Walter Dill Scott: biography of this psychologist from the corporate world

Walter Dill Scott was an American psychologist that he made many contributions to applied psychology, especially in the industrial area. As his biography shows us, Dill Scott laid many of the psychological foundations of current advertising and human resources principles.

Below you will find the biography of Walter Dill Scott, one of the first to recognize and apply principles of psychology in business. The latter in relation to advertising, as he considered the latter to be the "nervous system" of the business world.

• Related article: "History of Psychology: main authors and theories"

Who was Walter Dill Scott? Biography of a pioneer in applied psychology

Walter Dill Scott (1869-1995) was born in Cooksville, Illinois. His training at Northwestern University was in the artistic and educational area. Later he moved to Germany to study psychology under the tutelage of Wilhelm Wundt at the University of Leipzig, where he received a doctorate degree in philosophy in psychology and education in the year 1900.

With this degree he returned to the Northwestern University School of Psychology as a professor, laboratory director and later head of the department. He was also a professor of advertising and applied psychology at the School of Commerce.

Along with several of his colleagues, Walter Dill Scott believed that the advertising field had a great future. Thus, in 1903, he published together with other authors the first book that had as its theme advertising in relation to psychology: The theory and Practice of Advertising (Theory and practice of advertising).

From psychology to advertising

Walter Dill Scott was not only interested in psychology, but in world affairs and had a broad understanding of history. This, together with his general orientation in culture, allowed him to see the possibilities of advertising as a popular educational force, which little by little led him to define some standards of truthfulness and effectiveness.

He soon realized that advertising could exert changes in the mind, thereby, the laws governing the mind should be taken into account to determine if an ad will be effective or not. In other words, he suggested that advertising has psychological components that can be exploited.

Also, as Dill Scott analyzed commercials, he realized that many of them were poorly made. From there he began to wonder how he could improve them, and one of the conclusions he reached was that the first thing was to select suitably qualified people to prepare the ads.

In other words, beyond the essential qualities of effective advertising, Dill Scott he began to consider the qualities necessary for a successful salesperson. Thus, he quickly became the number one authority in the field of advertising psychology and in the selection and management of human resources.

In turn, advertising and personnel management were positioned as two key elements for the business field, thus opening a very important door for applied psychology.

• Related article: "7 keys of Psychology applied to Marketing and Advertising"

Contributions for the management and selection of personnel

Between 1908 and 1915 Walter Dill Scott conducted a vendor selection study for the American Tobacco Company. His intention was to develop and test criteria for a systematic selection of sellers.

For this, he started by observe closely how the interviewees who were in charge of hiring the staff operated. He soon realized that they were using a simple method that he described as "give or take", thus, they did not provide him with the information he needed.

So Scott began to directly examine and analyze the qualities of the company's most successful salespeople. Afterward, he discussed these qualities with his research team and with company interviewers. This allowed him to train interviewers on how to determine if applicants met the desired qualities.

Finally, Scott and his team oversaw the application of his approach until it was fully demonstrated that the interviewers were effectively selecting salespeople. The result was very important to the company, prompting Scott to acquire more tasks in personnel evaluation and management within the same company, and later in others.

• You may be interested: "Work and organizational psychology: a profession with a future"

Important works

Some of Walter Dill Scott's classics, which were published between 1903 and 1917, are: Increasing Human Efficiency In Business: A Contribution to the Psychology of Business (Increasing Human Efficiency in Business: A Contribution to Business Psychology), Influencing Men in Business (Influencing men in business), Aids in Selecting Salesmen (Aids for the selection of sellers), and the article Psychology of Advertising (Psychology of advertising).

Other books that were published later and that have had a lot of impact in the field of business and advertising are Personnel Management (Personnel management) and Science and Common Sense in Working With Men (Science and common sense in working with men).

Bibliographic references:

• Northwestern University Archives (2009). Walter Dill Scott. Retrieved May 14, 2018. Available in http://exhibits.library.northwestern.edu/archives/exhibits/presidents/scott.html
• Jacobson, J.Z. (1951). Scott of Northwestern. The life of a pioneer in psychology and education. Retrieved May 14, 2018. Available in http://www.angelfire.com/biz/pottershouse/bio-w-d-scott-book001index.html