This article explores some of the thematic, conceptual and symbolic elements that significantly link the contributions of Juan Huarte de San Juan (1529-1588) and Carl Gustav Jung (1875-1961) through an analysis of two fundamental works in the history of differential psychology: The Examination of Men's Wits (1575/1594) and Psychological Types (1921). More than three centuries apart, without any knowledge of each other, the Spanish physician and the Swiss psychologist shared a common concern for classifying and understanding people based on their natural characteristics and dispositions. This curious parallel, which gives a comparative approach to the research, allows us to rediscover the contributions of both authors to an age-old question that is as scientific as it is humanistic
This paper contributes to the discussion of a "turn towards personality" recognised in the history of psychotechnics, through a microhistorical study that touches on larger disciplinary issues of professionalisation, epistemology, and the nature of (psychological) science. I investigate how two psychotechnical institutes in the Netherlands incorporated personality into their testing in the 1920s and 1930s, in their attempts to uncover the deeper personality of their clients. Paying attention to the social and political context in which these institutes operated, I follow their directors, H. J. F. W. Brugmans and D. J. Van Lennep, who approached the topic of personality from different angles. While Brugmans sought to combine inferences about personality with forms of laboratory and performance testing of psychological functions that were common in the 1920s, Van Lennep employed a broader spectrum of tools, including projection tests and intuitive approaches that gained greater popularity during the 1930s. I argue that while these directors began on a professionally amicable basis, Brugmans later denounced Van Lennep's testing practices for being non-scientific. In other words he rejected the way how Van Lennep assessed a person's personality, and, particularly, "character." This case study invites further exploration of how the desire to analyse personality shaped psychotechnical practice and how interest in testing character, understood here as a person's motivations and values, fit into the broader societal and political context
This article provides a second introduction to the monograph. It starts presenting an overview of the rise and fall in the popularity of the term "psychotechnics" and compare it with the development of the field that bears this name. My aim is to emphasize the need to distinguish between the history of the use of the concept and the history of the profession. After that, I outline the social context, characterized by industrialization and a new style of business management, which enabled the development of psychotechnics as a professional psychology and an "applied" science. In two further sections, I briefly present Stern's differential approach and M & uuml;nsterberg's definition and laboratory-based psychotechnical practice. This leads me to conclude that we are dealing with two distinct projects which demonstrate that the field of psychotechnics was never unified
This article lays out the historiographic background to the current monographic issue. It offers an overview and critical assessment of a selection of histories of psychotechnics and applied psychology. After the general historiographic overview, we discuss several interpretations of the psychotechnicians' supposed turn towards personality in the 1930s. We start with Dorsch's defensive-celebratory history that was criticized, in the 1980s, by Marxist historians who argued that psychotechnics was mainly employed in the interests of capital. A decade later, Rabinbach took a broader, historical view on the topic; and shortly after that, Geuter explored the consequences of psychotechnicians' collaboration with the military. Finally, yet another study, by Derksen, brought into question the whole talk of a supposed shift. We observe several shortcomings in these narratives. Instead of building on the previous work, each researcher approaches the topic from their specific historiographical perspective. The results are divergent and contradictory diagnoses with regard to the supposed shift in psychotechnics. Despite the differences, a comparison of the coherence of the accounts and the historians' work with sources is possible. In the final section, we present some of our key findings, which are discussed in greater depth in the remaining six articles of this volume
The Argentine Association of Biotypology, Eugenics and Social Medicine (abbreviation in Spanish: AABEMS), founded in 1932, promoted the idea of an ideal man and woman aligned with the Latin race and the Catholic State, closely following Italian biotypology and psychotechnics. We examine how fascist Italy's frameworks were adapted in Argentina, emphasising the tension between universalist claims and local modifications, particularly regarding women's work. We argue that these adaptations were backgrounded by shared common "Latin" values, Catholicism, and gender hierarchy, producing specific and often contradictory classifications of women's skills and professional roles. By examining this tension, this study highlights the role played by social values in shaping scientific knowledge. It reveals how women occupied ambivalent positions within biotypological institutions as both objects of regulation and participants in the production and dissemination of expertise
Wilhelm Wundt was a "true politician" was the phrase used by the prominent historian of psychology Wolfgang Bringmann to refer to the little-studied facet of the founder of psychology as a parliamentarian in his native Baden and, fifty years later, as an activist in favor of the German Empire at the beginning of World War I. Until now, Wundt's political thinking had been barely noted as anecdotal and circumstantial events with no connection between them, let alone with his philosophical, ethical, cultural, and psychological work. This article used the digital repositories Deutsches Zeitungsportal and Digitalen Sammlungen to analyze media coverage in newspapers of Wundt's debates and political projects in the Baden parliament and later his political activity during World War I. To analyze his political ideas, volumes IX and X of V & ouml;lkerpsychologie, the fourth edition of Ethik (1912), Sinnliche und & uuml;bersinnliche Welt (1914), Die Nationen und ihre Philosophie (1915), and his autobiography Erlebtes und erkanntes (1921) were also consulted. From his time as a young parliamentarian, Wundt viewed German unification under Prussian leadership with skepticism, and in his old age he confirmed this by stating that although Germany enjoyed unprecedented material prosperity in its history, this led to an "excessive desire for profit" like the "flaws" of its enemy nations. Wundt was an outspoken opponent of Kaiser Wilhelm II's colonialist policy, which he considered to be solely in the interests of materialism and detrimental to the cultural and spiritual tasks of the nation. Wundt saw World War I as a "necessary evil" to help Germany recover its former religious and cultural ideals, which had waned after its political unification. Wundt's political thinking once again highlights the debt that his philosophical and psychological project owes to German idealism, especially to Fichte, who postulated cultural and linguistic nationalism to ensure the "immortality" of the German people
