a sure indicator of an experimental and objective approach to the topics in a scientific area. People doing experimental work are usually organized in research teams and groups, while single authors are prone to offer more personal and, so to speak, philosophical reflections.

If we look at all the conferences papers together, the average index of authorship is very low: 1.1 authors/paper (1263 signatures, against 1134 papers). Most of the papers are single author works (1026 papers, 90.5 %). This is a rough measure of the low degree of institutionalization reached by early psychotechnics during the studied period.

Fig. 2. Collaborative work in congresses (per cent)

Collaborative work, although limited to around 10 %, shows a very steady line (fig. no. 2), with the only exception of a peak at the second Barcelona conference, where many collaborative papers were presented by local researchers. These results permit us to delineate the main groups - or 'Invisible colleges' (Price and Beaver, 1966; Peiró 1981) - that may be detected. Most of them are two-people groups, a normal finding for the time considered here. 66 groups appear in total, consisting of 51 groups of 2 authors, 9 of three authors and 1 of 4, 5, 6, 7, 12 and 13 authors each, and one group of an undetermined number of members (table no. 2).

Table no. 2. Invisible Colleges at the international congresses (2nd-13th)

Table no. 3. Main Invisible colleges (with 3 or more authors and 2 or more papers)

The largest one, shown in figure 3, is a group of 20 people organized around two main figures: Henri Piéron and Jean M. Lahy. This group presented 20 papers, and represented a strong and real nucleus which was very active in France from the 20's onwards.

Figure no. 3: Main invisible school in the International Congresses of Psychotechnics (1921-1958)

Relevant information about this group can be found in Piéron's autobiography. As Piéron wrote, in 1920 the first Psychological Institute was established in Paris, under his direction, and he dedicated it to the specialized training in psychophysiology and in psychotechnics; for the diplomas in applied and general psychology, 'practical works were rendered obligatory, employing on the one hand the Sorbonne laboratory and, on the other, a laboratory for applied psychology built in the Ecole Pratique des Hautes ´-Études (Applied School for Higher Studies), in the Sainte Anne asylum, directed by J.M. Lahy' (Piéron, 1992,18).

Piéron, then Director of the Institute, and soon after member of the Collège de France, where a chair for the physiology of sensations was to be created, strongly collaborated with M. Piéron, and with other colleagues who all appear in the group. Among them, Alfred Fessard, deputy director for the Practical School of Higher Studies, worked on nervous physiology and helped Piéron as coeditor of L'Année Psychologique; the physiologist Henri Laugier, professor at the 'Conservatoire des arts et métiers', and head of the laboratory for applied physiology at the Hospital Henri Rousselle, and his assistant S. Nouel; and J. Monnin, a collaborator of Piéron and Fessard. It is clearly a group centered on the physiological approach to aptitudes and psychotechnics research.

Jean M. Lahy was the head of the other sub-group, based at the Ecole Pratique des Hautes Etudes. Whithin the same group, work on concrete professions was carried out. Representing the link between both sub-groups, we find Dagmar Weinberg, assistant to Henri Laugier at the Sorbonne. Other members of this subgroup are S. Korngold, assistant at the Ecole Practique d'Autes Etudes, G. Heuyer, a Parisian hospital doctor, and S. Serin, an assistant doctor at psychiatric hospitals.

Another group is worthy of mention (table no. 3; fig 3b). This brings 12 authors together, but seems to be an artificial grouping, mainly due to the creation of an ad hoc committee on the subject 'What is Psychotechnics?', presented in Gothenburg in 1951 by P. H. Cook from Australia, J. Elmgren from Sweden, C.B. Frisby from England, F.A. Geldard, S. Pacaud from France, M. Ponzo from Italy and A. Rey from Switzerland; two of its members (Pacaud and Ponzo) also presented papers with other colleagues, in an unrelated way with the committee.

