Many basic elements of a vocational psychology were present in at least two major civilizations of the middle of the first millennium B.C. Given the primordial character of work-organization for the prosperity, maintenance, and protection of any society, vocational psychology may arguably be considered to be the earliest psychology. For the societies of the Eastern Mediterranean at least, and for the Greeks in particular, this early vocational psychology placed extreme importance on individualism, which possibly set the pattern for later European-derived approaches to vocational psychology. One of the four common dimensions of sociocultural conflict in the career guidance practices of developed nations—manpower use as opposed to human development—may have had precursors in the ancient civilizations of the Eastern Mediterranean and China.