THE MODERN EXECUTIVE'S LIBRARY PRACTICAL PSYCHOLOGY FOR BUSINESS EXECUTIVES The Modern Executive's Library DANIEL BLOOMFIELD, General Editor A series of practical handbooks for executives and others interested in management and industrial relations. Each volume is prepared by an expert in the field. Management Series PRACTICAL PSYCHOLOGY FOR BUSINESS EXECU- TIVES. Lionel D. Edie EMPLOYEES 7 MAGAZINES. Peter F. O'Shea STANDARD PRACTICE IN PERSONNEL WORK. Eugene J. Benge Industrial Relations Series EMPLOYMENT MANAGEMENT. Daniel Bloomfield MODERN INDUSTRIAL MOVEMENTS. Daniel Bloomfield PROBLEMS OF LABOR. Daniel Bloomfield Introductions by Meyer Bloomfield Other Books of Value to Business Executives COMPULSORY ARBITRATION OF INDUSTRIAL DISPUTES. Lamar T. Beman UNEMPLOYMENT. Julia E. Johnsen IMMIGRATION. Edith M. Pheips TAXATION. Lamar T. Beman CLOSED SHOP. Lamar T. Beman MODERN SOCIAL MOVEMENTS. Savel Zimand THE MODERN EXECUTIVE'S LIBRARY PRACTICAL PSYCHOLOGY FOR BUSINESS EXECUTIVES Compiled by LIONEL D. EDIE ff Associate Professor of History and Politics Division of Current Industrial Problems Colgate University Author of "Current Social and Industrial Problems" and of "Principles of the New Economics" NEW YORK THE H. W. WILSON COMPANY LONDON: GRAFTON c CO. 1922 Published May, 1922 Printed in the United States of America PREFACE This collection of material has been made with the purpose of bringing together in readable form some of the important and useful writings on the application of psychology to industry. The last decade has seen the growth of a body of psychological ideas of great importance in economic life. Many authorities have contributed the benefits of their experiments and discoveries to a wide and scattered literature in the field, and it is hoped that this symposium may aid in making business men acquainted with the more practical parts of this literature. A bibliography has been prepared, its divisions corresponding with the chapters of the book. For the most part, the publi- cations which have been the sources of the quoted extracts used in this volume, have not been relisted in the bibliography. I have been greatly aided by Mr. Jesse C. Neff in the collection of material, the selection of titles, and the entire workmanship of the book. His judgment and discrimination have played a most helpful part in every phase of the under- taking. Mrs. NefFs cooperation in the preparation of the manuscript has been highly gratifying, and it is desired to extend here a full appreciation of her interest and assistance. The sources and authorship of material are recognized by footnotes accompanying each individual article. LIONEL D. EDIE. February 28, 1922 520182 FOREWORD The modern executive is keenly interested in the baffling variations in human conduct that confront him from day to day, but unless he is familiar with the work and literature of our best men in this field he is apt to become the prey of cun- ning charlatans and human nature fakirs who are out to sell all kinds of patent medicine schemes for the cure of our labor problems and who make use of phrenology, astrology, in fact everything that can be dragged in to make up a "new science," a "new psychology" that will "sell" its victims. Experience in handling men is a great asset to the executive but that experience is not enough. The wide-awake executive does not allow himself to be dazzled by the selling talk of character analysts and the like; he weighs everything he reads or hears carefully, he proceeds cautiously, and he avoids gen- eralizations with reference to human conduct because he knows that no two individuals are alike, that we have only begun the study of psychology as it affects industrial relations. And so all of our observations must necessarily be tentative ; we must feel our way carefully. Bearing this in mind, a notable service has been done by Professor Edie in preparing the present book for executives and those interested in understanding the motives and behavior of men who work under the direction of others. This book pre- sents the best thought on the subject: its substance is thor- oughly practical, its viewpoint sane and helpful ; the treatment is exhaustive. Professor Edie has used fine discrimination in the selection of his material which comes from many sources, all of them authoritative. May 23, 1922. DANIEL BLOOMFIELD. CONTENTS PAGE BIBLIOGRAPHY xiii INTRODUCTION * l. THE PSYCHOLOGICAL BASIS OF INDUSTRIAL RELATIONS Scott, Walter Dill. The Possibilities Contained in the Psy- chological Approach ^ Psychological Review 5 McDougall, William. The Driving Power of Human In- stincts 6 Conklin, Edwin Grant. Society Founded on Instincts 6 Thorndike, E. L. Guidance of the Primary Human Forces. 9 Hall, G. Stanley. Scope of Psychology in Industry Pedagogical Seminary 1 1 Cooley, Charles Horton. Substituting Higher Motives for Lower 22 Dewing, Arthur Stone. Motive in Large Scale Business 27 . EXECUTIVE MANAGEMENT AND THE MIND OF THE WORKER Bryce, James. A Broad Perspective in Human Control 32 Wallace, L. W. The Challenge to Modern Management.... 33 Jenks, Jeremiah W., and Clark, Walter E. The Background of Great Business Men 35 Hall, G. Stanley. The Profound Responsibility of Business Executives Pedagogical Seminary 36 Sumner, William G. The Influence of Unanalyzed Customs ("Mores") 37 Swift, Edgar James. Overcoming the Power of Tradition and Habit 39 Persons, Harlow S. What the Worker Expects of Manage- ment Annals of the American Academy 42 Goddard, Henry Herbert. The Levels of Intelligence 44 Filene, A. Lincoln. Successful Application of Psychological Principles Annals of the American Academy 49 Feiss, Richard A. The Basis of Scientific Management. % Annals of the American Academy 52 x CONTENTS PAGE III. BALKED INSTINCTS THE BASIS OF INDUSTRIAL DISORDERS Barker, Carleton H. A Comprehensive Description of Un- derlying Causes ........................................ 57 Wallas, Graham. The Basic Principle .................... 59 Taussig, F. W. The Balked Instinct of Contrivance ...... 63 ^Speek, Peter A. The Industrial Waste Due to Balked Human Nature .............. Annals of the American Academy 66 Gleason, Arthur. The "Passive Resistance of the Human Spirit" ................................................ 69 Rompers, Samuel. An Account of Labor Aspirations ...... .......................... ....... Industrial Management 70 Williams, Whiting. The Natural Forces Behind Seemingly Unreasonable Behavior ................................. 71 Rowntree, B. Seebohm. The Future of Industry .......... 79 IV. SATISFIED INSTINCTS THE BASIS OF INDUSTRIAL EFFICIENCY Edgar James. Bringing Out Spontaneous Initiative. ............................................. Scribner's 88 Babson, Roger W. Fundamental Urges and Drives ....... 91 ^--Hammond, John Hays. Practical Steps Toward Enlisting Workers' Cooperation ............ Industrial Management 92 Webb, Sidney and Beatrice. As Viewed by a Leader of Workers .............................................. 95 Brierley, S. S. Human and Mechanical Factors in Industrial Science ................... British Journal of Psychology 97 Organized Labor's Desires ......... Monthly Labor Review 98 V. THE ECONOMIC POWER OF THE CREATIVE INSTINCT ^Fisher, Irving. Does the Worker Have a Creative Instinct? ..................... Annals of the American Academy 101 Todd, Arthur J. How the Instinct of Workmanship is Aroused ............... Annals of the American Academy 104 Wood, Charles W. Releasing the Individual Workers' Ener- gies ..................... .............................. 109 Wolf, R. B. A Practical Demonstration in Industrial Engi- neering .......................................... System no VI. LABOR TRAITS AND CROWD BEHAVIOR Trotter, William. The Characteristics of Human Herds ____ 118 Hoover, Herbert C. Modern Industry Calls for Vast Human Associations ........................................... 119 CONTENTS xi PAGE McDougaU, William. Group Spirit and Group Mind 120 Commons, John R. Group Restriction of Output 123 Marshall, L. C. Group Behavior and Labor Incentives Journal of Political Economy 125 Muscio, Bernard. The Consequences of Solidarity in Labor Groups 131 THE PSYCHOLOGICAL PROBLEM UNDER SELF-ASSERTIVE MANAGEMENT Gary, E. H. The Primary Principles of Self-Assertive Management New York Times 135 A Questioning of These Principles New York Times 137 A Psychological Analysis by President Wilson's Second In- dustrial Conference 138 Hoover, Herbert C. Importance of the Contribution of Workers' Intelligence to Management 140 Fisher, Irving. The Relative Efficiency of the Democratic Method American Economic Review Supplement 141 Frank, Glenn. The Instinctive Force Behind the Struggle for Control 142 Frankfurter, Felix. The Healthy Organization of the Love of Power Yale Review 144 Hoxie, Robert F. Some Instinctive Reactions of Defense by Labor Quarterly Journal of Economics 147 Gompers, Samuel. Labor's Purposes in Collective Bargain- ing Industrial Management 150 Frey, John P. Labor's Objections to Uncooperative Man- agement Annals of the American Academy 152 Gompers, Samuel. Labor Attitudes Toward Scientific Man- agement American Federationist 154 VIII. THE BASIS OF EMPLOYEE REPRESENTATION , Royal. Do Workers Want Knowledge and Respon- sibility ? Monthly Labor Review 159 ^IcCormick, Cyrus, Jr. The Economic Effects of Trusting Workers ; . . . . Scientific American 162 v"Rockefeller, John D., Jr. Restoring Personal Contact in Large Scale Industry Industrial Management 165 Basset, William R. Honesty in Cooperation 168 IX. INTEREST AND INCENTIVES IN INDUSTRY Ordway and Metcalf, Henry C. Arousing Interest in Work 171 xii CONTENTS PAGE Kitson, H. D. Interest Aroused by Information Journal of Political Economy 177 Morgan, John J. B. The Failure of Money Incentives Alone American Journal of Sociology 179 Simons, A. M. Restoring Pleasure in Production 181 Wolf, R. B. The Organization of Non-Financial Incentives 187 X. PSYCHOLOGICAL ASPECTS OF LABOR TURNOVER Douglas, Paul. The Broad Significance of the Turnover Problem American Economic Review 193 Lescohier, Don D. Industrial Abuses Underlying Turnover 196 ^Reflections of a Worker Industrial Management 201 ^Kimball, Harry W. Holding the Men Who Have No Trade. Industrial Management 202 Fisher, Boyd. How to Reduce Labor Turnover Annals of the American Academy 204 XL THE BUILDING OF LOYALTY AND MORALE ^Slichter, Sumner H. A Broad Survey of Psychological Causes Quarterly Journal of Economics 209 Disque, Brice P. Positive Achievements Possible Under Most Adverse Circumstances System 214 Commons, John R. The Successful Maintenance of Loyalty and Morale 221 XII. LABOR'S PART IN EMPLOYEES' SERVICE WORK t^Booker, John Manning. Psychological Limits to Welfare Work Yale Review 229 Bloomfield, Daniel. Essential Conditions of Employees' Ser- vice Work 231 Successful Administration of Service Work 234 XIII. THE MIND OF THE ALIEN AND AMERICANIZATION Kellor, Frances. The Distinct Psychological Background of the Alien 238 Miller, Herbert Adolphus. New Oppressions for Old Annals of the American Academy 243 Bogardus, Emory S. Adaptation of Americanization to the Alien's Make-up 246 Aronovici, Carol. Futile Devices versus Fundamental Social Contacts 247 CONTENTS xiii PAGE Bloomfield, Daniel. Sound Industrial Environment the Vital Americanizing Influence 249 XIV. FACTORS IN INDUSTRIAL EDUCATION ^Commons, John R. The Need for Policies of Industrial Education 253 Johnson, James F. Process of Training Industrial Management 255 Kelly, Roy W. Fundamentals of Training 257 XV. THE VALUE OF PSYCHOLOGICAL TESTS v Scott, Walter Dill. The Psychology of Individual Differences Psychological Review 265 ^Hollingworth, H. L. Can Workers Be Tested? Causes of Successes and Failures Business Personnel Myers, Charles S. Variety of Practical Applications 275 Link, Henry C. Vocational Selection by Psychological Tests 280 Yoakum, C. S. and Yerkes, R. M. Industrial Lessons from Army Mental Tests 285 Thorndike, E. L. The Need of Constant Verifications Science 286 Kelly; Roy W. A Caution Against Over- Expectations 289 Scott, Walter Dill. Job Analysis to Correlate with Human Analysis Annals of the American Academy 290 Chapman, J. Crosby. The Functions of Trade Tests 292 *""Kitson, H. D. Limitations of Mental Tests * * School Review 293 XVI. THE FAR-REACHING CONSEQUENCES OF FEAR IN INDUS- TRY x Bloomfield, Meyer. The Menace of the Fear Discipline... American Labor Legislation Review 297 Williams, Whiting. Effects of Fear on the Worker's Think- ing American Labor Legislation Review 298 Rivers, W. H. R. Industrial Lessons from War Dangers and Fears 295 Tead, Ordway. Relations Between Fear and Output Annals of the American Academy 302 A Technique for Continuous Plant Operation American Labor Legislation Review 303 Commons, John ,R. Security of the Job by New Banking Standards Survey 306 xiv CONTENTS PAGE XVII. FATIGUE CONTROL AND INDUSTRIAL EFFICIENCY -'Gilbreth, Frank B. and Lillian M. The Economic Loss from Unnecessary Fatigue Journal of Industrial Hygiene 311 Health, Efficiency and Fatigue 312 Signs and Symptoms of Fatigue 317 ^Spaeth, Reynold A. The Prevention of Fatigue Industrial Management 320 flyers, Charles S. Practical Applications 325 Goldmark, Josephine. Physiology of Monotony 326 Lee, Frederick S. Scientific Control of Fatigue Factors.... 328 Watson, J. B. Some Guiding Purposes in Fatigue Studies.. 332 HPolakov, Walter N. Standard Objectives for Reduction of Fatigue Industrial Management 333 XVIII. THE PATHOLOGY OF THE WORKER Southard, E. E. The Mental Hygiene of Industry Industrial Management 337 Jarrett, M. C. Report of the Engineering Foundation 341 Jarrett, M. C. Deficiencies of Character Among Employees. Medicine and Surgery 347 A Reasonable Application of Psychiatry to Industry Monthly Labor Review 350 Adler, Herman P. Understanding Industrial Misfits Mental Hygiene 352 """Hart, Bernard. Psychological Phases of Industrial Misbe- havior 357 fffealy, William. Mental Conflicts and Misconduct 359 XIX. CONTRIBUTIONS OF ABNORMAL PSYCHOLOGY TO BUSINESS PROBLEMS Tansley, A. G. Relation of Abnormal Psychology to Every- day Life '. 363 Powers, M. J. The Industrial Cost of Subnormal and Ab- normal Employees 364 Gilbreth, Frank B. and Lillian M. Some Major Types of Maladjustment Independent 367 Smith, G. Elliott and Pear, T. H. Shell Shock and Its Lessons 372 Ogburn, William F. A Condensed Analysis of Psychological Mechanism American Economic Review 375 --^Myers, Charles S. The Psychological Explanation of Men's Peculiarities 384 INDEX < 389 BIBLIOGRAPHY With few exceptions, the articles reprinted in this volume have not been included in this bibliography. They are listed in the table of con- tents, and the source of each article is given in the footnote appended to the title. I. THE PSYCHOLOGICAL BASIS OF INDUSTRIAL RELATIONS Baillie, James B. Studies in human nature. Harcourt, Brace & Howe. New York. 1921. Boas, Franz. The mind of primitive man. The Macmillan Co. New York. 1911. Edman, Erwin. Human traits and their social significance. Houghton, Mifflin Co'. Boston. 1920. Gleason, Arthur. What the workers want. Harcourt, Brace & Howe. New York. 1920. Herter, Christian. Biological aspects of human problems. The Macmillan Co. New York. 1911. Hobson, John A. Work and wealth : a human valuation. The Macmillan Co. New York. 1914. James, William. Principles of psychology. 2 vol. Henry Holt & Co. New York. 1913. Parmelee, Maurice F. The science of human behavior. The Macmillan Co. New York. 1913. Paton, Stewart. Human behavior in relation to the study of educational, social and ethical problems. Scribner. New York. 1921. Putnam, James J. Human motives. Little, Brown & Co. Boston. 1915. Robinson, James Harvey. The mind in the making: the rela- tion of intelligence to social reform. Harper. New York. 1921. Russell, Bertrand. Why men fight, p. 3-41. Century Co. New York. 1917. Sombart, Werner. The quintessence of capitalism: a study of the history and psychology of the modern business man. Button. New York. 1915. xvi BIBLIOGRAPHY Watts, Frank. Introduction to the psychological problems of industry. Allen. London. 1921. II. EXECUTIVE MANAGEMENT AND THE MIND OF THE WORKER Bloomfield, Meyer. Management and men. Century Co. New York. 1919. Dartmouth College. Tuck School of Administration and Finance. Addresses and discussions at the Conference on Scientific Management, October 12-14, 1911. 1912. Frankel, Lee Kaufer, and Fleisher, Alexander. The human factor in industry. The Macmillan Co. New York. 1920. Freeman, Richard Austin. Social decay and regeneration. Houghton, Mifflin Co. Boston. 1921. Gantt, Henry L. Industrial leadership. Yale University Press. New Haven, Conn. 1916. Knoeppel, Charles E. Laws of industrial organization. Indus- trial management. 58 : 265-8, 381-3, 494-8 ; 59 : 43-7, 145-8, 184-91. O. 'i9-Mr. '20. Leiserson, William M. Relations between employer and em- ployee. Monthly Labor Review. 9 : 1195-1204. O. '19. Northcott, Clarence H. The human factor in industry. Indus- trial management. 62 : 195-8. O. '21. Continued thru succeeding numbers. Parker, Carleton H. The technique of American industry. Atlantic Monthly. 125 : 12-22. Ja. '20. Taylor, Frederick W. Principles of scientific management. Harper. New York. 1911. Veblen, Thorstein. The instinct of workmanship and the state of the industrial arts. p. 299-355. B. W. Huebsch. New York. 1914. Wallas, Graham. Human nature in politics. Houghton, MifHin Co. Boston. 1909. Ware, Fabian. The worker and his country. E. Arnold. Lon- don. 1912. Webb, Sidney. The works manager of today. Longmans, Green & Co. New York. 1917. Williams, Whiting. Europe at work. Scribner's Magazine. 71 : 131-44. F; '22, and succeeding numbers. BIBLIOGRAPHY xvii III. BALKED INSTINCTS THE BASIS OF INDUSTRIAL DISORDERS Brissenden, Paul F. The I. W. W. : a study of American syn- dicalism. (Columbia University studies in history, economics and public law.) Longmans, Green & Co. New York. 1920. Brooks, John G. American syndicalism : the I. W. W. The Macmillan Co. New York. 1913. Cory, Herbert E. The intellectuals and the wage workers. Sun- wise Turn. New York. 1919. Dunham, Frances L. Instinct and conduct. National Conference of Social Work. Report. 1920 : 91-9. Freeman, Richard Austin. Social decay and regeneration. Houghton, Mifflin Co. Boston. 1921. McDougall, William. An introduction to social psychology. I3th ed. Luce & Co. Boston. 1918. Patten, Simon N. The mechanism of mind. Annals of the American Academy. 71 : 202-15. My. '17. Watson, John B. Behavior : an introduction to comparative psychology. Henry Holt & Co. New York. 1914. White, William A. The mechanism of character formation. The Macmillan Co. New York. 1916. IV. SATISFIED INSTINCTS THE BASIS OF INDUS- TRIAL EFFICIENCY Briscoe, Norris A. The economics of efficiency. The Macmillan Co. New York. 1914. Gilbreth, Lillian M. The psychology of management. The Macmillan Co. New York. 1918. Henderson, Charles R. Citizens in industry. D. Appleton & Co. New York. 1915. Kolnai, Aurel. Psychoanalysis and sociology. Harcourt, Brace and Co. New York. 1921. Meeker, Royal. Employees' representation in management of industry. Monthly Labor Review. 10 1305-18. F. '20; Same. American Economic Review. 10 : sup 89-102. Mr. '20. Mitchell, Wesley C. Human behavior and economics: a survey of recent literature. Quarterly Journal of Economics. 29 : 1-47. N. '14. xviii BIBLIOGRAPHY Myers, Charles S. Mind and work. Chap. VI. p. 135-70. G. P. Putnam's Sons. New York. 1921. Scott, Walter Dill. Increasing human efficiency in business. The Macmillan Co. New York. 1914. Seager, Henry R. The human factor in the operation of in- dustry. Mechanical Engineering. 41 .'886-7. N. '19. Thompson, C. Bertrand. Scientific management. Harvard Univ. Press. Cambridge. 1914. Valentine, Robert G. The human element in production. Amer- ican Journal of Sociology. 22 : 477-88. Ja. '17. Young, Charles N. Creative ability and its compensation. In- dustrial management. 59 : 33-5. Ja. '20. V. THE ECONOMIC POWER OF THE CREATIVE INSTINCT Basset, William R. Harnessing the creative instinct. In When the workmen help you manage. Century. New York. 1919. Chellew, Henry. Human and industrial efficiency. G. P. Put- nam's Sons. New York. 1920. Colvin, Fred H. Labor turnover, loyalty and output. McGraw. New York. 1919. Gantt, Henry L. Organizing for work. Harcourt, Brace & Howe. New York. 1919. Marot, Helen. The creative impulse in industry: a proposition for educators. E. P. Button & Co. New York. 1918. Munsterberg, Hugo. Psychology and industrial efficiency. Houghton, Mifflin Co. Boston. 1913. Parker, Carleton H. Motives in economic life. In The casual laborer and other essays. Harcourt, Brace & Howe. New York. 1920. Scott, Walter Dill and Hayes, M. H. S. Science and common sense in working with men. p. 110-33. The Ronald Press Co. New York. 1921. Simons, A. M. Personnel relations in industry, p. 42-4, 117-20. The Ronald Press Co. New York. 1921. Stoops, John D. The instinct of workmanship and the will to work. International Journal of Ethics. 31 : 183-99. Ja. '21. BIBLIOGRAPHY xix VI. LABOR TRAITS AND CROWD BEHAVIOR Ardzrooni, Leon. The philosophy of the restriction of output. Annals of the American Academy. 91 : 70-5. S. '20. Brooks, John G. Labor's challenge to the social order. The Macmillan Co. New York. 1920. Dewey, John. Human nature and conduct. Henry Holt & Co. New York. 1921. Growing responsibility of labor. Round Table. 10 : 276-92. Mr. '20. Jastrow, Joseph. The psychology of conviction: a study of beliefs and attitudes. Houghton, Mifflin Co. Boston. 1918. Le Bon, Gustave. The crowd: a study of the popular mind. The Macmillan Co. New York. 1910. Lee, Gerald S. Crowds : a moving picture of democracy. Double- day, Page & Co. Garden City, L.I. 1913. Myers, Charles S. Mind and work. G. P. Putnam's Sons. New York. 1921. See chapter on restriction of output. Ross, Edward A. Social psychology. The Macmillan Co. New York. 1908. Tead, Ordway. Trade unions and efficiency. American Journal of Sociology. 22 : 30-7. Jl. '16. VII. THE PSYCHOLOGICAL PROBLEM UNDER SELF- ASSERTIVE MANAGEMENT Baker, Ray Stannard. The new industrial unrest: reasons and remedies. Doubleday, Page & Co. Garden City, L.I. 1920. Bloomfield, Daniel. Selected articles on problems of labor. (Handbook Series). H. W. Wilson Co. New York. 1920. Chenery, William L. Industry and human welfare. The Mac- millan Co. New York. 1922. Gleason, Arthur H. What the workers want : a study of British labor. Harcourt, Brace & Howe. New York. 1920. Goodrich, Carter L. The frontier of control : a study in British workshop politics ; with a foreword by R. H. Tawney. Har- court, Brace and Co. New York. 1922. xx BIBLIOGRAPHY Hoxie, Robert F. Trade unionism in the United States. D. Appleton & Co. New York. 1917. Leitch, John. Man-to-man. B. C. Forbes Co. New York. 1919. Rogers, Francis. Personality and individuality. North American Review. 214:514-17. O. '21. VIII. THE BASIS OF EMPLOYEE REPRESENTATION Cowdrick, E. S. Successful trial of industrial representation plan. Industrial Management. 59 : 123-5. F- '20. Crozier, William. Labor's interest in administration. Annals of the American Academy. 91 : 153-8. S. '20. Drever, James. The psychology of industry. E. P. Button and Co. New York. 1922. Kline, Burton. Employee representation in Standard Oil. In- dustrial management. 59 : 355-60, 496-501. My.-Je. '20. Leitch, John. Man-to-man. B. C. Forbes Co. New York. 1919. National Association of Corporation Schools. A preliminary survey of the problem of representation in industry. Con- fidential Report Series. No. 4. New York. 1919. Rogers, Sherman. Employee representation : success or failure ? Outlook. 128 : 689-92. Ag. 31, '21. Simons, A. M. Personnel relations in industry, p. 260-330. The Ronald Press Co. New York. 1921. Tead, Ordway and Metcalf, Henry M. Personnel administra- tion, p. 407-516. The McGraw Hill Book Co. New York. 1920. IX. INTEREST AND INCENTIVES IN INDUSTRY Dewey, John. Interest and effort in education. Houghton, Miflflin Co. Boston. 1913. Ferguson, Homer L. What makes men give their best? System. 39 : 368-70. Mr. '21. Kitson, Harry D. Economic implications in the psychological doctrine of interest. Journal of Political Economy. 28 : 332-8. Ap. '20. BIBLIOGRAPHY xxi Marot, Helen. Production and the preservation of initiative. Annals of the American Academy. 91 : 14-18. S. '20. Pound, Arthur. The iron man. Atlantic Monthly, Series October 1921 and five succeeding numbers. Tipper, Harry. The labor problem. Journal of the Society of Automotive Engineers. 5 : 395-401. D. '19. X. PSYCHOLOGICAL ASPECTS OF LABOR TURNOVER Adams, James R. Common sense attack on turnover. Industrial Management. 62 : 298-302. N. '21. Alexander, Magnus W. Hiring and firing, its economic waste and how to avoid it. Annals of the American Academy. 65 : 128-44. My. '16. Beveridge, William H. Unemployment : a problem of industry. 3d edition. Longmans, Green & Co. New York. 1912. Brissenden, Paul F. and Frankel, Emil. The mobility of in- dustrial labor. Political Science Quarterly. 35 : 566-600. D. '20. Eglee, Charles H. The industrial unrest. Journal. Boston Society of Civil Engineers. 6 : 317-37. N. '19. Johnsen, Julia E. Unemployment. 2d ed. rev. and enl. H. W. Wilson Co. New York. 1921. Keely, H. L. Why men quit. Industrial Management. 62 : 223-7. O. '21. Myers, Charles S. Industrial overstrain and unrest. Engi- neering and Industrial Management. 2 : 483-5. O. 16, '19. XT. THE BUILDING OF LOYALTY AND MORALE Commons, John R., and others. Industrial government. The Macmillan Co. New York. 1921. Conway, Sir Martin. The crowd in peace and war. Longmans, Green & Co. New York. 1915. Kimball, Harry W. What the workers think about capital. Industrial Management. 59 : 245-7. March, 1920. McDougall, William. The group mind, a sketch of some of the principles of collective psychology. G. P. Putnam's Sons. New York. 1920. xxii BIBLIOGRAPHY Simons, A. M. Personnel relations in industry, p. 171-91. The Ronald Press Co. New York. 1921. Tead, Ordway and Metcalf, Henry M. Personnel administration. p. 67-134. The McGraw Hill Book Co. New York. 1920. Trotter, William. The instincts of the herd in peace and war. rev. ed. The Macmillan Co. New York. 1920. XII. LABOR'S PART IN WELFARE WORK Bloomfield, Daniel. Labor maintenance: a practical handbook of employee's service work. Ronald Press Co. New York. 1920. United States. Bureau of Labor Statistics. Bulletin 250 (Misc. ser.) : 1-139. 'i9- Welfare work for employees in indus- trial establishments in the United States. XIII. THE MIND OF THE ALIEN AND AMERICANI- ZATION Commons, John R. Immigration and its economic effects. In United States Industrial Commission Reports. 15. 1901. Davis, Philip. Immigration and Americanization. Ginn and Co. New York. 1920. Drachsler, Julius. Democracy and assimilation: the blending of immigrant heritages in America. The Macmillan Co. New York. 1920. Jenks, Jeremiah W. and Lauck, W. Jett. The immigration prob- lem: a study of American immigration conditions and needs. 3d edition. Funk & Wagnalls Co. New York. 1913. Leiserson, William M. Adjusting immigrant and industry. (Americanization series). Harper. New York. 1921. Means, Philip A. Racial factors in democracy. Marshall Jones Co. Boston. 1919. Panunzio, Constantine M. The soul of an immigrant. The Macmillan Co. New York. 1921. Park, Robert E. and Miller, Herbert A. Old world traits transplanted. Harper. New York. 1921. Pillsbury, Walter B. The psychology of nationality and inter- nationalism. D. Appleton & Co. New York. 1919. Talbot, Winthrop. Who's who in industry in America. Indus- trial Management. 59 : 138-42. F. '20. Thompson, Frank V. Schooling of the immigrant. Harper. New York. 1920. BIBLIOGRAPHY xxiii Westermarck, Edward A. Origin and development of the moral ideas. 2d edition. 2 vols. The Macmillan Co. New York. 1917. Yezierska, Anzia. America and I. Scribner's Magazine. 171 : 157- 62. F. '22. XIV. FACTORS IN INDUSTRIAL EDUCATION Allen, Charles R. The instructor, the man and the job. p. 319- 33. J. B. Lippincott Co. Philadelphia. 1919. Clayton, Charles T. Training that promotes production. In- dustrial Management. 57:311-13. Ap. '19. Dewey, John. Democracy and education : an introduction to the philosophy of education. The Macmillan Co. New York. 1916. Fish, Elmer H. How to manage men ; the principles of employ- ing labor. Engineering Magazine Co. New York. 1920. Fuld, Leonhard F. Service instruction of American corporations. United States. Bureau of Education. Bulletin. 1916, 34 : 1-73- Hobson, John A. Work and wealth : a human valuation, p. 44- 59. The Macmillan Co. New York. 1914. loteyko, Josefa. The science of labor and its organization. E. P. Dutton & Co. New York. 1919. Kennedy, Dudley R. Training the foremen of industry. Indus- trial Management. 59 : 67-70. Ja. '20. Mallary, Benjamin E. The foreman: his training and educa- tion. Annals of the American Academy. 91 : 121-6. S. '20. Smith, R. C. Training the immigrant in industry. United Slates. Bureau of Labor Statistics. Bulletin. No. 196. My. '19. United States. Training Service. Bulletins nos. i, 4, 6, 13. Gov't. Ptg. Office, Washington, D.C. . XV. THE VALUE OF PSYCHOLOGICAL TESTS Benge, Eugene J. Applying mental tests successfully. 100%. 14 : 8o-f. Mr. '20. Kelly, Roy Wilmarth. Hiring the worker. The Ronald Press Co. New York. 1918. xxiv BIBLIOGRAPHY Kemble, William Fretz. Choosing employees by mental and physical tests. Engineering Magazine Co. New York. 1917. Ruml, Beardsley. Extension of selective tests to industry. An- nals of the American Academy. 81 : 38-46. Ja. '19. Scott, Walter Dill. Selection of employees by means of quanti- tative determinations. Annals of the American Academy. 65 : 182-93. My. '16. Shefferman, Nathan W. Employment methods. The Ronald Press Co. New York. 1920. Tevis, M. Psychological tests of industrial capacities. Scientific American Monthly. 4 : 208-11. S. '21. Thorndike, Edward L. A group examination of intelligence independent of language. Journal of Applied Psychology. 3 : 13-32. Mr. '19. Yoakum, Clarence S. and Yerkes, Robert M. Army mental tests. Henry Holt & Co. New York. 1920. XVI. THE FAR-REACHING CONSEQUENCES OF FEAR IN INDUSTRY Cannon, Walter B. Bodily changes in pain, hunger, fear and rage. D. Appleton & Co. New York. 1920. King, William Lyon MacKenzie. Industry and humanity. p. 230-40. Houghton, Mifflin Co. Boston. 1918. Rivers, William H. R. Instinct and the unconscious. The Mac- millan Co. New York. 1921. Williams, Whiting. What's on the workers' mind. Scribner. New York. 1920. XVII. FATIGUE CONTROL AND INDUSTRIAL EFFICIENCY Bogardus, Emory S. The relation of fatigue to^ industrial accidents. American Journal of Sociology. 17 : 206-22, 351- 75, 512-39. S. 'n-Ja. '12. Frankfurter, Felix and Goldmark, Josephine C. The case for the shorter work day. National Consumers' League. New York. 1916. BIBLIOGRAPHY xxv Gantt, Henry L. Work, wages and profits. 2d edition revised. Engineering Magazine Co. New York. 1913. Gilbreth, Frank B. Fatigue study : the elimination of humanity's greatest unnecessary waste. Sturgis and Walton Co. New York. 1916. Leverhulme, William H. L. The six-hour day and other indus- trial questions. Chap. I & II. Henry Holt & Co. New York. 1919. Link, Henry C. A practical study in industrial fatigue. Jour- nal of Industrial Hygiene, i : 233-)-. S. '19. Mosso, A. Fatigue. English translation. Allen. London. Muscio, Bernard. Fluctuations in mental efficiency. British Journal of Psychology. 10 : 327-44- '20. National Industrial Conference Board. Hours of work as re- lated to output and health of workers. Research Reports Nos. 4, 7. Boston. 1918. Offner, Max. Mental fatigue, trans, by G. M. Whipple. War- wick and York. Baltimore. 1911. Spaeth, R. A. The prevention of fatigue in manufacturing industries. Journal of Industrial Hygiene, i : 435-47- Ja. '20. Spaeth, R. A. The problem of fatigue. Journal of Industrial Hygiene, i : 22. '19. Has an extensive bibliography. Thorndike, Edward L. Educational psychology. Vol. III. p. 408. Teachers College, Columbia University. 1914. XVIII. THE PATHOLOGY OF THE WORKER Adler, A. The neurotic constitution: outlines of a comparative individualistic psychology and psychotherapy. Kegan Paul, Trench, Triibner & Co. London. 1918. Bailey, Pearce. Efficiency and inefficiency a problem in med- icine. Mental Hygiene, i 1196. Ap. '17. Ball, Jau Don. The correlation of neurology, psychiatry, psy- chology, and general medicine as scientific aids to industrial efficiency. Insanity. 75 : 4. Ap. '19. Campbell, C. M. Mental hygiene in industry. Journal of In- dustrial Hygiene, p. 468-78. Jl. '21. xxvi BIBLIOGRAPHY Fisher, Boyd. Has mental hygiene a practical use in industry. Journal of Industrial Hygiene, p. 479-96. Jl. '21. Jarrett, Mary C. Shellshock analogues: Neuroses in civil life having a sudden and critical origin. Medicine and Surgery. 2 : 266. Mr. '18. Jastrow, Joseph. Character and temperament. D. Appleton & Co. New York. 1915. Kober, George M. and Hanson, William C. Diseases of occu- pation and vocational hygiene. Blakiston & Co. Phila- delphia. 1916. MacCurdy, John T. The psychology of war. E. P. Button & Co. New York. 1918. Parmelee, Maurice F. Personality and conduct. Moffat, Yard & Co. New York. 1918. Paton, Stewart. The psychology of the radical. Yale Review, n.s. ii -.89-101. O. '21. XIX. CONTRIBUTIONS OF ABNORMAL PSYCHOLOGY TO BUSINESS PROBLEMS Brill, A. A. Fundamental conceptions of psychoanalysis. Har- court, Brace and Co. New York. 1922. Cobb, Stanley. Applications of psychiatry to industrial hygiene. Journal of Industrial Hygiene, i : 343. N. '19. Freud, Sigmund. Psychopathology of everyday life. Authorized translation. Introduction by A. A. Brill. The Macmillan Co. New York. 1914. Goddard, Henry H. Psychology of the normal and sub-normal. Dodd, Mead & Co. New York. 1919. Kempf, Edward J. Psychopathology. C. V. Mosby Co. St. Louis, Mo. 1920. Marot, Helen. The creative impulse in industry: a proposition for educators. E. P. Button & Co. New York. 1918. Prince, Morton. The unconscious: the fundamentals of human personality normal and abnormal. The Macmillan Co. New York. 1914. Rosanoff, Aaron J., ed. Manual of psychiatry, sth edition. John Wiley & Sons. New York. 1920. Southard, Elmer E, The modern specialist in unrest. Indus- trial Management. 59 : 462-6. Je. '20. Southard, Elmer E. Trade unionism and temperament. Indus- trial Management. 59 : 265-70. Ap. '20. INTRODUCTION Any important policy of economic advance meets with three types of attitudes among business men: First, there is the' type which tries out the new policy and succeeds. Second, there is the type which tries it out and fails. Third, there is the type which refuses to try it out at all. The first group are in the truest sense of the word pioneers in the business world. Their experimenting and testing of new economic principles and methods is the great influence in keeping the economic system from becoming stagnant. They deserve credit for taking the risks that go with new and untried pro- grams, and for discovering the practical technique by which new ideas and principles can be made workable for business. This group have amply demonstrated the practicability and the soundness of the fundamental principles of modern psychology as applied to business problems. The second group accompany any forward movement. By failing to grasp the spirit of the movement, or by failing to apply the principles by the proper technology, they fail naturally to secure the expected results. The feature of their failure which is most regrettable is that the conclusion drawn by them- selves and by many onlookers is that the cause of failure was in the system. In reality, the failure was in themselves, in their not understanding the principles and technique requisite for success. In spite of this real cause of failure, the seeming cause all too often is the one which attracts attention. Those who have tried to apply psychology to business and have failed take it for granted that their failure ought to teach everyone the lesson that psychology is a delusion and a snare. Such a conclusion is exploded by those who take the sober second thought to observe those who have tried and succeeded. The practical and the truthful conclusion to be drawn from such failures is that no one should attempt lightly to establish his industrial relations upon a sound psychological basis, with the hope that no matter how much fumbling and botching may be gone through with, nevertheless some legerdemain will carry 2 PRACTICAL PSYCHOLOGY FOR him through to success. Practical psychology is practical only when and where business men take the pains to understand its principles, to apply it honestly and sincerely, and to work out the technique of its application intelligently and carefully. The third group abound with skepticism toward the new project, mainly because it is new. Their skepticism is intensified by the business men here and there who try out the new move- ment and fail. The most liberal-minded of this group are honestly open to conviction, and genuinely want to be convinced. But they have seen fads come and go, and take a cautious attitude toward all new methods of management. Their innate conservatism can gradually be overcome by the examples of successful trial of the new movement as they appear from time to time. The least liberal-minded of this group are the adaman- tine reactionaries who openly scoff at the foolhardiness of any departure from the worn and beaten paths of business as usual. In viewing the various attitudes held by business men toward the value of psychology for business, it is illuminating, there- fore, to bear in mind these three distinct types of business exec- utives. Psychology becomes "practical" for business executives in so far as its principles square with inevitable economic laws and its technique of application proves definitely workable. Practicability consists of principles and a technology for applying principles. The selections of this volume have been made with the purpose of fulfilling both of these demands. There is a vast field of literature in theoretical psychology, and the bulk of industrial psychology is derived from the theoretical literature. However, it would be out of place to fill this volume with the treatises on abstract psychological speculation, or with the academic investigations in pure science along psychological lines. The purpose has been to glean from one source and another enough of the theory to give some conception of fundamental, scientific principles. On the other hand, the purpose has been to balance this material with selections that treat of methods, practices, and technique. The two combined are offered as a practical approach to the study of the possibilities of psychology in industry by managers and executives. The ^successes of pioneer business men in applying psychology to industry have been numerous enough and thorough enough so that the rank BUSINESS EXECUTIVES 3 and file of business executives can afford to take seriously the demonstrated contribution which psychology is able to make to the tasks of modern management. \ LIONEL D. EDIE. I. THE PSYCHOLOGICAL BASIS OF INDUSTRIAL RELATIONS THE POSSIBILITIES CONTAINED IN THE PSYCHOLOGICAL APPROACH * During the nineteenth century many advances were made in our conception of the material world and in our practice of dealing with its various factors. The twentieth century is characterized by an appreciation of the personnel problem, by the possession of the behavioristic point of view in psychology, and by the presence of numerous trained experts devoting their energy to the development of the concepts and practice of personnel. . . The importance of these changes is very great, both for the development of the science of psychology and for the welfare of the human race. It has been estimated that during the nineteenth century the power of the human race to produce food, clothing and shelter was doubled by the application of increased knowledge of the material elements of the universe. All the significant advances in knowledge of the material world were brought about by possibly a few thousand progressive minds devoted to that study. It is quite probable that the productive power of the human race is being doubled again during the present century. The benefits of this advance will be divided between better adjust- ments of the material world to the needs of man, and the better adjustments of man to man. Such an increase in the efficiency of the race will probably be due to the advance in our knowledge of personnel rather than to further increase in our knowledge of the material universe. If a few thousand men in their study of the material world served the science and the race so effec- tively, those of us who are engaged in the study of personnel 1 Walter Dill Scott, President of the Scott Company, President of the American Psychological Association. Annual address. Psychological Review. Vol. 27. 1920. p. 82-04. 6 PRACTICAL PSYCHOLOGY FOR may get a glimpse of the responsibility and the opportunity that is ours. THE DRIVING POWER OF HUMAN INSTINCTS 1 We may say, then, that directly or indirectly the instincts ' are the prime movers of all human activity; by the conative or impulsive force of some instinct (or of some habit derived from an instinct), every train of thought, however cold and passion- less it may seem, is borne along toward its end, and every bodily activity is initiated and sustained. The instinctive impulses determine the ends of all activities and supply the driving power by which all mental activities are sustained; and. all the complex intellectual apparatus of the most highly developed mind is but a means toward these ends, is but the instrument by which these impulses seek their satisfactions, while pleasure and pain do but serve to guide them in their choice of the means. Take away these instinctive dispositions with their powerful J impulses, and the organism would become incapable of activity of any kind; it would lie inert and motionless like a wonderful clockwork whose main-spring had been removed or a steam- engine whose fires had been drawn. These impulses are the mental forces that maintain and shape all the life of individuals and societies, and in them we are confronted with the central mystery of life and mind and will. SOCIETY FOUNDED ON INSTINCTS 2 The integrating factors in all animal societies are instincts rather than intelligence. That this is true of ants, bees, and wasps, of fishes, birds, wolves, and sheep no one will question. That it is equally true of human society is plainly apparent to any one who studies primitive man or who analyzes the behavior of even the highest races. Even in man, instinct is more universal 1 William McDougall. Social Psychology. i3th ed. p. 45-6. John W. Luce & Co. Boston. 1918. 2 Edwin Grant Conklin. The direction of Human Evolution; Evo- lution and Democracy, p. 90-4. Charles Scribner's Sons. New York 1921. BUSINESS EXECUTIVES 7 and more powerful than reason ; indeed, reason plays a relatively small part in the lives and activities of most men. The contrary opinion is due to our inveterate habit of acting instinctively and then attempting to explain to ourselves or to others the reason for the act. Indeed, mankind, as a whole, has but recently begun to emerge from a life of instinct to one of intelligence and reason. Some races and some individuals havfc gone farther in this direction than others, but with the great mass of mankind instinct is still the guide of life. Descartes begins his famous Discourse on Method with these words : "Good sense or reason is, of all things among men, the most equally distributed." No modern philosopher or scientist would agree to this ; on the contrary, he would say : "Instinct is, of all psychical things among men, the most equally distributed." Instinct and not reason is the source and ultimate cause of human society as well as of most human behavior. The principal instincts of all animals are those which concern safety, food, and reproduction ; the most important social instincts have to do with the defense, welfare, and perpetuity of the group. In addition to these general instincts the following more special ones have served to bind the higher mammals together in societies: 1. The instinct of service, especially between members of the same family or social group. 2. The fear of isolation, or disapproval, and the desire for fellowship, or sympathy. 3. The tendency to follow trusted leaders, but not to depart too far from precedents. These are the integrating, coordinating, harmonizing bonds which unite men in societies. They are deep-seated instincts not easily overcome. The presence and power of these instincts in practically all peoples of the earth has been demonstrated in a most remarkable manner during the Great War. It is reassuring to find that the integrative instincts on which society is founded have not disappeared, and while these foundations remain let no one despair of the future of society. On the other hand, among the higher mammals and especially among men there are disintegrative instincts or desires which tend to disrupt societies or at least to create disharmony. Among these are: 8 PRACTICAL PSYCHOLOGY FOR 1. The desire for individual freedom, even when it conflicts with the welfare of society. 2. The tendency to limit social cooperation to groups or classes based upon family, racial, national, temperamental, environmental, industrial, intellectual, or religious homogeneity. Such disruptive instincts are not unknown in animal societies. Ant-colonies often wage relentless war upon other colonies, even though they be of the same species. Under certain circum- stances bees become ruthless robbers and marauders, waging a war of extermination upon weaker or defenseless colonies, and even upon other species of animals ; indeed the robber instinct of bees seems to be a kind of frenzy, or madness, which is possibly the result of fear and the defensive instinct. In all animals the class instinct serves to bind together more firmly the members of the same class or colony, while at 'the same time it widens the gaps between different classes and colonies. Indeed, it may be said that in animal societies there are practically no bonds between different groups or colonies. These class instincts are very evident among men. Fortunately they are opposed by the harmonizing and unifying instincts, and most of all intelli- gence and reason. The incompleteness of integration, cooperation, and harmony in human society is due to the fact that imperfect intelligence and freedom have come in to interfere with instinct. Disharmony in ourselves and in society is the price we pay for personal intelligence and freedom. The more intelligence one has the greater is his freedom from purely instinctive responses, but man is never wholly free from the influences of instinct. The personal freedom which endangers human cooperation opens at the same time a path of progress along rational lines. In our individual behavior and in our social activities we now seek the ideal harmony of the hive, but on the higher plane of intelligence, freedom, and ethics. The past evolution of man has occurred almost entirely without conscious human guidance; but with the appearance of intellect and the capacity of profiting by experience a new and great opportunity and responsibility has been given man of directing rationally and ethically his future evolution. More than anything else, that which distinguishes human society from that of other animals is just this ability incomplete though it is to control instincts and emotions by intelligence and reason. BUSINESS EXECUTIVES 9 Those who maintain that racial, national, and class antagonisms are inevitable because they are instinctive, and that wars can never cease because man is by nature a fighting animal, really deny that mankind can ever learn by experience; they look backward to the instinctive origins of society and not forward to its rational organization. We shall never cease to have instincts, but, unless they are balanced and controlled by reason, human society will revert to the level of the pack or herd or hive. The foundations of human society are laid in gregarious instincts, but upon these foundations human intelligence has erected that enormous structure which we call civilization. GUIDANCE OF THE PRIMARY HUMAN FORCES 1 I have been at some pains to make it clear that the instinctive tendencies of man must often be supplemented, redirected and even reversed, and that, in the ordinary sense of the words, original nature is imperfect and untrustworthy. But in a certain important sense nature is right. There is a warfare of man's ideals with his original tendencies, but his ideals themselves came at some time from original yearnings in some man. Learning has to remake unlearned tendencies for the better, but the capacity to learn, too, is a part of his nature. Intelligence and reason are fit rulers of man's instincts just because they are of the same flesh and blood. They are not foreign conquerors, imposing a law that is better because it conies down from above. They are sons of the soil, as indigenous as hunger and thirst, chosen to rule because their laws mean the best harmony of all the instincts. The native impulses and cravings of man have to be tamed and enlightened by the customs, arts and sciences of civilized life, but every item of these arts and sciences was first created by forces within man's own nature. Instincts may be trusted to form desirable habits only under a strong social pressure whereby the wants of one are accommodated to the wants of all, but the most elaborate and artificial moral training which a social group prescribes is still ultimately an expression of man's nature. The 1 E. L. Thorndike. The Original Nature of Man. In Educational Psychology. Vol. I. p. 310-12. Teachers College, Columbia University. 