Skip to main content
SpringerLink
Log in
Book cover

The Palgrave Handbook of Management History pp 1–15Cite as

Palgrave Macmillan

Organizational Psychology’s Golden Age, 1940–1970

  • Living reference work entry
  • First Online:

  • 227 Accesses

Abstract

The purpose of this chapter is to discuss organizational psychology in the mid-twentieth century Britain. This chapter explores why organizational psychology flourished between 1940 and 1970 by tracing the influence of war, social, and cultural factors that made organizations more receptive to the efforts of psychologists to extend their expertise and professionalize the field. It focuses on the work of psychologists for the British military and the Tavistock Institute of Human Relations, which was the most notable group applying psychological theories and methods to the study of organizations in Britain at the time.

This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution.

References

  • (1941) Army misfits. The Times 2

    Google Scholar 

  • (1942) House of commons debate: captain Margesson’s Statement, Hansard, Volume 377, London. https://hansard.parliament.uk/Commons/1942-02-19/debates/51bf3636-3e17-4a1a-82fe-9149621de363/CaptainMargessonSStatement

  • (1944) Personnel selection in the British Army: recruits. Ministry of information. UKY 591, Imperial War Museum, London. https://www.iwm.org.uk/collections/item/object/1060005150

  • (1955) Tavistock Institute: comparative study of three mining systems. Wellcome Library SATIH/B/2/3/1/5, London

    Google Scholar 

  • Ahrenfeldt RH (1958) Psychiatry in the British Army in the second world war. Routledge & K. Paul, London

    Google Scholar 

  • Banerjee A, Cooke B (2012) How human relations got its name: the journal as boundary object. Tavistock Institute of Human Relations, London

    Google Scholar 

  • Banks LMI (1995) The office of strategic services psychological selection program. U.S. Army Command and General Staff College, Fort Leavenworth

    Google Scholar 

  • Bartlett FC (1942) Memorandum for the expert committee on the work of psychologists and psychiatrists in the services: an experiment in validation, CAB 89/25, The National Archives, Kew

    Google Scholar 

  • Bhawuk DPS (2008) Towards an Indian organizational psychology. In: Dalal AK, Paranjpe A, Rao KR (eds) Handbook of Indian psychology. Cambridge University, New Delhi, pp 471–491. Foundation Books

    Chapter  Google Scholar 

  • Bruton E (2013) “Sacrifice of a genius”: Henry Moseley’s role as a signals officer in world war one. Royal Society Television. http://royalsociety.tv/rsPlayer.aspx?presentationid=1145. Accessed 21 Oct 2013

  • Bunn G (2001) Charlie and the chocolate factory: C.S. Myers Memorial Lecture. Psychologist 14:576–579

    Google Scholar 

  • Burnes B, Cooke B (2013) The Tavistock’s 1945 invention of organization development: early British business and management applications of social psychiatry. Bus Hist 55:768–789

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Carpintero H (2017) History of organizational psychology. Oxf Res Encycl Psychol. https://doi.org/10.1093/acrefore/9780190236557.013.39

  • Carson J (1993) Army alpha, army brass, and the search for army intelligence. Isis 84:278–309

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Copp T, McAndrew B (1990) Battle exhaustion: soldiers and psychiatrists in the Canadian Army, 1939–1945. McGill-Queen’s Press – MQUP, Montreal

    Google Scholar 

  • Crang JA (1999) Square pegs and round holes: other rank selection in the British Army, 1939–45. J Soc Army Hist Res 77:293–298

    Google Scholar 

  • Crang JA (2000) The British Army and the People’s war, 1939–1945. Manchester University Press, Manchester

    Google Scholar 

  • Dennis MA (2015) Big science. Encyclopædia Britannica. Online edition, https://www.britannica.com/science/Big-Science-science

  • Diener E (2006) Introduction to the special section: professional issues in psychological science and a discussion of collaboration indicators. Perspect Psychol Sci 1:312–315

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Drucker P (2016) People and performance. Taylor & Francis Group, Routledge, London

    Google Scholar 

  • Edwards P (2016) Human relations: the first 10 years, 1947–1956. Hum Relat. https://doi.org/10.1177/0018726716635058

  • English A (1992) Canadian psychologists and the aerodrome of democracy. Can Psychol 33:663–674

