History of Industrial/Organizational Psychology in Europe and the United Kingdom

Jesús F. Salgado

This article is about the history of work and organizational (W/O) psychology, as it is called in Europe; it is also known as industrial/organizational (I/O) psychology in the United States. To correctly interpret this historical account of W/O psychology in Europe, it should be taken into account that our discipline had and has different names, depending on the authors and countries. For example, the following names were used as synonyms: industrial psychology, occupational psychology, personnel psychology, work psychology, organizational psychology, psychotechnics, employment psychology, ergology, and even applied psychology. This article offers a chronological summary of the European milestones in the creation and consolidation of W/O psychology as a scientific discipline. In this sense I will arbitrarily divide the history into three periods: 1900 to 1945, 1946 to 1980, and from 1981 to the present. It is frequently stated that the German psychologist Hugo Münsterberg is the founding father of industrial, ...

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