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systematically ignored. Such is the case, for example, in the very elegant research by Gibson & Walk (1966) on young children’s void perception, or even in the highly successful research by Witkin (1959) on the resolution of perceptual conflicts. Looking into individual differences, in order to t ry and explain them, and also using them as a basis for actual decisions, is a very central concern for all fields of applied psychology, although it is seen as a nuisance by experimentalists.

We should therefore be grateful to Dr Schonpflug for proving so con- vincingly that “applied psychology is not an offspring of basic psychology”. I am, however, much less optimistic than he seems to be about integration between the two approaches. The strategy he suggests is based on a very elegant methodological speculation: first a ‘pure’ model, then a more holistic one that, finally, is applied within a systemic frame of reference. I am afraid, however, that it is not realistic, because we do apply vaguely defined concepts: cognitive psychologists still discuss what intelligence is, when applied psychologists have been measuring it for decades. And because, as I have tried to show, new issues appear in real life and then attract the ‘basic’ psychologists’ interest.

If we wish to try and integrate applied and basic psychology, we should rather take the point of view of an organisational development psycho- logist, and try to gain a better understanding of the values conflict and role differences between psychologists involved in application and scholars involved in basic research.

REFERENCES Gibson. J E , & Walk, R D (1966). The visual cliff Scirnnfic Amencan. 202, 64-71 Witkin. H A (1959) The percept ion of the upnght. Scienrific American. 200, 5&56.

The History of Psychology, Applied Psychology, and Professionalisation

Johann Louw, University of Cape Town, South Africa Commentary on “Applied Psychology: Newcomer with a Long

Tradition” by Wolfgang Schonpflug

The comments offered here on Professor Schonpflug’s article are not attempts to contradict his position, but rather attempts to extend some of the issues raised in his invitation to reconstruct the history of the basid applied distinction in psychology. Invariably, however, if I were to address the same topic in the light of the different emphases stressed in my com- ments, a quite different history might emerge.

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The first set of comments refer to the question: Can we speak of an applied psychology? If we define ‘applied’ in terms of theory being logically and chronologically prior to use in practice, then psychology’s status as an applied discipline, and the time at which it reached that status, become quite contentious. The author’s references provide ample evidence of this. Moreover, it becomes extremely difficult to determine which aspects of our current psychological knowledge developed in terms of a search for general laws, or in terms of knowledge that is useful in practice. My im- pression is that most historians of psychology would choose the latter option, and some would say that in most cases theory was actually developed following practical use. The reason for this is not difficult to find. Twentieth century psychology has been dominated by a search for knowledge that is useful in practice-certainly before World War 11, and most likely after the war as well. The way clinical psychologists use know- ledge might be used as an example here: rather than relying on the scientist- practitioner model, they change their practices as a result of on-the-job experiences, discussions with fellow practitioners, and attending training workshops (see for example Barrom, Shadish, & Montgomery, 1988).

Therefore, after reading Sch6npflug’s article (in particular pp. 11-20), and considering previous points, we might have three options to consider. First, we might abandon the notion of ‘applied’ psychology, because so little of the discipline’s knowledge really qualifies for the title. Instead, we use the term practical psychology (I borrow this term from the Dutch psychologist Willem van Hoorn), to indicate that it is knowledge developed in practice. A second option is to retain ‘applied psychology’, as long as it is understood as a kind of shorthand for knowledge we know is not really applied, but consists of a mixture of application, common sense or tacit knowledge, technical know-how, intuition, and maybe more. The third option is that we continue to use the term in the belief that much of psychological knowledge really is applied knowledge, no matter how diffi- cult it is to untangle ‘applied’ from ’basic’ or ‘theoretical’. I believe there is enough historical evidence to justify the first two usages rather than the third.

One may, for example, look at Rose’s work (Rose, 1985, p. 226): “Psychology’s role as an administrative technology cannot be understood as the application of a psychological knowledge of normality, gained through theoretical reflection or laboratory investigation, to a domain of practical problems”. As early as 1969 the Dutch psychologist Snijders had pointed to the conceptual difficulties contained in the notion of applied psychology. Finally Danziger (1990) has argued that there was little transfer of knowledge from ‘basic’ to ‘applied’ psychology before World War 11; if anything, the transfer of knowledge went in the opposite direc- tion. Thus, what is called ‘basic’ research after World War I1 already bears the imprint of ‘applied’ influences. My impression is that my comments on

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applied psychology do not contradict Schonpflug’s analysis, but that he appears to favour the third usage.