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Featherman DL, Vinovskis MA (eds) (2001) Social science and policy-making: a search for relevance in the twentieth century. University of Michigan Press, Ann Arbor

    Google Scholar 

  • Field GG (2011a) Blood, sweat, and toil: remaking the British working class, 1939–1945. Oxford University Press, Oxford

    Book  Google Scholar 

  • Field GG (2011b) A citizens’ Army. In: Remaking the British working class, 1939–1945. Oxford University Press, Oxford, pp 251–297

    Chapter  Google Scholar 

  • French D (2001) Raising Churchill’s army. Oxford University Press, Oxford

    Book  Google Scholar 

  • Gale EAM (2004) The Hawthorne studies – a fable for our times? QJM 97:439–449. https://doi.org/10.1093/qjmed/hch070

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Gillespie R (1993) Manufacturing knowledge: a history of the Hawthorne experiments. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge

    Google Scholar 

  • Guillén MF (1994) Models of management: work, authority and organization in a comparative perspective. University of Chicago Press, Chicago

    Google Scholar 

  • Haig BD, Marie D (2012) New Zealand. In: Baker DB (ed) The Oxford handbook of the history of psychology: global perspectives. Oxford University Press, Oxford, pp 377–394

    Google Scholar 

  • Hickson PDJ, Pugh PDS (2012) Great writers on organizations, 3rd Omnibus edition. Gower Publishing, Ashgate – Aldershot

    Google Scholar 

  • House JS (2008) Social psychology, social science, and economics: twentieth century progress and problems, twenty-first century prospects. Soc Psychol Q 71:232–256

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Jaques E (2013) The changing culture of a factory. Routledge, London

    Book  Google Scholar 

  • Jex SM (2002) Organizational psychology: a scientist-practitioner approach. Wiley, Hoboken

    Google Scholar 

  • Jones E, Rahman S (2009) The Maudsley Hospital and the Rockefeller Foundation: the impact of philanthropy on research and training. J Hist Med Allied Sci 64:273–299

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Karwowski W (2006) International encyclopedia of ergonomics and human factors, 2nd edn, 3 volume set. CRC Press, Boca Raton

    Google Scholar 

  • Katzell RA, Austin JT (1992) From then to now: the development of industrial-organizational psychology in the United States. J Appl Psychol 77:803–835. https://doi.org/10.1037/0021-9010.77.6.803

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • King P (1989) Activities of British psychoanalysts during the second world war and the influence of their inter-disciplinary collaboration on the development of psychoanalysis in Great Britain. Int Rev Hist Psychanal 16:14–33

    Google Scholar 

  • Koppes LL (2014) Historical perspectives in industrial and organizational psychology. Psychology Press, New York

    Google Scholar 

  • Koppes Bryan LL (2012) A history of industrial and organizational psychology. In: Kozlowski SWJ (ed) The Oxford handbook of organizational psychology. Oxford University Press, New York, pp 22–76

    Google Scholar 

  • Kozlowski SWJ (2012) The Oxford handbook of organizational psychology. Oxford University Press, New York

    Book  Google Scholar 

  • Latham GP (2007) Work motivation: history, theory, research, and practice. Sage, Thousand Oaks

    Google Scholar 

  • Midgley G (2001) Systemic intervention: philosophy, methodology, and practice. Springer Science & Business Media, New York

    Google Scholar 

  • Miller EJ (1975) Socio-technical systems in weaving, 1953–1970: a follow-up study. Hum Relat 28:349–386. https://doi.org/10.1177/001872677502800403

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Nixon M, Taft R (2013) Psychology in Australia: achievements & prospects. Elsevier, Sydney

    Google Scholar 

  • Rabinbach A (1992) The human motor: energy, fatigue, and the origins of modernity. University of California Press, Berkeley

    Google Scholar 

  • Rose N, Miller P (2008) Governing the present: administering economic, social and personal life. Polity, Cambridge, UK

    Google Scholar 

  • Takooshian H (2012) Industrial-organizational psychology. In: Rieber RW (ed) Encyclopedia of the history of psychological theories. Springer US, New York, pp 563–566

    Google Scholar 

  • Thalassis N (2004) Treating and preventing trauma: British military psychiatry during the second world war. University of Salford