1913-1914. io PRACTICAL PSYCHOLOGY FOR springs of ideals and of work in their service are surely -not in the environment of rocks, rivers, animals and plants. Man's nature is right in at least the sense that it, not the world outside of it, is the source of whatever goods man has learned to esteem. The impersonal wants, the cravings for truth, beauty and justice, the zeal for competence in workmanship, and the spirit of good-will toward men which are the highest objects of life for man seem far removed from his original proclivities. They are remote in the sense that the forces in their favor have to work diligently and ingeniously in order to make them even partial aims for even a minority of men. But, in a deeper sense, they reside within man himself ; and, apart from super- natural aids, the forces in their favor are simply all the good in all men. The original nature of man, as we have seen, has its source far back of reason and morality in the interplay of brute forces ; it grows up as an agency to keep men, and especially certain neurones within men's bodies, alive; it is physiologically deter- mined by the character of the synaptic bonds and degrees of readiness to act of these neurones; parts of it are again and again in rebellion against the higher life that the acquired wisdom of man prescribes. But it has evolved reason and morality from brute force; amongst the neurones whose life it serves are neurones whose life means, if a certain social environ- ment is provided, loving children, being just to all men, seeking the truth, and every other activity that man honors, the wisdom that criticizes it is its own product; the higher life is the choice of its better elements : for whatever aberrations and degradations it imposes on man, its own virtues are the preventive and cure: and to it will be due whatever happiness, power and dignity man attains. "Human nature, then, has for its core the substance of nature at large, and is one of its more complex formations. Its determination is progressive. It varies indefinitely in its historic manifestations and fades into what, as a matter of natural history, might no longer be termed human. At each moment it has its fixed and determined entelechy, the ideal of that being's life, based on his instincts, summed up in his character, brought to a focus in his reflection, and shared by all who have attained or may inherit his organization. His perceptive and reasoning BUSINESS EXECUTIVES 11 faculties are parts of human nature, as embodied in him; all objects of belief or desire, with all standards of justice and duty which he can possibly acknowledge are transcripts of it, conditioned by it, and justifiable only as expressions of its inherent tendencies." Santayana, Life of Reason. These in- herent tendencies, too, bear the impetus and means to their own improvement. The apostles and soldiers of the ideal in whom service for truth and justice has become the law of life need not despair of human nature, nor pray for a miracle to purge man of his baser elements. They are the sufficient miracle : their lives are the proof that human nature itself can change itself for the better that the human species can teach itself to think for truth alone and to act for the good of all men. SCOPE OF PSYCHOLOGY IN INDUSTRY * All great movements of history and pre-history have been the products of unrest and man's struggle to make or find an S environment that better suits his nature and his needs. It took * the world a long time to learn that religion was made for man, and not man for religion. More recently we have been learning that the school was made for the child, and not the child for the school. Today we are in the midst of the same Copernican revolution in industry and are beginning to realize that it was made for the better development of man, and not conversely. [Jt, too, can never be stable until it fits human nature and needs.J But let me say at the outset that the nascent but inevitable advent of democracy into industry is not to be attained by any bolshevik program of confiscation or nationalization of capital; nor by any form of government socialism, or by the French or any form of syndicalism; nor by any modernization of the mediaeval guilds; nor by any development yet in sight of the efficiency system, which has so far contributed almost as much to the discontent of labor as it has to the effectiveness of the organization; nor even by the full program of the Whitley reports. \ Permanent and settled industrial peace and good-will can only be found in a full and unreserved cooperation between 1 G. Stanley Hall. Address before Worcester Polytechnic Institute, June 10, 1920. Reprinted from Pedagogical Seminary. Vol. 27. 1920. p. 281-91, 293. 12 PRACTICAL PSYCHOLOGY FOR capital and labor, with some complete scheme of joint control and profit-sharing, involving more knowledge by the laborer of the business as a whole and more loyalty to it. This alone can bring harmony, avoid the excessive waste of friction, ill-will, soldiering on the job, labor turn-overs, strikes of which an official report a few months ago told us there were three hundred sixty-five, or one for every day of the year, on at that time in this country and all the other wastage of energy from unem- ployment to sabotage. All jhese disorders which are so ominous for the business and economic future of this country and its supremacy in the markets of the world are, in a sense, of psychic origin, and the cure must be sought by a better knowledge and a wiser regimentation of the mind of labor. A \ N > Can we ever hope to accomplish the colossal engineering with the forces of Mansoul which will bring accord where there is now discord utterly without precedent? I think we see the direction and some of the first steps toward this goal. But before designating these, let me first remind you that psychology has, almost within a decade, made a great discovery which is very much in point here, viz., that of the unconscious state of man's nature. The field of consciousness, which used to be our muse, is far too narrow, so that man very rarely knows what he really wants or what are the causes of his troubles. Consciousness is like the one-ninth of the iceberg that is above the water, once thought to be guided by the winds while in fact the impelling force is the currents of the denser medium in which the other eight-ninths are submerged. How often we think we are doing this or that by this or that means, when we realize later in fact, as history does for mankind, that very different goals were really sought. Thus the mind as we knew it before is like a port of entry and departure for a vast hinterland, or like a clearing-house. Thus with all social and political movements, as well as with industry, we have to look under the threshold of the mind for the real causes. In the era of the unconscious we are now doing that, as never before, in every field of thought. It is a little as if the individual and the race had found a new and larger soul, so that the past, present and future require reinterpretation. In view of this let us enumerate a few of the deeper primal needs of man on which his tranquillity and effectiveness depend, quite as often and perhaps more unconsciously than consciously. BUSINESS EXECUTIVES 13 and failure to satisfy which makes for unrest and sometimes revolution. i. The first of these is the homely need of sufficient and fit food and drink. Nutrition is the basis of life. The first use of every sense, all of which are located near the entrance of the alimentary canal, was as a food-finder or tester. A large part of the intelligence of animals which we marvel at as instinct is directly developed by and from the food quest. The voluminous studies of the Pavlov school show us that anything that comes to be associated with food for the animal or for the human infant becomes an organ of apperception. All migrations of animals and also of men have always been from areas of scarcity to those of more adequate food supply. Many studies show, too, the effects of sub- or mal-nutrition in children. The under-nourished are far more fatigable; they have less power to resist infectious diseases and to recover from wounds, injuries or illness; they are more likely to be arrested before the later, higher stages of physical and mental maturity are attained; and they are far more nervous and irritable. There is a marked correlation in children between sub-nutrition and runaways, truancy and theft, which often begins with the theft of edibles. Very slight nutritive defects are often summated for months and years, as, e.g., a slight insufficiency of salt, long continued, causes flocks of animals and tribes of men to trek till this nutritive deficit is compensated for. Who can doubt that the general recent food shortage, especially in Central Europe, has much to do with the general unrest there, or that taking away the tipple to which the workman was long used is another contributing, if unconscious, factor in every kind of discontent, for the new nutritive balance that prohibition requires always causes men to make more demands upon the home table or dinner pail and thus brings added responsibilities upon the housewife. The working man is, in some respects, peculiarly dependent upon his dietary, and the lank and hungry are pre- disposed to listen to radicals. The many researches in this field show that it is the early stages of a long fast that cause most disquiet, and also that a stated reduction of food to a half or quarter of the normal, while it sustains life indefinitely, is vastly more disquieting and painful than complete abstinence. When from food insufficiency the body begins to draw upon its own reserves and consume 14 PRACTICAL PSYCHOLOGY FOR itself, taxing as it does the various organs and functions in a rather definite scale, some of them losing a tenfold larger percentage than others, not only efficiency but character undergo certain degenerative changes, and there is a diffused anxiety which suggestion may cause to focus on almost any object in the environment. Thus the underfed man can not only do less work and does it with more friction, like an engine only partially fueled and oiled, but he becomes more or less combustible at the touch of any kind of agitator. The dread of insufficient food in the near future is another grain of sand in the machine. Thus, in time, we are realizing as never before what a dangerous factor in politics, society, or industry, protracted and prolonged sub- or mal-nutrition may come to be. Napoleon said the greatest reinforcer of courage in the soldier was to be able to "fight on a full belly," and the morale of labor of every kind rests no less squarely upon the basis of metabolism. So our great industrial army, which works on its belly, needs a new Hooverism, which science and many social agencies are now, at least in part, prepared to supply. If the daily ration of food or nutritive values throughout this country were cut to one-half o'r one-third, as for the bourgeoisie in bolshevik Russia, or even to one-fourth of the normal need, we should live indefinitely and even "carry on" after a fashion; but efficiency would gradually sink in nearly the same proportion; pur national disposition, buoyant and optimistic, would sag ; accidents would multiply ; our mores and morale would decline ; and the growing dis-ease would start or augment every tendency in the direction of revolution and even anarchy. Miss Gamble tells young women the best way to manage a husband is to keep him well-fed and never allow him to get thirsty. No matter what policies or treaties nations adopt, the world can never hope for assured and lasting peace as long as its food supply is insufficient and insecure. 2. The second basal need of man is wife and children. This is the racial as hunger is the individual factor in the mental hygiene of industry. It roots in and irradiates from the sex urge, from which evolve all the secondary sex qualities of mind and body which make the family and the home, and which is sublimated in the higher forms of culture, social life and religion. Statistics show that married men are more conservative, less prone to rove, have more incentive to earn, save and look ahead. BUSINESS EXECUTIVES 15 But they need a larger wage, and if their loved ones suffer privations, their exasperation at hard conditions is more intense and perhaps desperate. These normal domestic and family instincts, if thwarted and repressed, sooner or later find vent in subtle mental distempers which psychiatry is just beginning to understand, or else in social or industrial revolt, the real cause of which is also deeper and other than we have hitherto realized. Studies of the I. W. W. show how many of its members have known or have thrown off family ties, and one writer estimates that in the last ten years there have been fifty thousand clinical cases which show lives wrecked or gravely jeopardized by the perversions of the vita sexualis in the new and larger light in which this is now interpreted. The workman loves his wife, children and home as much as, and some would have us believe more than, the millionaire. He feels every pang and slight as acutely, he is no less solicitous for their present well-being and future career, and is probably more ready to make sacrifices for them. The wifeless, childless, homeless man is not only a greater industrial risk but is prone to turn to vicious vicariates for these domestic instincts, for without these hostages to fortune he is prone to focus on self the affections meant for posterity and the perpetuity and im- provement of the race. It is not so much the pithy hints on sex hygiene, which did so much good in the army, that the workman needs, although this does good; he needs more a few basal principles of eugenics, which Galton thought the religion of the future, but most of all he needs incentive and opportunity to take a mate and start a family near the dawn of the now rather well-defined age biologically best for nubity and procrea- tion and not after its heyday has begun to fade and he has learned to satisfy these racial needs by inferior surrogates. Perhaps in no domain of our modern life is there so much new knowledge unapplied today, but from which we may hope for so much in the near future. 3. A third basal instinct never so strong as since evolution became the watchword of culture and in a true democracy in which the way to the highest is open to the lowest, is the impulse to get ahead, to progress, to improve, to make the most and the best out of this present life. The motto of even the ever fewer who have some vestige of belief in a future life of compensations "One life at a time, and this one i6 PRACTICAL PSYCHOLOGY FOR now." This urge is seen in the millions of young and middle- aged men taking extension, continuation, and correspondence courses, either to make up for neglected opportunities in the past or to keep abreast with the latest advances of knowledge and skill. Nowhere does the fate of that vast multitude of unskilled toilers in the world, who, as statistics show, at twenty have reached their maximum of industrial efficiency and see nothing ahead but decades of the same drudgery, seem so intolerable. Nowhere are parents so anxious that their children should rise above their own estate, and nowhere does the merely living wage seem so exasperating. This country was peopled from the first to now by those in the world who were restless at home and sought and expected more freedom or possessions J or both, and this American-itis, as we call its extreme form, colors our every industrial and social problem. In so far as we have escaped the old world stratification of ranks and classes we have bought this immunity at the high cost of having a horror of inferiority and stationariness unprecedented in history, to say nothing of the all dominance of mediocrity. The reor- ganization of labor must reckon with this tendency and realize that the standard of living of the workman must be indefinitely improved so that he may be able to lay by for the future rather than be dependent upon old-age pensions and accident- and health- insurance, which are too paternal for the American spirit. This spirit, I fear we must realize, nothing will ultimately satisfy short of profit-sharing, although we admit that this involves practically joint ownership with capital. To this, I fear, too, we can see no alternative except the desperately unpractical one of either sovietism or the free importation of Mongol or other cheap labor, unless, indeed, some of our interests have to go where labor is instead of bringing it to us. The instinct of ownership, which has made some ten thousand millionaires in this country, is strong in every American, who, perhaps on the whole, prefers wealth to anything else in the world. To hold property, even a little, not only makes for conservatism but extends the limits of personality, making the holder alive to everything in the environ- ment which affects his interests. It is thus one of the most educative and man-making of all the agencies of the modern world, and if it represents real service in the community, it is, on the whole, the very best measure of worthful citizenship. 4. Another very basal impulse, one of the chief traits of BUSINESS EXECUTIVES 17 man, is the noetic instinct or curiosity, the lust to know and understand the environment, which began with the very develop- ment of the brain and has culminated in modern science. This dynamic urge is strong, in some sense stronger, among the ignorant and technically uneducated who realize their limitations. Even the illiterate workman has his intellect and will use it wisely or otherwise. He welcomes everything and everyone who makes a pungent appeal, as radicals and agitators with their cheap and easy and often perverse solutions of all great problems surely know how to do. His mentation may be ever so rudimentary and collective, as in the mass and the mob, rather than the individual, but mental pabulum of some kind he must have, and this need is as great as that of his body for food. Under the old guild system he found scope for his instincts in the craft itself, but this the ever increasing specialization of the modern mass production denies him so that he seeks to escape mental suffocation by listening to the propagandists of revolution. Kirschensteiner has evolved culture courses for some forty trades and occupations, so that a boot-black, e.g., knows some- thing of leather, the history of footwear, etc., while the chimney- sweep knows the rudiments of combustion, ventilation, of the chemistry of soot, and thus not only can he use his brains as well as his hands but the two work together and not in separate domains. The ditch- digger is taught something of drainage, sewerage, etc. It is the dawn of the recognition of the noetic instinct that has prompted a few firms in this country to do some one, some several of the following things. Some make periodic shifts from one process to a very dif- ferent one so that each workman becomes familiar with several, and a few have a regular rotation by which each may acquire some skill in most processes. Sometimes workmen are taken in groups throughout the entire works by one employed for that purpose who explains to them everything so that they may see the bearing their particular process has upon the finished product. This may take months in a large concern, but it is said to pay. Movies, too, are called into service in various factories so that at intermissions or at the close of certain days men can see the processes on the screen. Other firms have gotten up and given freely to every employee elegantly illustrated textbooks, e.g., a leather book, steel book, harvester book, automobile book, etc., and this has stimulated interest, sometimes to a high degree. i8 PRACTICAL PSYCHOLOGY FOR Others have inaugurated a new kind of shop committee, not to confer on the question of wages but upon processes and labor- saving devices and to advance joint interests. Automatic machinery, e.g., a cotton loom, can be so loaded with shuttles that it will run, with no man in the building, for several hours and then stop, and this makes for the shortening of hours. Still other firms encourage bringing in visitors, especially the families of the workmen, and showing them through the mill, for this is thought to have a stimulating influence upon the workman, not only while the visitors are looking on but after- wards for he wishes to show his skill and dignify the importance of his work. In some establishments every process is checked off to the individual so that any defect, even when discovered a long time afterwards, can be brought home to the operator. This increases his sense of responsibility and also helps to develop a pride in good work. Other agencies which enable every worker, in ever so narrow a specialty, to see the whole are often supplemented by civic instruction because many of our workers come from hard conditions in Europe, e.g., the Rus- sians in whose country factory conditions are as bad as serfdom, so that here they are prone, all the more because of their misfortunes in coming to this land of promise and rosy dreams, to give vent to all the antagonisms that were justifiable in the old country but utterly baseless here. The instinct and the example of so many educated, rich, young men in England in going to the colonies, and here in going West or beginning at the very bottom of an industry as workingmen in overalls in order to test themselves out and rise according to their abilities, is also in point. But we must not forget that this same instinct impels labor to seek to know all about profits and dividends and perhaps to become small stockholders, an ambition that some firms are now doing so much to help realize and which perhaps all should do. The workman also has wider outside interests as a citizen and a member of society, and these we should do far more to guide into the right channels and set backfires to check counsels of violence and direct action. Our government at the beginning of its campaign against the "reds" burned all their literature, as Comstock did that of vice, but has lately seen a new light, so that the post-office department now selects samples of every scrap of seditious and anarchistic literature, even to clippings. BUSINESS EXECUTIVES 19 This is perhaps the most complete collection of its kind in the world, and it is used not only in criminal deportation or espion- age cases but will be available for the future study of the social- clinician. Our academic economists and even sociologists, freed from excessive war censorship, are now doing invaluable work for the diffusion of sane ideas, which are bound to be a great factor in the harmonization of capital and labor, slow and hard as this campaign of education is going to be. 5. It has been said that almost no man is so feeble or deficient in mind or body that he cannot excel in something, and conversely that the very best man will fail if he finds himself in the wrong place. Psychology is just learning how immensely individuals, even those of the same rank and training, differ from each other, and how immeasurably more effective our entire industrial system would be if we could only put and keep everybody where he would be doing his best thing. Perhaps no single device would accomplish more to give our country the industrial supremacy it merits and now has the unique opportunity to attain in the world than the very arduous one of getting all the square men in square holes and all the round men into the round holes rather than vice versa, which means wastage incalculable. We are tunneling this problem from both sides of the mountain; on the one hand, we have those who devote themselves to job analysis, finding just the traits most necessary for each vocation and even each specialty, and, on the other hand, vocational guidance studies individuals to find the one thing that nearly all can do well. We know the incal- culable service that the personnel department rendered the army by listing not only the trade but from three to five degrees of proficiency in it which each soldier had acquired, utilizing thus all the skills required in times of peace. Now there is a rapidly growing recognition of "the advantages of the same kind of psychology for the arts of peace. True, much of the work has hitherto been done by amateurs and even fakirs, but many firms are now seeking trained psychologists to test their em- ployees and assign them to the place in the system for which they have the best native or acquired aptitudes. With aptitude, it must be remembered, goes taste and interest, so that not only productive efficiency but content is thus augmented. We have long realized, and are doing so now more than ever before, the growing specialization necessary for effective large-scale produc- 20 PRACTICAL PSYCHOLOGY FOR tion, but we are only just beginning to realize the fact that Nature itself has specialized individuals vastly more than we supposed, so that in all this work we are simply utilizing the energies at our hand untouched. Almost pathetic are some of the tales of workmen whom only a slight analysis would have rescued from doing things for which they were utterly unfit and put to things for which they were preeminently fitted, thus rendering them not only happier but more secure and where the differential wage system prevails, often able to earn more. Unless all signs fail, the time is at hand when everyone, before finally entering upon his life work, whether at the end of his required schooling or at graduation, will have more self- knowledge, and when institutions that give diplomas will also study each individual more and be able to advise and guide him into a career that promises the most for him. 6. Man is the most gregarious of all animals, and gregarious animals are far more intelligent and domestic- able than those of solitary habits. Compare, for example, the dog and the cat. But man is the most gregarious of all creatures and was so even before the time of his simian ancestors descended from the trees. The prehistoric Cro-Magnon race eliminated the well-established Neanderthals in primitive Europe because they had a far more elaborate social organization. Man's very soul languishes in solitude, and there is no such stimulus as intercourse. We have lately listed 113 types of child organizations but no one has even attempted to list all the thousands of organizations that have sprung directly from the herd instincts in adults. The passion to get together and act collectively, which is seen all the way from the street gang and mob to the club, sect and party, marks man as preeminently the herd animal. It is this instinct that depletes the country for the city, that is one factor in the difficulty of drawing servant girls and farm hands into the country. The individual needs to merge with his fellow-beings, and most of our thinking and still more of our feeling is done collectively in groups. Our conduct is made up for the most part of suggested action, and habits and char- acter are molded by the social milieu. There are few psychic horrors greater than those described as due to long confinement or isolation that is really solitary, and when condemned to this the soul instinctively "pals" with the lower forms of life or invents imaginary companions. BUSINESS EXECUTIVES 21 ? This instinct is one of the chief charms of the jaloon. and now that we have dispensed with it, the workman finds the vicariate for his social instincts in the trade union, which is thus greatly vitalized, or perhaps even in the excitement of a strike. All this shows that for this instinct for an assembly, of getting into frequent and close rapport with his fellow-men provision must always be made, for every kind of wholesome convivium vents and releases a strain and tension which may break out in riotous form. Never has trade solidarity and con- sciousness been so intense as it is today in this country, to say nothing of the soviet in Russia and the syndicalists in France, so that we have here new forces to which we must readjust. I have thus tabbed off and very inadequately sketched the six instincts which, as I see it, psychology deems oldest and most basal. There are, of course, plenty more, and there is still much diversity of view as to the relative importance and strength of the fundamental as well as of the accessory energies of Mansoul. There are also many other very different chapters in the relation of the science I represent to industry, viz., the psychology of skill, of employers, of efficiency and inventions, etc. But I think that I only voice the deep conviction of every worker in this field in saying that the world is now entering a new psychological age, which perhaps the historians of the future will call another renaissance in recognition of the sig- nificance of the psychic forces in the world, forces often too deep and large to enter the narrow field of consciousness. Primal urges of the soul, some of them as old as animal life itself, set in action currents that have behind them the whole momentum of evolution. Manifold as are the expressions of these primordial instincts, plastic as human nature is in adapting to new environments, in some respects its basal traits can no more be changed than can the laws of physics and chemistry. . . There is one and only one source to which we can turn for hope that evolutionary processes will not be reversed but go on, and that is to the unconscious instinctive nature of man, which in the past has evolved language, religion with all its deities and rites, every social, political and industrial institution, and, because man is a herd animal, devised so many ways of checking egoism. His sentiments, feelings, instincts are as much vaster than his intellect as the folksoul is greater than the individual, and in human nature, as all progress bears witness, the good predominates over the bad. It is these deeper currents 22 PRACTICAL PSYCHOLOGY FOR in the human soul that have wrought every salvation in history, and from this source alone can salvation now come. We do not yet know how. It will come by no panacea, and it will not come suddenly but will be so slow and hard that the patience of the world is likely to be tried as never before. It may not come from us who study the human soul because its problems are too vast for us, but it is well that we are beginning to feel a new responsibility for uncapping energies. We are at the stage where chemistry was in the days of Lavoiseir or physics in the days that preceded Newton. But our young men are seeing visions and our old men are dreaming dreams of an age when psychic forces will be just as dominant in every great enterprise of man as science is today in industry. SUBSTITUTING HIGHER MOTIVES FOR LOWER 1 I suppose most of us would admit that emulation in service is desirable and is actually operative in some quarters, but would question whether it is not too high to be generally practicable. . . Even in our present confused and selfish scheme of economic life the best work is largely done under the impulse of service emulation. . . Nor can there be much doubt that a great part of mechanical workmen, having a skilled trade into which it is possible to put interest and a progressive spirit, are animated by the sense of sharing in a great productive whole. Perhaps, like most of us, they need at times the spur of knowing that they must work, but this is not what is most present to their imaginations or elicits their best endeavors. The wage question, as the focus of controversy, is kept before the mind and leads us, I believe, to exaggerate the part which pecuniary calculations play in the mind of the handicraftsman. For the most part he resembles the teacher or doctor in that he wishes to think no more about money in connection with his work than he feels he has to. The mechanics I see about me plumbers, masons, furnace-men and the like are as full of the zest of life as any class; they lik the struggle, the sense of hope and power and honest service sy like' ice. / 1 Charles Horton Cooley. Social process, p. 130, 131, 134, 135, 139, 140, 142, 321, 322, 323, 324, 325, 343. Charles Scribner's Sons. New York. 1918. BUSINESS EXECUTIVES 23 It is almost certain that the grosser forms of economic want and terror, like corporal punishment in the schoolroom, paralyze rather than stimulate the energies of society. This liability to starvation and freezing, degradation and contempt for not hav- ing money in one's pocket, with no inquiry why, this nightmare of evil to be averted not by service but by money, and only money, no matter how you get it this is overdoing the pecuniary motive. It brutalizes the imagination and creates an unhuman dread that impels to sensuality and despair. . . One of the main forces in keeping economic motive on a low moral level has been the doctrine that selfishness is all we need or can hope to have in this phase of life. Economists have too commonly taught that if each man seeks his private interest the good of society will take care of itself, and the somewhat anarchic conditions of the time have discouraged a better theory. 'In this way we have been confirmed in a pernicious state of be- lief and practice, for which discontent, inefficiency, and revolt are the natural penalty. A social system based on this doctrine deserves to fail. When pressed regarding this matter economists have not de- nied that their system rests on a partial and abstract view of human nature; but they have held that this view is practically adequate in the economic field, and have often seemed to be- lieve that it sufficed for all but a negligible part of human life. On the contrary, it is false even as economics, and we shall never have an efficient system until we have one that appeals to the imagination, the loyalty, and the self-expression of the men who serve it. . . By a sense of security I mean the feeling that there is a larger and more enduring life surrounding, appreciating, up- holding the individual, and guaranteeing that his efforts and sacrifice will not be in vain. I might almost say that it is a sense of immortality; if not that, it is something akin to and looking toward it, something that relieves the precariousness of the merely private self. It is rare that human nature sustains a high standard of behavior without the consciousness of opinions and sympathies that illuminate the standard and make it seem worth while. It lies deep in the social nature of our minds that ideals can hardly seem real without such corroboration. In a still more tangible sense I mean a reasonable economic security. A man can hardly have a good spirit if he feels that the ground is unsure beneath his feet, that his social world may 24 PRACTICAL PSYCHOLOGY FOR disown and forget him tomorrow. There is scarcely anything more appalling to the human spirit than this feeling, or more destructive of all generous impulses. It is an old observation that fear shrinks the soul; and there is no fear like this. The soldier who knows that he may be killed at any moment may yet be perfectly secure in a psychological sense; secure of his duty and of the sympathy of his fellows, his mind quite at peace ; but this treachery of the ground we stand on is like a bad dream. As one will shrink from attaching himself in love and service to a person whom he feels he cannot trust, so he will from giving his loyalty to an insecure position. It is impossible that such tenure of function as now chiefly prevails in the in- dustrial world should not induce selfishness, restlessness, and a service only mercenary. . . While it is not indispensable, in order to secure emulation in service, that the work should allow of self-expression and so be attractive in itself, yet in so far as we can make it self-ex- pressive we release fresh energies of the human mind. The ideal condition is to have something of the spirit of art in every task, a sense of joyous individual creation. We are formed for development, and an endless, hopeless repetition is justly ab- horrent. No matter how humble a man's work, he will do it better and in a better spirit if he sees that he can improve upon it and hope to pass beyond it. Judged by such standards, our present order is inefficient, be- cause its tasks are so largely narrow, drudging, meaningless, in- human. . . It is true that the pecuniary motive may also be, indirectly, a motive of self-expression ; that is, for example, a girl may work hard for $10 with which to buy a pretty hat. It makes a great difference, however, whether or not the work is directly self-expressive, whether the worker feels that what he does is joyous and rewarding in itself, so that it would be worth doing whether he were paid for it or not. The artist, the poet, the skilled craftsman in wood and iron, the born teacher or lawyer, all have this feeling, and it is desirable that it should become as common as possible. I admit that the line is not a sharp one, but on the whole the pecuniary motive may be said to be an ex- trinsic one, as compared with the more intrinsic character of those others which I have called motives of self-expression. BUSINESS EXECUTIVES 25 When I say that self-expression is a regulator, of productive activity I mean that, like the pecuniary motive, though in a dif- ferent way, it is the expression of an organic whole, and not necessarily a less authoritative expression. What a man feels to be self-expressive springs in part from the instincts of hu- man nature and in part from the form given to those instincts by the social life in which his mind develops. Both of these in- fluences spring from the organic life of the human race. The man of genius who opens new ways in poetry and art, the social reformer who spends his life in conflict with inhuman condi- tions, the individual anywhere or of any sort who tries to realize the needs of his higher being, represents the common life of man in a way that may have a stronger claim than the require- ments of pecuniary demand. As a motive it is quite as uni- versal as the latter, and there is no one of us who has not the capacity to feel it. As regards the individual himself, self-expression is simply the deepest need of his nature. It is required for self-respect and integrity of character, and there can be no question more fundamental than that of so ordering life that the mass of men may have a chance to find self-expression in their principal ac- tivity. . . Self-expression springs from the deeper and more obscure currents of life, from subconscious, unmechanized forces which are potent without our understanding why. It represents hu- manity more immediately and its values are, or may be, more vital and significant than those of the market ; we may look to them for art, for science, for religion, for moral improvement, for all the fresher impulses to social progress. The onward things of life usually come from men whose imperious self- expression disregards the pecuniary market. In humbler tasks self-expression is required to give the individual an immediate and lively interest in his work; it is the motive of art and joy, the spring of all vital achievement. . . Closely related to this is the sense of worthy service. No man can feel that his work is self-expressive unless he believes that it is good work and can see that it serves mankind. If the product is trivial or base he can hardly respect himself, and the demand for such things, as Ruskin used to say, is a demand for slavery. Or if the em- ployer for whom a man works and who is the immediate bene- ficiary of his labors is believed to be self-seeking beyond what 26 PRACTICAL PSYCHOLOGY FOR is held legitimate, and not working honorably for the general good, the effect will be much the same. The worst sufferers from such employers are the men who work for them, whether their wages be high or low. As regards the general relation in our time between market value and self-expression, the fact seems to be something as fol- lows: Our industrial system has undergone an enormous ex- pansion and an almost total change of character. In the course of this, human nature has been dragged along, as it were, by the hair of the head. It has been led or driven into kinds of work and conditions of work that are repugnant to it, especially repugnant in view of the growth of intelligence and of democ- racy in other spheres of life. The agent in this has been the pecuniary motive backed by the absence of alternatives. This pecuniary motive has reflected a system of values determined under the ascendancy, direct and indirect, of the commercial class naturally dominant in a time of this kind. I will not say that as a result of this state of things the condition of the hand- workers is worse than in a former epoch; in some respects it seems worse, in many it is clearly better; but certainly it is far from what it should be in view of the enormous growth of hu- man resources. In the economic philosophy which has prevailed along with this expansion, the pecuniary motive has been accepted as the legitimate principle of industrial organization to the neglect of self-expression. The human self, however, is not to be treated thus with impunity; it is asserting itself in a somewhat general discontent and in many specific forms of organized endeavor. The commercialism that accepts as satisfactory present values and the method of establishing them is clearly on the decline and we have begun to work for a more self-expressive order. . . Production has not always lacked ideals, nor does it every- where lack them at present. They come when the producing group gets a corporate consciousness and a sense of the social worth of its functions. The mediaeval guilds developed high traditions and standards of workmanship, and held their mem- bers to them. They thought of themselves in terms of service, and not merely as purveyors to a demand. In our time the same is to some extent true of trades and professions in which a sense of workmanship has been developed by tradition and train- ing. Doctors and lawyers are not content to give us what we BUSINESS EXECUTIVES 27 want in their line, but hold it their duty to teach us what we ought to want, to refuse things that are not for our best good and urge upon us those that are. Artists, teachers, men of let- ters, do the same. A good carpenter, if you give him the chance, will build a better house than the owner can appreciate ; he loves to do it and feels obscurely that it is his part to realize an ideal of sound construction. The same principle ought to hold good throughout society, each functional group forming ideals of its own function and holding its members to them. Consuming and producing groups should cooperate in this matter, each making requirements which the other might overlook. The somewhat anarchical condition that is now common we may hope to be transitory. The general rule is that a stable group has a tendency to create for itself ideals of service in accord with the ruling ideals of society at large. MOTIVES IN LARGE SCALE BUSINESS 1 Four main motives have led men to expand business enter- prises. On the whole they are not economic, but rather psycho- logical; they are the motives incident to the struggle for con- quest and achievement the precious legacy of man's "predatory barbarism." Primarily a man measures the success of a business by increased size, and secondarily by increased profits. The most powerful motive that leads a man to expand a business is the illusion of valuing himself in terms of his setting. The bigger the business, the bigger the man. A man prefers to direct a large business rather than a small one; just as the borough president seeks the mayoralty and the mayor, the governorship. He likes to feel himself of influence in the sphere of his activity. He likes to be somebody, to occupy a "place in the sun" in the business world. This motive is much more fundamental than is usually realised. A man who operates successfully a corner drug store may be content with the business as it is, provided he finds the field of his primary interests outside of his business home, sport, or an avocation. In such a case, which is common, the business is an insignificant means to an end. It is not a part 1 Arthur Stone Dewing. The Financial Policy of Corporations. Vol. 4. p. 4-7. The Ronald Press Company. New York. 1920. 28 PRACTICAL PSYCHOLOGY FOR of the real life of the man, but merely an attendant circumstance in the problem of extracting a livelihood out of a competitive and unsentimental world. But such men are not true business managers in the sense that the economist uses the word "man- ager" or "entrepreneur." Their field of achievement is not business. Men who can be even broadly classified as business managers and who value success in productive enterprise as something worth while in itself rather than as an insignificant means to a greater end want their business undertaking to bear the outward signs of successful achievement. Increasing size is the most obvious of these signs. The race-old instinct of conquest becomes translated in our twentieth century eco- nomic world into the prosaic terms of corporate growth. Busi- ness expansion is the spirit of a modern Tamerlane seeking new markets to conquer. It is a pawn for human ambition. The second motive, less significant, one is led to believe, is the creative impulse. A business manager has an aversion to stagnation; he wishes to be constructive. He wishes to make actual the vague images of progress. The only field with which he is familiar is his business, and in the fortunes of his business he sees the realization of his ideals. It is a commonplace psychology, current since the brilliant introspective studies of the elder Mill and Reid, that somewhere in the mental structure of all of us lies the impulse to build, to see our ideas take form in material results. The impulse to build is at the same time an important element in inventive and artistic genius and in skilful craftsmanship. The particular form in which it finds expression is, among men of ordinary ability, certainly a matter of accident. And the particular form close at hand to the business manager is his business. A distinguished business manager, at sixty- nine years of age, to whom wealth had ceased to have a signif- icance, was heard to outline in detail for an already well- rounded and world-wide business, steps in reconstruction and enlargement which would ordinarily take a lifetime to achieve. An expanding business affords a sphere for the kind of creative expression demanded by our twentieth century industrialism. The third motive is the economic. My own observation is that the vast majority of business men who plan enlargement, consolidations, and extensions of their business are not actuated primarily by the impulse to make more money, although they unquestionably place this motive uppermost when they need to BUSINESS EXECUTIVES 29 present plans for enlargement to directors and stockholders. Since increased profits have so obvious and direct an appeal, and since no other motive can sufficiently justify the investment of other people's money, it is natural to place the motive of increased profits foremost. And it appears foremost in every business manager's mind when he attempts to justify a business policy which may have been in the first instance subconsciously prompted by less obvious and more basal motives. The fourth motive is the satisfaction in taking speculative chances. Business managers like to - be dealing with a future full of concrete uncertainties. They like to apply direct empirical tests to business policies, the results of which are at best uncertain. A successful business manager is invariably a man of imagination. Invariably the man of imagination revels in uncertainties. He is by nature a speculator if we use the term in its broadest significance and without disparagement. The development of constructive plans partakes of the nature of a game. All men enjoy the game they think they can play. ^ II. EXECUTIVE MANAGEMENT AND THE MIND OF THE WORKER (^Virtually all psychologists observe that business managers commonly miscalculate the mind of the worker in that they attribute his shortcomings and misbehavior to wilful and delib- erate perversenessTj The repeated complaint made by manage- ment is that the faults, sins and inefficiencies of labor are the result of a pernicious act of will. ^The corresponding assump- tion is that labor ought to change its mind by an act of will, ought to see the reasonable way of behavior, ought to revise its mental outlook as a matter of volition and self-control. This common view held by management grossly overrates the element of detached and independent reason and grossly underrates the element of impulsive human nature. The faults and perversities of labor are due to natural causes, and certain pioneer managers have found that by changing the natural causes, they eliminate the faults and perversities, and substitute for them sound mental attitudes and efficient behavior. Psychologists generally empha- size that the so-called faults of labor are due to unscientific methods of management which do not rightly encourage the "wholesome tendencies" of human nature nor "curb the perni- cious tendencies." In other words,\psychology indicates that the responsibility for the misconduct of labor rests not with P labor, but with management) Executives cannot shift the blame upon a perverse human nature on the part of the workers, for their human nature is as good as that of anybody else. The blame rests upon executives for not having developed methods of management which direct the human nature of the workers in the proper channels. At the outset, therefore, psychology presents a strong chal- lenge to management to accept the responsibility for recon- structing business practises so as to "help the better and repress the pernicious tendencies" of labor. But this challenge comes face to face with many traditional axioms of management and with a background and outlook which often are slow to change. A 32 PRACTICAL PSYCHOLOGY FOR few pioneer business men here and there acquire the viewpoint of modern psychology and demonstrate in practical achievements what can be done. The rapidity with which the rank and file of executive management come to understand the mind of the worker in a manner similar to that of the pioneer managers determines the rate of industrial progress. A BROAD PERSPECTIVE IN HUMAN CONTROL 1 As the tendencies of human nature are the permanent basis of study which gives to the subject called Political Science whatever scientific quality it possesses, so the practical value of that science consists in tracing and determining the relation of these tendencies to the institutions which men have created for guiding their life in a community. Certain institutions have been found by experience to work better than others; i.e., they give more scope to the wholesome tendencies, and curb the, pernicious tendencies. Such institutions have also a retroactive action upon those who live under them. Helping men to good- will, self-restraint, intelligent cooperation, they form what we call a solid political character, temperate and law-abiding, prefer- ring peaceful to violent means for the settlement of contro- versies. Where, on the other hand, institutions have been ill- constructed, or too frequently changed to exert this educative influence, men make under them little progress toward a steady and harmonious life. To find the type of institutions best calculated to help the better and repress the pernicious tendencies is the task of the philosophic enquirer, who lays the foundations upon which the legislator builds. A people through which good sense and self-control are widely diffused is itself the best phil- osopher and the best legislator, as is seen in the history of Rome and in that of England. It was to the sound judgment and practical quality in these two peoples that the excellence of their respective constitutions and systems of law was due, not that in either people wise men were exceptionally numerous, but that both were able to recognize wisdom when they saw it, and willingly followed the leaders who possessed it. . . The ancient world, having tried many experiments in free 1 James Bryce. Modern Democracies. Vol. i. p. 9, 10, 12. Published by The Macmillan Company. 