Pegs that Fit

"Pop, what's the difference between a riveter and a welder?"

"Well, son, almost any normal person can be a riveter, but it takes a real tough guy to be a welder."

Nuggets of information such as this are becoming part of the folklore of U.S. industry. Their author is a Los Angeles psychologist who rejoices in the name of Doncaster George Humm. Dr. Humm, who took for his mission in life the job of fitting square pegs into square holes, created a "temperament test" which has made him one of the busiest men in the U.S. war effort. Some 2,000,000 workmen have taken his test, and 225 corporations would not think of making a change in personnel without consulting it.

The test (called the Humm-Wadsworth Temperament Scale) is the stock in trade of Dr. Humm and his partner, Guy W. Wadsworth Jr., a vice president of Southern California Gas Co. They launched their personnel service after they had examined 350 unsatisfactory employes and found that 80% failed not for lack of skill but because of misfit temperaments.

In a Humm-Wadsworth going-over, a 45-minute test, a man has to answer 318 questions such as: "Do you like to go on blind dates? Do you like to pass along a good story? Do you think traffic policemen have the right attitude toward motorists? Do you like movie heroes?" Studying the responses, Dr. Humm gets a "profile" of an individual showing his self-control, drive, truculence, tendency to daydream, etc. The average person, according to Dr. Humm, has a "normal-manic" temperament, i.e., is emotional but self-controlled.

By juggling their test with physical, aptitude and intelligence tests, Messrs. Humm & Wadsworth claim to be able to direct an individual almost unerringly to the right vocation. Some of their deductions: too much self-control (i.e., overconservatism) is as bad as too little; a good foreman must be cheerful, self-controlled, decisive; a good salesman is usually selfish and stubborn; tough guys make the best welders and combat flyers; a wide variety of types are successful as riveters; introverts are happier on assembly lines than extroverts.

Star Humm-Wadsworth client is Lockheed Aircraft, which has given the test to 350,000, including its president, Robert Gross (who surprised nobody by turning out to be temperamentally O.K. for his job). Thanks to its use of the test, Lockheed says, the company has the lowest aircraft-labor turnover in California (less than 1% a month), fires less than 2% of all the men it hires, and has had no serious labor disputes. Dr. Humm's most spectacular single achievement was his test of 60 trainees in a United Airlines school. He predicted that seven of the 60 would flunk the course--and named the seven. Sure enough, they flunked.

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