Over the course of his career he developed more than 30 personality tests and instruments, including the California Psychological Inventory.
After the completion of his Ph.D., Gough served on the Department of Psychology faculty at the University of California, Berkeley, until his retirement in 1986.
During World War II Gough served in the U.S. military as an armed forces psychologist, where he was assigned to the Air Crew Selection Program.
After developing the California Psychological Inventory assessment in 1956, Gough remarked that his primary goal was to meet the aviation selection program's high psychometric standards.
Later in his armed forces tenure he was assigned to a military hospital as a clinical psychologist.