1921. Reprinted by permission. BUSINESS EXECUTIVES 33 government, relapsed wearily after their failure into an accept- ance of monarchy and turned its mind quite away from political questions. More than a thousand years elapsed before this long sleep was broken. The modern world did not occupy itself seriously with the subject nor make any persistent efforts to win an ordered freedom till the sixteenth century. Before us in the twentieth a vast and tempting field stands open, a field ever widening as new States arise and old States pass into new phases of life. More workers are wanted in that field. Regard- ing the psychology of men in politics, the behaviour of crowds, the forms in which ambitions and greed appear, much that was said long ago by historians and moralists is familiar, and need not be, now, repeated. But the working of institutions and laws, the forms in which they best secure liberty and order, and enable the people to find the men fit to be trusted with power these need to be more fully investigated by a study of what has proved, in practice, to work well or ill. It is Facts that are needed: Facts, Facts, Facts. THE CHALLENGE TO MODERN MANAGEMENT 1 In recent weeks we have heard much about the efficiency of industrial democracy, of shop committees, of senate and house plan, of collective bargaining, as the panaceas for all labor problems. During the same period, we have had striking examples of the inadequacy of all these plans. Industrial democ- racy is a misnomer unless fairly and honestly applied. Collective bargaining is a great danger if wrongly applied and used as an instrument of autocratic power. No labor problems have always existed and are likely to continue. There is no panacea, as industrial democracy, profit sharing, committee system, open shop, closed shop or collective bargaining. None of these agencies will accomplish or avail much unless there be behind them and disseminated through every fibre and thread, the spirit of fairness, honesty and justice. If these principles be present, there will be no labor trouble. And again, if they be present, it does not matter much what plan is used. This accounts for many striking examples of the 1 L. W. Wallace, President of the Society of Industrial Engineers. An- nual address. Report of Proceedings, October 29-31, 1919- P- "-12- 34 PRACTICAL PSYCHOLOGY FOR successful management of labor through each of the plans, named. Because these successful examples can be pointed out is the reason for the confusion in the minds of many whereas if a close analysis be made, it would be found that the whole- some conditions existing in each case were not due to the plan in vogue, but to the fact that the employer and the employee each, in turn, was a believer in, and a practiser of, the cardinal ' virtues of honesty, fairness and justice. The unfortunate thing is that many employees; many em- ployers; many associations of employers; many labor organiza- tions, have violated and ignored these principles. Through the utter disregard of the principles of honesty, fairness and justice, great damage has been done, and to quote, "Great powers have been used arbitrarily and autocratically, to exact unmerited profit or compensation by both capital and labor. This policy of exacting profit rather than rendering service has wasted enormous stores of human and natural resources, and has put in places of authority those who seek selfish advantage regard- less of the interests of the community." The problem before the American public is to evolve those plans and to inaugurate those policies that will make such use of arbitrary and auto- cratic power a grave offense against the community and to make it impossible for any such arbitrary power to invoke its wrath against the will and against the welfare of the masses. Such plans should provide severe and sure punishment for the auto- cratic employer or autocratic labor leader who wilfully violates the principles of honesty, fairness and justice, and by such vio- lations brings hardships, despair and heartaches upon the masses. One is just as guilty as the other and we have had glaring ex- amples of the evils of the financial trust and of the labor trust. Both are equally culpable and both should be dealt with in like manner. Many of the abuses have grown up through ignorance of cause and effect. Poor management, incompetent supervision, excessive equipment, large inventories, poor equipment, inade- quate sales policies and other causes have resulted in reduced i income and a loss of net profits. Ignorance of the causes leads to a misinterpretation of the reason for the effects. In arriving at a solution incompetency in management again shows itself ; faulty analysis and incorrect conclusions follow. Wages are cut, demands increased, working conditions made less desirable; all of which is a disregard of the principles of honesty, fairness BUSINESS EXECUTIVES 35 and justice. The result being strained relationships, strikes, bloodshed, destruction of property no one permanently bene- fitted. Ignorance of cause and effect on the part of labor leads to many misinterpretations and faulty conclusions ; such as to be- lieve that to limit production is to benefit the worker; to de- crease the length of the work-day is conducive to prosperity and the well being of society and of labor; to oppose the training of the worker, to place all workers in a given trade on a par, regardless of capacity or ability, to demand compensation for which no adequate service has been rendered, to deny the right bf individual choice of employment. These policies inevitably lead to reduction of production, increased cost, to suspicion, to the disregard of the rights of property, to the rights of indi- viduals and to the rights of society. The result being strained relationships, strikes, bloodshed, destruction of property, no one benefitted. It is the function and province of the industrial engineer to make correct analysis, to predict effects through known causes. It is purely the mission of the industrial engineer of wide ex- perience, of great foresight and of unselfish motive to see to it : First: That every action is based upon the principles of honesty, fairness and justice to the employee, to the employer and to the public. Second: To so formulate the plan of action as to eliminate all unfair privilege of employer and employee and to make it possible for each to fulfill its responsibilities to the community. Third: To so organize the plant or industry as to make it exceedingly difficult for an incompetent to hold a position of authority or to exert autocratic control. THE BACKGROUND OF GREAT BUSINESS MEN 1 Possibly the chief influence in the long run in promoting combinations of capital, as well as their most far-reaching effect in the earlier days of the trusts, was the element of personal ambition which is fostered by monopoly. There can be no doubt that, in the case of the larger industrial combinations, the belief on the part of the managers that a virtual monopoly could 1 Jeremiah W. Jenks and Walter E. Clark. The Trust Problem. Rev. ed. 4th ed. 175-6. Doubleday, Page and Company. Garden City, L. I. 1917. 36 PRACTICAL PSYCHOLOGY FOR be secured was a powerful element toward bringing about their formation. The pride of power, and the pleasure which comes from the exercise of great power, are in themselves exceedingly attractive to strong men. As one with political aspirations will sacrifice much and take many risks for the sake of securing political preferment in order that he may in this way rule his fellows, so a successful organizer of business derives keen satisfaction from feeling that he alone is practically directing the destinies of a' great people, so far as his one line of business is concerned. Mr. Havemeyer said that his ambition was to refine the sugar of the American people. Mr. Gates asserted that it was the ambition of the organizers of the American Steel and Wire Company to control the wire output of the world. One cannot say that these ambitions are not as worthy as those of politicians, and as natural. No one can question that these elements of personal satisfaction and pride are most powerful factors in all lines of social intercourse, and this pride could not be gratified in business short of the belief on the part of these men that they can secure a practical monopoly. This ambition will not be gratified by the control of merely a very large business. Napoleon was not content to be the head of a great state. His ambition would brook no rival. May not the ambition of a sugar king or a petroleum magnate well be of like imperial nature, though in a more restricted field? And yet, in the case of Napoleon and possibly of other potentates of later date the event showed that ambition had overleaped itself. Likewise the chief successes of later years have seemed to rest with those who have been content with less than world domination and who have been ready to accept merely strong leadership. THE PROFOUND RESPONSIBILITY OF BUSI- NESS EXECUTIVES 1 Our task, thus, is nothing less than to rehumanize industry, to break down the disastrous partition that has grown up between brain-work and hand-work, to appeal at every step to 1 G. Stanley Hall. Address given at the Fifth Annual Convention of the Vocational Educational Association of the Middle West, Chicago, January 17, 1919. Pedagogical Seminary. Vol. 26. 1919. p. 77-8. BUSINESS EXECUTIVES 37 mind lest we add to the degradation of labor, remembering that the brain in its evolution was hand-made and that in all pro- gressive periods of the past the two have always gone and grown together. We must find a way of putting not merely head and intelligence but heart into work, as also was the case of yore. We must search everywhere for the culture elements which are inherent in every industry and even in every process, and which it is the tragedy of modern industrialism to have lost. Work has made and it alone can perfect man; hence we must attempt to restore or else create a morale in every great branch of industry. All this stupendous task I believe can be wrought out, because nearly every item of it has been accomplished somewhere at some time. There is a very pregnant sense in which the war is not ended but only transferred to other fields to be carried on by other agents. Those of us who have not smelled powder must now come forward and take up the battle which is waged against conservatism and inertia, by which things tend to slip back into the same old ruts as before if we do not mobilize and use all the unprecedented opportunities and incentives to reform to make the educational, industrial, social, political and religious world fitter to live in; for otherwise we break faith with the millions who have died. Our foes are timidity and laziness in this new spiritual conflict to which the battle of arms has bequeathed its precious legacy. To say that reforms are now needed, though hard and dangerous, is true, but to leave them unattacked is a slackerdom unworthy of the spirit of our armies in France. The new struggles we ought to enter upon are the harvest of victory, and are harder and will take far longer than the war itself. THE INFLUENCE OF UNANALYZED CUSTOMS ("MORES") * A society is never conscious of its mores until it comes in contact with some other society which has different mores, or until, in higher civilization, it gets information by literature. The latter operation, however, affects only the literary classes. 1 William G. Sumner. Folkways, p. 78-80. Ginn and Company. Bos- ton. 1911. .>S PRACTICAL PSYCHOLOGY FOR not the masses, and society never consciously sets about the task of making mores. In the early stages mores are elastic and plastic; later they become rigid and fixed. They seem to grow up, gain strength, become corrupt, decline, and die, as if they were organisms. The phases seem to follow each other by an inherent necessity, and as if independent of the reason and will of the men affected, but the changes are always pro- duced by a strain toward better adjustment of the mores to conditions and interests of the society, or of the controlling elements in it. A society does not record its mores in its annals, because they are to it unnoticed and unconscious. When we try to learn the mores of any age or people we have to seek our information in incidental references, allusions, observations of travelers, etc. Generally works of fiction, drama, etc., give us more information about the mores than historical records. It is very difficult to construct from the Old Testament a descrip- tion of the mores of the Jews before the captivity. It is also very difficult to make a complete and accurate picture of the mores of the English colonies in North America in the seven- teenth century. The mores are not recorded for the same reason that meals, going to bed, sunrise, etc., are not recorded, unless the regular course of things is broken. Inertia and Rigidity of the Mores We see that we must conceive of the mores as a vast system of usages, covering the whole life, and serving all its interests; also containing in themselves their own justification by tradition and use and wont, and approved by mystic sanctions until, by rational reflection, they develop their own philosophical and ethical generalizations, which are elevated into "principles" of truth and right. They coerce and restrict the newborn genera- tion. They do not stimulate to thought, but the contrary. The thinking is already done and is embodied in the mores. They never contain any provision for their own amendment. They are not questions, but answers, to the problem of life. They present themselves as final and unchangeable, because they present answers which are offered as "the truth." No world philosophy, until the modern scientific world philosophy, and that only within a generation or two, has ever presented itself as perhaps transitory, certainly incomplete, and liable to be set aside tomorrow by more knowledge. No popular world phil- BUSINESS EXECUTIVES 39 osophy or life policy ever can present itself in that light. It would cost too great a mental strain. All the groups whose mores we consider far inferior to our own are quite as well satisfied with theirs as we are with ours. The goodness or badness of mores consists entirely in their adjustment to the life conditions and the interests of the time and place. There- fore it is a sign of ease and welfare when no thought is given to the mores, but all cooperate in them instinctively. The nations of southeastern Asia show us the persistency of the mores, when the element of stability and rigidity in them becomes predominant. Ghost fear and ancestor worship tend to establish the persistency of the mores by dogmatic authority, strict taboo, and weighty sanctions. The mores then lose their naturalness and vitality. They are stereotyped. They lose all relation to expediency. They become an end in themselves. They are imposed by imperative authority without regard to interests or conditions (caste, child marriage, widows). When any society falls under the dominion of this disease in the mores it must disintegrate before it cart live again. In thai diseased state of the mores all learning consists in committing to memory the words of the sages of the past who established the formulas of the mores. OVERCOMING THE POWER OF TRADITION AND HABIT 1 In the business world, as in all occupations involving human beings, to illustrate the need of selected habits and adaptive variability in a field too often overlooked, the manner in which men are treated largely determines the success of manager or foreman. Certain methods have been acquired from the en- vironment, education, or training, and they are followed. They secure results but perhaps not the best. Yet these managers know no other way. The Filene Cooperative Association of Boston is an instance of the reversal of traditional business habits. The William Filene's Sons' Company decided to give the men and women behind the counter of their department store a voice in shaping the policies of the company. The asso- 1 Edgar James Swift. Psychology and the Day's Work. p. 102-4, 106-8. Charles Scribner's Sons. New York. 1918. 40 PRACTICAL PSYCHOLOGY FOR elation, composed of members of the firm and all employees, may initiate or amend any rule that affects the efficiency of em- ployees. The decision, passed by the council, may be vetoed by the management, but if after such a veto the association again passes it over the veto, by a two-thirds vote, the decision of the association is final. The plan made a sudden break from habitual business methods, yet it succeeded. A single instance will show how admirably and reasonably the employees have responded. "The question for vote was whether the store should be closed all day Saturday, June 18, the day preceding Bunker Hill Day, a state holiday. If this were done it would give the employees a three-day holiday. . . Agitation had been quite intense during the days preceding the meeting, for the employees naturally were interested in having an additional day's rest with pay; the meeting was to hear both sides of the question and to decide. After those in favor of closing had made their plea, those opposed brought out an argument few had considered, the fact that conditions were not analogous. It was pointed out that a Saturday in the middle of June was much more valuable and costly to lose than one in July, that it was the last Saturday before the bulk of the school graduations and that much more business would in all probability be lost. When the vote was taken the employees voted by an over- whelming majority not to have the extra holiday. . . The firm considers" (the association) "worth many times what it has cost them in their time and money. It is no longer an experi- ment ; it is a fact, and it has made the interests of employer and employee harmonize." These practical results from the methods of the Filene Co- operative Association are additional proof of the expediency of selected habits. Observation shows that it is not only in- efficient but also unnecessary to settle down into the line of least resistance and adopt habits of ease or tradition. Reservoirs of energy commonly unused reveal themselves in various ways. In physical endurance, for example, it is well known that at a cer- tain point fatigue ensues. Then, if we persevere, we overcome the resistance and get our "second wind." We feel more vig- orous than before and push on to a new achievement, perhaps breaking the record. Under such circumstances we have clearly tapped a new supply of energy, usually concealed by the first appearance of ennui and fatigue. "Mental activity," James once BUSINESS EXECUTIVES .41 said, "shows the phenomenon as well as physical, and in excep- tional cases we may find, beyond the very extremity of fatigue- distress, amounts of ease and power that we never dreamed our- selves to own, sources of strength habitually not tapped at all, because habitually we never push through the obstruction, never pass those early critical points." Evidence of this is seen in the achievements occasionally observed in men suddenly placed in positions of great responsibility. The demand on their ability is worth their best effort and they rise to the emergency. "I did not know that it was in him," is our acknowledgement of his bursting through the barrier. It was not in him until he broke with his old habits of adaptation to an inferior level of accomplishment. . . Viewed from another angle, habit has acquired immense significance in the last few years because of the greater acceler- ation with which changes come and go. Today a man's success in the business and professional world depends upon rapid adap- tation to varying conditions. Fifty years ago business methods were settled. A young man learned a trade, entered his father's store, spent a year "reading" law, or studied medicine with a physician, and was quite sure of satisfactory competence. Business methods were static, and scientific knowledge did not go forward with leaps and bounds. Today everything is altered. Change, rapid change, is the conspicuous fact in all occupations; and this reveals new meaning in the utility of habit. "The fundamental limitation of the majority of men, from the standpoint of availability for promotion," said the manager of a large manufacturing company recently, "consists in lack of capacity to adjust themselves to new requirements. . . I find very few individuals making any effort to think out better ways of doing things. . . We need, at the present time, four or five subordinate chiefs in various parts of the factory, and I can fill none of them satisfactorily from material in hand." Yet this "material" consists of over a thousand men. Evidently, habits of doing things, of reacting to situations, reaches far into suc- cess and failure. In both physical and mental activity change reduces to an "alteration of habits; and habit, we have found, is concerned with nervous impulses and with the activity of nerve-centers. The function of the nervous system is to coordinate and unify movements so as to adapt them to the needs of the individual. 42 PRACTICAL PSYCHOLOGY FOR In the lower animals this coordination has been, to a large ex- tent, "set" in instinctive actions. In man the same tendency exists for actions to become "fixed." We then call them reflex. There is always a selection of movements, but this selection is rarely conscious. In the more delicate movements it is never conscious. The question then arises, how is the selection made? The determining force is always environmental necessity. Among the lower animals it is the requirements of survival a relentlessly compelling force and in man it is also the demands of the situation. Success in the business or profession in which one is engaged is the remote incentive. This, of course, creates immediate motives in the various details of the work. Ob- viously, unpleasant consequences of certain actions will cause the selection of others. But, as was said before, there is rarely a definite standard of success. Consequently, approximately successful actions and methods are selected, and soon they be- come fixed habits. A careless paper-hanger makes poor work- men of his apprentices, because, if the employer is satisfied, the consequences of indifferent workmanship are not obviously un- favorable. Habits cease to change and to become more efficient when no practical motive compels improvement; and with hu- man beings improvement leading to more successful adaptation to conditions and situations has largely supplanted the require- ments of mere survival as a driving force. WHAT THE WORKER EXPECTS OF MANAGE- MENT x The point to be kept clearly in mind in thinking about indus- trial problems requiring current action is that we are in the regime of capitalistic industry, in which managers are clearly charged with responsibility for vision and leadership, and that for all practical purposes, to us, that regime" is not likely to be fundamentally changed, and the accompanying managerial responsibilities modified; or at any rate modified only toward still greater responsibilities. There is a fringe of managers who are thoroughly autocratic in mental attitude, and who would resort to extreme measures of discipline if the workers 1 HarIow S. Persons. Selling Production to the Management. Annals of the American Academy. September, 1920. p. 134-5. BUSINESS EXECUTIVES 43 could not be content with crystallized relations and were insistent in their strivings to express a desire for change; and there is a compensating fringe of workers who demand radical changes in the social and industrial structure, and strive, some of them destructively, to achieve their ideals; but neither of these represent the great directive force in industry. They are a profound influence in making others take thought, but the actual course of step-by-step industrial development will be determined by cooperation of the moderate workers, the latter asking for progressive improvement and the former desirous to assume leadership in finding the improvement that is really mutually progressive. The demand for improvement by the great body of moderate workers constitutes a challenge to man- agement; a challenge to display vision, initiative and leadership. Production a Problem of Progressive Management Therefore, it should be kept clearly and forcibly in mind that the pressing problem of production is primarily a problem of management; and in times of confusion and of change more than ever a problem of the management, calling for constructive plans and leadership in winning acceptance of these plans and in giving them effect. It is not abnormal for the average manager to meet this challenge with reluctance. It is normal for him to simplify his problem and, if he has once constructed a formula for securing production under more or less familiar conditions, to hesitate to attack the problem of working out new production formulas involving, to him, new variables. It is much easier and presents apparently less risk for him to ask that all concerned work harder individually in accordance with present formulas, and thereby secure the needed production. There is no question but that greater individual physical effort is possible and that it would secure greater production. But it is just as normal and reasonable for the individual worker to meet that challenge with greater reluctance than the manager meets the other challenge, especially if the individual believes that the problem can be met by better management. He feels that it is the function of management not to work out a status quo in produc- tion methods but to strive for increasing efficient methods- increasingly efficient because of better coordinations and not because of greater individual exertion. The war proved that in 44 PRACTICAL PSYCHOLOGY FOR extraordinary emergency the individual will give himself to the limit, and proved that that method does secure production; but it proved also that only extraordinary emergency will inspire to such effort. The individual worker now believes that the extra- ordinary situation is past and that it is up to managers to secure the same results. He believes that it is a function of management to so coordinate the elements and to so manage that he will inspire in each individual an unconscious impulse to a maximum effort (consistent with well-being) which he cannot resist. He insists that to have visions, try experiments and to assume risks is a phase of the function known as man- agement. Is it not, after all, the easier solution of the problem for the manager to will intellectual effort on his part to con- struct better production formulas, than for him to attempt to drive the mass to greater individual effort, or to modify the behavioristic psychology of a crowd which charges him with responsibility? THE LEVELS OF INTELLIGENCE l The significance of these results will be appreciated when we consider that one million seven hundred thousand drafted men in the army may be accepted as a fair sample of the population of the United States. Whatever we may determine in regard to that group of men we shall probably find applicable to the country as a whole. It is thus probable that we can find in these results, suggestions and conclusions of profound im- portance as bearing upon our social problems and social well being. It will be recalled that the army tests were, for the most part, group tests ; that is, the men were examined in groups of fifty to three hundred. Moreover, the scale used was essentially a point scale, that is to say in what is known as the Alpha test two hundred twelve points were possibly obtain- able. We quote from the official report: "Explanation of Letter Ratings. The rating a man earns furnishes a fairly reliable index of his ability to learn, to think quickly and accurately, to analyze a situation, to maintain a 1 Henry Herbert Goddard. Human Efficiency and Levels of Intelli- gence, p. 23-7, 34-7, 127-8. Princeton University Press. Princeton. 1920. BUSINESS EXECUTIVES 45 state of mental alertness, and to comprehend and follow instruc- tions. The score is little influenced by schooling. Some of the highest records have been made by men who had not com- pleted the eighth grade. The meaning of the letter ratings is as follows: "A. Very Superior Intelligence. This grade is ordinarily earned by only four or five per cent of a draft quota. The 'A' group is composed of men of marked intellectuality. 'A' men are of high officer type when they are also endowed with leader- ship and other necessary qualities. "B. Superior Intelligence. 'B' intelligence is superior, but less exceptional than that represented by 'A.' The rating 'B' is obtained by eight to ten soldiers out of a hundred. The group contains many men of the commissioned officer type and a large amount of non-commissioned officer material. "C plus. High Average Intelligence. This group includes about fifteen to eighteen per cent of all soldiers and contains a large amount of non-commissioned officer material with occa- sionally a man whose leadership and power to command fit him for commissioned rank. "C. Average Intelligence. Includes about twenty-five per cent of soldiers. Excellent private type with a certain amount of fair non-commissioned officer material. "C minus. Low Average Intelligence. Includes about twenty per cent. While below average in intelligence 'C ' men are usually good privates and satisfactory in work of routine nature. "D. Inferior Intelligence. Includes about fifteen per cent of soldiers. 'D' men are likely to be fair soldiers, but are usually slow in learning and rarely go above the rank of private. They are short on initiative and so require more than the usual amount of supervision. Many of them are illiterate or foreign. "D minus and E. Very Inferior Intelligence. This group is divided into two classes (i) 'D ' men, who are very inferior in intelligence but are considered fit for regular service; and (2) 'E' men, those whose mental inferiority justifies their rec- ommendation for Development Battalion, special service organi- zation, rejection, or discharge. The majority of 'D ' and 'E' men are below ten years in 'mental age.' "The immense contrast between 'A' an4 'D ' intelligence is shown by the fact that men of 'A' intelligence have the ability 46 PRACTICAL PSYCHOLOGY FOR to make a superior record in college or university, while 'D men are of such inferior mentality that they are rarely able to go beyond the third or fourth grade of the elementary school, however long they attend. In fact, most 'D ' and 'E' men are below the 'mental age' of ten years and at best are on the border- line of mental deficiency. Many of them are of the moron grade of feeble-mindedness. 'B' intelligence is capable of making an average record in college, 'C+' intelligence can not do so well, while mentality of the 'C' grade is rarely capable of finish- ing a high school course." It is possible to make 212 points in the tests, and the number of points for each letter rating are as follows: D minus, o to 14; D, 15-24; C minus, 25-44; C, 45-74; C plus, 75-104; B, 105-134; A, 135-212. . . Efficiency The facts and considerations set forth in the previous chap- ter enable us to restate in a new way the condition in which we find ourselves in relation to the problem of social efficiency. Our army abroad had a well earned reputation for efficiency and no small part of the result may be attributed to the fact that the lowest ten per cent in intelligence were not sent overseas and that eighty-three per cent of the officers came from the "A" and "B" classes superior and very superior intelligence. There can be no question that if a similar condition prevailed in our social groups a corresponding gain in efficiency would result. As a matter of fact, not only are the "lowest ten per cent" with us, but they are unrecognized and hence are often mistaken for intelligent people and placed in responsible posi- tions. It is a maxim in engineering that a bridge is not stronger than its weakest part. The same is largely true of society. It must be understood however, that weakness is not determined by the size of the part but by the relation the size or strength of the part bears to the work it has to do. The big steel girder may be the weak part while the small bolt may be capable of bearing all the strain that is required of it. Similarly, the efficiency of the human group is not so much a question of the absolute numbers of persons of high and low intelligence as it is whether each grade of intelligence is assigned a part, in the whole organization, that is within its capacity. An BUSINESS EXECUTIVES 47 intelligent man who undertakes work requiring even higher in- telligence, may be as inefficient as the imbecile who undertakes work that only a moron can do. Let us again look at our chart showing the distribution of the people according to mentality. I suppose no one will deny that this distribution based on the examination of a million, seven hundred thousand drafted men, may be applied to the entire population of the United States, not to take any larger group. Surely we cannot say that the drafted army was either more or less intelligent than those who made up the rest of the population. They must certainly be a fair sample of the whole. Let us see what these percentages would give us. On the basis of a hundred million population, we have four and one- half million people of "A" intelligence, nine millions of "B" grade, sixteen and one-half of "C plus," twenty-five of "C," twenty of "C minus," fifteen of "D" and ten million of "D minus" and "E" mentality. These figures are beyond human comprehension and hence are of no use except for comparison and illustration. From the standpoint of efficiency the fundamental question is this : Does the work of the country require these numbers of people of the various grades? Is there for example, just work enough requiring thirteen^iourteen year intelligence to keep twenty-five million people busy? Is there enough work requir- ing "D" intelligence to keep fifteen million people busy? Of course we have no answer. No attempt has ever been made to ascertain what grade of intelligence is required for any of the multitude of occupations. That is the next step, that follows logically from the discovery of mental levels. More- over, it is not a difficult task, once we set ourselves about it. If we assume that the foregoing question is to be answered in the affirmative, we are at once relieved of one tremendous problem. The supply equals the demand at least ! We are how- ever, confronted with another question which exposes a condi- tion not so easy of adjustment. Are all the "C" people doing "C" work, "A" men "A" work, etc? We know they are not. Manifestly here is an enormous loss of efficiency. Every time a "B" man employs himself doing "C" work society is los- ing. Every time a "C" man attempts to do "B" work he fails, and again society loses. There are of course many other factors that determine and 48 PRACTICAL PSYCHOLOGY FOR rightly so what work a man does. Some of these we shall consider later. An ideally efficient society then would be made up of the right proportion of individuals to do all the different types of work that are to be done and each man doing the work for which he is just capable. . . In this course we have tried to ex- press our conviction that every human being reaches at some time a level of intelligence beyond which he never goes; that these levels range from the lowest or idiotic, to the highest level of genius. We have indicated without going into great detail that the number of people of relatively low intelligence is vastly greater than is generally appreciated and that this mass of low level intelligence is an enormous menace to democracy unless it is recognized and properly treated. We have tried to show that the social efficiency of a group of human beings depends upon recognizing the mental limitations of each one and of so organizing society that each person has work to do that is within his mental capacity and at the same time calls for all the ability that he possesses. . . We have pointed out that the intelligent group must do the planning and organizing for the mass, that our whole attitude toward lower grades of intelligence must be philanthropic; not the hit and miss philanthropy with which we are all too familiar but the philanthropy based upon an intel- ligent understanding of the mental capacity of each individual. And finally we have attempted to show that democracy is not impossible even in a group with a large mass of people of rela- tively low mentality, provided that there is a sufficiently large group of people of high intelligence to control the situation ; and provided further, that that group has the right attitude toward those of less intelligence. That that attitude is best expressed by the one desire to make all people happy; which does not mean, as socialism is too apt to claim, that all people are to be treated alike. Children are not to be made happy by placing them in the same level as adults. Even in democracy where every person has the right to vote for those who shall rule him, the masses will vote for the best and most intelligent if they are made to feel that these same intelligent people have the welfare of the masses at heart. The only way to demonstrate that, is for the intelligent to understand the mental levels of the unintel- ligent, or those of low intelligence, and to so organize the work of the world that every man is doing such work and bearing such responsibility as his mental level warrants. BUSINESS EXECUTIVES 49 SUCCESSFUL APPLICATIONS OF PSYCHO- LOGICAL PRINCIPLES l We do not have to theorize as to what a modern plant and its management should stand for. The facts are ready to hand. Here and there throughout the country, examples of sound and successful practice in industrial relations within a plant can be observed with profit to the observer. And the number of such examples is growing day by day. Take two such well-known instances of organized right re- lations as the system followed by Hart, Schaffner and Marx and the International Harvester Company. In the former case, there has been peace and profitable production for years in spite of conditions in the garment industry which constantly work against stability. In the second instance, the Harvester people, after a long and well-prepared campaign, recently put into oper- ation a plan for industrial representation of its employees among the twenty plants based on the most enlightened prin- ciples of labor relationships. The truth is that managers and men have, in reality, a com- mon goal before them. But they have been at odds as to the best way of reaching that goal. And because they have been differing in this way, they have naturally lost sight of the big fact that it was a common goal which both were really seeking. What is that goal? It is to get the maximum satisfaction and return from the work. Anxiety, uncertainty, discontent these things are the chief foes of fitness. Efficiency, we must remind ourselves over and over again, is more of a psycholog- ical than it is a mechanical result. The management which recognizes this axiom holds the key to unlimited success. Where work is sheer monotony and noth- ing is done to offset it, where surroundings pull down health and strength, or where relationships are such that no man feels that he has any stake in the plant and that the scrap-heap is ahead of him so far as any concern on the part of the management is felt; in all these circumstances we have the fertile soil for ill will and poor work. There can be no real organization here. Management has sometimes lost sight of the goal which it 1 A. Lincoln Filene. The Key to Successful Industrial Management. Annals of the American Academy. September, 1919. p. 8-n. 50 PRACTICAL PSYCHOLOGY FOR has in common with labor. It has been blinded perhaps by a narrow point of view, a rigid devotion to rule of thumb, and indifference to the greatest factor in production the human factor. Income without satisfaction in work means labor instability, unrest and lowered output. And satisfaction in work is hardly possible without recognition by management of the human elements involved. Like all other human beings, the worker is a bundle of instincts. He wants to create, to possess, to gain power, to have his work and merit properly recognized, to play, to protect himself and his own. He wants to learn new things, to vary his occupation so that it does not get on his nerves. He wants the satisfactions which make life worth living. Now the basic conditions for the output to which both labor and capital are committed and out of which alone they can draw their upkeep are those which make the best return possible consistent with business soundness. Wages should be the high-' est and not the lowest that conditions warrant. ^There should be give and take on both sides. ^The men should feel that they never ask ior justice or fair dealing these should come to them as a matter of course, because the business is so organized that it could not do otherwise. Employment should cease to be a gamble and should hold out a future for those who mean to stay and make goodTj This means that the best thought of the employer must be given to eliminating the evils of irregular employment, and to offering incentives which help make labor contented and stable. Some employers are reducing tJfe seasonal character of their business by inducing their customers to order goods enough in advance so as to spread production over a longer period; they are carry- ing on campaigns for the standardization of styles so as to be able to carry on production throughout the year; they are con- stantly studying methods of producing different lines of goods so that in slack periods they may be able to keep their working forces profitably employed. Among other methods of changing employment from an affair of chance to a carefully planned function of management we find the increasing interest and attention given to the prob- lems of hiring, placing, training and retaining workers through well organized employment departments in charge of capable executives who are thoroughly familiar with the problems of personnel and employment and are open-minded on the many difficult questions which confront industry today. Through the BUSINESS EXECUTIVES 51 modern employment department we find it possible to secure a better class of workers, to place them more advantageously to themselves and to the management, to offer workers a clearing house for possible grievances and their adjustment, to get closer to the workers and their problems. The expensive turnover of labor is more easily reduced where such a department exists, because it can study the reasons for such turnover in detail and point out the remedies. Instead of the reckless hiring and firing of workers we find substituted the careful study of how to con- serve labor so that it will pay adequately for the investment in it. C^Tlie contact between management and men should be such as to give all concerned a feeling of security in the motives of each. 7 All the cards must be laid on the table. \_Each side must help the other with its viewpoint, knowledge and skill. This comes only when frankness and mutuality govern. And this frankness and mutuality must be part of the written policy of the management, specific, concrete, detailed, so that all may know that they are working under a control of principles rather than of individuals. One of the great causei of industrial unrest has been the fundamental misunderstanding and mistrust of one another by employer and employed.^] The modern industrial plant seeks to remove this mutual mistrust by the establishment of a clearly defined labor policy worked out with the representa- tives of the workers in the plant; such policy forming the basis of the employment contract, implied in the conduct of the em- ployer, or expressly agreed to in some form of collective bar- gaining. The newest development in establishment of right relations between management and men is the shop committee modelled more or less on the plan worked out in England by the Whitley Committee. Already many employers are taking advantage of this method of meeting their employees on common ground for discussion and actions on matters of mutual interest and benefit. Such committees, to be successful, must be taken into the full confidence of the employer and given a real share in the man- agement of the enterprise. The mistake is being made of labelling some schemes "industrial democracy" when democracy is conspicuous by its absence and the whole thing is a shallow attempt which really defeats the demands of the workers for participation in management. Many people have to learn, and not a few do so only after 52 PRACTICAL PSYCHOLOGY FOR very costly and bitter experience, that it is better to be genuine than spectacular. Workers are never deceived by make- believe industrial relation schemes. They respect the man who is honest, even though badly mistaken, in his industrial outlook. But they reward all insincerity with lasting contempt, disguised though it may be. There is great opportunity ahead for every business and industry to take steps forward in bettering relationships within the establishment. Many a big figure in the management world considers it a high privilege to have a hand in such work. That is an encouraging sign of the times. There is no panacea, no patent drug, for making all things right within a plant. But this may be safely asserted: the key to success in management is organized and sustained effort on the part of all executives to approach a condition of mutual trust and mutual effort between the parties engaged in carrying on the industries of the country. THE BASIS OF SCIENTIFIC MANAGEMENT 1 Given two establishments in the same industry, in the same locality, build for them the same buildings, equip them with the same machinery and establish for them similar methods of handling equipment and materials yet, in the course of a short time, there will be a difference in both the quality and the quantity of their output. This difference in result will be caused by the difference between the two in the quality of their v personnel. For this reason, alone, the question of personnel must ultimately be considered the real problem of management. If one of the above plants were headed by a management of the ordinary or traditional type and the other by a management which fully realized the importance of personnel and had developed an active philosophy tending toward the solution of the personal problem, the difference in practical results would be so great as to be unbelievable by the uninitiated. In fact, this difference alone would often spell failure in the one case and success in the other. The managers of both plants would see the shortsightedness 1 Richard A. Feiss. Personal Relationship as a Basis of Scientific Management. Annals of the American Academy. May, 1916. p. 27-56. BUSINESS EXECUTIVES 53 of letting buildings and other equipment run down for lack of upkeep and repair. Both would see the value of and put into practice means for running the machinery at the most efficient speeds and bringing into use the best tools and the best method of handling material. It would be taken for granted by both that anything that goes to the improvement and upkeep of these things would be a necessary expenditure or a wise investment. The ordinary management, however, would not think of apply- ing the same laws of upkeep and improvement to the personal equipment. The ordinary or unscientific manager believes that factory management consists of the handling of orders, materials, and machinery, and that the men in the plant are a mere adjunct to these things a necessary evil. When this type of manager is confronted with the fact that his organization is less efficient than another he will lay the blame on his employees and say, "I haven't the same kind of people that the other fellow has." In making this statement he will be absolutely correct, but he does not realize that the fellow with the other point of view has developed a particular kind of people as an essential part of the responsibility of management. The old type of management would at the best consider expenditures for the development of personnel as an unneces- sary outlay forced upon it by unintelligent public opinion, or would consider it a politic expenditure which would bring a certain amount of cheap advertising at the expense of fair wages. The enlightened, or scientific type of management would consider expenditures of this kind not only wise, but also an investment bringing proportionately larger and more permanent returns than all other kinds. Full value of all expenditures or investments for upkeep and improvement of a plant can be realized only when sufficient investment of both time and money has been made for the purpose of improvement and upkeep of the personal side. In fact, the management which has the correct viewpoint will find that the mechanical and material side of the organization will be better developed as a necessary incident to personal development than it would be where 'this point of view is reversed. This is well illustrated in the Cloth- craft Shops of The Joseph & Feiss Company, where this phil- osophy has been the basis of its development of scientific management. 