A History of Personnel Selection and Assessment

Abstract

Abstract This chapter surveys the history of psychology applied to personnel selection and assessment, decade by decade, from approximately 1900 until the present. We begin with contextual factors that led to an applied psychology, along with measurement and statistical innovations that made scientific personnel selection feasible. Among the topics covered are the initial selection forays by psychologists in the early 1900s, the influence of the Carnegie Institute of Technology program, the impact of events such as World War I and II and the Civil Rights Movement on selection research and practice, and the evolution of validation and utility procedures. Finally, we reflect on the more than 100 years of research and practice by psychologists involved in personnel selection and assessment.

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