Fig. 3b. Invisible College (12 authors)

 

c) Most productive authors

The most productive authors in a field are usually considered as visible and influential contributors, and studying them gives us accurate insights of a certain research area.

In this case, the most productive authors (table no. 4) come from six different countries: Lahy and Weinberg from France, Baumgarten and Heinis from Switzerland, Frisby from England, Ponzo from Italy, Mira from Spain/Brazil and Spielrein from Russia. The list contains some of the researchers who either played a representative role at the Directive Committee of the Association or contributed to the organization of any of the congresses, so that some of their papers are opening or closing speeches, and/or periodical reports of the activities of the Association. Besides, in these papers some psychotechnical information can be found about the development in different fields, and they offer interesting material for the study of the history of applied psychology. A significant fact is that two out of the nine most productive authors are women, which is perhaps indicative of the substantial role they took in the development and expansion of applied psychology.

Table no. 4: Most productive authors in the International Congresses (2nd-13th)

We will present here some traits or notes related to each of them. At the head of the list is Jean M. Lahy. His collaboration with Pieron has already been mentioned; apart from that, he was the General Secretary of the International Association and one of its founders, attending the congresses until his death during World War II. He undoubtedly played a relevant role in applied psychology and was a well-known name from France. Franzisca Baumgarten (1886-1970), a Polish-born psychologist, was professor of psychology at Bern University, and was referred to in the proceedings as a member of the Director Committee of the Congresses of Psychotechnics since 1927, when she was also elected director of the commission for the unification of psychotechnical vocabulary and, as we have already noted, was General Secretary of the IAAP from 1949 to 1958 after Lahy. Henri Piéron (1881-1964), who led the largest group analysed above with Lahy, was one of the leading figures of French psychology, and a well-known researcher in psychobiology; he was President of the Association from the first conference until 1950. Emilio Mira (1896-1964) was the Director of the Institute of Vocational Guidance in Barcelona until his exile after the Spanish Civil War, when he became one of the main persons to promote the institutionalization and professional development of Brazilian psychology. He was also the organizer of two of these conferences (Barcelona 1921 and 1930). He was one of the founders of the Association and also member of its executive committee before and after his exile. Mario Ponzo (1882-1960), professor of Psychology at Rome University, a psychiatrist and psychologist, was for a time the president of the Italian Society of Psychology; he was also an executive committee member and co-organizer of the Bern Congress in 1949. Clifford B. Frisby, organizer of the London Congress in 1955 and president of the IAAP in 1958, was the Director of the National Institute of Industrial Psychology in London. Dagmar Weinberg collaborated with J.M. Jahy, with whom she kept a close, active working relationship; her contacts both with Lahy and Piéron placed her in a central position in the invisible college previously analyzed. She had worked as assistant with H. Laugier, at a Centre for Biomethrics in Paris (both Laugier and Weinberg seem to have suffered, as Jews, an intense persecution during the war) [Piéron, 1992]. Hugo Heinis was a professor of psychology at Geneva University, Director of the Bureau of Vocational Guidance and an expert in military psychology (Canestrelli, 1958, p. 49). Isaak Spielrein, professor of Psychology and Head of the Laboratory of Psychotechnics at the Institute for Work Protection in Moscow, was also part of the IAAP directive committee between 1927 and 1934; he had to face many difficulties when the Soviet government banned the tests and psychotechnics in 1936, and he died during the war.

In general these productive authors emerged as active members of the Association, and as such attended the congresses regularly, presenting many papers, most of them of an empirical nature. In table no. 5 we offer some data of their presence at these meetings. In the table, it may be noted that 3 members did not attend any meetings held after the war, Lahy, Weinberg and Spielrein; on the contrary, Frisby joined the association and became an active member from the Bern meeting in 1949 onwards. The rest of them linked the pre- and post-war periods with their presence, giving continuity to the association.