54 PRACTICAL PSYCHOLOGY FOR Only actual comparison of the mechanical and other develop- ments in this establishment with those in the next best estab- lishment in the men's clothing industry would suffice to prove this point. The industry generally is not in a very advanced state. The usual type of management is, at the best, only begin- ning to realize the existence of the personal side. As a result, machinery and equipment are almost universally limited to a few undeveloped or semi-developed types, regardless of whether or not they are most suitable for the purpose in the hands of the individual operator. In practically all these factories you will find only a few types of machines, and these set up and equipped as they come from the manufacturers and running at hap- hazard speeds. Shears and all other tools are any which the employee chooses to furnish for himself. In the Clothcraft Shops, working from the personal point of view, tools are not only developed and prescribed with regard to their suitability for the purpose of individual accomplishment, but all tools are furnished and maintained by the management. Fully fifty per cent of the different types of machines in use at the Clothcraft Shops are not, as far as is known, used in any other establishment in the industry, and practically every machine in use has been developed so as to be specially adapted for its particular purpose in the hands of the individual who uses it. In like manner the proper handling of materials and the installation of other methods developed under scientific management have been introduced in this establishment as neces- sary steps in the development of the highest efficiency of the individual. We believe the point of view outlined above to be the essence of scientific management. Scientific management aims directly at increasing the quality and quantity of the output of an organ- ization by increasing the quality and quantity of the output of the individual worker. While scientific management in its appli- cation must necessarily go deeply into the question of improved machinery and equipment, and while this in itself makes for greater output, nevertheless, a machine is a tool, and, like any other tool, is devised to increase the efficiency of the individual to whose direct and personal control it must always be subject. The question of quality, even in the case where highly developed machinery is used, is almost entirely a question of the personal element. As for the question of quantity, the real measure of BUSINESS EXECUTIVES 55 accomplishment is not output per machine or per tool, but out- put per man. Scientific management will not have completed its mission when it has determined in each industry the best method of handling materials and equipment in relation to workers, but when it has determined also the principles which underly correct methods of handling men. It is the purpose of this paper to show what is being done from this point of view at the Cloth- craft Shops with the purpose of showing what a little effort in the right direction can accomplish. A further purpose of this paper is to bring to the attention of those interested in the future of scientific management the degree to which manage- ment is, in the final analysis, the handling of men and to emphasize that scientific management is scientific only in so far as it recognizes this fact. . . One of the most important functions of the employment and service department is to develop organization spirit and free expression of personal and public opinion. It forms a direct ^ channel of expression from its source to the ear of the manage- ment. In fact, the chief purpose of a scientifically organized department is nothing more than the development of that intimate personal contact so necessary to management. At the Clothcraft Shops about one-fifth of the total number of em- ployees come daily in contact with the employment and service department. All cases where direct contact with the manage- ment would be beneficial are immediately referred to it. This requires constant daily contact of the management with the department, and brings it into intimate relationship with a great many more cases than would be possible in the average organiza- tion of much smaller size. Wherever the management assumes the policy of the closed door, this department may well be shut down. Results cannot be accomplished in the spirit of charity, but ' must emanate entirely from a sense of justice. It must be understood that work along the lines described above can never take the place of wages. Such work must have as a reason for its existence not only increased efficiency, but the increased reward to which increased efficiency is entitled. Figure 6 is a chart showing the progress of the Clothcraft Shops in respect to wages and efficiency for June, 1910, to January, 1915. This shows during this period an increase in production of forty-two 56 PRACTICAL PSYCHOLOGY FOR per cent; an increase in the average individual hourly wages of forty-five per cent, weekly wages thirty-seven per cent; and a decrease in total manufacturing cost of about ten per cent. During this period the weekly working schedule was reduced from fifty-four to forty-eight hours. It is our belief that results, such as these, are obtainable only when scientific management is scientifically applied. Scien- tific management will live if for no other reason than that it has faced the problem squarely and recognizes that the science of management is the science of handling men. That scientific management is a solution of the industrial problems involving all the ethics of human relationship was recognized by no one so well as the father of scientific manage- ment himself. For proof we need only remember the four principles of scientific management 1 as propounded by Mr. Taylor, and his well-known words that the "Product of a factory is not materials, but men." The most hopeful sign of the times is the awakening public conscience in regard to the elements of success. The measure of success is no longer how much you make, but how you make it. 1 a. The development of a true science, b. The scientific selection ol the workman, c. His scientific education and development, d. Intimate friendly cooperation between the management and men. III. BALKED INSTINCTS THE BASIS OF INDUSTRIAL DISORDERS The reason why the instinctive nature of workers so often leads to industrial disorders is because certain of their most powerful instincts are thwarted by their industrial environment. When the instinct of workmanship is suppressed through monot- onous and haphazard working conditions; when the instinct of self-assertiveness is denied expression because of arbitrary methods of management; when the herd instinct is threatened by plans for undermining the unity of groups of workers; and when other instincts are balked in similar ways, the basic psycho- logical energies of the worker -are thwarted. The results are found in unrest, restriction of production, ill-will, radicalism, inefficiency, unhappiness and disloyalty. These are the outlets for the energies within balked instincts. Business executives who have applied psychological principles to the solution of such problems have found that the repression of the basic instincts of the workers is not only unnecessary but is one of the most costly, blind and dangerous phenomena of present day industry. All of these instinctive energies are capable of either good or bad expression, and if the good expression is not provided for in the day's work, the bad expres- sion is the natural alternative. Balked instincts insure pug- nacity, uneasiness, discontent, strikes, agitation, sabotage and the whole retinue of industrial disorders. A COMPREHENSIVE DESCRIPTION OF UNDER- LYING CAUSES 1 The instincts and their emotions, coupled with the obedient body, lay down in scientific and exact description the motives which must and will determine human conduct. If a physical 1 Carleton H. Parker. The Casual Laborer and Other Essays, p. 161, 162, 164. Harcourt, Brace and Howe. New York. 1920. 58 PRACTICAL PSYCHOLOGY FOR environment set itself against the expression of these instinct motives, the human organism is fully and efficiently prepared for a tenacious and destructive revolt against this environment; and if the antagonism persist, the organism is ready to destroy itself and disappear as a species if it fail of a psychical mutation which would make the perverted order endurable. Even if labor-class children evade those repressive deport- ment traditions that characterize the life of the middle-class young, at a later date in the life of these working-class members certain powerful forces in their environment, though they work on the less susceptible arid less plastic natures of mature individuals, produce obsessions and thwartings which function at times, exclusively almost, in determining the behavior of great classes of the industrial population. The powerful forces of the working-class environment which thwart and balk instinct expression are suggested in the phrases "monotonous work," "dirty work," "simplified work," "mechanized work," the "servile place of labor," "insecure tenure of the job," "hire and fire," "winter unemployment," "the ever found union of the poor district with the crime district," and the "restricted district of prostitution," the "open shop," the "labor turnover," "poverty," the "bread lines," the "scrap heap," "destitution." If we postulate some sixteen instinct unit characters which are present under the laborer's blouse and insistently demand the same gratification that is, with painful care, planned for the college student, in just what kind of perverted compensations must a laborer indulge to make endurable his existence? A western hobo tries in a more or less frenzied way to compensate for a general all-embracing thwarting of his nature by a wonderful concentration of sublimation activities on the wander instinct. The monotony, indignity, dirt, and sexual apologies of, for instance, the unskilled worker's life bring their definite fixations, their definite irrational, inferiority obsessions. The balked laborer here follows one of the two described lines of conduct: First, he either weakens, becomes inefficient, drifts away, loses interest in the quality of his work, drinks, deserts his family; or secondly, he indulges in a true to type inferiority compensation, and in order to dignify himself, to eliminate for himself his inferiority in his own eyes, he strikes or brings on a strike; he commits violence, or he stays on the job and injures machinery, or mutilates the materials. He is fit food BUSINESS EXECUTIVES 59 for dynamite conspiracies. He is ready to make sabotage a part of his regular habit scheme. His condition is one of mental stress and unfocused psychic unrest, and could in all accuracy be called a definite industrial psychosis. He is neither wilful nor responsible, he is suffering from a stereotyped mental disease. If one leaves the strata of unskilled labor and investigates the higher economic classes, he finds parallel conditions. There is a profound unrest and strong migratory tendency among de- partment-store employees. One New York store with less than three thousand employees has thirteen thousand pass through its employ in a year. Since the establishment in American life of big business with its extensive efficiency systems, its order and dehumanized discipline, its caste system, as it were, there* has developed among its highly paid men a persistent unrest, a dissatisfaction and decay of morale which is so noticeable and costly that it has received repeated attention. Even the conven- tional competitive efficiency of American business is in grave question. I suggest that this unrest is a true psychosis, a definite mental unbalance, an efficiency psychosis, as it were, and has its definite psychic antecedents; and that our present moralizing and guess-solutions are both hopeless and ludicrous. THE BASIC PRINCIPLE 1 In our time the coming of the Great Society has created an environment in which, for most of us, neither our instinctive nor our intelligent dispositions find it easy to discover their most useful stimuli. Any one who desires to appreciate this should visit one of those "casual labour" quarters in London, where modern civilization has so disastrously failed, and where the facts of life are hidden neither by conventional manners nor by the privacy which is possible in the great half-empty houses of the well-to-do. Stay there, walking and watching, from the afternoon closing of the schools till the return home of the men. Look at the windows of the newsagents and tobacconists, and the frank display in the dingy little chemists' shops. Listen to the women coming out of the "off-license" grocery, and the 1 Graham Wallas. The Great Society, p. 62-8. Published by The Mac- millan Company. 1920. Reprinted by permission. 60 PRACTICAL PSYCHOLOGY FOR girls who are waiting to enter the music-halls and the cinemato- graph theaters. Notice what part of the evening paper the men are reading. The people round you are of all ages from infancy to dotage ; and you can see what it is that here stimulates the instincts which one by one appear in the growth of a human being. The babies are tugging at dirty india-rubber teats. The sweet shops are selling hundredweights of bright-coloured stuff, which ex- cite the appetite of the children without nourishing their bodies. That pale-faced boy first knew love, not when he looked at a girl whom later he might marry, but when a dirty picture post- card caught his eye or he watched a suggestive film. His dreams of heroism are satisfied by halfpenny romances, half criminal 'and half absurd. Loyalty and comradeship mean sticking to his street gang; and the joy of constructive work means the money which he can get for riding behind a van or running messages. The men are never far removed from the two great social forces of gambling and alcohol. If the desire of change, of risk, of achievement comes on, then the bookmaker is always round the corner; and the publican will give at any moment, for a few pence, that dreaming reverie, that sense of the tremendous sig- nificance of the world, which led their ancestors, sitting at the tent door or among the mountain sheep, to the beginnings of philosophy and science. And because the new facts by which our dispositions are now stimulated are only inexact substitutes for the old facts by which they were stimulated during the long process of evolution, the stimulation itself is weak and capri- cious. Even the enthusiasm of the group at the public-house door, who are discussing a glove-fight, seems, as you watch them, to be thin and half-hearted. A little farther on the street widens, because a hundred years ago it used to cross a village green. You hear a tired and springless hymn-tune, and stop while a Salvation Army preacher shouts a quotation from St. Paul : "If ye live after the flesh, ye shall die; but if ye through the Spirit do mortify the deeds of the body, ye shall live." He is imploring his scanty following of women and children, *and the few inattentive passers-by, to strive and pray till all those instincts which can be put to such evil use have been killed out of their souls. You remember as you listen that in the tall tenement-building behind you, or in the new brick suburb BUSINESS EXECUTIVES 61 a mile or two away, there are thousands of men and women who are making perhaps the most heroic effort to "mortify the deeds of the body" that ever has been attempted. They are mainly impelled, not by the theology of Blood and Fire, but by an in- tense longing to be "respectable," to have some meaning and dignity in their own lives and those of their children, to be rid of the hopeless yielding to temptation, the weak shame, the squalor and disease of the life from which they have so hardly escaped. Neither father nor mother spend a halfpenny or a half hour without calculation, the children are carefully dressed in clothes which they dare not spoil, and are strictly confined, ex- cept for occasional holidays, to house or school. And yet in a poor district the school medical officer may report that the chil- dren of the more respectable families are physically and nerv- ously in a worse condition than the rest. For we cannot in St. Paul's sense "mortify" our dispositions. If they are not stimulated, they do not therefore die, nor is the human being what he would be if they had never existed. If we leave unstimulated, or, to use a shorter term, if we "baulk" any one of our main dispositions, curiosity, property, trial and .error, sex, and the rest, we produce in ourselves a state of nervous strain. It may be desirable in any particular case of conduct that we should do so, but we ought to know what we are doing. The baulking of each disposition produces its own type of strain; but the distinctions between the types are, so far, un- named and unrecognized, and a trained psychologist would do a real service to civilized life if he would carefully observe and describe them. One peculiarity of the state of "baulked disposition" is that it is extremely difficult for the sufferer to find his own way out of it. The stimulus must come from outside. When once he is "dull" or "flat" or "sick of things" or whatever the name may be which he gives to his feelings, he cannot, unless he is a man of quite exceptional resource and nervous elasticity, in- vent anything to do which will "stimulate" him. Now, for in- stance, that the European nations keep hundreds of thousands of men under arms in time of peace, the colonels of regiments and the captains of warships know by experience that their men become "fidgetty" or "fed up" by a life which gives play only to a few dispositions; and when that occurs they prescribe 62 PRACTICAL PSYCHOLOGY FOR in a haphazard way a smoking concert, or a route march, or a football match, or, on board ship, a dance, or clothes-mending, or gun drill, for them all alike. A skilled London hostess is more successful when she goes round a room full of bored celebrities, applying to each an appropriate stimulus: "Miss Jones so wants to know about your last voyage," or, "here is a friend of Mr. Brown" (a scientific opponent), or, more simply, "I want to introduce you to that girl with the beautiful hair," until each is roused to that "energy of the soul" which is Aristotle's definition of happiness. If one looks at a respectable crowd in a London park on the afternoon of a Bank holiday, one feels an intense longing for the appearance of a thousand such hostesses and of a social system which would enable them to get to work. This want of harmony, in great things and in small, between our race and its environment has been noticed ever since men, at the beginning of civilization, began consciously to reflect upon their way of living. They dimly felt that their earliest instincts were related to an open-air life in which their ancestors had supported themselves on the gifts of the untilled land. Such a life was "natural," and poets, for thousands of years, have longed to return to it, to recall the "golden age" before the invention of fire, or the Garden of Eden, whose inhabitants knew neither clothing nor agriculture. It was the supreme achievement of the Greek intellect to substitute for this vain longing a new conception of nature. To Aristotle, as to Hobbes, it was evident that the old life in which man, without the powers which civilization gave him, faced an untamed world, must have been "poor, nasty, brutish and short." It was true that man's nature and his environment were at war, but the remedy was not to go back to the forests of the past, but to invent the city of the future, the material and social organization w r hich should contrive a new harmony, higher because it was deliberate. When Aristotle said "Man is an animal adapted for living in a city-state," he meant, not that man was living in such a state when Zeus was born, but that the city-state stimulated his nature to its noblest expression. "For what every being is in its perfect condition, that certainly is the nature of that being." Even for Zeno's less confident philosophy "Follow nature" meant not "Go back to the past" but "Examine the conditions of a good life in the present." BUSINESS EXECUTIVES 63 This is the master-task of civilized mankind. They will fail in it again and again, partly for lack of inventive power, partly from sheer ignorance of the less obvious facts of their material surroundings and mental structure. But it is hardly possible for any one to endure life who does not believe that they will succeed in producing a harmony between themselves and their environment far deeper and wider than anything which we can see today. THE BALKED INSTINCT OF CONTRIVANCE * I have mentioned that among the marks of a true instinct is universality of occurrence. That of contrivance is verified by the test. Extraordinary as it is in some individuals, it is present in all. In the average man it perhaps should be called an instinct of construction rather than one of contrivance. Every one of us is conscious of a satisfaction in doing his work handily and well, in seeing the product grow under his own hands. Hence we find this instinct actuating the business man as well as the inventor and mechanic. The complexity of the impulses and motives which underlie business activity will form the special topic of the following chapters; here I anticipate for a moment what might as appropriately be said there, con- cerning the influence of the instinct of contrivance on the active man of affairs. This sort of person likes to see his enterprise well conducted; and the enjoyment is quite apart from the money-making outcome. As with other instincts, that of con- trivance is felt in varying force by different individuals. There are not many with whom it would be as strong as with a manufacturer who once assured me (in perfect good faith, I am convinced) that the chief satisfaction which he got from his establishment was the feeling that it was in the best order and at the height of efficiency, shipshape from top to bottom. But the immense majority would confess to some feeling of intrinsic pleasure in having a well-equipped plant, a first-rate organization. I mention organization as well as plant, because the modern business man is commonly concerned with the former not less than the latter. . . 1 F. W. Taussig. Inventors and Money-makers, p. 57-70. Published by The Macmillan Company. New York. 1915. Reprinted by permission. 64 PRACTICAL PSYCHOLOGY FOR Much more important, however, is the influence of the instinct of contrivance on the employees. It is more important as concerns the problem of happiness, simply because of the immense numerical preponderance of the employees over em- ployers. There is a clear difference between the two classes as regards the scope given to this bent in their work. The capitalistic organization of industry, large-scale production, hired labor, and the wage system, these may serve to add to the employer's intrinsic satisfaction from his daily work, or at least to entail no loss of satisfaction; but they seem to lessen seriously the possibilities of a life of spontaneous activity and of sustained happiness for the manual workmen who form the great body of employees. Just how far the development of quasi-automatic machinery runs counter to this factor in well-being is not easy to say. Probably the charge often urged, that it takes all the interest and savor out of the day's work, is exaggerated; or at least there is exaggeration in the assertion that the industrial system is in this regard radically worse than it was before the era of the machine. The handicraftsman's labor, like that of the tender of a machine, often involves repetition and montony. Moreover, a vast amount of dreary heavy labor has been taken over by the machinery. The modern sawmill is better than the old saw pit; the planning mill better than the old jack plane. There is truth also in the observation that monotony is by no means equally distasteful to all. Men vary in this regard, as in every other; and the simple repetition of identical movements is not necessarily a cause of weariness and abhorrence to those of inert mind and tranquil disposition. Yet it remains true that there is a difference of degree between the tool and the machine; a lessened scope for individual initiative and individual impress, and so a lessened opportunity for the satisfaction of an instinct like that of con- trivance. True, the expert mechanics needed by modern indus- try a considerable part of the labor force, even though not a large proportion may still be in the way of experiencing some such satisfaction. Among the rank and file of factory oper- atives, also, the possibility is not completely excluded; machines, however perfect, depend in some degree on the operative's care and skill. Yet in general the minute partition of labor, the extreme differentiation of machinery, the constant effort to BUSINESS EXECUTIVES 65 achieve automatic start and check and action, the tendency to reduce the worker to a mere feeder and watcher, all these mean a loss in interest, in possible variety, in the exercise of skill and contrivance. The skilled mechanics themselves, whose work tends to be turned to the construction and repair and oversight of machinery are often tenders and users of machine tools which, though extraordinarily ingenious and effective, are quasi-automatic. Surveying the situation as a whole, the decline of the handicraft, though it does not necessarily mean a less demand on the intelligence and skill of the workmen, means less opportunity for individual adaptation and workmanship. Against the clear gain in quantitative output from machine indus- try so much emphasized in economic literature, must be set some loss, even though not an unqualified loss, as regards the scope and the work itself. . . Again : the instinct of contrivance in the business man him- self, and the ready vent which is given by nature of his own work, go far to explain his inability to understand, his unwilling- ness to tolerate, the restrictive policy which so often runs counter to it among the employees. The position of the em- ployer obviously is just the opposite from that of the men. In his case all the surrounding circumstances tend to foster and strengthen the contriving impulse, whereas among the men the accepted methods of bargaining tend to push it aside and smother it. Not only the employer's calculations of gain, which are doubtless uppermost in his thoughts, but the inborn bent of which he is only half-conscious, impel him to bring his operations to the utmost pitch of efficiency. His own satisfaction from proper contriving makes him feel irritation, even wrath, when his men limit their tasks, hold aloof from labor-saving appliances, prevent the well-designed organization and plant from turning out the maximum. This cause of friction is the more likely to issue in contention because neither participant understands the other's point of view ; nay, neither understands his own. The employer declares that the men are foolish, ignorant, act against their own interests, still more against the interests of the public. He is quite alive to the fact (though he may not overtly lay stress on it) that their restrictive policy also interferes with his money-making. But he is probably not at all conscious that his interest in the money-making policy is supplemented by his own instinct of contrivance. The men 66 PRACTICAL PSYCHOLOGY FOR on their part are as little aware that they are opposing some- thing more than the mere business plans of the employer, and equally little aware of causing in themselves a similar sort of thwarting. THE INDUSTRIAL WASTE DUE TO BALKED HUMAN NATURE 1 To the question, what is the matter with the men, the writer received varied answers. For example : From an employer : The men are too lazy to work ; our laws, courts and police institutions are weak as regards loafing, beg- ging and stealing ; and the charity organizations in the cities demoralize rather than uplift the men, by providing them with meals and shelter without labor. From a charity worker; Yes, the men are falling down-and- out in a greater number than ever before. For this the hard and unhealthy conditions at the work places are responsible to a degree, but, in the main, the men themselves are defective and responsible for their misfortunes. Some inherit certain defects by birth, but the vast majority have acquired bad habits, have weakened their bodies, and have lost ambition, will-power and self-respect. From a preacher: The fountain head of the trouble consists in the fact that the men have lost religion; if they would turn back to God, everything else with them would be all right. From a radical labor leader, socialist, I.W.W., or union man : The existing industrial conditions, low wages, long hours, poor living, etc., are responsible for the casualization of laborers and the production of hoboes and tramps. There is nothing wrong with the men themselves ; do away with these conditions and with the wage-system in general, and there would be no more down-and-outs the product of industrial slavery. From an educator : The main cause of casualization is the lack of training in general character building and in trade. From a moralist: The main cause is drinking and prostitu- tion saloons and red-light districts. From a student of industrial problems : For the casualization 1 Peter A. Speek. The Psychology of Floating Workers. Annals of the American Academy. January, 1917. p. 75-8. BUSINESS EXECUTIVES 67 of laborers a number of causes are responsible; rapid introduc- tion of skill-replacing machinery and other improvements in the technique of production; seasonable character of numbers of large industries; fluctuation of market; irregularity of employ- ment; unregulated transportation of laborers; and pressure of circumstances and environment in general. The existence of casual laborers in large numbers is an essential of the present organization of our industrial system. These widely varied opinions about the causes of casualiza- tion show the complexity of the problem. . . One of the first signs of the decrease in the ambition and hope of a worker is the loss of interest in his earnings. He soon quits saving for two reasons: first, all of his previous attempts in saving failed because the hard times of unemployment, or ill- ness, or some other misfortune ate up his savings; and, second, he begins to look upon his earnings as merely a means "to keep his soul and body together," not as a means for his success in life. In consequence he begins to work seasonally and casually. First, industries require that kind of work, and second, seasonal and casual work corresponds to his changes, views and needs. These changes, views and needs are his desire to be on the move, and the need to earn only a "stake," a certain sum of money, specified in his own mind at the acceptance of the job. This stake is destined to help him to prosecute his immediate plans, to buy clothes and shoes, to have a "good time," to buy meals on his travels, or what not. But the main thing is, he must move ; he must change his environment so as to see something new, interesting. To this end he has always a plan in his mind where to go and how to go. But when the last rays of his ambition and hope are gone he becomes a self-confessed failure and falls down, first, into the rank of hoboes still laborers and then into the rank of down-and-outs. In the latter state he is characterized by the following psychological features : (a) The passion for wandering is increased almost to madness ; (b) He has acquired a profound aversion to work; (c) He drinks whenever and wherever he has a chance; (d) He has developed a strange, childish expectation that he may strike in some way, somewhere, a tremendously promis- 68 PRACTICAL PSYCHOLOGY FOR i ing opportunity. This is something like the alluring dream of a rich gold strike to a prospector. If this hoped-for opportunity were such that its realization might reasonably be expected, it would recreate in him a strong enthusiasm and confidence, as a result of which he would cease drinking, and would work and battle till he won out and became a victor in life instead of a beaten man. But if one asks him of what nature is the opportunity he expects to find, he answers that it may happen that he will by chance become a prospector and strike a gold mine ; or marry rich; or he may become a fisherman, at first for wages, after- wards independently; or he may find a very good job, working on which he will save lots of money ; or he may specialize in some line of highly paid work; or he may by chance secure a homestead; or or Led by such faint hope very faint, almost nothing in his mind, but strong enough in his sentiment he roams restlessly over all the country, from north to south, from coast to coast, back and forth, moving from place to place by freighting or walking, seldom paying his way in his rainbow chasing. (e) He has lost his ability to concentrate on anything sensible. How can such psychological features, seemingly unnatural to any man, be explained? He is simply trying to escape from himself or to forget himself, in general. Life is dark and hope- less for him nothing is left of his ambition, except gloomy thoughts and sad feelings. Wonderful human nature invents other, one might say in common parlance, "artificial" substitutes for "natural" enjoy- ment appearing in ambition and hope. By changing environ- ment scenes by constant wandering, he keeps up some sort of interest in life. He is averse to work because his nervous system, by suffering and privation, is exhausted. Furthermore, he answers to the question why he does not want to labor : To labor ! Why should I labor? I have labored, worked hard years, tens of years, but the labor did not help, it let me fall down where I am as you see me. But in general his idleness or "laziness" is nothing more or less than a kind of defence-reaction forced upon him by na-^ ture. In drunkenness he also finds a sort of "brightness" and forgetfulness. Rainbow chasing is again an artificial means of BUSINESS EXECUTIVES 69 making his life "ambitious" and "hopeful." His lack of ability to concentrate his attention on anything is explained by the fact that he is worn-out and as a result his will-power has gone to pieces. No law, court, police, prison, can "cure" him; nothing but medical treatment. But as medical treatment is more costly than the prevention of disease, the nation should take steps in the direction of preventing a large number of its members from falling down-and-out, beginning with the regulation of labor conditions in unskilled industries, especially in those of seasonal character. THE "PASSIVE RESISTANCE OF THE HUMAN SPIRIT" x Dean Inge says : "The life of the town artisan who works in a factory is a life to which the human organism has not adapted itself." The deracinated life of the human herd in modern towns is the condition and the instrument of large-scale indus- try. A speeded-up machine production, whose products do not bring a good life to those producing them, carries the germ of its own decay. "A barbaric civilization, built on blind impulse and ambition, should fear to awaken a deeper detestation than could ever be aroused by those more beautiful tyrannies, chiv- alrous or religious, against which past revolutions have been directed." Human nature in industry has gone on strike. The decayed autocracy of financiers and business men cannot be restored by "profit-sharing" and "co-partnership." The revolt is not against details. It is against the purpose, products, methods, and con- ditions of industry. The workers do not want the "wants" that fill modern life, the splatter of the shops. Sections of them have proved this by knocking off work for a day (or even two days) a week, when they attain a moderate standard of living the level which Professor Zimmern defined to me as one of "reasonable satisfaction." Something in the industrial system offended the soul of the worker. He resented the forced draught that played on his working day. He saw "an immense accumulation of the 1 Arthur Gleason. What the Workers Want. p. 256-7. Harcourt, Brace and Howe. New York. 1920. 70 PRACTICAL PSYCHOLOGY FOR apparatus of life, without any corresponding elevation in moral standards," creating a civilization of "technical efficiency with- out love." There came a moment when Napoleon's soldiers tired of the grandiose and expanding campaigns of conquest. The motives that had driven them wore thin. So it is with the workers. The familiar compulsions no longer avail, the industrial organi- zation crumbles, and the mines and railways and factories be- come a wasting asset. Militant strikes can be crushed by tanks and machine guns. But against the passive resistance of the hu- man spirit in the millions of workers the owners make war in vain. It is a process of nature, a molecular change, invisible and universal. This life-force can be re-enlisted only on its own terms. AN ACCOUNT OF LABOR ASPIRATIONS 1 In addition to giving him an agency for the defense of his rights, the union gives the workman a medium of gaining knowledge about the industry of which he is a part. The worker is no longer a blind cog in a massive machine. He knows something of the whole problem. And the more he knows of the whole problem the more valuable he is to the in- dustry. It is at this point that industrial scientists may be of tre- mendous service. They can take the information of industry and give it to the worker for his enlightenment and for the quickening of his interest in the industry. The normal human mind craves information ; it fights against darkness and in time loses interest in a darkness unillumined. Repetitive operations especially demand the attentions of scientists. How much havoc needlessly repetitive processes have caused will never be known. What a mass of suppressed resent- ment and hatred there is among workers who must submit to them can never be known. We only know that here and there a suicide results, a maniac results, a broken home results. For such of these processes as are imperative there should be all of the surrounding enlightenment that science can give. Men, for one thing, are entitled to knowledge as to the purpose of their work, as to where it fits in the great scheme of things. 1 Samuel Gompers. Union Labor and the Enlightened Employer. In- dustrial Management. April i, 1921. p. 239. BUSINESS EXECUTIVES 71 It is just to demand that workers know the facts about costs, about supplies, their source and the reliability of future supply, about overhead and operating costs and about where their prod- uct goes and why it goes there. Science, if it will, may weave romance into many a dead and dusty corner of industry, into many a weary, heavy life. The coming of steam took out of the life of labor that which made it full and rounded, that which made it a life fit for human beings, taxing and rewarding the skill of hand and brain, and science must give it back. Reaction thinks that the well-springs of human hope that manifest themselves when the workers speak for better lives and for more of freedom, can be dried up and destroyed by repres- sive and coercive measures. They think only as far as the iron heel. They know nothing of the psychology of masses of work- ers, they know nothing of the longings and hopes that fill their hearts. They plan by the ledger and monthly balance sheet. Scientists are under no such limitations. Engineers know better. The workers, quick to detect any false note in plans in- volving human life and human rights, rejected with unanimity and bitterness, the original Taylor system and its allied distor- tions. The workers knew the fault and time has amply justified their verdict. It is now generally admitted, even by its former foremost advocates. But most scientists of industry have found the missing links and have given humanity, human rights, hu- man aspirations and human impulses their proper place and full valuation. THE NATURAL FORCES BEHIND SEEMINGLY UNREASONABLE BEHAVIOR l In order to make it easier to think about the industrial worker, it has long been the fashion of the philosophers to de- scribe him as the "economic man" interested in playing his part in the process of production or distribution, more or less ex- clusively for the purpose of thereby earning his daily bread, and, with good luck favoring, his daily jam and cake. "All he wants is in the pay envelope," so more practical and experienced ob- servers are apt to voice the same effort to find an all-inclusive rule of modern human action. Such a man, it goes without saying, 1 Whiting Williams. What's on the Worker's Mind. p. 293-308. Charles Scribner's Sons. New York. 1920. 72 PRACTICAL PSYCHOLOGY FOR will have only an incidental interest in the nature, the hours, or other conditions of his work, or the character of his foreman, or his company, so long as he takes out of the plant enough money wherewith to buy in the remaining hours of his day the satisfaction of his real desires as a person among other persons. This explanation of the mainspring of men's doings is highly popular. To my great surprise I found it used quite as much by the worker for the explanation of his employer's behavior and especially his misbehavior, as by the employer for the under- standing of the worker's comings and shortcomings. But some- thing must surely be wrong with a mainspring whose effective- ness is so readily accepted in the case of the "other fellow" and so strenuously denied in our own. At the very least an enor- mous amount of proof ought to be required in order to sub- stantiate on any universal basis a theory which no one can be found willing to admit for himself or for any one else except the person he does not intimately know. Of course the dilemma may be partly avoided by making the all but universal assumption that putting men into the group called Labor or Management or Capital changes them even down to the bottom of their souls where their life's motors are set upon the piers of their foundation desires. This is the way often taken to get around the need of coming to the understand- ing of the other person's actions by taking the time to under- stand him. Of such study the result is pretty sure to be the same as that which impressed itself after my months at the south pole of the industrial world that humans vary little at the bottom of their hearts though they may vary much at the tops of their heads; that of all of us the mainsprings are just about the same, though different circumstances require different modes and methods of their escapement. For some months I carried about the conviction of the enormous importance of the job to the wage-worker, as though it made him a very difficult and rather peculiar kind of chap till I awoke to the realization that in this industrial era of ours the job is almost equally important to everybody else. After all there are exceedingly few of us in this country whose first con- cern is not our job. For almost all of us the most important part of our income, by far, comes from the carrying of some current responsibility, with serious trouble camping down very close to us the moment something goes wrong with that source. BUSINESS EXECUTIVES 73 Even the industrial captain builds up his capital quite largely to take care of himself and his family in the days when sickness or other disability puts an end to his yearly salary as the busy director of this enterprise or that. The chief dollars-and-cents difference between his job and that of the workers in his fac- tory is that he is more likely to be hired and paid by the month or the year instead of by the hour, day, or week and to have certain securities against unwarranted discharge. Upon him as upon the worker hangs always heavily the fear of lessened income as the result of sickness or death of jobless- ness. His abilities and his savings lessen the fear, of course, but do not by any means eliminate it. Most of the difference, then, consists, not in his being in the group of management, but in the size of his margin of security and safety a margin given him by his closer connection with those who give the job or take it away and by the larger sav- ings and assurances which his larger education and earnings permit. In the work of the Cleveland Welfare Federation we spent large sums trying to get the people of the city to under- stand that the community's poor were not a fixed group or class habitually acting from abnormal and peculiar motives and there- fore habitually and permanently in need of help. It is this dif- ference, not of human material but of educational economic margin, which permits some to save themselves while others, encountering the same obstacle of sickness or unemployment are brought down to the need of temporary help, just as a friend of mine reported : "I'm getting old. Ten years ago I could stumble and still keep going for fifteen feet at least. Now a stumble means a fall without doubt and without delay." The difference is in the margins of assurance, opportunity and living in general, allowed by the daily or weekly wage in- stead of the monthly or yearly salary it is this that gives the reason of the labor gang's intenser and more necessitous atti- tude toward the job, rather than any or all supposition that the gang is made up of humans possessing different interests and therefore wanting satisfactions entirely different from the rest of us. During the long hours of shovelling bricks, lifting the steel sheets off the cold rolls, or stencilling the "Regular weights, there now" onto the barrel heads, it was often a problem to know what to do with one's mind. On some such turns I 74 PRACTICAL PSYCHOLOGY FOR would definitely try to make the time go faster by picking out some particular field of recollection and endeavoring, hour after hour, to "lick the chops of memory" by recalling every impression possible, for instance, on one shift from my travels in Italy, on another turn Egypt or South America. At other times I would find myself swinging my body in rhythm with the movements of the job while almost chanting to myself: "I wonder if anybody could ever find any connection between this town's evident immoralities and some of the plant's evident * dissatisfactions?" "Is there any connection between the way people earn their livings and the way they live their lives? and if so, do bad morals cause bad jobs or bad jobs cause bad/ morals, or both?" As becomes a father, my fondest hope is that the following offspring of my long-turn ponderings may prove a more helpful interpreter of our modern industrial life and all its human units than that offspring of the philosophers which ought to be known as the "economic alibi." Suppose we start at what might be called our "jumping-on" place there in the shining land of "Get-up-in-the-morning," and draw a line through the sixteen waking hours of our day to the "jumping-off" place there in a shadowy land of "Go-to-bed-at- night." Such a line we may quite properly call our "western front" at least it represents all the opportunity we have for the putting forward of all our life's campaigns, whatever and wherever they may be. Now from all that I have seen or heard all kinds of human beings do and say, it is safe to assert that every normal person possesses at the bottom of his heart the desire to find somewhere along this front the satisfaction that comes with the consciousness of "breaking through." It is impossible to conceive of any one who would pass along this front day after day, and year after year, without getting any- where some feeling that he is making progress counting as something more than a cipher in the sum total of humanity and be therewith content. Such a person is pretty sure to be proved an imbecile or a fool or else he will be found among the unknown derelicts at the morgue. Now, in these recent days of unrest and commotion, when fear gives birth to misunderstanding, and misunderstanding increases the brood of fear, it is easy for all of us to believe that the man who is too far off up the line or down for us to see and know him, will not be satisfied unless his "break- BUSINESS EXECUTIVES 75 through" brings him into the manager's or the autocrat's or the plutocrat's chair of absolute power for the domination of the rest of us. Yet acquaintance with both groups is sure to convince all as it does me that the member of the labor gang is no more truly represented as the father of such an extreme desire than is the capitalist though such acquaintance does show that each is willing to believe the other not only capable of such a desire, but happy in it. It is immensely truer to the actuality to believe that every normal person, quite apart from his particular membership in this group or that in the industrial process, is moved to do what he does by the universal itch to feel that somewhere on his life's front he is justifying his existence among other persons by "getting on," doing a little better than merely holding on, while those about him pass along. In this feeling all of us find quite as much pleasure in beating our own previous record as in going ahead of others. The main thing is the sense of motion and progress. When the "high spots" of the "boss roller" or the "first helper" are put alongside of the successful banker's or manufacturer's it is odd to observe that they all fit into practically the same formula each is a high spot because it serves to measure their progress from the point where they started. It is this satisfaction in the distance travelled rather than in the point arrived at, that permits millions of us to have our separate, individual satisfactions without wanting to crowd each other out of the pleasure of the same, or competing, ultimate destination. . . Altogether, it is very fortunate that the great majority of us take much more satisfaction in passing the "flivvers" of our past, or the truck loads of our slow-moving associates, than we take dissatisfaction in the thought of the limousines still ahead of us and still unpassed on the road of life and progress. All things considered, we could hardly hope for progress from any- thing less selfish or for self-preservation from anything less progressive. Now I am convinced that the daily wage-worker wants, to an even greater extent than the rest of us, to find his