    Google Scholar 

  • The Editors of Encyclopaedia Britannica (2016) Industrial-organizational psychology. Encyclopædia Britannica

    Google Scholar 

  • Trahair R (2015) Behavior, technology, and organizational development: Eric Trist and the Tavistock Institute. Transaction Publishers, New Brunswick

    Google Scholar 

  • Triandis HC (1994) Cross-cultural industrial and organizational psychology. In: Dunnette MD, Hough LM, Triandis HC (eds) Handbook of industrial and organizational psychology. Consulting Psychologists Press, Palo Alto, pp 103–172

    Google Scholar 

  • Trist E (2008) “Guilty of Enthusiasm”, from management laureates. In: Bedeian AG (ed) The modern times workplace, vol 3. Jai Press, Greenwich 1993. http://www.moderntimesworkplace.com/archives/ericbio/ericbio.html. Accessed 24 Oct 2012

  • Trist EL, Murray DH (1990) The social engagement of social science: the socio-psychological perspective. Free Association Books, London

    Google Scholar 

  • Ungerson B (1950) Mr Morris on officer selection. Occup Psychol 24:54–57

    Google Scholar 

  • Ussishkin D (2011) The ‘will to work’: industrial management and the question of conduct in inter-war Britain. In: Beers L, Thomas G (eds) Brave new world. School of Advanced Study, University of London, London, pp 91–108

    Google Scholar 

  • Vernon PE, Parry JB (1949) Personnel selection in the British forces. University of London Press, London

    Google Scholar 

  • Vinchur AJ (2018) The early years of industrial and organizational psychology. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge

    Book  Google Scholar 

  • Vinden FH (1977) The introduction of war office selection boards in the British Army: a personal recollection. In: Bond B, Roy I (eds) War and society: a yearbook of military history. Routledge, London

    Google Scholar 

  • Viteles MS (1932) Industrial psychology. W.W. Norton, New York

    Google Scholar 

  • Warr P (2014) Some historical developments in I-O psychology outside the United States. In: Koppes LL (ed) Historical perspectives in industrial and organizational psychology. Psychology Press, New York, pp 81–110

    Google Scholar 

  • Weatherburn M (2019) Human relations’ invented traditions: sociotechnical research and worker motivation at the interwar Rowntree cocoa works. Hum Relat. https://doi.org/10.1177/0018726719846647

  • Webster EC (1988) I/O psychology in Canada: from birth to Couchiching. Can Psychol 29:4–10. https://doi.org/10.1037/h0079757

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • White A (2016) From the science of selection to psychologising civvy street: the Tavistock Group, 1939–1948. PhD, University of Kent, Canterbury

    Google Scholar 

  • Yousuf SMA (1995) Quality of working life as a function of socio-technical system. Mittal Publications, New Delhi

    Google Scholar 

Download references

Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Wellcome Trust, London, UK

    Alice White

Authors
  1. Alice White
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

Corresponding author

Correspondence to Alice White .

Editor information

Editors and Affiliations

  1. Emporia State University, Emporia, USA

    Jeffrey Muldoon

  2. Faculté des Sciences Sociales, Université Laval, Québec, QC, Canada

    Anthony Gould

  3. College of Business, RMIT University, School of Management, Melbourne, VIC, Australia

    Adela McMurray

Rights and permissions

Reprints and permissions

Copyright information

© 2020 The Author(s), under exclusive licence to Springer Nature Switzerland AG

About this entry

Check for updates. Verify currency and authenticity via CrossMark

Cite this entry

White, A. (2020). Organizational Psychology’s Golden Age, 1940–1970. In: Muldoon, J., Gould, A., McMurray, A. (eds) The Palgrave Handbook of Management History. Palgrave Macmillan, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-62348-1_35-1

Download citation

  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-62348-1_35-1

  • Received:

  • Accepted:

  • Published:

  • Publisher Name: Palgrave Macmillan, Cham

  • Print ISBN: 978-3-319-62348-1

  • Online ISBN: 978-3-319-62348-1

  • eBook Packages: Springer Reference Business and ManagementReference Module Humanities and Social SciencesReference Module Business, Economics and Social Sciences

Publish with us

Policies and ethics

Search

Navigation