Morris S. Viteles

December 7, 1996, is a day for I/O psychologists to commemorate. On that day, Morris S. Viteles died at a retirement community in Medford, NJ, at the age of 98, having been born in Russia on March 21, 1898. His family emigrated to England soon after he was born, and then, in 1904, to the USA.

Viteles was highly regarded in the field, as evidence by appellations such as "Pioneer in Industrial Psychology and Vocational Guidance," "Father of I/O," and "Model Scientist/Practitioner." Following are some of the reasons for these honorific titles:

1. Early in his undergraduate studies (as a history major) and as a graduate student in psychology at the University of Pennsylvania, he developed a keen and abiding interest in individual differences, psychological measurement, and vocational testing. Trained in clinical psychology under Lightner Witmer, Viteles started a Vocational Guidance Clinic as part of the Psychological Clinic at Penn.

2. His affiliation with the psychology department at Penn began in 1918 as an assistant and lasted throughout most of his career. During that time, he taught undergraduate and graduate courses in vocational testing and industrial psychology, including a course for business students at the Wharton School. Throughout his long teaching career, he exposed thousands of students to the basic concepts of industrial psychology and also served as mentor for many graduate students whose later careers exemplified his orientation. For the last five years prior to his retirement in 1968, Viteles acceded to the request of Penn's administration that he take over the deanship of its School of Education. Penn later awarded him an honorary LL.D.

3. After several years of annual summaries of the literature on industrial psychology for the Psychological Bulletin, in 1932 at the age of 34, Viteles published Industrial Psychology. This monumental book not only established him as a leader in the field, but also helped define the growing field. So influential was the book that some people later regarded him as the founder of the field, but Viteles himself credited Hugo Mnsterberg with that role. Nevertheless, Industrial Psychology continued to be considered the "Bible of Industrial Psychology" for many years. When Viteles planned to update it after World War II, he began by revising the original 15 pages on "Motivation in Industry" and ended up with a new 500-page volume in 1953 entitled Motivation and Morale in Industry. That book became another "Bible" in its subject.

4. Soon after receiving his Ph.D., Viteles became involved in consulting with business and industry, among the first being the Milwaukee Electric Railway and Light Company. In so doing, he anticipated the 1949 APA Boulder Conference concept of Scientist/Practitioner and throughout his career maintained a strict adherence to the need for practice to be based on appropriate theory and research. In a 1972 article in the American Psychologist, entitled "Psychology Today: Fact or Foible," he strongly espoused the need for basing practice and theory upon adequate research and warned that psychology seemed to be having lapses in that orientation.

5. His own practitioner role was a model. Not only did he engage in careful research and application in the "real world," but he published his findings in both practitioner and scientific journals. The success of his consulting roles is evidenced by the scope and duration of his consulting relationships. For example:

1924-1961 Yellow Cab Company.

1927-1964 Philadelphia Electric Company, where he served as

part-time Director of Selection and Training

1930s & 1940s Technical Board of the U.S. Employment Service

where he helped develop the USES Job Classification System

1942-1951 National Research Council Committee on Aviation Psychology where, among other activities, he monitored a series of studies on pilot training and helped develop the Standard Flights for pilot evaluation, as well as serving as the chairman of the committee supporting a wide range of research relevant to the war effort.

1942-1951 National Defense Research Committee, involving studies of training and safety in naval settings.

1951-1984 Bell Telephone Co. of Philadelphia, where he

sponsored a management development program based on the need for "humanistic education" of managers. During the 1950's, nearly 140 members of the managerial staffs of Bell System companies spent a full year at Penn devoted entirely to the humanities, including history, science, philosophy, and the arts. As was typical of him, Viteles evaluated the program through use of control groups and follow-ups which demonstrated that the experience resulted in long-term change in attitudes and managerial effectiveness.

6. Viteles had an important impact not only on American psychology but also in international circles. In the 1950s, he was a leader in the founding of the International Association of Applied Psychology, serving as the first American president from 1958 to 1968. He was an international spokesman through his publications and participation in international meetings and was a prime agent in facilitating the flow of information and interaction between American psychologists and those in other parts of the world, particularly England, France, Germany, Italy, Russia, and Spain.

In recognition of his distinguished contributions, the American Psychological Foundation in 1988 granted him its Psychological Professional Gold Medal Award.

There is much more one could say about Viteles, but who could say it better than Morris himself? He wrote two autobiographies that are remarkably insightful, namely: Viteles, M. S. (1967). Morris S. Viteles. In E. G. Boring & G. Lindzey (Eds.) A history of psychology in autobiography (Vol. 5, pp. 417-500). New York: Appleton-Century-Crofts.

Viteles, M.S. (1974). Industrial psychology: Reminiscences of an academic moonlighter. In T. Krawiec (Ed.) The psychologists (Vol. 2, pp. 441-500). New York: Oxford University Press.

Each of them not only deals with Viteles as a person and as a psychologist, but also serves to provide valuable information about the development of psychology as a science and profession.

Albert S. Thompson