In order to clarify the incoherences concerning the supposed historical shift from elementalistic aptitude testing to a holistic appraisal of personality, the present research revolves around the question of how psychotechnicians assessed personality employing a holistic approach. In this study, I use the proceedings of the first three International Conferences of Psychotechnics (1920, 1921, 1922), characterizing their working and aims. Next, I offer a microanalysis of several talks and debates related to personality and holism. A couple of conference presentations promoted holistic physiological research; another, a gestalt approach. During the conferences, personality came also up as a topic in the confrontation with Taylorism. In the final part of the paper, I analyze the social dynamics of the meetings, inserting the talks and debates into the broader, professional and political context. I conclude that an interest in personality and a holistic approach was already part of the conference agenda right from the start (in 1920). The final, nuanced picture that we obtain portrays increasing interest, marked by a series of continuities and discontinuities
The Lithuanian Society for Psychotechnics and Vocational Guidance was an institution that was established in 1931. The university professor and researcher, Jonas Vabalas-Gudaitis, who at the time was the head of the Institute for Experimental Pedagogy and Psychology, was a leading figure in psychological research and the main driving force behind the Society's foundation. In this article, I re-assess and reconstruct some underexplored aspects of the history of psychotechnics in Lithuania, such as the social and political context, the international connections, and the methods devised by the Lithuanian psychotechnicians. In particular, I analyse the role of Vabalas-Gudaitis in order to reveal how the staff of the University of Lithuania engaged in psychotechnical research. I conclude that the psychotechnical activities of the 1920s and 1930s facilitated the development of experimental psychology in Lithuania. Finally, the article wants to increase international awareness about the history of psychotechnical research and practice in this country
This paper analyzes the development of psychotechnics in Italy between the 1920s and 1940s, highlighting how the fascist regime and the hegemony of neo-idealism shaped the discipline. The study demonstrates that during this period, the survival of psychology as a discipline depended on its practical utility, particularly in education, labor organization, and the military contexts. Applications ranged from vocational guidance and worker selection to research on fatigue and efficiency. However, this success came at the expense of theoretical consolidation, producing a "praxis without theory." Italian psychology underwent a profound transformation described as a crisis. This crisis took concrete form in a shift from experimental research to applied practices. Psychotechnics assumed a central role in Italy during the Fascist period, practiced by the two leading figures of psychology at the time: Agostino Gemelli (1878-1959) and Mario Ponzo (1882-1960). Our study highlights the fragmentation within Italian psychology. It reveals how political and philosophical pressures constrained the scientific development of the discipline, confining it within an autarchic framework and isolating it from the theoretical advances occurring in the Anglo-American world.
At Harvard University in the 1930s strong competing forces influenced the history of modern psychology. Scientific progress, institutional prestige, and personal ambitions fought to define academic psychology. Science is a product of minds, explanations of science involve the psychology of scientists, and elements of this struggle are illustrated in the personalities of this conflict. In 1933 James Conant's goal as president was to make Harvard first in research science. Edwin Boring's goal as chairman of the Psychology Department was to make psychology a pure laboratory science. Boring's understanding of scientific psychology was based on 19th century psycho-physiology. This view was challenged by Henry Murray who introduced the latest biological model of science to research personality. Each of them fought for their beliefs and personal ambitions. This conflict marked changes in psychology's institutional identity for the second half of the 20th century.
This paper and its first part (Garcia de Marina et al., 2025) analyze the hypothesis of Durodi & eacute; and Wainwright (2019) that the increase in terrorism and mental health research after the 9/11 attacks was due more to the DSM-IV definition of post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) published in 1994. In this paper, several bibliometric analyses were conducted showing that there was already scientific interest in the effects of terrorism before 1994 and that the growth of publications on terrorism and PTSD was extraordinary after 2001. It is argued that factors such as the magnitude of 9/11, massive funding, the academic context, and the availability of victim records drove this boom. In conclusion, this paper refutes the notion that the 9/11 attacks did not significantly influence the development of the field of psychopathological consequences of terrorism, demonstrating that it was a key turning point.
The Hospitaller Order of Saint John of God (HOSJG) is a religious institution that has been dedicated since its founding in the 16th century to caring for people with both physical and mental illnesses. The purpose of this work is to explain how the experience of psychological and/or spiritual care has been shaped in the genesis of the Order. Consequently, we have analyzed, from a Foucauldian perspective, the first constitutions approved by the institution in 1585. As a result, we have found that psychological and spiritual care is organized around the dignity of the sick and the salvation of souls. The practice of both forms of care constitutes the means through which the lives of the friars are psychologically and spiritually transformed. They also constitute the backbone around which a holistic conception of care is implicitly structured.