high spots and locate his break-through in the sector of his job. For one thing, the narrowness of the margin between the daily job and the daily bread means that what he does in the hours under the plant roof determine more narrowly what he may do else- where, than does the nature of our work for the rest of us ; and 76 PRACTICAL PSYCHOLOGY FOR that is saying a great deal, for in a world built on jobs, all of us must adapt ourselves first to the conditions which we must meet for the earning of our living, and then, with what we have left of time and attitudes and interests, set about the living of our lives. If the worker is still on the long-hour day, all this can be figured out in minutes to make plain the immense necessity of getting the utmost of personal satisfactions out of his working time. That means that the worker lives and moves and has his being there on the job. There is where the tire of his life's wheel meets the smooth or jagged roadway of actuality. But still more important than that, he finds there in the precise nature of his job, skilled or unskilled, important or unimportant, and in the relationships it provides, the most important means of establishing his status and standing as a man and a citizen and the status and standing of his wife and children. Thus the oil-can or the wrench spells progress upward from the shovel, quite beyond the two-cents-hourly income. Thus, too, the promo- tion out of the gang to the humblest foremanship is certain to mean not only more money for a wider margin of enjoyments and securities, but also, and much more important, the envious congratulations of the gang, the familiar acceptance as a comrade at the hands of others heretofore far above him, and, finally, those gossipy noddings of heads at the club or the lodge which are the incense burned before the altars of progress and suc- cess. It is only the great distance of most of us from such events that permits us to miss the hugeness of these steps as they appear from the viewpoint of the labor gang. It is this hugeness that causes many workers to lose their heads certainly, at least, the natural size of their heads the moment they find themselves thus elevated and so perhaps inclined to drive their former "buddies" with less consideration than that shown by those who never were in the gang. Now in view of all this, the most fundamental criticism I know how to make, in regard to the present industrial situa- tion, is this : that in the minds of so many members of the labor gang, and also of higher groups of workers, there is so wide- spread and so deep-set a conviction that for them there is no chance to break through on their industrial sector. It must be evident to those who have read this diary that while the matter is two-sided, nevertheless, considerably more BUSINESS EXECUTIVES 7 7 justification than could be wished is, as a matter of fact, given that conviction. The trouble the most manifest trouble at least is in that "first line of defense" which is maintained there at the contact points on the line by industrial management in the person of the boss or foreman, the plant guard or policeman, and the plant paymaster and his clerks. If the break-through is to be engineered on the sector of the job, it must inevitably be in the presence, and with the permission and recognition, of one or more of these representatives of and of parts of the man- agement. Through these the workers must get those daily demonstrations of the plans and purposes of all the other "lines." There would seem to be no way by which management can avoid the responsibility for whatever impression the workers gain of its performance and intentions as the result of these demonstra- tions nor any effective denial that that impression as a whole is considerably less satisfactory than could be desired. Whether justified or not, this conviction that on this sector no satisfying feeling of gain or progress is to be made in pro- portion to effort required that "pull" and the marrying of the boss's daughter must be counted on for getting forward pro- duces the same result in the factory as it would on the fields of France and Flanders. When Foch or Haig became convinced rightly or wrongly that successful pressure could not be hoped for, strategy, and the necessity to keep moving, required, of course, the transfer of effort to another sector. So today, when the worker becomes, in any way, convinced as the result of a few deadly demonstrations, that employers as a group are un- willing or unable to reward initiative, loyalty, and skill, he changes his tactics. Leaving behind just enough energy and skill to keep "the enemy" from "breaking through" and dis- charging him and he's a wonderful judge of the precise amount needed for that purpose he withdraws the reserves of his in- terests and enthusiasms for more effective and worth-while ap- plication elsewhere. Like all the rest of us, the worker, it is worth repeating, car- ries into the other sectors of his living the equipment he is able to take out of his job. So here again he suffers from the nar- rowness of his margins. If he is untrained he must daily put a larger proportion of his entire physical equipment in his case, his entire capital into his daily givings for the benefit of the needed daily gettings of the family's food than do the most of ;8 PRACTICAL PSYCHOLOGY FOR us. Unskilled, skilled, or semi-skilled, does he make iron or steel, the chances are that he must put in an average of twelve of those sixteen waking hours with, in most cases, an additional hour and a half or two to go and come. The result is not favorable to such a worker's finding in, say, the sector of his home, the sought-for satisfactions of forward movement and distinction. That is certainly evident from the most casual reading of the foregoing pages. Over in the sector of his relationships as a citizen, similarly, many a worker can take only a depleted physique and an un- satisfied hope. Some, however, do "stand the gaff" of even the hardest work and, perhaps with the help of a sense of humor or a determined will, endeavor here to find the distinction of lead- ing those around them. I am quite sure that these are often the men whose manifest ability to influence others comes to the at- tention of the all too common plant detective or "under-cover man" with the result that they may be reported as potentially dangerous workers. In too many instances such a report is likely to lead to the "planting" of, say, a bottle of whiskey in the man's clothes, with the later discovery of it by the secret planter, who in horror at such outrageous breaking of the plant rules, lands the offender on the street, jobless and sore, ready to believe that his manhood requires his personal direction of a continuous war against the industrial and economic arrange- ments which permit such injustice. I have reason to believe that such men are not happy in their capacity as leaders of the war that they would be enormously happier if they could find there in the plant and on the job the opportunity to enjoy the sense of constructive leadership which, of course, remains un- attainable until the hurt that honor feels has been assuaged. It is strange that so many managers who themselves get great pleasure from their membership in some committee of the local Chamber of Commerce find it so difficult to understand the wish of some of the workers to enjoy similar distinction in their world under the plant roof. Into the final sector of their miscellaneous relations as a person come great numbers of workers who realize their posi- tion at the base of modern industry, yet who have found nowhere else in home or club or lodge any milestone of distance travelled from the starting point of personal insignificance. Here is their final chance. Of such men their profanity, I am BUSINESS EXECUTIVES 79 persuaded, is intended to convince their hearers that they them- selves remain unconvinced of the inferiority which their present job may indicate in much the same way that a child assures you of his "I don't care, I don't care" when his toys are taken from him. In addition, he can hope for a certain distinction among his pals by giving the requisite attention to the luridness and daring of his blasphemies. Of such men, too, their boastings of their "fifteen, sixteen w'iskee-beer" are also calculated to im- press themselves and their friends with the remarkable carrying and staying powers of their physical manliness. For many, further, the certainty with which drunken ears are able to hear the assurances of their owner's achievements, past, present, or future, makes it worth while to indulge in the cup which con- gratulates as well as inebriates congratulates because it inebri- ates. The old machinist who used the bartender's dispensations to "get the feeling of my old position back like, you know," and the melter in the western steel town for whom the "hard stuff" almost instantly recalled the days when he was discharged be- cause "the boss knowed I knowed more'n a minute about steel than he did in a month," as well as the hobo who used his whisky as protection against the bugs and flies all these and others support, sorely, this proposition that the worker's bottom- most desire is to find the chief basis of his belief in himself there in his work, and that, failing this, he endeavors in all the other parts of his living to make the necessary adjustments. THE FUTURE OF INDUSTRY 1 i Looking to the future of industry, if we want to avoid constant difficulty, constant friction, constant unrest, it is neces- sary that we should take account of the intellectual ferment which is working in the minds of the industrial masses^ I have been interested in observing the way in which the American employer is meeting the situation. In the course of a fairly intensive investigation of American industrial methods during the last two months I have come to the conclusion that funda- mentally he deals with the same problems which we have in England, though superficially there are many differences. I have 1 B. Seebohm Rowntree. Substance of an address delivered at a dinner of Survey Associates, in New York, November 16. Reprinted from Survey. December 3, 1921. p. 362. cSo PRACTICAL PSYCHOLOGY FOR such an admiration for the intelligence shown by the American employer that I hope if I say any word at all in the direction of criticism it will not be regarded as dogmatic assertion of a considered judgment but merely the reflection of a passing traveler. What I find is that when he is dealing with material problems,\^the American employer is extraordinarily alert and scientific. He is far more on his toes he has more "pep," to use the American expression, than the British employer. But somehow, when he comes to deal with the human factor in industry, he seems to lose that wonderful slight-of-hand and scientific accuracy of action which marks him when he is dealing with administrative and material problems. He seems to me to descend altogether to a lower level. He does not approach, it seems to me, the human problems connected with industry with the same ability with which he approaches the material problems^ I do not say that he is approaching them any less ably than we are in Britain ; but whereas he is streets ahead of us in the way in which he administers his business and in the way in which he applies science to the solution of his material problems, I do not think that he is so far ahead of us in the way in which he is dealing with the human problems, ^^^bviously when I speak of the American employer, there are very brilliant exceptions. \ I have learned a great deal of how to deal with labor problems from a number of American employers. In general, however, if the American employer is kindly disposed, he seems to me to favor action which I can only describe as paternalistic. He seems to adopt the attitude : These workmen are nice fellows ; I will do nice, kind things to them. His is just a little the spirit of the English squire who distributes soup and blankets to the villagers at Christmas. And so you get a good deal of welfare work. Having been the director of the Welfare Department in the Ministry of Munitions respon- sible for three or four thousand factories, I am not likely to belittle welfare work. But to my mind true welfare begins with the provision of working conditions which are funda- mentally just in the recognition of the human rights of the workers. There is another kind of employer whom I regard as a great danger, whether you find him in America or in England you can find him in both countries and that is \the short-sighted person who seeks to take advantage of the present economic BUSINESS EXECUTIVES 81 and industrial situation in order to keep the worker in his place, as he expresses it in order to get hold of the worker by the throat. He says : "During the war the worker was on top. Now I am on top and I am going to stay there as long as I possibly can." That man is a revolutionary. That man is playing into the hands of extremists; he is the greatest enemy to real prog- ress in the state. |^0n the other hand, I find here, just as in England, an absence of that quiet, calm, patient, scientific inquiry into the whole industrial structure and into the causes of unrest which is the only real way of getting rid of unrest because it removes its causes. If a steel merchant is receiving ores from different parts of the country, I imagine he will find that there are certain differences in these ores and that, in order to obtain a steel of a certain quality, each variety of ore must be treated rather differently. If he wishes to manufacture a certain standard of steel, he finds that he has to make sometimes radical, sometimes slight changes in the way in which he treats different kinds of ore in order to obtain the desired result. If he gets a new kind of ore, or if a shipment of ore does not give him the reaction that he wants, he does not get in a temper with it ; he does not say, "What stupid ore this is." He recognizes that it is up to him and not up to the ore so to alter and adapt his methods as to obtain the reaction that he desires. He never talks about ore "in the mass" ; he talks about ore from this mine, from that mine and the other mine. His treatment is entirely scientific. But you will find that man talking about labor in the mass, attempting, for instance, to treat his Lithuanian, his German, his Pole, his Italian, his American all in the same way. And yet he expects to get a satisfactory reaction. That is quite ^ unscientific. We employers are really a very unimaginative lot of people; we have very little vision. We have got to tackle this problem of industrial unrest in a thoroughly calm, scientific spirit, recognizing that we are entering upon a world with a psychology different from that which existed in 1913. Men everywhere are demanding better conditions, and it is up to us to see whether we can grant them. Therefore, let us approach the problem of how to get rid of industrial unrest by a quiet examination of the causes which give rise to it and let us get rid of all pre-conceived notions; let us try to enter upon that examination just as a chemist 82 PRACTICAL PSYCHOLOGY FOR would enter upon the solution of some difficult chemical problem, willing to do what is necessary; first of all to diagnose the problem and, second, to make a report upon it, purely in accord- ance with the facts as they were found, without any prejudice. I believe that the right action for us employers is to examine the existing condition of industry on the assumption that industry continues on its present basis. A number of people are so dissatisfied with conditions in industry as they exist today that they are devoting the whole of their efforts to attempts to alter the system of industry to replace the capitalist system by some other. I do not think that the capitalist system of industry has ever had a really fair trial; the capitalist has always abused it. It holds in it the possibility of far better industrial conditions than have yet been obtained. The following statement of what, I think, may be regarded as the aims of industry has been written on the minutes of a board of directors in capitalistic industry in England, a board that is definitely trying to work toward the achievement of those aims. 1. Industry should create goods or provide services of such kinds, and in such measure, as may be beneficial to the community. 2. In the process of wealth production, industry should pay the great- est possible regard to the general welfare of the community, and pursue no policy detrimental to it. 3. Industry should distribute the wealth produced in such a manner as will best serve the highest ends of the community. I believe it is possible for men engaged in capitalist industry to work conscientiously and steadily toward achievement of these aims. But the elimination of unrest must be paid for. The price may be stated under five headings: wages, hours, security, status and a share in profits. The payment of minimum wages which will enable all men of normal ability to live in accordance with the standard suited to a civilized industrial community in the Twentieth Century comes first. America is much nearer the attainment of that object than is England. Your standard of living is higher than ours. I have learned something during the last few months as to the reasons for that. To a certain extent you are living on your capital. There are other reasons why your standard of living is higher. Your employers are better administrators, more alert than we are in England. But if the workingman once felt that the employer himself was seeking without pressure from the workers to raise his standard of wage, if that be necessary, in order to enable the workers to live in accordance with the reasonable standard, it would make an enormous difference. We BUSINESS EXECUTIVES 83 are short-sighted in always waiting for the workers to wring from us an advance in salary. We ought to know what salary is necessary to live in accordance with a decent standard. To bring salaries to that level cannot always be done in a day; i't may take years of improved administration. \_Hours in our factories should be only so long that the men may have a reasonable opportunity for the recreation of their vital energies and adequate expression of their personalities.^ Forty-eight hours is a reasonable standard and if you deviate from that either upward or downward the deviation ought to be justified by the special circumstances of the case. The third item is the most important in this country; that we give the workers reasonable economic security. I have said that we employers have very little imagination. If we had imagination, we should have solved the problem of unemployment long ago. If we could visualize the suffering due to unemploy- ment, the discouragement of mankind, the demoralization, the lowering of morale, we should have said long ago this evil must cease. But we regard the evil of unemployment with almost complete indifference. Occasionally we flutter into a little interest in this subject when a great crisis occurs. There is a very slight interest in the matter in America just now because you have three or four or five million people unemployed. You do not even know within 50 per cent how many there are. You really do not know whether you have three or four or five million. The fact that there are no reliable unemployment statistics anywhere in the world is an indication that we do not actually regard the matter very seriously. It seems to me a duty incum- bent upon the community as a whole to eliminate the evil of unemployment, and it can do so in two ways : first of all by lessening the volume of unemployment. There is no single cure for it, but there are a great number of steps which might be taken, each one of which would bring us a little nearer to the solution df the problem. After we have done all we can in that direction, however, there will still remain a considerable unem- ployment problem, and the only way to deal with that is by unemployment insurance. Since I have come to America I have heard the most extra- ordinary statements about the terrible results in England of our Unemployment Insurance Act. Of course, to any one living in England and knowing the facts these stories are rather amusing. They indicate how inadequate is the information which 84 PRACTICAL PSYCHOLOGY FOR passes from one great country to another. They are, however, quite misleading. Up to the year 1920 we had insured against unemployment four million people from the shipbuilding, engi- neering and building trades. In that year an act was passed including in its scope all of the manual workers and all other workers whose wages were not over 250 a year. That added eight million people to the number of those previously insured. It is obvious that if you suddenly treble the number of people who are insured, and do this just on the verge of a great indus- trial crisis, you are not going to have the machine working perfectly smoothly. You have not set up your administrative checks, and so you get a certain amount of abuse. I feel safe in saying that, on the whole, the effect of the Unemployment Insurance Act is good; that very serious consequences might have occurred had we not had that act in operation. I feel it is absolutely essential, if we are to get industrial peace, that we should remove from the minds of the workers the menace of unemployment. Give them work if you can, but where you can't, provide maintenance. It is said sometimes, "That is an unwise thing to do; it will demoralize the workers if they are paid for not working." I am drawing a director's salary while I am playing here, talking and visiting factories. I am not working ; but I am not demoralized. Where you deal with mental workers, you do not say they will be demoralized if for a time their services are not required. What is there so absolutely different in the psychological make-up of the man who happens to be paid a weekly wage and the clerk who is paid a monthly salary? Is this unemployment insurance financially possible? I am not going into a detailed argument. I would suggest as a figure which is probably correct I think it is correct for England and not very far out for America that if you were to find a sum equivalent to 3^ per cent on your wage bill, it would be sufficient to enable you forever to remove the menace of unem- ployment from every worker in the land. You could secure with that 3^2 per cent a sum which would provide unemployment insurance not equal in amount to a man's earnings, but sufficiently large to remove the fear of hunger, of cold, of suffering when a man is out of work.-^Surely if it is necessary, if it is essential for the functioning of industry that there shall be a reserve of workers, it is up to industry to maintain those workers during such a period of time as their services are not required. We shall BUSINESS EXECUTIVES 85 never have industrial peace until we do this/^We are trying to deal with this in England : the nation on a small scale, the trade unions with supplementary unemployment funds, and a number of employers with further supplementary funds. In our factory, the unemployed get one-half of their wage; if they are married, 60 per cent; if they are married and have children, 75 per cent. We find that that has removed the menace of unemployment ; that the men are not demoralized ; that they do not want to be out of work. They are anxious to come back to work. What does it cost us? In addition to contributions to the national fund and to sums voluntarily con- tributed by the workers it costs us i per cent of our wage bill. To remove the menace of unemployment from our men that is not a big sum. If it Were not for the national fund, we should have to pay 3^2 per cent. If the employer found the whole sum, it would, of course, pass on in time either to the workers or to the consumers. Psychologically, it is better that the worker should share, though economically it comes very much to the same thing whether he does so or not. As regards the status of the worker, I see just the same thing here that we find in England, that the worker resents the continuance of that condition in which he is regarded as a servant to obey the orders of the "master." We talk about master and man. Why master? We have always talked about masters and men, when we don't call them "hands." But why master? Take your capitalist. He has got ten million dollars. It is in bills. He can't eat it. He can't dress in it. He can't live in it. It is just so much rubbish. Here you have your workers. Each one has a pair of hands. They have a certain craft, skill. It is only when the capitalist and the workers come together, when they cooperate, that you get production. But why should the man who happens to have the capital always be the master and the other man the servant? Why not coop- erate? The bulk of the workers say, "We do not want to bother about the financial side or the commercial side of your business, but we desire to have a say in determining the conditions under which we shall work." That is a reasonable proposition. We are not going to get real cooperation between capital and labor arid so long as the wage-earner is working, after he has received his flat rate wage of so much a day, to increase the dividends of a shareholder whom he does not know and whose face he has never seen. He says, "Why should I work harder 86 PRACTICAL PSYCHOLOGY FOR than is necessary to hold my job? Why should I put myself out just to increase the profits of some of your bondholders?" I have no answer to that question. Often I can persuade him to do it; but my position is illogical. Employers must try to place themselves in a position which is impregnable. Industry cannot be conducted without profit. We must make sufficient return on capital to enable us to secure all that is required for the full development of the business. After that, any further profit is surplus profit, and I do not think it is unfair that it should be divided with the workers "fifty-fifty." Those are my five points. I believe that if we employers will grant those five points we can get industrial peace. One other comment. I cannot help thinking, and I speak with great diffidence, that the American employer in fighting the unions is making a mistake. I think he is fighting a losing battle. As I see him here, I am reminded of our condition thirty years ago when we were engaged in the same struggle. We tried to crush the unions, and we had a long and bitter struggle with them. But democracy was on their side and democracy won. And after we were defeated, after we ceased to fight, after we expressed our willingness, not through any virtue or grace, but through the influence of force majeure, we suddenly found that we had won the battle and not lost it. The unions withdrew their fighting men and replaced them with diplomats: men like Clynes, Thomas, Hodges and a number of others. They are learning that their old policy of restriction of output was a mistake, and they are now coming to our side and are cooper- ating with us in increasing production. We find that we can work in perfect amity with the unions, though we do not by any means always agree or give way to their demands. In the future, the great industrial administrator will be a leader of men. One cannot drive a free people. We industrial administrators, if we have not already acquired it, must learn the art of leadership. We must learn to know our men ; one cannot lead men one does not know. May I conclude by recalling these words of Tolstoi : It all lies in the fact that men think there are circumstances when one may deal with human beings without love, and there are no such circumstances. One may deal with things without love; one may cut down trees, make bricks, hammer iron without love. But you cannot deal with men without it just as you cannot deal with bees without being careful. If you deal carelessly with bees, you will injure them and will yourselves bo injured. And so with men. IV. SATISFIED INSTINCTS THE BASIS OF INDUSTRIAL EFFICIENCY Men are bundles of instinctive energies; balked, they lead to malignant disorders; satisfied, they lead to industrial effi- ciency. The task of economic statesmanship is to discover safe and sane means for satisfying the basic drives of human nature in the day's work. A great many means of satisfactory expres- sion of the energies of human nature have already been worked out; many others remain to be discovered. It must be emphasized repeatedly that the placing of stress upon the instinctive nature of man does not detract from the importance of the intellectual and rational factors. Far from that, it adds positive stress to the rational factors by showing the dynamic force behind the minds of men. Reason is not a mere static condition of the mind ; it is the output of a genuine instinct of curiosity and of thought. And modern psychology urges no proposition more strongly than that the workers have a vital contribution of intelligence to make to industry, and that unless they are encouraged to make this contribution, one of the most powerful cravings of normal human nature stands thwarted and repressed. Tead speaks of the instinctive energies as being "stubbornly insistent." McDougall declares: "The instinctive impulses de- termine the ends of all activities and supply the driving power by which all mental activities are sustained." James referred to an instinct as "irresistible." Simons finds instinct "powerful and essential." Lippmann warns that "only by supplying our pas- sions with civilized interests can we escape their destructive force." Parker showed the necessity of giving to the average man, as far as possible, a life that is "psychologically full." Modern psychology gives large recognition to the dynamic fea- tures of human nature, and to the importance of satisfying to a reasonable degree the normal human longings. At this point, a precaution is necessary to avoid misunder- standing. Psychology makes no claim that whatever any man 88 PRACTICAL PSYCHOLOGY FOR seeks to do to satisfy human nature, should be allowed. There is no room for the accusation that psychology would encourage human nature to run riot in industry, free from discipline or order. The whole force of the ideas of psychology is concen- trated upon the need for organization of human nature and in- dustry on a pattern which reserves full discipline and control. Repression of many lustful and vicious forms of expression is indispensable. Obedience, conformity, the following of orders, rules and laws are unquestioned features of industrial organiza- tion. Discipline is not undermined or menaced by the principle of satisfying in wholesome and efficient forms the basic human energies. BRINGING OUT SPONTANEOUS INITIATIVE 1 When men feel themselves under constraint, when they cannot determine and direct their actions, when they believe that their behavior is governed by forces beyond their control, when they have no voice in settling hours of work and compensation, the instinct of self-assertion revolts. This instinct is nature's high explosive. It has destroyed monarchies. It is the essence of democracy. And it is also the fundamental cause of labor's resistance to the present industrial system. The issue, however, is often confused. The underlying racial impulse which ignites the spark of conflict is hidden in the conflagration that follows. The explosive ingredient of self-assertion is not easily identified as the unstable element in the usually peaceful compound of democracy. The individual himself, indeed, is usually unaware of these instinctive impulses. It is a well-known fact of psychology that a man first acts instinctively, and then finds reasons to justify his actions. And the reasons given are generally suggested by the exigencies of the moment. Occasionally, however, in more thoughtful moods, the fundamental impulse is revealed. So we find in a recent pronouncement of the American Federation of Labor, a clear statement of the issue. "It is essential," the program says, "that the workers should have a voice in determining the laws within industry and commerce which they have as citizens in determining the legislative enactments which shall govern them." 1 Edgar James Swift. Instinct and Business. Scribner's Magazine. November, 1919. p. 584-91. Charles Scribner's Sons. New York. BUSINESS EXECUTIVES 89 This is labor's protest against government without representation. It is a definite demand for industrial democracy. . . Human nature cannot be organized out of men not even by scientific management. There is always danger under mechanically efficient methods of increasing human costs to a degree that makes mechanical efficiency too expensive. We hear much today about overhead charges. It is now time that atten- tion be given to inside-head expenses. Managers have taken account of the various factors in production. They have analyzed and itemized the elements in the job. Under scientific management they find the right man, give him the right tools, and teach him to use them in the right way. They have omitted only one factor human nature. Some day we shall learn that the fundamental element of efficiency is man himself, his instincts and emotions. An efficient organiza- tion will then be found to be one that builds upon these instincts and, instead of ignoring them, makes them allies in productive achievement. Consider the lack of insight into human nature in the rule of one authority for speeding up. "It is only through enforced standardization of methods, enforced adoption of the best imple- ments and working conditions, and enforced cooperation that this faster work can be assured. And the duty of enforcing the adoption of standards and of enforcing this cooperation rests with the management." That sort of cooperation does not interest workmen. The less initiative, judgment, responsibility, and intelligence a nian has, the more readily will he fit into this enforced adaptation. Intelligence has the inconvenient habit of occasionally asserting itself. And this is unpleasant for those who claim a monopoly of this gift. \_ Enforced uniformity in methods of work imitation, routine deaden the mind. In proportion as habits are acquired intel- ligence lapses. Initiative is lost, and the number of men fitted for positions of responsibility decreases. Business men are continually calling for young men of initiative. The manager for a large factory recently said that among his thousand employees he could not find men fitted for half a dozen sub- ordinate chieftainships. The reason is that the employees had been trained to follow directions. Modern business has become abnormally centralized, and at the. center stands the manager from whom all intelligence issues^ But this method denies a hereafter. And the present popularity of revolutions shows that '90 PRACTICAL PSYCHOLOGY FOR starving the brains of workingmen is a terrible social menace. ^Efficient management would encourage . initiative so as to give those of ability a chance to know themselves. It would make distinctions by finding them. Men do not object to being taught; they do not oppose being directed. But they always resist an uncooperative relationship, the advantages of which they think are weighted against them.* This suspicion and the practical prohibition of initiative has greatly reduced the pro- ductive value of wage work. The resistance of employees to the present system of employer and worker, which has reached its culmination under unscientific "scientific management," indicates a wilful desire of wage-earners to be human beingsA To avoid social waste, to call into the service otthe nation the instinct of workmanship, an industrial democracy is necessary. And it must be wholly frank and open. The workmen will accept nothing less. This is no time for "secret treaties." Enter- tainments, lectures, and welfare organizations are of the greatest value. But they will not fulfill the demands of industrial reconstruction. Rather, they should be one expression of the principle of cooperation in a democracy. They do not buy bread nor pay rent. And the workers are conscious today of the economic side of labor. Industrial democracy frankly and ingenuously carried out satisfies both the instinctive and economic needs. And it is not merely a theory. It has been successfully introduced into a few plants and the chief reason for its slow adoption is the inertia of the human mind the unwillingness to break com- pletely with the past, the adhesion to antiquated notions of business. Human nature is much the same in all ranks of men, as well as in the old and young, and bonuses awaken interest in securing rewards rather than in improving the quality of the work. They do not arouse creative interest. Business men have found, just as teachers learned long ago, that rewards have only an artificial relation to production. They do not maintain an alert interest in achievement. Besides, rewards usually awaken suspicion. - They suggest an ulterior purpose. And the workers are not unaware that the owners receive a rather generous proportion of the profits of the new economies and efficiencies. Rewards are offered in factories for the same reason that led to their use in the schools. They are the easiest way of BUSINESS EXECUTIVES .91 meeting a perplexing situation. It is characteristic of man, when confronted by a difficulty that must be overcome, to follow the line of least resistance instead of profoundly studying the prob- lem. Educators have learned that young people will not work ^ efficiently unless they appreciate the meaning and use of what they are doing and realize its value for themselves. This is as true of adults as of children. But employers, when compulsion failed, resorted to fictitious incentives instead of developing the creative interest in workmanship. Yet this interest is necessary if the work is to be done efficiently. And the workers must be convinced that the improved product of their interest will benefit themselves as well as their employers. FUNDAMENTAL URGES AND DRIVES x Manufacturers and other employers would come to him (W. B. Wilson, Secretary of Labor) to discuss questions of wages and hours, and he would always courteously discuss these two things with them. After the interview was over, however, and these manufacturers had left the room, he would say: "Oh, how they miss the point ! It's not wages and hours, as such, in which wage earners of the country are interested. Wages and hours are but temporary means to an end. Wage earners are no different from the rest of us. We are all actuated by the same basic motives. The three great words of life are self-preservation, self-reproduction and self-respect. These are fundamental with all normal \ persons, whether employers or wage workers. Oh, may the time come when the employer will realize that it is not wages or hours that the wage workers are interested in; but rather, they are interested in self-preservation, self-reproduction .and self-respect! When employers grasp this fact, and so arrange industry as to enable the wage worker to work out his self-preservation, self-reproduction and self-re- spect, then the question of wages and hours will solve itself. We talk about cooperation. We all want cooperation, but coopera- tion will come only as employer and wage worker unite in de- veloping means whereby both shall have and enjoy self-preser- vation, self-reproduction and self-respect." 1 Roger W. Babson. W. B. Wilson and the Department of Labor, p. 72. Quotation from Secretary Wilson. Brentano's. New York. 1017. 92 PRACTICAL PSYCHOLOGY FOR PRACTICAL STEPS TOWARD ENLISTING WORKERS' COOPERATION 1 Employee representation in or cooperation with management is a sound enough principle, provided it is worked out intelli- . gently in practice. The great need in industry is to get men and management close together it is the most necessary undertak- ing. There are certain dangers as well as certain plain advantages, in these plans. The workingmen are immediately interested in questions of wages, hours, housing, sanitary conditions in the shop, and in anything that tends to effect either their comfort or the productivity of their labor. They not merely have an interest, but in many cases are entirely competent to speak with a high degree of real knowledge. It is a well-known fact that a large proportion of the inventions for the improvement of industrial processes have come from workmen who in their daily experience and by the cooperation of their fellows are able to obtain suggestions for devices that are likely to cut corners and lessen costs. If the workmen feel that they themselves are likely to benefit by improvements, improvements will be devised. As a rule the average workingman has little interest in or knowledge of the broad questions of finance, how to secure credit, how to determine the best method of payment for the sales of the product, and so on. Thoughtful leaders of labor recognize this limitation and disapprove plans which place on the employee responsibilities of management beyond the matters already mentioned, matters, that is, in which they are directly interested and on which they are entirely competent to speak. Nevertheless it is my opinion that among the measures to prevent strikes, first consideration should be given to proposals which seek to reestablish cordial and cooperative relations be- tween men and management. . . Through this method of group action and discussion the em- ployees gradually come to feel that they are a real and vital part of the institution and that the success of the whole institution depends on the way in which they do their work and the atti- tude which they display toward their work. Each employee has 1 John Hays Hammond. Strikes How to Avoid Them. Industrial Management. February i, 1921. p. 82-3, 83-4. BUSINESS EXECUTIVES 93 concrete evidence of the fact that he is a participant not only in the success of his concern when a dividend is not made, but that he has a definite channel of expression and may make sug- gestions tending to improve not only his own condition but that of his fellows. All this is nothing more than a logical extension of collective bargaining. I am one of those who are thoroughly committed to the principle of collective bargaining. As I see it, one of the obstacles to this kind of relationship is the fact that in many cases the local manager who is not an owner of the business has not the authority to deal with employees as he knows they should be dealt with. Absentee management, like absentee land- lordism, is evil, and I like to believe that both are passing out of fashion. If we are ever to get out of the present phase of the labor situation in which, to a very large extent, labor is an- tagonistic to capital and capital feels that it must regard labor as a sworn enemy, we must have collective bargaining. The soviet in Russia is nothing but a crude attempt on the part of workingmen to take into their own hands power which now belongs to the owners of business alone, but which should be shared, so far as the technical processes and the things about which the employee knows, between the work- ingmen and the owners of business. I cannot believe that the soviet idea has made the headway in the United States which some seem to fear. But if it has, the remedy is not to shut the door of management against labor, but to take labor in to the extent which I have outlined above, and let labor understand that it can greatly help but cannot "run" industry. Let me sum up my creed of industrial relations by quoting from a statement which I made before the war. The Industrial Relations Commission, of which Frank Walsh was chairman had asked for my views on general labor questions and on the specific question of strikes: "I do not believe that I am too optimistic in expressing the opinion that^the relations between employer and employee are better today than for many years past. The employer is recog- nizing the justice and the advantage, when properly conducted, of the principle of collective bargaining; and both employer and employee recognize more than ever their interdependence^ and their reciprocal obligations as well, and with the spirit of 94 PRACTICAL PSYCHOLOGY FOR fair play that generally prevails, and must ultimately prevail, we have every reason to believe that labor agitators, on the one hand, and the unreasonable employers, many of them on the other, will soon become less serious obstacles to industrial peace . generally. "While I am opposed to the principle of the closed shop, believing it to be thoroughly un-American, I nevertheless strongly favor labor organizations when the leadership is in the hands of the best class of labor leaders, and I believe that employers of labor would do well to support labor organizations of that kind to prevent the growth of organizations of the . radical stripe. "I do not believe that there are any irreconcilable differences or an 'irreconcilable conflict' between capital and labor. While it may be true that both are not equally benefited by the main- tenance of industrial peace, it is true that they both are greatly hurt by industrial warfare. I believe that if the managers of corporations would more generally take into their confidence their employees as to the business necessities and as to the disastrous effect of adverse legislation to their business, they would not only stimulate the interests of the employees in their work, but also enlist their support and influence against injurious legislation. It is necessary for managers of corpora- tions to impress upon employees that they are 'in the same boat,' and for their own safety they both should oppose either political demagogues or selfish labor agitators 'rocking the boat.' "I do not believe in what is called, as I understand it, the democratization of labor; that is, to have industrial methods, processes and direction determined by employees, as this would result in bringing in politics that is to say, intrigues and other factors which have an undermining and subversive influence in industrial operations. But I believe thoroughly in the men in each department of the management keeping in close touch with the work of those departments, and that has been done in all the activities that I have attempted, with the result that I have never had a strike on the part of any of the employees I have had all over the world." BUSINESS EXECUTIVES 95 AS VIEWED BY A LEADER OF WORKERS 1 Thus we find Mr. Hodges, the General Secretary of the Miners' Federation, in one of his numerous speeches in favour of the nationalization of the mines, declaring that what they demanded was a new status for the worker as a controller of his industry. Miners were not anarchists, although they had the power to be. They realized that their interests were bound up with those of the community, and therefore they demanded conditions which would develop the corporate sense. . . Educa- tion was carrying men along social rather than individualistic lines, and right throughout the mining industry there was the desire to be something different from what they were. This desire to be master of the work in which the man was engaged was the great thing that was vital in working-class life. . . There had never been a movement born of greater moral aspira- tion than this movement for the nationalization of the mines. The miner wanted to be in a position where it would be to him a point of honour not to allow even a piece of timber to be wasted, where he would want to do his work well. He wanted a social contract. These extracts from a speech by Mr. Hodges are put together from the separate imperfect reports in the Times, Daily News, and Daily Herald of October 27, 1919. A more explicit statement of Mr. Hodges' views will be found in his speech at the Annual Conference of the Miners' Federation in July 1918: "For the last two or three years a new movement has sprung up in the labour world which deals with the question of joint control of the industry by representatives from the side which represents, for the most part, the consumer, and representatives of the workmen, who are the producers. Nationalization in the old sense is no longer attractive. As a matter of fact, you can have nationalization, but still be in a better position than you are now under private ownership. That is the experience of institutions which have been state owned and state controlled for many years. The most remarkable scheme worked out during the last year is the theory worked out by the. . . Postmen's Federation. He has endeavoured to 1 Sidney and Beatrice Webb. The History of Trade Unionism. Rev. ed. p. 673-5. Longmans, Green and Company. New York. 9$ PRACTICAL PSYCHOLOGY FOR provide a scheme by which the postal workers should have a definite amount of control, a definite form of control, in the postal service, and in working it out he has demonstrated beyond all doubt how at every point he is up against the power of the bureaucrats, as exemplified by the State. Now, is it any good to have these mines nationalized unless we are going to exercise some form of control as producers? If not, the whole tendency will be toward the power of bureaucracy. We shall be given no status at all in the industry, except to be the mere producers, as we have been in the past years. Under state ownership the workmen should be desirous of having something more than the mere question of wages or the mere consideration of employment; the workmen should have some directive power in the industry in which they are engaged. Now, how are we going to have this directive power under state control? I think we must admit that the side representing the consumers (the state) should have some form of control on property which will be state property, and when a national industry becomes controlled you must have permanent officials to look after the consumers' interest, and from the purely producers' point of view the Miners' Federation must represent the producers in the central authority and in the decentralized authority, right down to the separate colleries. Are we ready to do this? Are we prepared for this, starting at the separate colleries, indicating how the industry is to be developed locally? Men must take their share in understanding all the relations embodied in the export side of the trade; they must take a share even in controlling the banking arrangements which govern the financial side of the industry, and with that comes a very great deal of