INDUSTRY fi BUSINESS
Psychological tests winning adherents Companies are hesitant because of 1984 overtones but they acknowledge testing helps them spot and foster talent A number of companies, including Allied, Celanese, Dow, and Olin Mathieson, are studying how best to develop the psychological testing practices now used in divisions into corporate wide programs to aid in hiring and promoting managerial people. Most companies hesitate to pinpoint when such testing will blossom into larger programs. Some foresee progress within a year. Still others, including Monsanto and Union Carbide, are presently limiting psychological testing to higher staff levels. On the other side of the fence, American Cyanamid, Rohm and Haas, and W. R. Grace & Co. say they have no intention of using psychological tests. Indeed some chemical companies are so nervous about the sensitive topic of psychological testing, with its 1984 overtones, that they will not say what their plans may be in this area. One major drug company doesn't want to be identified as even thinking about it. Du Pont purposely avoids the term psychological testing in favor of "projective techniques/' Whatever the apprehensions, chemical company personnel directors are viewing psychological testing with a clearer understanding of its proper role in evaluating technical and managerial people. Chemical companies are becoming more receptive to the use of psychological testing to help effectively place corporate people in the most appropriate positions. To what extent testing contributes to improving the working relationships of employees and, thus, the company's total operations is difficult to measure. Those companies which use testing, however, agree that the test results are a valuable assist in developing a strong management. During the next few years, many more chemical companies are likely to include psychological testing in their corporate personnel programs. Some of the reasons: • Competition for talented executives in the 35-to-45-year-old age group is encouraging managers to move more frequently from one company to another. Lacking close association with the applicants, companies find that psychological testing helps get more immediate appraisals of the candidates. 26 C&EN OCT. 2, 1967
• The same shortage is forcing companies to scrutinize their own people for hidden talent, to use psychological testing to spot weaknesses, and to follow up with counseling to strengthen those individuals. • The success with which today's clinical psychologists are understanding human behavior in the industrial setting is cloaking psychological testing with a more realistic and attractive image.
written tests coupled with interviews. Written test batteries contain various groupings of specific tests, each designed to probe into certain areas of the individual. The tests question the examinee about personal preferences, word associations, areas of interest, judgments, and values. When scored, his answers to the many hundreds of interrelated questions give a profile which can then be related to the requirements of a particular job.
INTERVIEW. Dr. Richard G. Kopff (left) of Psychological Corp. conducts interview with applicant for managerial post at a client company. Psychological Corp. is one of many private firms that offer psychological testing services to industry
Various options are open to companies that decide to use psychological testing. They might, for example, maintain their own staff of psychologists. They might contract with a private testing firm. (The private firms typically charge about $250 for an evaluation at the vice presidential level.) One such testing company, Klein Institute for Aptitude Testing, Inc., in New York City, supplies batteries of written tests which the company administers and returns to the testing firm for evaluation. Other firms such as Psychological Corp., also in New York City, base evaluations on
Whatever the approach to psychological testing, companies must appreciate the innate resistance of employees to being "psyched out." Quite often, this resistance is based on lack of understanding between the companies and those being tested. To ensure more willing cooperation from employees, companies must be candid in explaining to them what the testing program means. Those that use testing report that people participate more freely when they know that the test results will be handled professionally and that the individual tested will be told some of the conclusions.
