Knowledge that Transforms

In this paper I shall endeavor to discuss some by-products of recent psychological reflection and research in so far as they relate to vocational guidance.It is not expected that these will be of more than suggestive value."What Can Psychology Contribute to Vocational Guidance?" would be a theme for a volume.It would include all the applications of mental tests of all kinds, tests of skill, etc., to vocational problems.But there is a field within the province of psychology which, compared with this field of intellectual tests, etc., has been given slight attention in a really scientific way, but which may prove to be as important if not more so than any other.This is the psychology of interests, motives, sentiments, emotions, will-what is often called the "character" side of mental life as distinguished from the "intellectual."It is not necessary to explain in detail the nature of this distinction-which is an important one even though we have given up the old idea of separate departments of "faculties" of mind.Roughly, for our purpose, the one field includes the various habits of manipulation (skill), language and other symbolic habits (intelligence), and of sensory impression, all of which habits are of significance not as individual habits, but through the abilities which result from them, which can be measured by tests.The other field, which is our present subject of discussion, includes the emotional reactions, among them satisfaction and annoyance, with their connections to various stimuli.What is of significance here is not so much measureable abilities resulting from them, but the habits themselves-that is, the strength of the various emotional reactions and the nature of the stimuli to which they have become attached.