responsibility. Now, are we prepared to assume that responsibility, a responsibility which is implied in the term workmen's control? It is going to be a big task and a test of the educational attainments of the miners themselves if they assume control of industry, and if it did not thrive under that control there is the possibility we should have to hark back to private ownership in order to make it successful. ... I hold these views, and unless they are accompanied by an effective form of working-class control, I do not believe that nationalization will do any good for anybody." BUSINESS EXECUTIVES 97 HUMAN AND MECHANICAL FACTORS IN INDUSTRIAL SCIENCE 1 The real problem is no longer whether it is possible to re- turn to mediaeval craftsmanship, but the detailed problem of how far and in what manner we can reap the fullest advantage of modern machinery, while avoiding its evils. And this full human control of machinery for human ends can only be gained when the science of the relation between man and machine is fully developed. We can only control what we understand ; and it has been the blind wastes and inefficiencies of the past that have given rise to most of the evils that the workers deplore. I have said this to the workers in conference ; and their reply brings us to the very heart of the matter. That reply is, whether our science is able to serve the greater human ends depends entirely on how far we keep those greater ends in view. Science herself is impartial, and lends herself as easily to de- struction as to construction. The workers ask, then, what are the ends which we are serv- ing? When we speak of Production, they ask, "Production of what?" "Production of things or of men? Of goods or of human well-being and happiness?" It has been said to me over and over again, "There are things more important than mere production, and one of these is human personality." The criti- cism by these educated men of our emphasis on production is not on the fallacious ground of "over-production," a fallacy they understood as well as ourselves; it is on moral and social grounds. They over-ride the artificial barriers which the sophisticated erect between economic, psychological and ethical questions, and ask that we shall view industrial processes in their proper relation to the full needs of human nature. They have even pointed out to me that our science is incomplete un- less it deals with the wide social effects of technical processes. They A somewhat similar situation has existed in regard to the matter of output. Business unionism has recognized, in gen- eral, the evils of restriction and has been willing to allow and even encourage the introduction of new machinery and im- proved processes and methods, and to sanction increased effort and productiveness on the part of its members up to reasonable physiological limits, provided it could be guaranteed that the improved methods and the increased exertion and output should not be made the means of lessening the share of the workers in the product or forcing upon them lower wage rates and in- ferior conditions of employment. But here again it has found the average employer or employers' association standing in the way. It has been taught by long and bitter experience that employers could and would make use of improvements and in- creased output by the workers not only to seize all the gains but even to reduce the actual rates and returns to the workers. The fact is that despite all theorizing to the contrary, the wages of workmen under the unscientific conditions that have prevailed in industry are not determined automatically by specific output or by supply and demand, but immediately by a process of bargaining. The two most important factors in determining the outcome of this bargaining process have been the customary normal or standard day's work and the customary standard of living of the workers concerned. These have been the practical standards of right, justice and expediency most generally con- sidered. In bargaining between employer and workman, as it has generally taken place in the past, if the employer could make BUSINESS EXECUTIVES 149 it appear that, under the existing conditions, the workers were not producing up to the standard day's work, he had a strong case to show that wages ought to be lowered or that more work ought to be done for the same pay, which amounts virtually to lowering the wage. If, further, the employer could make it ap- pear that, at the given wage rate, or on the basis of the standard day's work, the workers could secure a standard of living higher than that customary with them, he had a strong case to show that the wage rate ought to be lowered, or, at least, that it should not be increased. In a contest of this kind the employer has been fairly sure of the support of public opinion, arbitrators, the police and the courts. Now the workers have been taught by long experience that the average employer is constantly seeking to take advantage of these facts to secure an increase of the output and at the same time to lessen the share and the amount of the product going to the workers. Thus when new machinery and methods are introduced, at the old wage rates and under the old conditions of work, the laborers are able to secure earnings more than sufficient to maintain their customary standard of living, and this makes a basis for lowering of rates or at least of a refusal to increase wages and improve the conditions of work. Where competition is keen, he has usually been able to carry this off by adding to the arguments stated above that profits have td rise or that they have positively declined as a result of the improved methods. Where competition has been absent, i.e., where a combination has controlled the goods market, the employer has usually been strong enough to carry his point regardless of facts and arguments. Thus the new machinery and methods have generally not improved the wages and the conditions of the workers immediately concerned and, as a matter of fact, have not infrequently lowered them, especially where these improve- ments have created conditions of increased competition among the workers, as they very generally have done. Turning now to the other aspect of the matter increased effort and productiveness on the part of the workmen where no improvement in methods has taken place the experience of the workers has been that the old line employer has been constantly endeavoring to speed them up and over-reach them by the cre- ation of "swifts" and "bell-horses," through the introduction of "company men," by threatening and coercing individuals whose ISO PRACTICAL PSYCHOLOGY FOR native resisting power was weak or whose circumstances were precarious, and by offering secret premiums or bonuses. When through these methods some man or group of men have been induced to speed up, their accomplishment has been taken as a standard for all to attain. Thus, in the case of day work, the accomplishment of the strongest and swiftest was the goal set for all, if wages were not to be lowered, while in the case of the piece work the rate of wages tended to be lowered by these exceptionally rapid workers, because at a given rate it could be shown that they could make more than was necessary to main- tain their customary standard of living. Under these condi- tions the workers found that increased efficiency and output by the members of their immediate group tended to mean not a corresponding increase of pay, but less wages for all, or more work for the same pay; and the only way they could see to prevent overspeeding and the lowering of the rates was to set a limit on what any individual was allowed to do, in short to limit individual and group output until the employer could be forced to guarantee increased wages for increased effort and output. These are the facts which, I believe, cannot be controverted. No one recognizes this more clearly than Mr. Taylor himself, whose denunciation of the blindness and unfairness of the average employer on account of them has not been exceeded in strength and bitterness by the labor leaders, and who declared publicly that were he a worker up against such conditions he would feel as they have felt and do as they have done in the matter of limitation of output. LABOR'S PURPOSES IN COLLECTIVE BARGAINING 1 It is proper to explain labor's purposes as an organized par- ticipant in industry. It is the contention of some that labor seeks only its own satisfaction and makes no contribution in re- turn. This is wholly untrue. Labor believes that the agreement between workers and em- ployers, negotiated in conference, based upon experience and 1 Samuel Gompers. Union Labor and the Enlightened Employer. In- dustrial Management. April i, 1921. p. 236-7. BUSINESS EXECUTIVES 151 operating to secure justice, is the most important contract in all human relations today. It is reciprocal instead of one-sided. It gives the largest possible measure of justice to the workers and it gives a guarantee of stability and cooperation to industry. Only when there is an agreement, freely entered into by the workers, writing into definite terms their obligations and their rights, can there be the highest free contributions of human la- bor energy to industry. The agreement is the channel through which labor pours into industry its greatest effort, its most in- telligent effort, its constructive thought. But more than that, it is the document through which complete revolution is wrought in the principle of conduct in industry. From the moment in which workers and employer negotiate and agree upon terms, hours, conditions and wages, the principle of autocratic domina- tion gives way to the principle of democratic operation. That is the vital point in the whole question of labor relations and it is precisely that point that arbitrary and reactionary employers fear to pass. King John before them struggled over the same principle. King George the First struggled over the same prin- ciple. The late Czar and the ex-Kaiser did likewise. Every great force that has stood against this principle has, in the great hour of decision, been compelled to give way. . . The reason employers in some instances put forth such violent opposition to organized labor is that it involves the change from autocratic control to democratic control. The basis of calcula- tion is changed. And if employers were not in some instances shortsighted the change would be accepted unanimously and gladly as a benefit to industry and to mankind in general. Only careful surveys by competent engineers could reveal the staggering losses to industry caused by arbitrary rule. There have been estimates of the colossal losses suffered each year by the steel trust because of its refusal to adopt enlightened em- ployment policies, including negotiating with organized workers, but only a detailed examination and the most careful com- parison could reveal anything approaching the real loss. Some employers cannot believe that the workers have motives unlike their own. Let those employers find out the production loss caused each year by autocratic control of industry. The nation pays the bill for this obstinacy in a definite loss of consumable commodities. 152 PRACTICAL PSYCHOLOGY FOR LABOR'S OBJECTIONS TO UNCOOPERATIVE MANAGEMENT l Industry in America has not been carried on as effectively as it might have been, one prominent reason being the lack of confidence which has existed on the part of management toward labor and on the part of labor toward management. Manage- ment, at times, has apparently believed that satisfactory produc- tion depended wholly upon rules, methods and systems worked out and applied by management alone. Labor has been made to feel, on more than one occasion, that its sole function was to obey orders, and frequently to obey them blindly, and, where this condition has existed, it has unquestionably created an attitude on the worker's part where they had but little interest in production and none of the spirit of cooperation which is so essential. For a number of years previous to the war, able men, ani- mated by most worthy motives, endeavored to devise methods and systems which, if applied to industry, would establish greater production. But these systems, regardless of their individual merits, largely failed to solve the problem. Under their oper- . ation labor, as a whole, became more dissatisfied and less willing to cooperate. Production was something that was forced, in- stead of something which came as a result of good-will and a spirit of confidence and cooperation. The American trade-union movement believes in progress. It is the only hope for the future. It recognizes that progress means change and readjustment, and it has no objection to changes, but American labor may have serious objections to the method by which changes are made. Labor has objected in the past and will object in the future, whenever it believes that it is being experimented upon and experimented with by others, without having a voice as to the necessity, the value, or the character of the experiments taking place during a period of change. Labor feels fully justified in this position, for, from the mass of industrial experiments in which the human factor plays a prominent part, we find that the majority have resulted in failure. It must be recognized 1 John P. Frey. Labor's Attitude Toward Methods of Management. Annals of the American Academy. September, 1920. p. 140-5. BUSINESS EXECUTIVES 153 that there is a distinct difference between experiments with material and experiments with human beings. If labor has realized that production was necessary to the creation of wealth, and wealth was necessary if higher wages and other improved terms of employment were to be secured, why is it that labor frequently indicated a frank unwillingness to cooperate with management when new methods or systems of production were applied? One prominent reason for labor's position is not difficult to discover. Labor was suspicious of these systems; suspicious be- cause it had not been consulted, and had had no part in pre- paring them; suspicious because they were, unfortunately, fre- quently advertised as methods by which skilled labor could be supplanted by unskilled labor ; suspicious because it claimed that scientific methods had been worked out which enable manage- ment, and management solely, to determine what degree of exertion, what amount of production labor should produce with- in a given time; suspicious because in practice these systems are largely applied by men having little, if any, practical personal experience as manual or skilled workmen; suspicious because the mathematician and the mechanical engineer were held to be the only ones competent to determine the methods, processes and amount of energy which the workman should put into the day's work. Facts are facts, and no good can come from sidestepping them, or glossing them over. Labor, before the war, rose in opposition to the several sys- tems of production which have been loosely called "scientific management." As labor was directly affected, it was interested in time studies, in the subdivison of labor and the basis of com- putation for the payment of wages. For a number of years there existed an active controversy between those who advo- cated so-called scientific management and the trade-unionists. As a result of an investigation made under the authority of the Industrial Relations Commission, it was made evident that the term "scientific management" applied to these systems, was an unfortunate one because none of them had reached that stage where the term "scientific" was appropriate. The internal evidence, contained in the investigating com- mission's report, satisfactorily disposed of the contention that 154 PRACTICAL PSYCHOLOGY FOR time studies of labor could be made with scientific accuracy; they disclosed that the human element was a factor which could not be reduced to scientific accuracy by the use of the stop- watch, or any other methods, for men differ in their mentality, their vitality, their nervous reaction, the time required to re- cover from fatigue as well as in a number of other qualities. Sometime after that report on scientific management and labor, above referred to, had been published, one of the pro- duction engineers in the scientific management group, in a com- munication to the writer, said in substance: "I will admit that you have proved the unscientific character of much that has been termed 'scientific management' and that no one can successfully claim today that time studies of labor can be made which are scientifically accurate. You have killed those claims and you may kill others, but the soul of efficiency cannot be killed. Cer- tain fundamental truths which were worked out by efficiency engineers will live regardless of how encumbered they may have been by false claims, and by the pretentions of those who saw in the new conceptions of production an opportunity of ex- ploitation for personal ends." An unprejudiced examination of what has been done by the efficiency or production engineers bears out the basic truth con- tained in the statement that the soul of efficiency cannot be killed. Unquestionably, there was much in scientific manage- ment which was sound, for if labor could be charged with in- efficiency at times, in many instances management in American industries could be charged with a much greater volume, as well as the burden of responsibility. In fact, those who have studied the methods or lack of methods of management which existed a number of years ago are frequently surprised that it was pos- sible to have kept the sheriff from the door, under the cumber- some, inadequate and unintelligent system of production which existed in many plants. LABOR ATTITUDES TOWARD SCIENTIFIC MANAGEMENT 1 An investigation of scientific management was made for the Federal Commission on Industrial Relations. This investigation 1 Samuel Gompers. American Federationist. June and August, 1916. BUSINESS EXECUTIVES 155 was conducted by Professor Robert F. Hoxie of the University of Chicago, with the advice and assistance of Mr. John P. Frey, editor of the Moulder's Journal, and Mr. Robert G. Valentine, representing the employers' interests. The report, which was signed by all of these investigators, points out the following defects that were observed: "(a) Failure to carry into effect with any degree of thor- oughness the general elements involved in the system. "(b) Failure to adopt the full system of 'functional fore- manship.' "(c) Lack of uniformity in the method of selecting and hiring help. "(d) Failure to substantiate claims of scientific management with reference to the adaptation, instruction and training of workers. "(e) Lack of scientific accuracy, uniformity and justice in time study and task-setting. "(f) Failure to substantiate the claim of having established a scientific and equitable method of determining wage-rates. "(g) Failure to protect the workers from over-exertion and exhaustion. "(h) Failure to substantiate the claim that scientific man- agement offers exceptional opportunities for advancement and promotion on a basis of individual merit. "(i) With reference to the alleged methods and severity of discipline under scientific management the 'acrimonious criticism' from trade unions does not seem to be warranted. "(j) Failure to substantiate the claim that workers are discharged only on just grounds and have an effective appeal to the highest managerial authority. "(k) Lack of democracy under scientific management." . . . The wage-earners know that a truly scientific plan for securing efficiency must be a comprehensive plan that involves all of the processes of production, one that does not expend itself on the application of labor power by the workers, but gives proportional consideration to an adjustment of the mate- rials and the scheme of production over which the employer has control. Real scientific efficiency in production must have regard for the human factors in production and must find a place in the scheme for principles of human welfare. Science places a high 156 PRACTICAL PSYCHOLOGY FOR value upon human life, and everywhere makes the human effect the paramount consideration. Scientific management as found in most instances has to do only with time and motion studies, ostensibly to establish new standards and bases for wage compensations. However, time or motion studies so far made are all based upon averages and make no attempt scientifically to establish principles that could be termed just standards for compensation. Time and motion studies fail to make any consideration for human fatigue. They are only methods for establishing the work that can be done under highest pressure in the shortest period of time without any pretense of conserving human creative power. The whole emphasis is put upon the quantity of material output. Merely mathematical maximum of production is not the desirable scientific output. . . The American Federation of Labor has achieved a tremendous victory of far-reaching consequence in protecting workers in certain trades against a pernicious system that threatened the manhood, the independence and the initiative of the workers of those trades. Particularly the workers in the metal trades have felt the impending danger of efforts to fasten upon them systems of so-called "scientific management." These systems are endeavoring to establish a new standard for paying wages, a standard that would inevitably undermine the health and mentality of workers, for it is a standard that aims directly to speed up workers to the exhaust point and to instill mechanical habits of work. In order to protect the lives and health of workers, Congress incorporated into the Sundry Civil bill and fortifications bill the following proviso : "Provided, That no part of the appropriations made in this act shall be available for the salary or pay of any officer, manager, superintendent, foreman, or other person having charge of the work of any employee of the United States while making or causing to be made with a stop-watch, or other time-measuring device, a time study of any job of any such employee between the starting and completion thereof, or of the movements of any such employee while engaged upon such works; nor shall any part of the appropriations made in this Act be available to pay any premium or bonus or cash reward to any employee in addition to his regular wages, except for suggestions resulting BUSINESS EXECUTIVES 157 in improvements or economy in the operation of any government plant." These bills were approved by both houses of Congress and have been signed by the President. The same proviso is included in the Naval and Army bills. Thus the workers have secured congressional approval for their opposition to systems that have sought to give to a new exploiting scheme the sanction of science and of efficient production. Workers have proven by their actual experiences that stop- watch time-measuring systems are neither scientific nor are they in furtherance of most effective production. The workers are not opposed to methods or devices that facilitate production, but they are opposed to methods that dehumanize the workers. The so-called scientific efficiency systems that have been thus far proposed are neither scientific nor efficient. The workers are in favor of methods that will enable them to become more effective, intelligent, resourceful participators in production. Such methods must necessarily be educational in nature. The labor movement declares that efforts to promote produc- tion in quality as well as quantity must have as their primary consideration the development of the creative power of the human agents. VIII THE BASIS OF EMPLOYEE REPRESENTATION Just enough shop committees went into the scrap heap when the depression of 1920 and 1921 came, to give rise to the im- pression in some quarters that the shop committee movement had died an early death. A truer estimate of the situation would be that the depression weeded out shop committees in those plants where employers had entered into them lightly, hastily, or insincerely. The backbone of the shop committee movement held firm, and employee representation is a permanent policy of industrial psychology for a substantial number of large and small business concerns. Employee representation rests upon a faith in the honesty and fairness of ordinary men. It assumes that the ordinary worker has a strong instinct of self-assertiveness and has a worth while mental contribution to make to management. Every step in employee representation requires the utmost honesty and frankness on the part of the management. The spirit of the management counts for more than any other single factor. Mutual confidence is indispensable. Employee representation means believing in men and getting them to believe in their managers. This mutual trust and confidence is usually a gradual growth, but its results are so wholesome and enduring for man- agers as well as for workers that it is worth all of the patience required. The center and core of the psychology of employee representation is the sincerity, candor, justice, open-mindedness and intelligence of the management. DO WORKERS WANT KNOWLEDGE AND RESPONSIBILITY? 1 The multitude of causes making for the general dissatisfac- tion prevailing among workers which is called industrial unrest 1 Royal Meeker. Employees' Representation in Management of In- dustry. Monthly Labor Review. Vol. jo. February, 1920. i6o PRACTICAL PSYCHOLOGY FOR may be compressed under three heads: (i) Dissatisfaction with their wages, hours, and earnings a feeling on the part of the workers that they are not receiving a fair share of the product of industry; a widespread belief that workers are being ex- ploited by owners, employers, and their managers. The rapid rise in prices has greatly strengthened this belief even among those workers who have secured wage increases in excess of in- creases in the cost of living. Many thousands of workmen who have profited greatly by the price upheavals of the war period firmly believe they are worse off than before the war, or, at least, that the employers have gained more than the workmen and hence the workmen are being done by the employers. (2) Dissatisfaction with the management of industry a feeling that not only are the workers being exploited but that the "enter- prisers" are not as enterprising and their managers not as cap- able as has been commonly supposed. Work is made needlessly monotonous and uninteresting and production is thereby curtailed. The workers feel that industries are being conducted from a distance by men who have little or no first-hand knowl- edge of conditions and who do not understand the workers' point of view, knowledge, and capacity. These grievances are due, in large part, to big business organization which has brought about what may justly be called "absentee landlordism" in industry. (3) Dissatisfaction with the nature of their work a feeling that industry is a treadmill for workers of all kinds, but espe- cially for manual workers, and that the opportunities for suc- cessful and permanent escape into managerial, employing, and capitalistic positions are scarce and growing scarcer every day. . . Lack of interest in work grows out of absentee ownership. The absent industrial landlords, interested only or principally in dividends, employed experts, scientific managers, to produce a substitute for the old-time workman's interest in his work. The scientific managers have been attacked so violently and so fre- quently that I feel obliged to apologize for referring at this point to the most obvious and fundamental error contained in their original program. The scientific managers did not, in the beginning of the efficiency movement, differentiate between the workman and the machine or tool with which he worked. Men and machines were to be made to do each operation the "easiest" way; that is, with the least lost motion and expenditure of ef- BUSINESS EXECUTIVES 161 fort. The scientific managers have not yet grasped fully the difference between a man and a machine and the economy of making use of the heads of the workers as well as their arms and legs. A good deal is said about the worker's psychology, as though the worker were some strange, wild beast with a peculiar psychology all his own, quite different from the psychology of employers and managers. It is because the psychology of the worker is the same as the psychology of the employer and the manager that strikes and lockouts occur with such distressing frequency. . . A man will willingly work much harder, expend much more energy, and be much less fatigued working on a job which he has a part in planning, and for the results of which he is re- sponsible. The present-day movement for industrial democracy is a partial recognition of the fundamental psychological phe- nomenon that industrial fatigue is not simply an engineering question to be stated mathematically in foot-pounds per hour or even a physiological question having to do with calories burned up in the body. Work is hard primarily because it is uninterest- ing and monotonous, or easy because it demands ingenuity or 'skill. Paradoxical as it seems, the way to make work easier is to make it harder by requiring more of the workmen. The men- tal application required or the muscular effort put forth has little to do with the hardness of a job. In so far as scientific management has resulted in merely breaking processes up into their component parts, segregating so far as possible the purely muscular and mechanical operations from the creative and plan- ning functions, so-called "efficiency" has resulted in the most disastrous inefficiency. The "easier" specific operations or frac- tions of operations have been made, the harder they have be- come. All the efforts of the scientific managers and efficiency experts to arouse, increase and maintain the interest of the workman in his work are bound to be fruitless unless the work itself is made interesting. The worker must be called upon to use his head in planning as well as his hands and feet in execu- ting his work if contentment is to be attained in industry. . . I insist that the management, even scientific management, has not a monopoly of all the brains in an establishment. The workers themselves can and do contribute much in the planning and doing of the work. What is of vastly more importance than the increase in production as a result of utilizing the latent in- 162 PRACTICAL PSYCHOLOGY FOR telligence, ingenuity and enthusiasm of the workers, is the in- crease in contentment. Here is a vast source of industrial power which has been cut off, isolated, by the transformation of little business into big business. It will be difficult to tap this source, but tap it we must if we are to continue anything resembling the present industrial organization with its large scale produc- tion. The good-will of the workers is a much more potent force making for industrial efficiency than all the scientific management formulas and systems of production. There is no inherent reason why the good-will of the workers should not go hand in hand with scientific management. Until now the workers have had only antagonism for scientific management because the scientific manager never asked them for their opinions or ideas he only told them what they were expected to do and the workers promptly did something else. I have already said workers are not different from employers. This is precisely what ails them. If employers will deal fairly and squarely with their employees, let them know all about the business except only those technical processes which must be kept secret, and take them into a real partnership, production will be enormously improved both in quantity and quality. This may be just another way of saying that when the millennium comes there will be no industrial unrest, for there will be no industry, no employers and no employees. Before abandoning ourselves completely to pessimism and despair we should at least try the experiment of giving the workers a real voice and responsibility in manage- ment. , THE ECONOMIC EFFECTS OF TRUSTING WORKERS * In agreement with many critics of the present industrial situation, I believe that the most significant feature in labor conditions of the day is the expressed desire of labor to share in the management of business. This desire has taken on various forms in different parts of the world, the Bolshevism of Russia being merely the idea carried to an absolute extreme. The underlying significance of all these movements is the final reali- 1 Cyrus McCormick, Jr. Address before the National Safety Council, on "Cooperation and Industrial Progress." Scientific American. February 7, 1920. BUSINESS EXECUTIVES 163 zation that the relations of employers and employees must, from now on, be formed on something besides a cash basis. The workman is as interested as ever in his wages and in his hours, but he is asking for more. Sometimes the demands are not well understood even by those putting them forward. What the workmen really want is self-expression. They are asking the right to discuss and share in the adjustment of matters affecting their own interests. Many employers in this country, sensing this situation, are admitting the right of their employees to discuss, in joint con- ference, matters affecting the mutual interest of Capital and Labor. This, of course, has involved a recognition of the principle of collective bargaining. Economists of the older school tell us that collective bargaining is detrimental to the best interests of the employees and that any artificial interference with wages will result in an artificial attempt to regulate prices. They claim that values are regulated by economic laws. This, of course, is true to a certain extent, but on the other hand it can be argued that collective bargaining is an aid to humanity and that it allows other economic laws to operate which might otherwise be held in abeyance. Not many years ago the doc- trine of "caveat emptor" ruled every economic transaction and the business world was permeated with the ethics of David Harum. Just as that doctrine has vanished, so now is vanishing the fear of collective bargaining, and we find ourselves not only admitting the right of workmen to participate in the determina- tion of working conditions but also discussing how this right may be most surely exercised. The method finding most favor in this country can perhaps best be classified by simply calling it Employee Representation. Reasons for Adoption of Employee Representation Syndicalism has made such rapid strides in eastern Europe that some men, not recognizing the fundamental solidarity of the American people are afraid that this country is about to deliver itself to Bolshevism ; therefore they are seeking to head off this unrestrained development and to provide a saner method by which the legitimate desires of the workmen for self-expres- sion may be granted without at the same time completely ruin- ing our present industrial fabric. Men of this opinion argue 164 PRACTICAL PSYCHOLOGY FOR that the laborer has a right to speak for himself, and wish to give him this right before he resorts to revolution to obtain by force what he may think is being withheld from him. They believe discussion in an open forum cannot but bring results and that through efficient cooperation Capital and Labor, work- ing together, will avert any possible danger of anarchy. There is close parallel existing between the movement in favor of employee representation and the growth of democratic government. Europe in the eighteenth century considered Fred- erick the Great's government to be nearly ideal. Later thinkers have called his government a benevolent despotism. Frederick was autocratic as any Czar and his form of government a despotism; but because he tried to do right and interpret, in the fairest sort of a way, the desires of his people, his despotism was benevolent. Now until recent years our industrial system was also a benevolent despotism. Large employers in this coun- try and abroad instituted welfare work; started systems of in- surance and compensation ; made the conditions of their working people as pleasant and safe as possible; but everything that was done was paternally imposed from, the top and did not come as a result of the expressed desire of the great body of employees. This system was benevolent, to be sure, but it was nevertheless despotic to a great extent. Just as benevolent despotism in politics has given way to a great democracy wherein the gov- erned have every right of self-expression, so in industry we are now finding the old system being set aside. Now the employee is not only given the right, but is urged to accept it, to sit on an equal basis with his employer and decide every question which affects his interests. Industry is becoming democratic. It is easy to point a finger of scorn at our present civilization and condemn it as being overly materialistic. Metaphysicians from Aristotle to the present day have argued against material- ism. Phrasing their thoughts in the vernacular and adapting their theories to modern times, we may say that we must find some new cause for our existence besides the worship of the almighty dollar. The joy of doing things rightly will in the end give men a more real satisfaction than the material results of their efforts. Applying metaphysics to employee representa- tion, we may describe it as a concrete effort to introduce moral right into industry. It will be many generations before mate- BUSINESS EXECUTIVES 165 rialism vanishes from our daily life, but surely employee repre- sentation is a step in the right direction. Idealism, after all, is something the world would do well to analyze as a necessity of today rather than of the Hereafter. Looked at superficially, employee representation is expensive. It costs a certain amount of money to pay the added salaries, to do the clerical work involved, and the like ; but those employers who have had the best experience say that it is really economical and efficient. They believe it pays; they believe the added interest a man must have in his work when he knows he has a share in the control of it, will go a great way toward bringing about the final efficiency of production which must be secured if the present pace of manufacturing is to be maintained. Scien- tific management has just one more step to take. It must become endowed with soul in order to become more efficient; and its savings must depend not upon force or will, but upon the consent of the governed. The war has proven that democratic society, while superficially less efficient than autocracy, is in the end far stronger in the face of the most awful competition human ingenuity can devise. RESTORING PERSONAL CONTACT IN LARGE SCALE INDUSTRY l The personal relationship which existed in bygone days is essential to the development of this new spirit. It must be reestablished; if not in its original form, at least as nearly so as possible. In the early days of the development of industry, the employer and capital investor were frequently one. Daily contact was had between him and his employees, who were his friends and neighbors. Any questions which arose on either side were taken up at once and readily adjusted. A feeling of genuine friendliness, mutual confidence and stimulating interest in the common enterprise was the result. How different is the situation today. Because of the proportions which modern industry has attained, employers and employees are too often strangers to each other. Personal contact, so vital to the success of any enterprise, is practically unknown, and 1 John D. Rockefeller, Jr. Address before the Industrial Conference at Atlantic City, October 16, 1919. Industrial Management, p. 403-4. No- vember, 1919. 166 PRACTICAL PSYCHOLOGY FOR naturally, misunderstanding, suspicion, distrust and too often hatred have developed, bringing in their train all the industrial ills which have become far too common. Where men are strangers and have no points of contact, this is the usual out- come). On the other hand, where men meet frequently about a tablej rub elbows, exchange views and discuss matters of com- mon interest, almost invariably it happens that the vast majority of their differences quickly disappear and friendly relations are established. Much of the strife and bitterness in industrial relations results from lack of ability or willingness on the part of both labor and capital to view their common problems each from the other's point of view. A man who recently devoted some months to studying the industrial problem and who came in contact with thousands of workmen in various industries throughout the country has said that it was obvious to him from the outset that the working men were seeking for something, which at first he thought to be higher wages. As his touch with them extended, he came to the conclusion, however, that not higher wages but recognition as men was what they really sought. What joy can there be in life, what interest can a man take in his work, what enthusiasm can be expected to develop on behalf of his employer, when he is regarded as a number on a payroll, a cog in the wheel, a mere "hand." Who would not earnestly seek to gain recognition of his manhood and the right to be heard and treated as a human being and not as a machine? While obviously under present conditions those who invest their capital in an industry, often numbered by the thousand, cannot have personal acquaintance with the thousands and tens of thousands of those who invest their labor, contact between these two parties in interest can and must be established, if not directly, then through their respective representatives. The resumption of such personal relations through frequent con- ference and current meetings, held for the consideration of matters of common interest such as terms of employment, and working and living conditions, is essential in order to restore a spirit of mutual confidence, good-will and cooperation. Per- sonal relations can be revived under modern conditions only through the adequate representation of the employees. Repre- sentation is a principle which is fundamentally just and vital BUSINESS EXECUTIVES 167 to the successful conduct of industry. This is the principle upon which the democratic government of our country is founded. On the battlefields of France this nation poured out its blood freely in order that democracy might be maintained at home and that its beneficent institutions might become available in other lands as well. Surely it is not consistent for us as Americans to demand democracy in government and practice autocracy in industry. What can this Conference do to further the establishment of democracy in industry and lay a sure and solid foundation for the permanent development of cooperation, good-will and industrial well-being? To undertake to agree on the details of plans and methods is apt to lead to endless controversy without constructive result. Can we not, however, unite in the adoption of the principle of representation, and the agreement to make every effort to secure the endorsement and acceptance of this principle by all chambers of commerce, industrial and commer- cial bodies and all organizations of labor? Such action I feel confident would be overwhelmingly backed by public opinion and coordially approved by the Federal Government. The assurance thus given of a closer relationship between the parties to industry would further justice, promote good-will and help to bridge the gulf between capital and labor. It is not for this or any other body to undertake to determine for industry at large what form representation shall take. Once having adopted the principle of representation, it is obviously wise that the method to be employed should be left in each specific instance to be determined by the parties in interest. If there is to be peace and good-will between the several parties in industry, it will surely not be brought about by the enforce- ment upon unwilling groups of a method which in their judgment is not adapted to their peculiar needs. In this, as in all else, persuasion is an essential element in bringing about conviction. With the developments in industry what they are today there is sure to come a progressive evolution from autocratic single control, whether by capital, labor, or the state, to democratic cooperative control by all three. The whole movement is evolu- tionary. That which is fundamental is the idea of representation, and that idea must find expression in those forms which will serve it best, with conditions, forces, and times, what they are. i68 PRACTICAL PSYCHOLOGY FOR HONESTY IN COOPERATION 1 Another committee that marks a long step forward is the efficiency committee. The very word "efficiency" is anathema to the worker, because he associates it with grinding, wearing force that means more dollars for the owner and a broken con- stitution for him. True efficiency, of course, means nothing of the sort; it means the utilization of the waste time and motion, and is an addition to the power of the worker. Only through the workers' own government can the best efficiency results be obtained, and by enlisting their intelligent help the subject can be made of absorbing interest. . . The efficiency committee will not only make smooth the path to better methods, but through suggestion systems and investi- gations of their own will often do more toward real economy of operation than it is possible for any professional engineer to do. In one plant the men have themselves re-designed nearly every machine in the place, with astounding results in the way of production, quality, and lowering of sales price, with an in- crease of wages to the men and profits to the company. In an- other factory, within six months from the time the workers were given a voice in the management, they devised more improved machinery than had been known in that particular industry within twenty years. Shop committees are far better equipped t6 deal with union matters than are employers. We all like to dodge the fact that unions exist; we like to close our eyes to the fact that they are growing and that no manager can today say: "I f refuse to recog- nize unions as such; I will deal only with men on the pay-roll." Unions are here and to stay, and they grow steadily more powerful. It is for the employers to take them as aids to prog- ress or as antagonists. Meeting them as antagonists, fights and more fights are bound to occur, and each fight leaves the corporation combatant weaker. But there can be no antagonism when the corporation representatives appointed to deal with union affairs are them- selves union men, elected by the body of the workers to pre- serve their own best interests. 