The History Corner: The First TIP

One of my primary objectives as SIOP historian was to make all previous issues of TIP available to anyone who is interested in studying the history of I-O psychology. Examining the OhioLINK database, a consortium of Ohio college and university libraries, revealed library holdings for TIP were spotty at best. I felt, therefore, that it was critical we preserve this important historical record and make it widely available for research. At the beginning of this endeavor, I met with Dave Nershi and Lori Peake at the SIOP headquarters in Bowling Green, Ohio. I was delighted to find that they held what appeared to be an almost complete collection of TIPs—dating back to June 1964. I say “almost complete” because there appeared to be one missing issue: Volume 10, #3 (1973). When I discovered that this issue was also missing from the BGSU psychology collection donated by Pat Smith, Bob Guion, and George Thornton III, I sent an e-mail to all SIOP Fellows in hopes of tracking it down. José Cortina informed me that he was only 5-years old in 1973 and had not yet begun a subscription to TIP. Chuck Lance suggested that this might just be the 1909-S VDB penny of TIPs (I think I know what he meant). Paul Thayer and Leaetta Hough both suggested that I might consider the possibility that there never was a #3 in 1973. I finally gave up my search when Lizette Royer, research assistant of the Archives of the History of American Psychology (Akron, Ohio), was unable to locate it.

To date, my research assistant Kevin Nolan has tirelessly scanned and archived TIPs and is near completion of the first 30 years (SIOP already has digital copies beginning in 1995). Each issue will be in PDF format and will have a searchable table of contents. The PDF files will be available via a link on the SIOP Web site. The good folks at SIOP headquarters will work on making these available within the next couple of months.

The first TIP was published in June 1964. The editor, Robert Perloff, noted that one guiding principle was that the “newsletter” not be in competition with technical publications. Instead, the purpose was to express “problems and aims of industrial psychologists in their roles professionally as psychologists” (p. 4). In the President’s Message, S. Rains Wallace commented that the newsletter was a long-needed mechanism for the exchange of problems industrial psychologists face as professionals and scientists. Perloff noted that Division 14 members have historically done less of this type of social exchange, relative to other APA divisions.

The first TIP included the proceedings of the Executive Committee Meeting (January 17–18, 1964), showing that Division 14 was concerned with these still familiar issues:

Licensing traveling consultants
Proper training of industrial psychologists
Communicating to management the meaning of a degree in industrial psychology
Movement of academics away from psychology departments to business schools

Scanning the contents of the first TIP also reveals increasing interest in equal employment opportunities, use of sensitivity training/t-groups, “electronic computers” in psychology, and creativity. Announcements included the following:

Establishment of the James McKeen Cattell Award for applying basic science to business problems
Eleventh Bingham Memorial Lecture by Norman Mackworth of Harvard
XVth International Congress of Applied Psychology with American participants Morris Viteles, Stanley Seashore, Donald Super, and others
Iowa State University to offer PhD in industrial psychology
LIAMA Research Planning Conference

Mortimer Feinberg of the Baruch School summarized a study conducted on biographical predictors of job success of newsboys. Daniel Glasner of Eli Lilly and Company contributed an essay on the advantages and disadvantages of the internal (vs. external) consulting role. This first issue of TIP came in at a mere 14 pages—a far cry from the 220 pager published in January 2006.

I hope this has whetted your appetite to delve into old issues of TIP and to learn how our field has evolved and/or remained constant over the last 40 years. I am grateful to everyone who has contributed to the TIP history project. And, by god, please let me know if you know the story of Volume 10, #3!