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In praise of contemporary occupational psychology: a response to Kwiatkowski, Duncan and Shimmin.

Article Excerpt
As Henry Ford famously observed, 'History is more or less bunk'. In making claims about the neglect of the history of occupational psychology this polemic by Kwiatkowski, Duncan and Shimmin (2006) runs two major risks. First, it can present a partial and unduly positive picture of that history and secondly, it can paint an unrealistically negative picture of the situation today. While I welcome a reminder of the dangers of reinventing the wheel, I believe this paper falls into both these traps.

Let us start with the history. There can be no doubt that the National Institute of Industrial Psychology (NIIP) undertook pioneering work. As the first in its field, it could hardly do otherwise. However, there must be some doubt about the lasting significance of that work. Indeed, as in most histories, it is possible to present a rather different version. We need look no further than the work of one of the authors of this piece, the late Sylvia Shimmin. Kwiatkowski, Duncan and Shimmin (hereafter KD&S) praise the early NIIP for its avoidance of the influence of experimental laboratory research. Yet in the opening chapter of their book, Fifty Years of Occupational Psychology, Shimmin and Wallis (1994) write about the NIIP and cite the report of a visit by the American psychologist Viteles in 1922 and quote him as being impressed by 'the persistent effort on the part of industrial psychologists to relate what they were doing to basic laboratory research in experimental psychology and to theory' (p. 5). They also note his comment that the Industrial Fatigue Research Board (IFRB) was expected to carry out the more systematic survey and research work, while the NIIP sought to apply the findings in industry. Yet despite its pioneering work, the IFRB was almost shut down soon after the First World War and even after it was saved and renamed the Industrial Health Research Board, it remained under threat into the 1930s. Similarly, it is noted that despite the position of influence and the high esteem in which KD&S claim the NIIP was held, it was in constant financial difficulty. They cite an assessment by Elton Mayo, who was invited in 1938 to become director of the NIIP but on a visit was highly critical of the quality of the staff and the 'planlessness' of its work, largely resulting from its dependence on doing work for troubled firms. By implication, there was no accumulation of...

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