1 William R. Basset. When the Workmen Help You Manage, p. 131-5- The Century Company. New York. 1919- BUSINESS EXECUTIVES 169 Take several specific caseSi A strike was ordered in the garment trade in a Middle Western city, and every factory but one closed. In that one factory the committee (and all its mem- bers were union men) stated that it would not be right to penal- ize their fellows and employers for the sins of others, and they refused to strike and also preserved their union standing. In an iron-working shop, the mass meeting called by the committee to consider the union demands for a closed shop voted against closure and the chairman of that meeting was president of the local union. Unions do not all want to fight. A few union business agents think that their own jobs depend upon the amount of trouble they can stir up, but, generally speaking, union workers do not differ from other workers unless they are smarting under a sense of injustice, and then, just like other people, they do want to get back at the boss. The union tenets of closed shop, limita- tion of output, regulation of hours, and the fixing of wages are all part of an economic defensive that need not be and is not maintained when the reasons for it vanish. And under auton- omous works' control the reasons do vanish. IX. INTEREST AND INCENTIVES IN INDUSTRY The two notions are equally misleading that all work must ever be irksome and that all work is capable of being made pleasant. Psychology does not proclaim that drudgery can be abolished or that work can be made to take on the nature of a picnic or a sport. The proposal which psychology makes is a moderate and a reasonable one, namely, that most work can be invested with a substantial amount of interest and pleasure. The irksomeness of work can be miminized and positive interest in the accomplishment of the task can be aroused, by the proper appeal to human instincts and incentives. Non-financial incen- tives are fully as important as financial incentives, and a perma- nent and spontaneous interest in work can come only by a satis- faction of both types of motives. AROUSING INTEREST IN WORK 1 Much has been written about the monotonous character of present-day industrial work; and much is now being written about the workmanly, manipulative, constructive, creative im- pulses which appear to be a native part of human equipment, and of which, it is claimed, little use is made or can be made in the average factory. Industry is under indictment on the ser- ious count of failing to provide any reasonable outlet for cer- tain fundamentally necessary and useful tendencies of the hu- man organism. It is accused of cramping and stultifying the in- dividual; of making it impossible for him to find interest and fulfilment of life in work. Certainly no more serious situation could be conceived than one in which millions of people are destined to be confined for eight or nine hours of close application, to labors which are in- differently or even grudgingly performed. It is hardly an ex- 1 Ordway Tead and Henry C. Metcalf. Personnel Administration, p. 199-205. McGraw Hill Book Company. New York. 1920. i;2 PRACTICAL PSYCHOLOGY FOR aggeration to say that the permanence, productivity and human- ity of any industrial system stands or falls in the last analysis upon its ability to utilize the positive and constructive impulses of all who work, upon its ability to arouse and continue the interest of the workers. The problem, therefore, demands searching study if we are to answer such inevitable questions as : Is interest in work as now carried on possible? If it is possible, how is it to be aroused? If it is not, how can we so modify conditions that interest will arise? The question of interest in work is an intensely practical one. The fact that much of the discussion of it has bordered on the sentimental need not disturb us if we will preface our study with a careful analysis of the concepts of "interest" and of "monotony." People are interested when an activity tends to keep occupy- ing the attention that is, absorbing them by some appeal either of its difficulty, or downright enjoyment in its performance, of approbation of one's fellows because of proficiency, or of some other significance in the activity. People are interested when attention has passed the point of conscious effort and becomes eager, immediate and, so to say, spontaneous. Attention can be so commanded when we are actively engaged, have a definite object to attend to, and recognize something at stake, "something whose outcome is important for the individual." A display of interest is therefore a display of "self-expressive activity." One is interested when one can register in the activity in terms of self and group approval, register in the doing and in the result. And that sense of self-satisfaction can grow only as the root desires of the individual are being realized. What those root desires are, we have already considered. We want to and we must register in terms of manipulation, work- manship, creation; in terms of group conformity and recogni- tion, of emulation, and curiosity. Wherever, said William James, a process of life communicates an eagerness to him who lives it, there the life becomes genuinely significant. Important elements in a condition of interest are therefore self-choice of the activity, pleasure in its continuance, a sense of significance and value in its performance, and opportunity to secure the approval of one's associates. A condition of monotony exists where these elements are lacking. Remove the chance for self-choice of the action, for BUSINESS EXECUTIVES 173 understanding its significance, for having the approval of one's fellows, and the labor is sheer drudgery. "Monotony means that growth, development, have ceased." Monotony is present when work has become so habitual as to be automatic, (that is, it is making no demands upon the active attention) ; or when work is found to be temperamentally uncongenial, or is thus for any reason precluding the chance for self-expression and develop- ment through the work. If these definitions are correct, interest and monotony are not characteristics of certain kinds of work. They are charac- teristics of people in their reaction to work. A job is not in- herently interesting, not inherently monotonous. It is interesting or monotonous to a worker. There are inevitably these two aspects contributing to create the one fact of the worker-in-his- relation-to-his-work. The two must in each separate case fit; the worker must find the job that satisfies him. He must be able to register there ; and in order that this may happen it must fit from the point of view of the opportunity for him, in relation to his capacity, and in relation to his motives and desires. It is, in short, a dynamic and changing fact. The worker is either progressively more interested because the adjustment is always improving; or he is progressively less interested and usually less capable of being interested in the work. Jobs as jobs, therefore, are neither interesting nor the op- posite. It all depends on the relationship between individual jobs and individual workers. But there are, of course, jobs which because of their simple content do quickly become habitual and then automatic. Any prolonged performance of such operations will, of course, become monotonous and whether or not these jobs as now constituted can of themselves be in- teresting is in our opinion a grave question. The possibility of developing a derived interest for this type of work must be con- sidered. But there are many jobs usually thought of as monotonous, which require thought, care and attention, and could therefore be much more interesting than they are, if only the worker had the knowledge, ability, aptitude and background, out of which interest would normally arise. This points to a fundamental need the need for analysis of the intellectual content of jobs. From the point of wise selec- tion of workers, promotion, transfer, modifications in process 174 PRACTICAL PSYCHOLOGY FOR and training, we need more exact data as to what qualities, apti- tudes, traits of temperament and technical knowledge each job demands. Such study, we can confidently predict from all the job analysis which has thus far been done, will reveal an aston- ishing amount of special skill required at many supposedly monotonous tasks. Such study will, moreover, tell us how many jobs of each different kind there are in a factory. We know that it is in- accurate to speak of all factory work as repetitive drudgery. The work of machine maintenance occupies some workers. The handling of materials and trucking occupies others. There is assembling, inspection, packing, shipping. The actual propor- tion of unskilled machine-feeders varies from plant to plant; but apparently it runs between forty per cent and eighty per cent. We must not ignore the fact, however, that the elements of insecurity in the job, non-control over work, little significance in the work, little chance for fellow workers' approval, may all be present at repetitive and non-repetitive jobs alike, and that monotony exists wherever the chance to make the job one with one's self is no longer present. The Worker's Attitude Toward Interest. Our discussion of methods of arousing interest in work will be clearer if we con- sider next two important objections to any definite effort in this direction. It is said, first, that workers seem to like automatic jobs; second, that they don't want to be interested in their work. Both points have such elements of truth in them that they de- serve careful scrutiny. There are at least two important reasons why some workers seem to like automatic jobs. The job must, of course, always be seen in relation to the individual's capacities and to his desires. The capacity and desire of a given worker is determined by many factors. But second to none in significance are the factors which moulded his life and outlook from birth to his fifth or sixth year. A childhood spent in the restrictions of a tenement environment with its precocious developments in some direc- tions, its enforced repressions in others, its complete effacement of certain qualities and values, may well create a mental life which is incapable of securing the normal responses. "Repres- sion," it has been thoughtfully said, "often expresses itself very strikingly in the decrease of such emotions as have been pres- ent and the non-appearance of expected new emotions." BUSINESS EXECUTIVES 175 The repression may be an infantile one; it may be due to long years of dull, unpromising work. But the fact remains that individuals are responding to stimuli in a pathological way when they are content with automatic jobs. Again, this repression may be invited and continued because of the habits and attitude of the surrounding group. John Stuart Mill gives an accurate characterization of much working class behavior when he says: "Even in what people do for pleasure, conformity is the first thing thought of; they live in crowds . . . until by dint of not following their own nature, they have no nature to follow ; they become incapable of strong wishes or native pleasures, and are generally without either opinions or feelings of home growth, or properly their own." In other words, lack of interest breeds lack of interest, until a situation arises wherein it may actually be bad form to like one's job. There remains the second objection that workers do not want to be interested in their work. Where this is the case, it is often true that habituation to drudgery has led to a more or less unconscious conclusion that work cannot be interesting. Many older, habituated ^routineers undoubtedly hold this con- viction ; the hope is with the younger, less fixated groups. It is indeed hard to visualize the outlook and environment as it may present itself to the worker. "It is," says an observing economist, "not sufficiently con- sidered how little there is in most men's ordinary life to give any largeness either to their conceptions or to their sentiments. Their work is routine; not a labor of love, but of self-interest in the most elementary form, the satisfaction of daily wants; neither the thing done, nor the process of doing it, introduces the mind to thoughts or feelings extending beyond the individual; if instructive books were within their reach, there is no stimulus to read them; and, in most cases, the individual has no access to any person of cultivation much superior to his own. Giving him something to do for the public supplies, in a measure, all these deficiencies. If circumstances allow the amount of public duty assigned to him to be considerable, he becomes an educated man." There is finally, the fear of exploitation if interest in work is pushed to a point where the employer gets a much larger 176 PRACTICAL PSYCHOLOGY FOR proportionate return for increased product than the worker. There is reason for this fear; and no manager who wants to introduce a thorough-going program to secure interest can neglect to recognize the place of rewards in the scheme of incentives. To stress, as some have, the phrase "non-financial" incentives, is almost to prejudice in advance the case for greater interest. To be sure the sole and primary incentive to interest and effort is not the pay envelope. The most deep rooted incentives are non-financial. But that does not argue for any ignoring of the financial considerations or of the necessity for doing justice in the matter of income distribution. The arousing of interest is not synonomous with efforts to "speed up" production, to cut wage rates, to increase profits. At that moment when workers feel they are being tricked into interest in work in order that their employer may get added returns, the game will be up with the employer. Hand in hand with the develop- ment of methods of stimulating interest in work, must go methods of decentralizing control over process and over earnings. How this may be done we are considering in other chapters. The immediate point is that the creation of interest in work is not a Machiavellian enterprise in which something can be given with one hand and taken with the other. In short, the efforts of the employment administrator to make work interesting are, if they are intelligently pursued, neither disruptive of morale nor exploitive in character. In stimulating interest we are endeavoring to hasten an educational process which shall simultaneously arouse discontent with a meager, narrow life and provide channels for securing the permanent satisfactions of a life of wider outlook and constant growth. Because this is an educational process, it is not calculated to disrupt the whole scheme of workers' habits and outlook so that they are without stability. Nor is it necessarily calculated to stir up longings which cannot be satisfied, nor to let loose impulses and desires which are anti-social in their manifestations and consequences. To create interest in work means rather to make work contribute to the upbuilding of personality; it is to attempt to restore a greater unity to life, and remove the present wide gulf between work and pleasure, between the getting of a livelihood and the living of a life. To create interest in work BUSINESS EXECUTIVES i?7 is thus a fundamental part of the educational function of the factory. And there are practical methods under which this education can be undertaken. These methods are discussed in the remainder of the chapter, not on the assumption that any one plant can or should neces- sarily adopt them all ; but because together they offer a program of action in a campaign of securing interest, which is compre- hensive and worth working on over a period of years. It is not a problem which can be solved by cure-alls; a balanced plan is essential. INTEREST AROUSED BY INFORMATION 1 Interest in a thing may be developed by means of extending information about it. Men who sell are undoubtedly dimly aware of this principle, for they are introducing into their selling campaigns with increasing frequency informational dis- quisitions about their goods. They describe the source of the raw materials, processes of manufacture, ingenious methods of using the finished product, historical facts about the firm or its founders. These devices represent more or less conscious appli- cations of our principle, and have grown apace with the increasing effectiveness of selling methods. Leaving the unlimited possibilities of applying the doctrine of interest to marketing methods let us pass on to other eco- nomic implications. One of the most perplexing problems now before the public is the relation between the worker and his job. Business executives ask, "how can we interest our men in their work so that they will work effectively and contentedly?" This is only one statement of a host of difficulties relating to the industrial morale. It is practically and theoretically recog- nized that in order to secure the best possible results from a man we must interest him in what he is doing. James, with his penchant for expressing such ideas in racy terms, likens the situation to the lowly crap game. "The performances of a 'high' brain are like dice thrown forever upon a table. Unless they be loaded what chance is there that the highest number will turn up oftener than the lowest?" In other words, if we 1 H. D. Kitson. Journal of Political Economy. Vol. 28. p. 334-6. April, 1920. 178 PRACTICAL PSYCHOLOGY FOR wish to secure a high grade of work from our employees we must load them with interest in the firm and the product. Perhaps, it is pertinent to the point to inquire, can the average employee become interested in a thing for which he has no spontaneous liking? Many business executives sigh a hopeless negative. The psychologist answers affirmatively. James goes so far as to assert: "Any object not interesting itself may become interesting. . . An adult man's interests are almost every one of them intensely artificial; they have been slowly built up. The objects of pro- fessional interest are most of them in their original nature re- pulsive ; but by their connection with such natively exciting ob- jects as one's personal fortune, one's social responsibilities and especially by the force of inveterate habit, they grow to be the only things for which in middle life a man profoundly cares." So the business executive may take heart. This fluffy-pated salesgirl at the basement glove counter may, if properly aroused, become as thoroughly interested in the manufacture and sale of gloves as she is in the latest modes of hairdressing. That lacka- daisical ledger clerk buried in the sporting page when he should be posting remittances may be transformed so that he will be equally interested in increasing the collections of the firm. The course for the employer to pursue is to start a campaign toward the development of interest on the part of the force. This may seem contrary to the doctrine of responsibility as usually stated. The employer insists that it is the duty of the employee to de- velop his own interest voluntarily. But this is not a fair de- mand. It is incumbent upon the employer to offer stimulants to this interest. As business executives become aware of the mag- nificent human material just awaiting a galvanizing touch, they will begin to select certain bright young people and definitely woo their interests. How to proceed is the practical problem. Let us consult our psychological prescription again. "Interest in a thing may be developed by extending information about it." In applying this in industry one would tell the employees many things about the business, soaking them in facts to the point of saturation. For example, in a textile mill, every employee should be told the facts about the invention of the cotton gin, the life of Eli Whit- ney, the different stages in the invention of textile machinery, and the struggles of the early inventors. BUSINESS EXECUTIVES i?y To inculcate a deep affection and loyalty toward the firm, give information about its beginnings and growth. One firm has prepared a history of the house including biographical sketches of the founders and of the employees of long standing. This first appeared in consecutive issues of the house organ circulat- ing among the employees, and was so effective that it was made into a booklet for presentation to each employee, on his first day of employment. Another firm made its history impressive by presenting it dramatically at one of the regular "Get- togethers" of the personnel. THE FAILURE OF MONEY INCENTIVES ALONE 1 How can men be made to love their work? With conditions as complex as they are the situation cannot be wholly relieved. Men cannot be left free to do as they choose in a society such as ours. Yet when the truth is understood many improvements can be made. When employers know that attractiveness of work is more important than pay they will take pains to make the work attractive. Money is not as strong an incentive as it is usually supposed to be. When that is all a man gets from his work of course he will take any means possible to get. all he can. When he works from other motives he will become less vividly conscious of the amount of pay he receives. The only remedy that will lastingly overcome this social un- rest is to make work interesting for all classes from the laborer to the professional man. We must forever get rid of the notion that anything interesting is for that reason either useless or con- ducive to inefficiency. The old theory of education used to be that the duller, uninteresting subjects were better for the stu- dent that the interesting ones because of the disciplinary value of making the student do what he disliked. The modern method, which has proven a better one, is to present the dead subjects in an interesting way. Psychology has shown that the way to do a thing quickly and well is to become intensely in- terested in it. Why not make work interesting? It can be done and the employer will eventually save by doing it. 1 John J. B. Morgan. Why Men Strike. American Journal of Sociology. p. 207-11. September, 1920. i8o PRACTICAL PSYCHOLOGY FOR If work is to be made interesting the recent stress upon effi- ciency with its consequent overspecialization will have to be cur- tailed. To be constantly stressing the quantity and quality of work done is to furnish a superficial external drive. The extra pay that the man gets will at first look large but it will appear less and less, especially when the scheme becomes more widely used and all men get more pay. The incentive will fail and the workmen rebel. Enough variation must be left in each man's job to kill the monotony. Each man should be taught about his job in relation to the others so that he will feel that he is a vital part of the or- ganization. Each man should clearly see a possible route for promotion. If a man is hired as a stoker with a beginning salary of so much with the promises of periodical raises until a certain point is reached, all incentive for good work is killed in that man. He must be able to see where he could go beyond the stage of being a stoker. It does not matter if the man has but one chance in a thousand of making a certain step, let him know he has that chance and he will inevitably try to be the one. When we were training our great national army each man was continually told that his job was important in the winning of the war; he was taught to love his job, the distasteful job of drilling. Besides he was filled with an ambition to do his best because he was shown the proper steps to gain promotion and saw others being prompted through tests of merit. After the signing of the armistice no one felt that he was vitally necessary and to cap this the War Department stopped all promotions. The spirit of the soldiers dropped like lead and it was almost impossible to get anything done. "What is the use since the war is over and I have no chance of any promotion?" was the cry. All promotions should be based on merit alone and in such a way that every employee is convinced that it is merit alone that counts. Tell him what qualities are used in judging whether a man is to be promoted or not. Frankness on this one subject will work wonders. Not only should the men be given a square deal, but pains should be taken that he knows that he is being fairly treated, not by blatant advertising but by open straightforward organi- BUSINESS EXECUTIVES 181 zation. An employer may shower gifts upon his men in the way of recreation rooms, extra holidays, bonuses, etc., but if he is not manifestly fair the men will spurn his gifts and believe that he is trying to appease them for having robbed them. When the workman was an artisan he was interested in the efficiency of the process in which he was engaged and took pride in the handling of his tools. Today the machine is the artisan and the workman the tool, and no intelligent man can take an interest in being an efficient tool. The present industrial unrest will not cease until the workman is studied as a human organism with the purpose in mind of giving him some interest in his work besides the pay he receives. RESTORING PLEASURE IN PRODUCTION 1 The biggest problem of personnel relations in industry is the , restoration of the elements of pleasure in production. The really far-sighted managers of industry are realizing that such restora- tion will do more to improve quality and increase quantity in production than any other single thing. They are also seeing that the attempt to suppress the instinct of craftsmanship and to steal away its advantages from the mass of the workers for the benefit of a few is the most wasteful and destructive blow ever struck at social well-being. . . Unless industry can be so transformed as to gratify these instincts, then industry and the civilization built upon it will break down and disappear. Methods of Arousing Interest Because scientific personnel relations are bringing about such a transformation, they offer the greatest possibility of meeting this problem. They propose an adjustment of the worker ac- cording to interests and abilities in the midst of helpful sur- roundings. They establish institutions to give full outlet for, and gratification of, his desire for planning and direction. They offer an opportunity for him to grow with his work and to share in its prosperity. This is the only basis for good-will between the employee and the industrial process. 1 A. M. Simons. Personal Relations in Industry, p. 118-28 The Ronald Press Company. New York. 1921. 182 PRACTICAL PSYCHOLOGY. FOR Educational Work The first step to this end is comparatively simple and some- what superficial. The worker must be given a full understand- ing, not only of the great industrial processes of which he is a part, but of the ends toward which that industry is tending and of his share in determining that development. Through such familiar methods as lectures, moving pictures, shop organs, trade journals, technical books and periodicals, and especially by proper education both in the schools and the shops, the theoretical foundation of craftsmanship may be laid. This educational work should give the laborer a knowledge of industry as a whole. He must be familiar with its history and the mechanical and personal changes that it has undergone. Upon this fascinat- ing story the labor movements of the world rest for their argu- ments. Labor journals and all the literature of the working- class movement are filled with industrial history. General industrial history should be related to the history of the special industry in which the worker is engaged and in- tegrated with that of the particular firm where he is working. He accordingly sees his direct relation to great world processes. The history of the firm is one in which the worker is going to write a part, and he wishes to know what others have done and in what direction the whole, of which he is a part, is mov- ing. Such a history should explain the firm policies. If these have not been formulated in shape for statement, the discovery of that fact uncovers a defect in management which should be changed. Bring out the source of materials and the destination of the product. Tell the story of costs, sales, methods of marketing, and mechanical transformations. Changes in trade practice and possibilities of improvements finally unite each job to the en- tire process, if a thorough job analysis has made the informa- tion available. If time and motion studies have been made, here is a chance to show the latest standards attained in certain typical jobs and to secure the cooperation of the worker In raising these standards, which he will then see as stages in a long process. He will feel himself as an important link in that process, and BUSINESS EXECUTIVES 183 will wish his contribution to be worthy of all the others who have worked and will work with him in an endless historical line. Selling the House Policies This method of arousing interest is the one which modern advertising has found most valuable also in interesting con- sumers. All good advertising writers now insist upon the neces- sity of thorough familiarity with all the broader relations of the firm, its history, policies, and methods of work, as a preliminary to presenting its product to the public. The salesman is drilled in these things, and they are the foundation of selling slogans. Fred H. Colvin, assistant editor of the American Machinist, has noted that: Every progressive concern goes to considerable expense and uses great care to arouse enthusiasm in salesmen regarding the merits of their product. Every salesman can do better work with a firm conviction that the product he sells has many points of superiority over rival products. Yet few firms pay any atten- tion as to whether the men and women who make the product even know what it is for. Is it not reasonable to suppose that if the workers can be enthused over the product, perhaps by the same or by entirely different methods than are used for the salesmen, that they will try to make it even better, or at least to maintain its quality? Subsequent Value of Explanatory Work Such an educational explanation should, of course, precede the installation of any new method of planning or routing work, or any change in shop organization. Without this introduction such plans will find hard running in the factory. But if they have been preceded by thorough instruction concerning the chain of processes in the plant and the interdependence of the various departments upon one another, the road will be much smoother. This method offers an opportunity for the use of executives as teachers and lecturers, and for the development of talent for such work within the force. A live advertising department can help in teaching the technique of presenting facts. This, in turn, will also help the advertising department. Dull commonplace 184 PRACTICAL PSYCHOLOGY FOR presentations of fact to employees are no more effectual in arousing interest than are similar methods in reaching and hold- ing customers. Yet firms that will spend hundreds of thousands of dollars to catch the attention and hold the good-will of con- stantly changing customers, will begrudge a few cents spent to secure the interest and good-will of the men and women whose life work is bound up in the plant and who have it in their power to make or break the firm. Integrating the Worker with Industry Nevertheless this explanatory and educational work, no matter how well done, will be largely futile if it is left to stand alone. It must be looked upon as merely introductory, requir- ing a follow-up like the advertising designed to bring inquiries. It is all preparatory to the real work of actually integrating the worker with the industry, of putting substance into the selling talk. To stop after telling the employee the story of the process of which he is a part, only to preach to him about his solidarity with the industry, is but to tantalize and aggravate his instinc- tive desire to share in that process. This is a fact which every organizer of revolt among the workers understands full well, and is the reason why he always emphasizes industrial history. One fundamental problem of the labor movement which cannot be disregarded, is that of the restoration to the mass of workers of that common sharing in the destiny and direction of the industry which is the foundation of craftsmanship. Restoring Power to Gratify Instincts The problem of good-will in industry is the problem of re- storing to the productive process the power to gratify the in- stincts of gregarious craftsmanship and adventure. The real leaders in industrial management are everywhere realizing that industrial progress depends upon the elimination from industry of the elements that are destructive to these instincts. One of the most easily discernible of these elements is that of monotony. The problem of monotonous work, as we have already seen, like nearly all problems concerned with so complex a thing as industry, is not one permitting a single solution. Proper selec- tion helps to assign it to those to whom the monotony is less of a burden. Proper job analysis will often find a way to supplant BUSINESS EXECUTIVES 185 it with machinery. Adequate training systems may make of other such positions stepping-stones to less monotonous work. When nothing else offers, such work may be distributed and mixed with more interesting work. Any work grows monotonous if it offers no opportunity for planning, no view beyond the day's task, no relation to bigger and less monotonous facts. All work becomes alive and vital when it engages the worker's initiative and offers a field for growth in both the task and the worker. Disappearance of Initiative Among Workmen At one time the American worker, more than almost any other contemporary laborer, was intensely interested in his work and in methods of improving it. This was the time when Amer- ican workingmen were granted more patents per capita than any national body of workers before or since. That the number of patents taken out by wage-earners has greatly declined is due in part to the greater complexity of modern industry. Many in- ventions are now made through the work of highly skilled spe- cialists in research laboratories. But the multiplicity and omni- presence of machinery should result in a far larger number of small but valuable improvements. These are not appearing. The worker does not understand the principles back of the ma- chine he uses. He does not comprehend its full purpose. Most important of all, he lacks the interest in improvements that would not let the mind of the worker of a former day rest until he had seen the improvement his mind had conceived take form under his hand. Managers have noticed this disappearance of initiative and have sought to arouse it by such methods as suggestion boxes, bonuses, and prizes. These have their value and their place, but they are in the nature of stimulants and poultices applied to an organic disease. As Helen Marot has pointed out, "The doing of tasks in factories for the sake of rewards, gives the workers experience in winning rewards. As they are interested only in the reward, they carry away no desire or interest in the work experience." A Deficiency of the Taylor System The worker's interest, if it is to run throughout the process, must be enlisted in the beginning. He must share in the plan- ning of each step in the work. This sounds impossible to the 186 PRACTICAL PSYCHOLOGY FOR old-fashioned manager. It is coming to be seen as the easiest and most profitable manner of managing industry. Scientific management the Taylor system began by taking from the worker all share in the planning. The system was based upon the idea of collecting from the whole body of workers all the trade knowledge they possessed and assembling this knowledge in a planning department. This department was to be conducted by experts, who were to issue specific detailed orders as to the methods of work, which orders were to be obeyed without knowledge or question. Frederick W. Taylor has himself set forth this principle as follows: The first of these four great duties which are undertaken by the management is to deliberately gather in all of the rule- of-thumb knowledge which is possessed by all the twenty dif- ferent kinds of tradesmen who are at work in the establishment knowledge which has never been recorded, which is in the heads, hands, bodies, in the knack, skill, dexterity which these men possess to gather that knowledge, classify it and tabulate it, and in most cases reduce it to laws and rules; in many cases work out mathematical formulae which, when applied with the cooperation of the management to the work of the men, will lead to an enormous increase of the output of the workmen. . . The fourth principle is the deliberate division of the work which was formerly done by the workmen into two sections, one of which is handed over to the management. An immense mass of new duties is thrown on the management which formerly belonged to the workmen. The attempt to put all the "heads" together in the planning department, leaving nothing but "hands" in the shop, led to a righteous revolt of labor, and upon this rock scientific manage- ment was almost wrecked. There is a common impression, carefully fostered by some of the superficial efficiency engineers who have cast so much discredit upon a helpful and earnest profession, that labor opposed the Taylor system only because it increased production. On the contrary, the indictment against it almost invariably rests upon the attempt to deprive the worker of all pleasure in his work upon its deadliness to the instinct of craftsmanship an instinct as valuable to the management as to the men, and most of all to society as a whole. BUSINESS EXECUTIVES 187 THE ORGANIZATION OF NON-FINANCIAL INCENTIVES 1 The basis of all "non-financial incentives" is interest in work. Interest in work implies a desire to produce actuated by internal motives rather than external discipline. Production means creation and the industrial creative func- tion in man is a mental process and lies in his intelligent adapta- tion of means to ends. It is useless, therefore, to look for real creative work unless the workman has a chance to think and to plan. Any other working environment either fails to attract or actually repels the workman, and as a consequence offers no incentive to increased effort. Work which does not call for thoughtful reflection, and which uses only muscular effort, tends to draw man down to the level of the brute and makes for industrial irresponsibility and consequent social disorganization. The unthinking man cannot be a responsible man. It is the self-conscious faculty of man which distinguishes him from the animal and makes him above all a creative center through which the universal life giving power can deal with a particular situation in time and space. To use a homely illustration with which every one is familiar the traffic crowded street crossing cannot be regulated from the City Hall; it requires an individual (the traffic policeman) in the congested spot to deal with each particular situation as it arises, and upon his powers of observation and selection depends the orderly flow of traffic. It is only through the individual life that the universal life can act and therefore the universal is* compelled to evolve many individuals' lives if organization and order is to replace the unorganized state represented by the purely generic operation of natural law. The problem of social organization is, then, how to organize society upon the basis of respect for the individual. This is also the industrial problem as well, for industry in the broadest sense is society in its highest form of activity because it is essentially constructive and therefore creative activity. 1 R. B. Wolf. Non-Financial Incentives. Address before the American Society of Mechanical Engineers. December, 1918. 188 PRACTICAL PSYCHOLOGY FOR It was an inevitable corollary to the universal plan of creation that the individual life came into being not to create material substance as that had to be before individual life could gain consciousness. The function of the individual life, however, is to create by a thought process conditions especially selected to produce results which nature unaided would fail to produce. This is what the horticulturist does. His power lies in his knowledge of natural law and his creations are made possible because he conforms to the law. The uncultivated orchard reverts to its original wild state when no longer attended by man but increases in productiveness by continued thoughtful application of man's power of selection and adaptation. It is by a similar process of conscious selection that such devices as the steamboat, steam engine, electric generator and the telephone came into existence. They did not come into being and never would have been created by the generic opera- tion of nature's laws. * * * In this connection it is well to observe that all of our creations, if they are to be successful, depend upon the strict observance of the laws of nature. When we clearly see man's place in the universal life movement we can understand why it was that in the lone process of evolution it was inevitable that a being capable of measuring by reflection be evolved. The very word "man" is derived from an Arian root meaning to measure. All this may seem at first sight far removed from the problem of "non-financial incentives," but it seems to me it is necessary before proceeding further to gain some conception of the reason for man's existence. The concrete illustrations of the operations of non-financial incentives will then have greater meaning. , , This creation of artificial conditions, which, taken all together, we call civilization, is, of course, the product of man's organ- izing power. While self-consciousness, the power of realizing the self as apart from the rest of the universe, has been a human faculty for untold ages before the present highly organ- ized state of society had been attained, it is nevertheless true that now, for the first time in the history of the white race, we are confronted with the problem of correcting the repressive or selfish character of civilization so that it will serve the mass BUSINESS EXECUTIVES 189 of humanity. If we fail to accomplish this it will be destroyed by the same creative power which brought it into existence. We must learn how to change the industrial environment from one which repels mankind to one which attracts. In other words, the incentive to work must be inherent in the nature of the work itself. Now what are the conditions which we must meet in the industrial world to make work attractive? We have ample evidence that increasing financial returns have failed to stimulate productivity and, on the other hand, the constant demand for shorter hours and the increasing labor turnover is proof that work in most of our industries not only does not attract but actually repels the workman. We must, therefore, look into the working conditions themselves for the answer. This is the only scientific method of procedure. I would like to quote from a letter which was received from a very intelligent labor leader recently, to show how the mass of employees look at the problem and how urgent is the need for its immediate solution if we are not to have a greatly reduced production of the necessities of life brought about by the concerted action of the workers. . . You say that : Men can be productive only when they take an interest in their work and they will not take this interest unless those entrusted with the direction of their efforts realize that they must teach them constantly how to exercise their creative powers. While I agree with everything you say relative to creative work and have thought along these lines considerably myself, still, is it possible in industries, as they are constituted at present, to enable the average workingman to do creative work? Isn't it true that industry is becoming so specialized that the workman is no longer a creator? I realize that while it may still be possible for the workman doing certain jobs in the mill to do creative work, to a certain extent, still isn't the tendency of modern industry more and more toward making the work- man simply an appendage of the machine?" . . . I was able to convince the writer of the letter from which I have quoted that creative work could be done to a great extent in modern industry, and further, that this could be accomplished, without any radical changes in equipment, greatly to the advantage of both employer and employee. IQO PRACTICAL PSYCHOLOGY FOR To do this, individual progress records are necessary so that the workman can know from day to day how he is improving in the mastery of the process. The first example is from that branch of the wood-pulp industry known as the sulphite process and shows a cooking chart which was designed to give the cook information about the reactions in the digesters in which the wood chips are cooked in a six per cent solution of sulphurous acid partly combined with a lime base. The skill in cooking consists in the proper control of the relief valve. Before the introduction of these cooking charts, all this was left to the unaided judgment of the cook with usually nothing to help him but a small hand thermometer and a pressure gauge. Of course, great variation in the pulp was the result. The cooking charts, plotted by the cooks themselves, however, helped greatly as they enabled the quick visualization of the work. Immediately after the introduction of these charts a very marked increase in the uniformity of the pulp was noticed, and the cooks, while at first opposed to the new method of "cooking with a lead pencil" as they called it, soon learned to like their work much better for the reason that they now had some way of visualizing the work in its entirety. In addition to more uniform quality of the pulp, the yield from a cord of wood increased something over five per cent. We soon found that it was necessary to give some sort of continuous-progress record if we were to keep up the interest in the work, because no man could carry in his mind anything but a general impression of his progress from day to day. Progress records measure the man's increasing mastery of his work, and we feel that it is one of the moral obligations of the management to keep such records for the individual workman. Without these records men will not think of improvements in the process and they cannot be blamed for becoming indifferent. How long, for instance, would a superintendent or manager retain his interest in the economical operation of his plant if his cost sheets were withheld? We, as executives, must have quantity, quality and economy records, otherwise our interest soon lags. Why, then, should we expect the workman to be interested when he is not furnished with a record which at least reflects one of these elements? . . . BUSINESS EXECUTIVES 191 We keep a continuous-progress record of the work which is mainly one of quality. Most of our records refer to the quality of the work performed; in other words, the nearness to which the workman approaches the ideal standards which he has helped to form. The democratic cooperative forming of these standards by the joint work of the trained technician and the practical workman is absolutely essential, otherwise con- tinuous progress will not be made. The whole plan must be really educational in nature and to be so the records must record the natural laws of the process and the individual's degree of control of forces in the material elements that he is using. The more factors that can be recorded, the greater the interest in the work. The reason for this is obvious. . . It is obviously a difficult matter when dealing with mainte- nance and construction work to give quality or quantity records as the work varies so much from day to day, so the only kind of records we could give the men were records of cost. The original suggestion to give these records grew out of the fact that we give to each operating department head a complete cost of operating his department for which he was held responsible. As soon as he began to realize this responsibility, because all the repair materials were charged to him, he at once began to make intelligent criticism of the engineering department, and especially was he critical of the maintenance foreman as he was wasteful in the use of materials. As a result of this, the main- tenance foremen asked the master mechanic if they could not have job costs showing how economically they were doing their work as they had no idea of the value of materials that they were using. . . In none of this work did we pay bonuses to a superintendent, department head or workman; our salaries and wages were high, but payments were all on a monthly, weekly, or hourly basis. The increased effort, therefore, came entirely from a de- sire within the individual to be productive. This sort of creative effort produced great changes in operating conditions; we in- creased our yearly production from forty-two thousand tons to one hundred eleven thousand tons without adding to the number of digesters for cooking the pulp, or wet machines for handling the finished product and we changed our quality from the poorest to the very best. IQ2 PRACTICAL PSYCHOLOGY FOR Due to the intelligent suggestion which came from our men all over the plant we were able to make very radical changes in the manufacturing processes. Entirely new methods of pre- paring our wood, making acid, bleaching, etc., were created, all of which we paid for out of the earnings. I maintain that this was all the result of the freedom our men were experiencing because they were working in an environment which stimulated thinking. They had ample opportunity con- stantly to increase their knowledge of the underlying natural laws of the process, and were, therefore, able to realize the joy which comes from a conscious mastery of their part of the process. This freedom to express one's individuality in constructive work according to law, is the only real freedom, for freedom unrestrained by a consciousness of the universality of natural law leads to anarchy. We should never lose sight of the fact that the degree of conscious self-expression which the workman can attain is in direct proportion to the ability of the organization to measure, for his benefit, the impress of his personality upon it. The most democratic industrial plant, therefore, is the one which permits the fullest possible amount of individual freedom to each mem- ber, irrespective of his position and at the same time is so sensi- tively adjusted that it reflects immediately the effects of his ac- tions. If his actions result in injury to others he will see that as a part of the whole he, himself, must also suffer. Man is not an animal, but a free self-determining mental center of consciousness whose reason for existence is that the universal life can deal with a particular situation in time and space, and, by this means, be enabled to evolve a material uni- verse organized to express the one great individual life of which ~we are all a part. In conclusion let me say that I am well aware that to some of you this may seem like pure philosophical speculation far removed from the practical affairs of every day life. I have said nothing, however, that I cannot back up by any number of additional illustrations and my hope is that the examples given will stimulate others to make similar investigations, so that we can fulfil our mission in this country by evolving an industrial philosophy which will have for its ultimate aim the continuous unfoldment of the latent powers in man. X. PSYCHOLOGICAL ASPECTS OF LABOR TURNOVER THE BROAD SIGNIFICANCE OF THE TURN- OVER PROBLEM 1 This excessive shifting from position to position clearly demonstrates that something is wrong with industry. In diagnosing its causes we are at the same time enabled to suggest certain remedies that may lessen it. Some of the more prominent causes are: 1. Poor methods of employment and discharge. Men are generally hired en masse, with little regard to their qualifica- tions, and fired summarily if they do not make good on the jobs upon which they are tried out. The power of employment and discharge is generally vested in the foreman of each department. These men are rarely skilled in the tactful handling and judging of men. 2. Poor methods of promotion within the factory. Work in one position rarely leads to a higher position. The workman in any particular plant relies, therefore, upon a change to some other plant to better his status. 3. The seasonal nature of many industries. The turnover is necessarily large where the volume of output is not evenly dis- tributed over the year. After the "peak" has been passed, many workmen must be laid off. If the peak reoccurs within a few months, a new force must be employed. Positions of short duration, spelling a high turnover, are the inevitable con- comitants of seasonal industry. 4. Juvenile labor. Children rarely stay long in one position. The fourteen- to sixteen-year-old child is restless and wants to move about. A regular, settled employment rarely satisfies him. 5. The monotony of modern factory labor. This is rarely mentioned as a cause of labor turnover, but on a priori grounds 1 Paul Douglas. The Problem of Labor Turnover. American Eco- nomic Review. Vol. 8. 1918. p. 306-16; Vol. 9. 1919. p. 402-5. 194 PRACTICAL PSYCHOLOGY FOR we must infer that it exercises tremendous influence. Special- ization and routine labor have rendered industry so dull that it is no wonder the modern artisan frequently throws up his job and seeks another plant from sheer weariness. 