Walter Dill Scott
American psychologist of advertising and personnel, later university president
American psychologist who studied under Wilhelm Wundt at Leipzig and applied psychology to advertising and personnel selection at Northwestern University. He worked on Army officer selection in the First World War and was Northwestern's president from 1920 to 1939.
Why this person matters
Scott applied psychology to advertising, the selection of salesmen and the classification of military personnel. His career shows how experimental psychology moved from the laboratory into commerce and the military. He worked with colleagues in the Bureau of Salesmanship and in the Army, though the sources name few of them.
Main contributions
Psychology of advertising
He published a book on advertising and psychology in 1903, and The Psychology of Advertising in 1908. Sources differ on the exact titles and on whether the 1903 book had co-authors.
Salesman selection
From 1908 to 1915 he directed a study on selecting salesmen for the American Tobacco Company. From 1916 to 1918 he directed the Bureau of Salesmanship at the Carnegie Institute of Technology.
Army personnel selection
In the First World War he devised a method of selecting officers by scientific means, tested at Fort Myer and approved at the Plattsburg training camp. It was later used for promotions and for placing enlisted men by skill. He was awarded the Distinguished Service Medal in 1919.
Context and limits
The sources used here describe his advertising work and Army method only briefly and do not evaluate them. Applying psychology to persuasion and to ranking people for the military raises questions about manipulation and fairness that these sources do not discuss. They do not explain how the Army method worked or how it related to the Army intelligence testing of the period.
In your introductory course
Applied psychology, work and education.Appears in the history and applied chapters as an early example of industrial and advertising psychology. Students meet the link from Wundt's laboratory to marketing, personnel selection and the military.
Related course reading: Psychology 2e, section 13.1. This is course context rather than a biographical source.
Years of active work
- 1900
Received a doctorate at Leipzig after studying with Wilhelm Wundt, and returned to Northwestern University.
- 1908
Published The Psychology of Advertising.
- 1916
Took leave from Northwestern to direct the Bureau of Salesmanship at Carnegie Institute of Technology.
- 1919
Received the Distinguished Service Medal for his Army work and was discharged as a colonel.
- 1920
Became the tenth president of Northwestern University, serving until 1939.
Sources
- Northwestern University, World War I and Northwestern: peopleUniversity. Institutional biography inspected.
- Psicologia y Mente, Walter Dill Scott: biografia de este psicologo del mundo de la empresaReference work. Reference article inspected.
- Wikipedia, Walter Dill ScottReference work. Reference article inspected.