Table no. 5: Continuity of the most productive authors along the congresses (2nd-13th)

Complementary information may be obtained from the following data, which give us the names of the most productive authors in each congress (Table no. 6).

Table no. 6: Most productive authors in each congress (2nd-13th)

d) Languages employed in the contributions

Papers included in these proceedings are presented in a variety of languages (see figure 3 and table no. 7). Seven languages were officially accepted. Their differential weights in the distribution indicate some interesting changes in the sociology of the meetings. French is the most frequently used, accounting for half of the papers presented. This fact fits well with the French origins of the association. The rest is mainly divided between English (26%), and German (17%).

Fig. no. 4: Distribution of different languages used during the congresses

Table no. 7. Chronological evolution of the use of the different languages (in percentage)

As is well-known, German, English and French were the international languages of the Association, and in some cases the language of the host country was accepted (Spanish, Catalan, Russian and Italian); this was not, however, a general rule without exceptions; Czech, Dutch or Swedish do not appear in the proceedings, while Italian is to be found in Milan (1922), Paris (1927), Barcelona (1927) and Bern (1949). Furthermore, French and English were the only accepted languages in the congress in Rome in 1958. Besides that, it appears that the use of English increased continually over time, at the expense of French. German, for its part, faded away in the post-war congresses (see figure no. 4). These changes are consistent, as we know, with the social changes that took place over that time, but it may also be related to the growing participation of US psychologists in the congresses during the post-war period (Trombetta, 1998, 196). One example of this is that M.S. Viteles, professor at the University of Pennsylvania and well known industrial psychologist in those days, was elected president of the IAAP in Rome (1958) (Canestrelli, 1958), therefore becoming its first non-European leader.

Fig. no. 5: Evolution of the principal languages in the congresess

e) Evolution of topics dealt with

A very important question is that of the subjects covered during the congresses. Their analysis will give us a more accurate idea of the interests and problems that have generated research in the field.

Our analysis will be based on the terms appearing in the titles of the contributions, for didactic purposes, we will split our results into two halves, that is, before and after the Second World War (Table 8).

Table no. 8: Most frequent terms in congress papers before and after 1934 (2nd-13th).

Tables no. 9 and 10: Most frequent terms in congress papers before and after 1934 (2^nd-13^th).

Some terms have been frequently used in both periods, indicating a consistent interest in the implied topics; some others are more specific to the earlier, others to the later period. Let us look at them in detail (see tables 9&10).

The first point to be noted is the extraordinary change that the term 'psychotechnics,-ical' seems to have undergone. It was at the top of the list during the pre-war period. This may suggest the relevance of the new field as felt by all its cultivators. But, after the war, the term lost its attractiveness; instead of that, 'psychology' (at the bottom of the list in the first half) rose to the top, assuming, so to say, the role played before by the term it had replaced. We could say then that the species has been absorbed by its genus; 'psychology' dominates the whole field.

One should not forget that discussions about the word 'psychotechnics' had accompanied the discipline since its birth; the word was not well accepted in English when translated from German (Gundlach, 1998b, I, 3); Münsterberg and his group were inclined to equate Psychotechnics with Practical psychology (Saiz and Saiz, 1998); the growing weight of the American influence upon this European-born association after the war favoured the change, and in 1955 the name for the old association changed from International Association of Psychotechnics to International Association of Applied Psychology (Gundlach, ibid.).

It is clear that a core of questions remained practically unchanged. Some methodological or technical terms kept their values at the same level: 'Method' and 'Study/-ies', indicating a common way of describing the paper-contents. Guidance, school and work psychology, continued to attract research as shown by their topics ('Vocational', 'Guidance', 'School' and 'Work'), while 'Tests' maintained its relevance, as the unrivalled instrument employed by applied psychologists. Related to 'Vocational Guidance' it is to be noted that this term was included in the titles of the first congresses (Geneva, 1920; Barcelona, 1921 and Milan, 1922; the spectrum of interests broadened as new meetings were taking place and new people added to the pioneers.