Although many people look forward to learning something more about themselves, there are skeptics. William H. Whyte, Jr., for example, in his 1956 book "The Organization Man," refers to psychological testing as "curious inquisitions into the psyche." He even offers hints on how to cheat on what were then called personality tests. So, companies must establish for themselves answers to the same questions which the examinees are asking. What is the real objective of psychological testing? How will the test results be weighed in an evaluation? Will the results be discussed in a followup counseling session? Are psychological tests sufficiently validated? The present practice of psychological testing in chemical companies elaborates on these four points. Real objective. Psychologists in professional testing firms or in the companies are guided by the real objective of evaluating an individual in terms of actual job requirements. Written tests and skilled interviews are designed to correlate an individual's set of aptitudes, attitudes, intelligence, interests, motivation, and personality with the demands of the existing position. "The more clearly a company defines and describes the requirements for a job, the more reliable testing becomes in relating a man to that position," says Charles K. Rudman, president of Klein Institute for Aptitude Testing, Inc. The institute probes for such job information in a five-page questionnaire, which client companies, including many chemical producers, must submit along with each completed psychological aptitude test battery. Some of the broader questions which the companies must answer involve the extent to which the candidate will formulate policies and procedures, analyze complex problems, and follow precedents. Allied Chemical vice president Albert F. Watters says: "When a position requires managerial and directive ability, psychological testing is particularly important in selecting someone who will establish the best employeremployee relationship. As people act and react in a corporate life more complex than ever before, anything which contributes to better communications and understanding must be recognized." Olin Mathieson is conducting a newly organized program of two-day seminars to strengthen the quality of psychological testing as an aid in selecting men for divisional positions. Dr. Stanley R. Acker, the company's consultant for behavioral science applications, is leading seminars this month in New Orleans and Chicago with personnel directors and line managers. He hopes to improve the use
and interpretation of tests and establish their validity throughout the divisions. "Personnel selection assisted by sound testing practices is everyone's concern," Dr. Acker says. Psychologists and personnel men agree that the weight given to a job applicant's test results must be balanced with his achievement record, reference checks, and his conduct throughout the company interviews. Celanese vice president of personnel John Turbidy points out that in the company's 10 years' experience with psychological testing, different hiring and promotion cases have demanded a flexibility in weighing the test results. He cautions personnel directors against leaning too heavily on the crutch of numerical test results in making their hiring decisions. Along the same line, Dr. Henry H. Morgan, assistant director of the industrial services division of Psychological Corp., says: "Even when the psychologist's evaluation combines written test results with a trained psychologist's interview, the balanced conclusions are offered only to assist the company management in making their own decision." Moreover, the test results must be viewed in perspective with any more job-related tests an executive may take, says Cecil North, Jr., principal at McKinsey & Co., Inc., management consultants. "In-basket" tests are an example. They simulate the actual problems which a manager daily encounters in going through incoming reports and other correspondence. His decisions in such a test will be a more direct measure than psychological testing of his performance level. Followup counseling. Advising the individual with conclusions from his test results is a valuable and necessary feedback. But many believe it is best that it be done by a skilled psychologist. The practice of advising individuals is not yet standard, but the idea is developing into even larger followup counseling sessions. Psychologists are working as management consultants in the evaluation and personal development of companies' line and staff managers. One such program is conducted for Hercules, Inc., by Dr. James N. Farr, who refers to his New York City-based group of seven clinical psychologists as psychological consultants to management. It is available to about 60 managers and supervisors as part of Hercules' internal development counseling program. He evaluates men with written tests and depth interviews and follows up by discussing the results with the man confidentially for his own benefit. But not all chemical companies and their personnel managers are sold on
psychological testing. For instance, there is Union Carbide's C. R. Keeney, manager of industrial relations of the chemicals and plastics division. He questions the validity of written tests which lead to evaluations inconsistent with the individual as he is known through association or depth interviewing. Even when the test is validated against company or national norms, erroneously high or low scores are possible in individual cases, Mr. Keeney adds. In answering these questions on test validity, Klein Institute's Mr. Rudman points out that the conclusions the psychologists offer the companies are statements of the most probable outcome of fitting a man into a particular position. The established norms are only guidelines within which exceptions exist for many reasons. Prof. Raymond B. Cattell, director of the Laboratory of Personality As-
TEST. A psychologist will later evaluate this job applicant's answers to written psychological test
sessment at the University of Illinois, Champaign, compares the limitations of psychological testing to those of physical science. "Modern scientists already are compelled to accept the Heisenberg indeterminacy principle, admitting that in observing the smallest particles, the usual predictive principles break down. Probably, psychology will come to similar frontiers where the laws which hold over large familiar domains will also break down. But until the young science of psychology reaches such frontiers, psychologists will continue to believe in orderly cause and effect." OCT. 2, 1967 C&EN
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