Fryer, Douglas H. (Douglas Henry), 1891-

Douglas Henry Fryer, an industrial psychologist, was born in Willimantic, Connecticut, on November 7, 1891. After graduating from Springfield College in Massachusetts in 1914, he attended Brown University for a year and then Clark University, from which he received his M.A. in 1917 and his Ph.D. in psychology in 1923. During World War I, Fryer was a psychological examiner and morale officer. In 1924 he was an assistant professor at the University of Utah. The remainder of his academic career was spent at New York University, where he started as an assistant professor in 1924 and became an associate in 1928.

Interest and morale were the focus of Fryer's research, and he held many different positions relating to his career in industrial psychology. During the years 1925-1940 Fryer served as administrative chairman of the University Heights Department of Psychology, where he organized an experimental laboratory and became its first director of industrial training in 1949. He became the first president of the Association of Consulting Psychologists in 1930. Fryer wrote his major book, Measurement of Interests in Relation to Human Adjustment, in 1931. In 1937 he was elected president of the American Association for Applied Psychology.

During the years 1936-1946 Fryer was a collaborator for the Forest Service of the U. S. Department of Agriculture. During World War II, he was first a research investigator for a committee on the selection and training of aircraft pilots (1940-1942), later serving as chief of personnel research in the War Department from 1943-1945. In 1945 he became one of the founding directors of Richardson, Bellows, Henry and Company, a firm of consulting psychologists. From 1945 to 1947 Fryer's work focused on personnel research in the Adjutant General's Office. In 1949-1950 he served as vice-president of the American Association for the Advancement of Science and as chairman of its psychology section. Fryer became an adjunct professor at New York University in 1952.

Several years before his death, former graduate students set up a fund in his name providing an annual stipend for leading doctoral candidates in the field of industrial psychology. Fryer died in Rye, N.Y. on December 4, 1960.

From the guide to the Douglas H. Fryer papers, 1910-2009, (Center for the History of Psychology)