My second set of comments are as follows: Schonpflug interprets the history of applied psychology and basic psychology in terms of their rooted- ness in the pragmatic and ontological traditions respectively. These tradi- tions are then traced back at least as far as the ancient Greeks. The question here is whether it is useful or permissible to approach not only the begin- nings of ‘applied’ psychology in this way, but also the history of psychology. It is quite likely that different historiographical preferences are at work here: Schonpflug’s approach places more emphasis on continuity with the past. My own preference is for a more discontinuous view of history. according to which there are sharper breaks in the development of know- ledge. The world in which psychology emerged was qualitatively different from the world(s) that preceded it, and it is the conditions of this world that made a discipline like psychology possible.

Thus we can only speak of psychology in the latter half of the nineteenth century; some would even say that psychology is really a twentieth century phenomenon. Whatever the position about the exact dating of psychology, I believe that to go back to earlier than the latter half of the nineteenth century is a historiographical mistake. I t is an approach that lends itself too easily to a justificationist history of psychology (and of applied psycho- logy of course), in which history serves to justify and legitimate the present state of affairs in the discipline. My guess is that this is not Schonpflug’s intention, but he certainly creates that impression in phrases such as that applied psychology “gradually evolved from the pragmatic tradition” (p. 20) and “the pragmatic and the ontological traditions which have been apart for so long in the past” (p. 23). The lines of descent from the nineteenth to the twentieth century are very difficult to trace, let alone to those prior to 1850. Particularly as far as ‘applied’ psychology is concerned, i t is not at all clear what would be similar in the periods before the twentieth century to allow for extending its development into a ‘long past’.

I n the light of this, is i t not more appropriate to define psychology in terms of the creation of a specialist group, which aimed for monopoly over the production of psychological knowledge, irrespective of it being applied or basic knowledge (see Danziger, 1979)? The production of knowledge that is designated as ‘psychological’, and the creation of a group of experts in that knowledge domain, obviously go hand-in-hand. If this is where we have to look for the origins of psychology in its theoretical as well as its practical self-representation, a consideration of the discipline’s pro- fessionalisation deserves serious attention. My final comments are addressed to this issue.

Schonpflug says (on p. 13) that “before the end of the 19th century, there was no attempt of a conception for an applied discipline of psycho-

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logy”, and refers to matters such as training, communication, evaluation, and education. Again, a different historiographical preference might be operating here: these matters are not “psychological issues” as he calls them. These issues emerge as problems within a particular kind of society, and as such, pre-date psychology. In fact, on p. 14 he provides evidence of this by referring to the tasks of selection, placement, and training in large organisations. Nothing makes them intrinsically psychological issues: they were transformed into tasks for psychologists by the self-conscious efforts of a new group of knowledge experts in the professional market. Professionalisation always implies competition for tasks; tasks that are claimed by other professions as well. In this competitive professional market tasks would be claimed for psychology, and the appliedhasic dis- tinction was a powerful professional ideology in this regard: applied psychology could claim to be scientific, and basic psychology could claim to be socially relevant. Here we are in complete agreement, as Schijnpflug points out that the two stage model might be a fiction rather than a reality in psychology (also p. 24).

The point here is that it is exactly this process that led to the abandon- ment of basic theory in psychology. In the competition to make certain knowledge domains and tasks exclusively psychological ones, psychologists developed knowledge that was largely practice-driven. But the practices were of the twentieth century: at best they had very tenuous links with what went on before. As a result, what became known as ‘applied psycho- logy’, was exactly the kind of mixture I referred to earlier. In this, my position might be more similar to Westmeyer’s, quoted on p. 25. Further- more, psychology’s future (see p. 23) cannot be read off from an extra- polation of the “longlasting historical tendencies”; it is to be found in how well the discipline tailors and justifies its knowledge products to the demands of a late-modem society, to use Anthony Giddens’ term.

REFERENCES Barrom, C.B. , Shadish, W.R., & Montgomery, L.M. (1988). PhDs, PsyDs, and real-world

constraints on scholarly activity: Another look at the Boulder model. Professional Psycho- logy: Rcscarch and Pracricc, 19, 9S101.

Danziger, K . (1979). The social ongins of modem psychology. In A . R . Buss (Ed.) , Psycho- logy in Social Conicxi (pp. 27-45). New York: Irvington.

Danziger. K . (1990, July). Thc ouronomy of applied psychology. Papcr presented at the 22nd International Congress of Applied Psychology in Kyoto, Japan.

Rose, N . (1985). The psychologicd complex. London: Routledge KL Kegan Paul. Snijders, J.T. (1969). Interaction of theory and practice. Ncdcrlands Tijdschrifi woor de

Psychologic, 24, 1-10,