Let us turn now to the contrasting aspects found.

The pre-War psychotechnics, if we examine the terms which were then in favour, appear to have been centered upon the study of 'aptitudes', especially that of 'intelligence', that psychologists wanted to examine ('examination'), in a 'scientific' way, to carry out a 'selection' process, (or perhaps to make a 'scientific selection'). There is no doubt that this model dominated this early period.

Modern applied psychology, however, turned toward 'personality', the rising theme in psychology; it also stressed the learning approach ('training'), and put more attention on early phases of development, focusing upon the 'child'. It also took into account another rising 'star', the 'group' variable, that had appeared as relevant to many researchers in social problems. Interest in social dimensions of psychotechnics had risen dramatically at the Moscow meeting in 1931, where Spielrein clearly focussed on it and it was also stressed by Piéron in Bern, 1949. The new weight of the 'group' concept is clearly documented; in Murchinson's A Handbook of Social Psychology [1935] the term 'group' appears in only 2 of the 1175 pages, while in Lindzey's Handbook of social psychology (1954), a whole section, 6 chapters, was organized a under the heading 'Group psychology and phenomena of interaction'; it is clear that the foundation of Lewin's Research Center for Group Dynamics (USA), in 1945, had changed the scene from top to bottom.

Moreover, terms such as 'research' and 'problem' seem to have become more attractive in recent times for people writing academic papers, a fact that perhaps all of us would acknowledge as a mode still affecting our own style and rhetorics at the present.

Table no. 11: Most frequent terms in the titles of the papers presented at the congresses (2nd-13th)

A complementary view may be gained when the term-distribution is carried out along the main applied specialities. We will not repeat here what has just been said, but it will be noted that, with regard to specialities, Educational and Work psychology are considered the leaders, while Clinical psychology is practically non-existent. Maybe this fact is indicating that this speciality has to be seen as a completely different kind of application, far removed from the other two. Clinical psychology, although a branch of the applied body of knowledge, in no way may be included in the field of psychotechnics . In the table, the term 'personality' clearly indicates a tendency to assess individuals in a holistic way, that necessarily automatically includes a study of personality.

Another minor question deserves attention. Among the General psychology terms, the importance of the term 'Mental' should be acknowledged. As these proceedings cover four decades (from the 20's to the 50's), the period when behaviorism was at its height in the US. psychology, the high frequency of this term in these papers may be taken as an indicator of their distance from the behaviorist paradigm and also of the peculiarity of applied psychology in those days, a fact that should not be forgotten by historians and professionals.

Closing comments.

From our research it may be seen that 'applied psychology' was born to fulfil a necessity largely felt by society, but it cannot be seen as the mere application of a previously existing theory. Instead, it must be considered as an idiosyncratic way of posing problems and questions, around the mental dimensions operating in person-situation interactions.

We would now merely like to point out the main traits that in my view may serve to characterize the Psychotechnological approach .

When looking at applied psychology from the point of view of its intellectual meaning, some idiosyncratic traits are to be acknowledged.

1. Its main objective has always been the study of human subjects behaving in concrete situations (business, schools, hospitals, traffic... ) as conscious and purposeful agents.
2. The entire life cycle has been taken into account, and age always appears as a central factor in these studies.
3. Everywhere social and historical factors have been acknowledged as playing a large role in explaining behavior.
4. The need for practical results, and useful interventions have always been well above theoretical orthodoxies.

In a certain sense, applied psychology should be considered more as a theoretical position of its own, with its specific characteristics, and also with its potentiality, well rooted in a personalistic and humanistic views, and open to the real world.

On its 80th anniversary, the IAAP must become conscious of the human roots of its own enterprise, furthering that inspiration that has been kept alive under so many tragic circumstances thanks to the effort of so many devoted, courageous and valiant people, that have fought to put psychology at the service of human life.

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