Story of Psychology - Morton Hunt [402]
That pertains to product design, but applied psychology takes many other forms and exerts many other influences on society and everyday life. We have already seen a number of early applications of basic psychological research and theory to practical ends, among them:
—intelligence testing by the Army in the two world wars to screen out unfit draftees;
—intelligence and ability testing by many schools throughout the nation in order to group children in classes according to their ability to learn;
—the use of perception principles in the testing of candidates for pilot training by the Army Air Corps in World War II;
—the citing by the Supreme Court of psychological research findings in its momentous Brown v. Board of Education decision, and the resulting integration of public schools;
—the education of parents, through the popular media and other means, in the normal stages of child development and the kinds of parent behavior that most benefit the child at each stage;
—and, of course, all the forms of psychotherapy and their huge impact on the mental health and behavior of Americans. And on their physical health: A number of studies have shown that people who make heavy use of medical services reduce that use by as much as a third after mental health treatment.6
These are only a few of the ways in which psychological knowledge has been applied over the past century. In recent decades the field has burgeoned. Clinical and other applied psychologists now make up well over half the total membership of the American Psychological Association and probably at least that proportion of nonmember psychologists, and American society is profoundly influenced by their work in the following (and many other) ways:
—Each year, the plans of 1.5 million high school seniors are determined in large part by their scores on SATs (formerly known as Scholastic Aptitude Tests) and over 1 million by their scores on ACTs (American College Testing), both designed by educational psychologists; many schools do not even consider for admission those who score below some cutoff point.
—The hiring of millions of people for positions ranging from assembly-line jobs to managerial posts is governed in considerable part by their scores on tests of intelligence, aptitude, honesty, and personality traits.
—As a people, we spend billions of dollars each year to improve our performance at work, in sports, and in personal relationships through various forms of training, many based on psychological findings.
—A multibillion-dollar flood of TV and radio commercials and print-media advertisements significantly influences our tastes, purchases, everyday behavior, and voting preferences. Much of that communication uses techniques of persuasion recommended by psychological consultants (or, to call them by the disquieting term now used by some textbooks of applied psychology, “compliance professionals”).
—Countless products, appliances, gadgets, medications, food supplements, books and magazines, insurance programs—and so on and on—that we buy and use have been partly or wholly designed in accordance with psychological research about our preferences (or in many cases susceptibilities) or the preferences of particular age groups, racial groups, gender, and other criteria.
All of which raises the question: Does applied psychology use scientific knowledge to better the human condition, or misuse it for selfish goals and at considerable cost to its targets?
It does both, of course. All scientific knowledge can serve good ends or bad ones, often both at the same time. The norms and structure of each society determine which choice or mixture of choices prevails. For example, American society, by richly rewarding the healing of the ill and the postponement of death, has fostered the development of such measures as respirators and devices to maintain nutrition and hydration,