6. Low wages. A plant that pays low wages cannot hold men long. They regard the job as a makeshift and will leave it as soon as they can find another. Thus some of the causes of this newly discovered phe- nomenon are long-recognized evils, while some have been but newly brought to light. The remedy most frequently proposed by students of the situation is the installation of a specialized employment department to have complete charge of the hiring, handling, and firing of men. In most factories the task of em- ployment and the discharge of men is confided to the foremen of the various departments. Hands are both hired and fired in a hit-or-miss fashion. Many firms keep no employment records at all, and most of those that do keep such records have only scanty material. They seldom ask the reasons for the work- man's leaving, nor do they measure the turnover, department by department. The centralization of employment and discharge and the concentration of responsibility would permit the use of scientific methods. Such a department could lessen the turnover in the following ways : i. By the use of a better method of selecting employees. Physical tests would eliminate a considerable number that are now employed only to be shortly discharged. Though mental tests have not developed as yet so far as to make it possible to assign men to the particular jobs for which they are best adapted, at least those mentally incompetent for industry could be eliminated. The various jobs in the plant could, moreover, be analyzed in respect to the amount of skill and intelligence re- quired of the operative. The workers could then be divided into rough groups according to their previous training and in- nate mental ability and assigned to the corresponding grade of work. A centralized personnel department could follow up and verify work references and thereby classify workers on the basis of past experience. And it could maintain a waiting list, so that when new men were needed they could be chosen largely from men about whom something was known instead of, as now, picked up off the streets. BUSINESS EXECUTIVES 195 2. By a system of follow-up work for the new employees: This would include taking them to their place of work and in- dicating a friendly interest toward them. The training should be given preferably by special instructors and not confided to the foremen. In many cases it is best to give the new men pre- liminary training before they are actually placed in any depart- ment. Moreover, the working conditions should be closely watched by the personnel department in order to insure proper ventilation, lighting, the prevention of dust, and the lessening of fire and accident risks. To keep a record of absences, classi- fied by individuals and by causes, would also be a legitimate task for such a department. 3. By an investigation of the reasons for the successes and failures of individual workmen. The method commonly em- ployed is to discharge a workman if he fails to make good on a particular job. This involves a great waste. A workman may fail on a specific job and yet be a valuable man for the concern. It may be that the antagonistic attitude of the foreman or the men is such that he cannot do himself justice. It may be that he is ill-adapted to that particular position but would be per- fectly competent in a position in some other department. The worker embodies a considerable investment of capital by the em- ployer and is worthy of at least another trial before he is dis- charged. The personnel department can find out the reasons for his lack of success and act accordingly. Should the worker succeed in a given position he should be commended and assured promotion. A well-defined promotion policy would indeed save many a plant a great deal of dissatis- faction and lessened efficiency. The efficiency of the plant and the loyalty of the workers may be further heightened by the in- stitution of discussion groups at which plant problems can be explained and workmen's ideas solicited. This will also serve to bring to light hidden talent which could be utilized in execu- tive work. The creation of such a personnel department, charged with these functions, is but the logical extension to the human side of industry of the scientific principles that have hitherto been employed on the mechanical side. It merely strips the depart- ment foreman of his employment functions and enables him to concentrate his attention upon the actual production of goods. With this splitting of the task greater specialization and effi- 196 PRACTICAL PSYCHOLOGY FOR ciency can result. The centralized employment department has been tried in many plants and, on the whole, has been very successful. Some illustrations of its success are (i) the reduc- tion by the Dennison Manufacturing Company of its turnover from 68 per cent to 37 per cent a year; (2) the reduction of the turnover of the Joseph and Feiss Company of Cleveland, Ohio, to one third its former amount; (3) the lowering of the Plimp- ton Press turnover till it is now only 10 per cent a year; (4) the decrease in the Ford turnover from 416 per cent to less than 80 per cent. Other factors besides that of the creation of such a department contribute to the marked decrease in three of these plants. Forms of profit-sharing were introduced into the Den- nison and Ford companies, while the Dennison and Feiss plants also succeeded in regularizing their output. . . The large turnover of children between fourteen and sixteen is merely another proof of the economic and social wastefulness of this class of labor. Industry and society would be much better off were the age of entrance into industry raised generally from fourteen to sixteen years. In so far as the labor turnover is due to the monotony of machine labor, few remedies within the plant can be devised. The men, to be sure, can be trans- ferred from one machine to another. But this is about all. The balking of man's innate tendency toward contrivance seems to be an inevitable consequence of the machine era. New avenues must be opened, outside of industry, for its legitimate expression. Whatever may be the final steps taken to solve this problem, its recognition signalizes a marked advance in the development of human engineering. INDUSTRIAL ABUSES UNDERLYING TURNOVER * The essential fact, with respect to labor turnover, is that fully half of our labor passes through our industries rather than into , them. Employers clamor for more men while they let those they have slip through their fingers. Workers complain of lack of work, though yesterday they made no effort to hold 1 Don D. Lescohier. The Labor Market, p. 113-16, 118-21. Published by The Macmillan Company. New York. 1919. Reprinted by permission. BUSINESS EXECUTIVES 197 their jobs they had. "Suddenly it is found that one of the greatest costs of labor is not the inefficiency of the individual but the lack of good-will as a whole. A certain proportion of our employers have inaugurated definite labor policies calculated to hold a steady labor force for their businesses and have achieved a success that has surprised themselves. Half of our workers, more or less, have fitted themselves into some industry and be- come a part of its permanent labor force. Why does a pro- cession of workers pass through the plants of the rest of the employers? Why do a large part of the workers keep step in that procession instead of becoming a part of some specific busi- ness? Dr. Sumner Slichter has given us a somewhat thorough analysis of the causes of labor turnover in factories. He dis- tinguishes eight general causes for the shifting of labor: (i) Reduction of the labor force by the employer on account of reductions in output due to industrial depression, seasonal fluctuation of business, completion of contracts, and other de- creases in his need for labor. (2) Disagreeable characteristics of the job, such as low wages, irregularity of work, excessive hours, Sunday work, lack of opportunity for advancement, or distance from the workman's home. (3) Faulty methods of handling men. (4) Disagreeable relations with fellow workmen or quitting to leave with a friend. (5) Causes pertaining to the worker, such as wanderlust, desire for a change, ill-health, age, death, marriage, or lack of fitness for work, insubordination, laziness, or mischief making. (6) Attractive opportunities in other places or other establishments. (7) Dislike for the com- munity in which the work is or of bad camp conditions, or de- sire to go to a particular community. And (8) conditions in the family of the worker, such as desire to move to another community or locality for the sake of the family, or sickness in the family that causes quitting of a certain job. Add to these the competitive recruiting of labor by employers, the lack of an adequate public employment office system, and the migra- tory habits engendered in the American people by the industrial allurements which appear now here, now there, in a developing country, and we have mentioned the important causes of rapid turnover of labor in America. The migratory habits just referred to have probably received less emphasis in this connection than they are entitled to. Me- chanics, laborers, clerks, salesmen all sorts of workers are ig8 PRACTICAL PSYCHOLOGY FOR continually influenced by the characteristic American hope that there is a big opportunity somewhere else for them. The very ambition which is a spur to progress in America is also a force which causes restlessness in the job and leads to failure in thousands of cases. The spirit of the frontier, which has done so much for our development, has produced its unfortunate by- products. Like a will-o'-the-wisp, it leads multitudes of our people from job to job and place to place until many have their feet entangled in a slough of irregular habits and inefficiency. There is only one way to become an expert, whether at washing dishes, digging ditches, or making watches or battleships. It is by study and practice. The man who changes jobs frequently and drifts from industry to industry never learns any occupation thoroughly. But this is not all. Irregular work produces its results. First the worker drifts, and then he can't anchor. It is not possible to estimate the cost of excessive turnover of labor to the nation. We know that the cost is enormous. The employers' losses have been estimated at from $20 to $250 er extra man hired; the exact figure depending upon the de- gree of skill required by the work, the extent to which the new man slows down or impairs the work of fellow workmen, and 'the period of time which elapses before the new worker is able to reach his maximum productivity. It takes the time of execu- tives to interview, hire, and break in the new employee; machin- ery and appliances are not used to the best advantage during the learning period ; more materials are wasted ; plant wear and tear is increased; more accidents occur; there is loss of good- will and business due to mistakes of inexperienced help ; and the esprit de corps of the business is lowered by the influx of strangers. When the turnover is large it is not possible to train the new employees thoroughly, and the average efficiency of the whole force is kept at a lower point. The workers' losses are equally large. Their earning power is wasted while unemployed; they have to accept lower wages when at work because they are not so efficient as if steadily employed; the skill they acquire on one job is frequently value- less when they take up the next one ; their character and working ability are deteriorated by frequent idleness and shifting; they have greater accident exposure; they find it increasingly difficult to obtain work after they are forty years of age; and they are BUSINESS EXECUTIVES 199 sapped of ambition when they are at work by the knowledge that they will soon be discharged. The worker who is subject to frequent changes of employ- ment is robbed of that elemental self-respect which is the dear possession of the man who has an occupation, however humble, in which he sees himself performing some useful part in the world's work. The shifter is industrially homeless; and a home domestic, political, religious, and industrial is one of the needs of human nature. A man cannot have the proper attitude toward his work or his life who is constantly made to feel that no industry needs him. . . It must be recognized, in the first place, in any program of turnover reduction, that the shifting of workers from plant to plant is characteristic of a fraction of the labor force, not of the entire labor force. The point has already been made that a considerable percentage of the wage earners work steadily for the same employer or at least at the same occupation and in the same locality; that another large group work as steadily as the fluctuating labor demand permits, and that the high turnover of labor is localized in a minority of the total labor force. The problem which confronts us is to develop policies that will check the frequent change of jobs by that portion of the labor force with whom changing jobs has become or is becoming a habit. The task, as already suggested, is one that requires coopera- tion between industry, education, and an organized labor market. Industry holds the key to success in its hands. Nothing that the educational systems or an employment service can do will materially reduce labor turnover if industry fails whole-heartedly to undertake its part of the work. But American industry is not going to fail. Progressive American employers have already inaugurated new labor policies in their establishments which have materially reduced their labor turnover. They have demon- strated what can be done by the employer, and have contributed valuable experience on methods. They have shown that new methods of hiring, training, supervising, transferring, and pro- moting labor will mitigate or eliminate many of the industrial causes of turnover. They have discovered that a closer knowl- edge of the personal points of view, prejudices, and problems of their workers enables them to. overcome many factors per- sonal to the individual worker which would have led to irreg- ularity of employment. 200 PRACTICAL PSYCHOLOGY FOR Industry's objectives must be the selection of employees fitted to the work to be performed; the stabilization of production to give those workers the greatest possible steadiness of employ- ment; and the creation of working conditions and opportunities that will cause the workers to want to stay with the establish- ment when they are employed. The writer ventures to suggest that an essential element of success in this endeavor must be the creation of opportunities for self-advancement. It is impos- sible to keep the energetic workman in an establishment if there is no hope of better wages or better work there. Ambition is one of the causes of labor turnover. Not all workers shift because they lack the steadiness to remain. Many seek with a new employer the opportunities which their last employer neglected to provide. This is true of thousands of workmen, even common laborers, whom employers believe are simply unsteady. Only too frequently workmen see the employer go outside the establishment for the man to fill the good position instead of seeking out some present employee for promotion. It is not strange that they conclude that changing employers is the only road to advancement. The relation between industrial training and regularity of employment was discussed in the preceding chapter. But the contribution of an educational system to turnover reduction cannot stop with industrial training. Many non-industrial and non-economic motives play a part in causing the unsteadiness of that group of workers who shift most frequently. Their consumption standards are often as deficient as their industrial skill. Their sense of values is warped. The writer was on a train and heard a young soldier say: "Well, I hope when I get home that I can get a good job." He asked the young man, "What is your idea of a good job?" "Good pay and easy work," was the reply. This absence of a conception of service and accomplishment as a necessary characteristic of a "good job," with the absence of the desire to give an equivalent in service for wage received, is a common defect in the minds of those workers who are found frequently looking for a job. The search for "easy money" is of course no more common among wage earners than among the people of other economic groups. You can find among business and professional men a large number of individuals who are con- tinually risking their money in speculative investments in -an BUSINESS EXECUTIVES 201 effort to get rich without effort. The same point of view appears in the wage earner in the form of seeking for such "good jobs" as the young man described. Just as the speculator "takes a flyer" at this or that investment, so this type of wage earner "takes a flyer" at this job and that. The search for income without effort, for prosperity without sacrifice, for com- fort without earning it, is a subtle cause of labor shifting that can be reached only by educational and home influences that send young people into the world with sound ideas and sound valuations. REFLECTIONS OF A WORKER * Perhaps the worker's viewpoint regarding labor turnover will be interesting. I accidentally picked up a copy of Industrial Management and read an article concerning labor turnover. I have worked around machine shops for twenty years, and it has got so of late years that it is almost impossible for me to hold a position for any length of time. Three months is quite a long time for me to hold down one job, but I would rather work in one place steadily than move about. I wonder if it has ever occurred to the manufacturer whose foremen have anywhere from twenty-five to one hundred men under them, and that where the foreman has the least number of men working for him, his responsibilities are at a minimum, therefore it is to the interest of the foreman to hold his force down as much as possible, as then he has less to look after. I have seen foremen try to discourage their men in every possible manner so as to have less to do. What causes the turnover in many factories is the very poorly equipped plant. A man will work in such a place just long enough to "get a stake" : that is, if he is a good mechanic and has served his time as a machinist. Next in point of objection is the "system." Most large plants are over systematized, or have misplaced system. If instead of practicing economics in the factory, they would install some "system" in the upkeep of the equipment the turnover would decrease to a certain extent. Then the plant that does not work its employees in excess of 1 A Worker's Viewpoint of Labor Turnover. By a Laborer. Industrial Management. April, 1919. p. 36. 202 PRACTICAL PSYCHOLOGY FOR forty-eight to forty-nine hours per week has the best chance of holding them. Again a manufacturer thinks he is always "top dog" and is apt to impose upon his workers rules and regulations that are entirely unnecessary. Just because a man has money tied up in manufacturing institutions is no reason why he should get excessive profits out of these plants at the expense of his workers, so that he may lavish these profits upon fast women, or mere society women, or spend most of his time globe trotting at the expense of the workers. HOLDING THE MEN WHO HAVE NO TRADE 1 To understand the unskilled worker one must be very careful to put himself in the worker's place, and delving deeper and understanding more, must master the hard task of finding out what the man himself feels and thinks. When a man does this successfully one of the things he will discover is that the coming and going of the casual worker which seems to him so foolish and reckless is not always entirely without reason. The tasks which many of these men are called upon to do are not only disagreeable, but to a degree unhealthy. There is dust or lint or steam or dampness or undue dryness. There may be drafts or extremes of heat and cold. These men do not know how to take the best care of themselves and would not take the pains to do so if they knew. Often when they go on the job they are not in the best of health, because of past sicknesses or indiscretions. Especially is this true today when we have no constantly renewed stream of j'oung, sturdy unim- paired immigrants to draw from. Many a casual worker, after a little while on the job, finds that his physical condition is poor, he gets out of sorts or feels sick, and thinks that a change will do him good. Frequently the physician to whom he goes tells him that his work is disagreeing with him and that he must make a change. There is a wealth of pathos in the fact that so many men leave because the conditions of the job have made them unequal to it. Especially is this true of men over forty years of age. The 1 Harry W. Kimball. Handling the Men Who Have No Trade. In dustrial Management. June, 1920. p. 509-10. BUSINESS EXECUTIVES 203 vicissitudes of their restless years of toil and often dissipation have left a heritage of weakness which inevitably shows itself after a little time of strenuous work. Many of these men who quit, and are accused of laziness and a disinclination to work, have simply used up whatever resources of strength they had and must loaf for a while. They are really all in physically. It is not in them to work. While the destructive forces of strong drink are no longer a factor, sexual excess still exists, and so also does the bad air of the tenements in which they live or of the boarding houses in which they bunk. Often sufficient sleep is not obtained. Although one might not suspect it to look, at the casual worker who says he is through, yet it is often for good reasons of physical disability, for a lack of physical stamina, that he has thrown up his job. Another factor in the constant shifting of these workers is that often, although their work may be very simple, yet it is never carefully explained to them just what they are to do. The result is that they do the work indifferently or poorly and on account of this are called down by the foreman, probably quite a number of times. Then it fixes itself in the worker's mind that he is not doing satisfactory work. In a dim sort of way he knows that he is just getting by on the job, and barely that. Then from his past experiences he concludes that in a few days at the most he will be fired, and to avoid that he simply quits of his own accord. The next morning he does not show up. A little kindly interest on the part of the foreman or the employment manager, a little more careful instruction regarding his work might have kept him for many a day. But in spite of the most careful selection and instruction a large proportion of these men without a trade will be floaters. The constant temptation is to hire these habitual drifters without much thought, these men who have not come to stay, because they can do as well as anyone the rough manual labor which at the moment needs to be done. If there are carloads of coal to be unloaded, just get anyone that is to be found to help. It matters not that in two or three days or a week he may dis- appear. At least you have obtained that much work from him. The cost of such labor turnover while considerable cannot by any fair estimate be figured in the large amounts which are usually assigned to the cost of hiring and firing skilled workers. It is beginning, however, to be recognized that the retention 204 PRACTICAL PSYCHOLOGY FOR of these unskilled workers has its real value, that if they become happy and contented and are made to feel that they are a part of the organization they will contribute something to the esprit decorps of the plant. When they stay long enough to grow accustomed to the ways of doing things, to become familiar with the layout of the plant, to take advantage of the benefits offered, like the infirmary, group life insurance, mutual life insurance, mutual benefit association and lunch room, they are much more valuable than the casual worker who may only stay for a day or two. Therefore it is certainly worth while to make an effort to stabilize that portion of the working force which has no trade. HOW TO REDUCE LABOR TURNOVER * (An outline of the essential part of the scheme pictured by the author. . . Note that this scheme is intended to be complete and is therefore impossible of universal application in toto.) 1. Preliminary Measures: a. Attempt to learn the true cost of turnover in your plant in order to know how much you can afford to spend to eliminate it. b. Keep adequate records as means of analysis of sources and causes of turnover. (1) Historical and statistical record separate for each employee including date of employing or transferring, rates, earnings, bonuses, defective work, complaints by or against man, absence, tardiness, periodic certification of foremen, date of quitting and reasons. (2) Turnover by departments, by causes, by weeks and months and years, and by classes of skills. (3) High and low earnings by departments. (4) Defective work by departments. (5) Absenteeism and tardiness by departments. 2. Fundamental Remedies: a. Hire the right men for the jobs. 1 Boyd Fisher. How to Reduce Labor Turnover. Annals of the American Academy. May, 1917. P 10-32. BUSINESS EXECUTIVES 205 (1) Work up good application lists which is a "prospect file" by vigilant search of sources of supply, by industrial census of your vicinity, by courteous and hospitable treatment of appli- cants at all times, and by getting a good name for your factory even from men who have quit you. (2) Using your present work force as a "prospect file" cooperate with agencies for industrial edu- cation, supplementing them with apprenticeship training, to build up a system of promotion and transfer. (3) Secure time to examine new applicants thor- oughly by receiving advance notice of need and by using adequate assistance in employment department. (4) Hire in accordance with written specifications for each job, prepared at leisure, and after due consultation and criticism. (5) Prepare a definite scheme of direct examination for each type of work, using as much of the character reading methods as your experience approves. (6) Examine physically with view both to general fitness, to suitability for specified job, and to need of later up-building. (7) Visit homes of desired applicants. (8) Check up records of previous employments. (9) Hire only those who can earn an adequate wage, b. Pay an adequate wage. (1) Study cost of and facilities for decent living for each workman and use results in setting base rates. (2) Give special study to cases of inefficient work- men, to see if money troubles are affecting them. (3) Centralize and pay off at discount, debts of overburdened workmen. (4) Promote mutual aid association. (5) Establish legal aid bureau. (6) Pay weekly. 206 PRACTICAL PSYCHOLOGY FOR (7) Discourage alcoholism. (8) Instruct in proper use of income. (9) Encourage thrift and home-building. (10) Where special causes for increased living cost obtain, attack them, as by cooperative stores, housing measures, etc. c. Provide steady work. (1) Give piece workers steady flow of material dur- ing the day, by proper scheduling system. (2) Regularize production throughout the year to minimize lay-offs and shut-downs. (3) Abolish the annual physical inventory with con- tinuous checks. (4) Make repairs promptly and provide a sufficient reserve supply of tools. d. Don't fire hastily. 1 i ) Check up foremen whose departments show high turnover records through men's quitting. (2) Don't let foremen discharge at all. (3) Give unsatisfactory men at least one chance through transfer. (4) Establish employment committee to review cases of discharge where men appeal. (5) Establish foremen's club to study ways of get- ting along with men. (6) Interview, before paying off, men who quit voluntarily. 3. Supplementary Remedies : a. Start new men right. (1) Make clearly understood agreement as to start- ing pay and schedule of advances. (2) Introduce new men to bosses, to fellow-workers, and to physical surroundings, and acquaint with rules and facilities of plant. (3) Instruct men thoroughly in new task. (4) Advance money or meal tickets to beginners short of funds. (5) Help beginners speedily to get on piece or bonus rates. BUSINESS EXECUTIVES 207 b. Promote physical efficiency. (1) Establish physical department. (2) Examine all workmen periodically and provide machinery for following up those found to be defective. (3) Provide adequate light, heat and ventilation. (4) Reduce noise, dirt and noxious odors and fumes. (5) Purify oils, waste and other supplies. (6) Purify drinking water. (7) Provide sanitary lockers, wash rooms and toilets. (8) Insist upon good teeth and good eyes by using, at least on part time, the services of a dentist and an occulist. (9) Have nurses or doctors visit those kept home by illness. (10) Provide mid-workday meals at plant. (n) Provide good tools and fatigue minimizing equipment. (12) Shorten work-hours while securing fair out- put. (13) Provide at least three rest periods during the day. (14) Arrange for yearly vacations with pay for all employees. This can be on the basis of an effi- ciency record or punctuality record. (15) Promote athletics. c. Foster good habits. (1) Investigate causes of unexcused absence. (2) Fix strict penalties for tardiness and un- excused absence. (3) Bonus regular attendance. (4) Establish pay system that encourages and re- wards accuracy, high output and punctuality. d. Give all employees a hearing. (1) Hear complaints at all times, no matter how put forward. (2) Hold regular shop meetings by departments and by divisions to hear men's ideas. 208 PRACTICAL PSYCHOLOGY FOR (3) Establish system for considering written sug- gestions from men; and rewarding with com- mendation, prizes, or promotion, all thought worthy, and acknowledge all such suggestions without exception. (4) Encourage all forms of self-directed organiza- tion, whether of athletic, social, or cooperative enterprises provided such organization is not subject to orders from persons outside of your plant and contrary to its interests. e. Make work in your plant a sufficient career. (1) Establish system for granting unasked-for pay increases as deserved. (2) Discover ambitions of men for future transfers and promotions. (3) Help train men to new tasks. (4) Transfer with some liberality. (5) Encourage men to improve general education by reimbursing for outlay on courses of study as completed. f. Provide for future of all workmen. (1) Purchase group insurance for all workmen. (2) Pension disabled or superannuated employees. (3) Share profits on some form of stock-sharing basis, possibly in lieu of pension scheme. 4. Provocative Remedies: a. Fire when other methods clearly fail. (1) Those with chronic social diseases. (2) Those whose morals menace the high standards of fellow employees. (3) Those who persist in agitation. (4) Those who will not quit drinking. b. Submit all such discharges to appeal committee on which employees are represented. XL THE BUILDING OF LOYALTY AND MORALE A BROAD SURVEY OF PSYCHOLOGICAL CAUSES 1 Tho industrial morale is closely related to the state of contentment or unrest of the working force, the two are not to be confused. Industrial morale refers to the degree of coopera- tion extended by the employees of an enterprise to the manage- ment in the course of their work, the interest they manifest in their work, and in the enterprise by which they are employed, and their willingness to assume a share of the responsibility so that their work is properly and expeditiously done. The test of industrial morale is the degree of cooperation extended by the men to the management in the operation of the plant. . . Of the numerous causes which combine to create low indus- trial morale several of great importance may be passed over with little or no discussion. Fatigue, ill health, and nervous strain are well known to cause low morale but analysis of the extent to which modern industrial conditions and processes pro- duce these physical and nervous causes must be left to the phys- iologist and the psychologist. No explanation is needed of the effect upon morale of the belief, widespread among workmen and far from wholly unjustified, that if they work too hard they will work themselves out of their jobs. Dissatisfaction of the workers with their treatment by the management is to be counted among the most important causes of low morale, for it is common knowledge that men tend to hold back and to do as little as possible for those against whom they feel a grievance. Another important, tho self-evident, cause of low morale is the widely prevalent belief among workmen that there is gross unfairness in the distribution of burdens and benefits in society, that the wage earners, who perform the heaviest, dirtiest, least 1 Sumner H. Slichter. Industrial Morale. Quarterly Journal of Eco- nomics. Vol. 25. November, 1920. p. 36-60. 210 PRACTICAL PSYCHOLOGY FOR interesting, and most disagreeable tasks, receive unreasonably small shares in the good things of life. Workmen who feel this keenly do not respond readily to attempts to interest them in more production. They feel that they already are doing more than their share of the disagreeable and onerous work that is to be done and incline to seek compensation for the unattractive- ness of their jobs and the meagerness of their pay .by doing less rather than more whenever opportunity occurs. Mitigating the severity or disagreeableness of their jobs by "taking it easy" is the only means at their disposal for partially equalizing what they conceive to be the unjust distribution of benefits and burdens and they use this means without compunction. Finally, and perhaps most important and self-evident among all the causes of low morale, is the use of drive methods by manage- ments to sustain and increase output. A more effective means of creating low morale could scarcely be conceived, because the drive system renders conflict instead of cooperation between the men and management inevitable. The drive system recognizes no standard day's work. On the contrary the aim is constantly to force up the speed of work. The men naturally resist these efforts. In consequence the working pace becomes the subject of a constant struggle between the men and the management. But men do not cooperate with those against -whom they are struggling. Instead of affording a basis and inducement for cooperation, the drive system compels the men to concentrate their attention and ingenuity upon limiting output, and upon frustrating the efforts of the managament to push up the pace. . . Altho the prevailing philosophy of business for profit rather than for service may perhaps be justified on the ground that no other arrangement provided sufficient incentive to sustain vig- orous business activity, the acquisitive philosophy, when adopted by the workmen, has the serious drawback that it is fatal to morale and efficiency, because it justifies workmen in rendering as little service as they dare give for as high pay as they are able to exact. The adherence to this philosophy by business men renders inevitable its adoption by the workmen, . . Low industrial morale results from fear and resentment inspired among the workers by certain managerial policies. Mr. MacKenzie King has emphasized the importance of fear as a complicator of industrial relations. It is not generally appre- ciated, however, to what extent fear of the management by the BUSINESS EXECUTIVES 211 workmen has been deliberately and consciously fostered. The steady pursuit of a policy designed to arouse fear of the man- agement among the workers was a natural accompaniment of the so-called drive system of management, the success of which depended upon the men's willingness to submit to being driven. In order to create a docile and subservient attitude on the part of the men and cause them to submit readily to being driven, managements deliberately sought to foster fear of themselves among the men. To this end they maintained as a matter of policy a brusque, more or less harsh, distant and stern attitude toward their men. They resorted to discharge on fairly slight provocation. They discouraged the airing of grievances. The man with a complaint was told, "If you don't like things here, you can quit." To be lenient or friendly or considerate, to give ear to complaints or to grant redress would cause the men to feel that the management was "easy," that it could be "bluffed" or "worked" and that it need not be feared or carefully obeyed. It would destroy the docile, submissive attitude which was essential if the men were to yield readily to drive methods. Above all, it was felt that the men must be made to feel that the management was strong and powerful, determined to have its way and not to be trifled with. This process of inspiring fear among the workmen was admirably adapted also to inspiring hatred. In proportion as the management succeeded in arousing fear of iiself among the men it succeeded also in arousing antagonism. The effect upon morale is obvious. . . Among the things which induce men to feel responsibility for the character of their work is the conviction that the job is important, that it makes a difference how it is done, and that in doing it the workman is making himself of some importance. Take away this feeling that the work is important and it tends to become drudgery, which the men then seek to lighten by doing as little as possible. Modern industry contains a number of influences which tend to diminish the importance of their work in the eyes of the workmen and consequently their dispo- sition to feel a keen responsibility for the character of their workmanship. . . Finally, the.' policy pursued by many managements, of endeavoring to build up in the men the feeling that they are of little importance, their services of little value, and they them- 212 PRACTICAL PSYCHOLOGY FOR selves easily to be dispensed with now prevents the men from appreciating the importance of their work. This policy is similar to the one previously discussed, of endeavoring to create fear of the management, and, like it, has been pursued as a part of the drive system and for the purpose of rendering the workmen more submissive to drive methods. Managements have believed that if the men learned to regard their work and consequently themselves as important, they would lose their docility, become self-assertive and difficult to control. To render them docile and easily handled, it is desirable that they regard themselves and their services as of little importance to the enterprise. Hence by such means as criticizing freely but com- mending sparingly, a hair-trigger readiness to discharge, telling those with grievances to go elsewhere if dissatisfied, and by the general attitude maintained toward the men, managements have endeavored to build up among them a feeling that they are of little consequence. . . Adequate recognition of merit and good service is an im- portant prerequisite to high industrial morale. Failure of man- agements to recognize merit and good service adequately means much more than a mere lack of material rewards to stimulate the men to do their best. In the first place, it is important as an indication of the attitude and temper of the management. The lack of material rewards for merit naturally leads the workmen to feel that the management does not appreciate good service. No exertion is more repugnant to workers, however, than that which they believe will not be appreciated. The feeling that good service is not appreciated is nearly as potent as the lack of rewards for good service in deterring the men from exerting themselves to render service of exceptional merit. In the second place, failure to recognize merit is important because it tends to deprive the men of definite hopes for better things in the future. Men can endure disagreeable and discouraging conditions for a considerable period without serious lowering of morale, provided they have reasonable expectations of better things. But the hope of better things tomorrow is needed to take their minds off the difficulties of today. To men deprived of reasonably definite expectations for the future the difficulties of today seem doubly onerous. Because the work in modern industry involves much that is disagreeable and onerous, it is important, in order to sustain high morale, that BUSINESS EXECUTIVES 213 workmen see something better ahead. Without such visions they become easily discouraged, disgusted with their jobs, inclined to develop the "don't give a damn" spirit and to seek relief from the disagreeable and discouraging features of their work by doing no more than is necessary. . . The development of the highest degree of interest in the job and the keenest sense of responsibility for the character of its performance presupposes a belief that the job or at least the workman's connection with his employer is more or less perma- nent. Hence the transitory and precarious nature of much of the employment in modern industry is to be accounted a source of low industrial morale. Herein appears the significance, from the standpoint of morale, of the absence of machinery for the adjustment of grievances, and of the failure either to protect workmen against arbitrary discharge by provision for truly judicial inquiry into alleged cases of incompetency or misconduct, or to protect workers against lay-off by regularization of produc- tion or by reduction of the working period instead of the force in slack times. . . Most important of all in creating the prevailing low state of industrial morale is the workmen's conception of the rela- tionship prevailing between themselves and industry the feeling on the part of wage earners that instead of industry being conducted for their benefit as well as for the benefit of the stockholders, it is devoted almost exclusively to advancing the interests of the stockholders, and that instead of workmen being a part of industry and insiders in it, they are outsiders whom industry is not interested in serving, but from whom it is interested in getting all that it can. . . An active effort on the part of the workmen to promote the prosperity of industry can scarcely be expected until the work- men feel that industry is a friendly rather than a hostile force; until they believe it is devoted to the promotion of their interests rather than the exploitation of their weakness ; until they believe it is interested in making wages higher not in keeping them low, in making hours shorter not in keeping them long, and in mitigating the severity of the work not in enforcing the maximum speed; until they believe they will promptly and directly share in any increase in the prosperity of industry. Wages and conditions of labor must be determined by the same principle by which dividends are determined by the ability of industry 2i 4 PRACTICAL PSYCHOLOGY FOR to pay more or to improve conditions, not by the necessity of so doing. This appears to touch the crux of the problem of industrial morale. Workmen cannot be expected to feel the maximum interest in the affairs of industry and the greatest willingness to cooperate in order to promote its prosperity, unless they are able to identify themselves with industry, to feel themselves to be a part of it, insiders in it, and to feel also a sense of owner- ship in it. The feeling of belonging to a thing appears commonly to induce a feeling of ownership toward it. They cannot feel themselves to be a part of industry nor industry to be in part theirs, unless industry is devoted in a substantial measure to the promotion of their interests, unless managements strive just as energetically to raise wages as they do to raise dividends. The thing which now creates a gulf between the men and indus- try, which causes them to feel that they are not a part of the enterprises for which they work and that the enterprises are not in part theirs, is the fact that industrial enterprises are devoted primarily or exclusively to the service of the stock- holders, often at the expense of the interests of the men. When the men observe how completely outside the purposes of business enterprises is the promotion of their interests, they cannot escape feeling themselves to be merely outsiders. POSITIVE ACHIEVEMENTS POSSIBLE UNDER MOST ADVERSE CIRCUMSTANCES l By tradition American lumbermen are thriftless working a whole season in the woods, they accumulate a little money only because they can find no place to spend it and that money is commonly gone within about two days after they hit the first town. .A happy-go-lucky lot, they are at the mercy of the first employer who finds them when broke; the employer, holding the money and the food bag, always has the advantage. Where all the lumbermen were Americans a certain comradeship existed between the men and the boss. But things, within the last dozen years, have changed to a great extent, in the Northwest ; the young Americans seldom go 1 Brigadier General Brice P. Bisque. How ye Found a Cure for Strikes. System, September. 1919. P- 379-84. BUSINESS EXECUTIVES 215 into the woods and the elder generation has passed on to owner- ship of the industry or to other occupations. In their place has come a large number of foreigners, ignorant of American ideals the same sort of men that con- struction gangs are recruited from. and when I went into the camps these foreigners were pretty generally being run by agi- tators affiliated with the I.W.W. and intent upon every form of sabotage. The American spirit seemed to have gone. The prospects for getting out aircraft lumber looked pretty blue. Employers and employees each accused the other of being profiteers. The operators were a hard-headed lot. Being mostly men who had risen from the ranks, who had worked twelve and fourteen hours a day in order to attain their present efficiency, they had never considered any work too hard for themselves and they did not consider any work too hard for those whom they em- ployed. They had gone through the mill and they expected others to go through it. They were fighters, every one of them. They fought to keep up prices and to beat down labor. In order to keep up prices they were willing to curtail* production but when prices were high they wanted all possible production. To get that production they were willing for the moment to pay almost any price. They hired indiscriminately and fired ruthlessly. When they needed men they bid them away from another camp but they never retained a man an hour longer than was absolutely necessary for the work in hand, aside from the nucleus or skele- ton of old, regular employees. Men were taken on from day to day, given work while there was work to do, and laid off the moment that the work slack- ened. No one had ever suggested that there might be anything in the nature of mutual obligation between employer and em- ployee. The employers got all that they possibly could out of the men at the lowest possible cost. The employee gave as little work as possible for the highest possible wage. To the em- ployers the men were simply hired to get the work through and had to be endured. To the men the employers were monsters grinding out flesh and blood at a very high profit. Under such conditions, naturally the labor became itinerant. About seventy per cent did not care to work at all. Regarding 216 PRACTICAL PSYCHOLOGY FOR their employers as natural enemies, they left disgruntled, when- ever they felt that they were particularly needed. They in- vented the lightning strike. They "struck on the job." One em- ployer testified that often he would start the day with a full crew, and finish with no one but a cook and a dishwasher. The labor turnover ran to one thousand per cent. The employment agencies in Spokane hired eight thousand men a month while only eight to twelve thousand men were altogether employed in the district! My wonder was not that the production was low but that there was any production at all. A thorough investigation convinced me that practically all the difficulties could be traced to these fundamentals: 1. Intermittent, seasonal work. 2. The persistent rumors that the employers were making enormous profits and gouging the Government. 3. The lack of any means of reaching understanding be- tween the parties. 4. Almost indecent living conditions in the camps. Through unanimous and quite voluntary action of the oper- ators and employees and the authority of the War Department I had a practical control of the lumber industry. Stern and coercive measures could have been adopted. But, had I used any of these instruments of force, I should probably have failed. 'The service which is given under compulsion is not the kind that any one wants and generally will not produce real or lasting re- sults. I sold myself both to the employers and the employees. This was particularly easy in view of the fact that I had no personal monetary interest in anything that was done. Since there was to be plenty of work until the war ended, the question of continuity of operation was not, for the moment, of paramount importance. Therefore, I first devoted myself to the equalizing of conditions so that employers could not bid men away from other plants. To this end there was established a basic eight-hour day and a fixed maximum sales price for lumber and also a maximum Wage. I am not at all in favor of price fixing or of putting other than a minimum limit on wages, but war-time conditions are different from those of peace and I was dealing with an emergency and had to use emergency measures. The particular BUSINESS EXECUTIVES 217 problem was to eliminate inducements for workers to shift from one camp to another. The worker had to be assured, not only of a good wage, but that he could not get a better wage by migrating to the next logging operation. The maximum price of lumber did not kill the rumors of the excessive profits of the employers but it at least enabled the workers to know the exact price their employers were receiving for lumber. We then went a step further. Up to that time the operators in the Pacific Northwest had never known how much it cost them to cut and market lumber. They had just completed a system of uniform accounting, and when the results arrived I suggested to the employers that they take them up with committees of their employees, so that every single fact would be in the hands of the men they hired. This was revolutionary. But finally I prevailed upon them to lay them on the table. The employees went with suspicious care into all the accounts. They saw the exact relation of their wages to the profits and they also calculated how much of the profits the Government would take by taxation. The committees went back to their fellows with exact figures that contradicted the preachings of the I.W.W. that the em- ployers were getting everything and the workers were getting nothing. And let me say right here in all fairness that the lumbermen of the Pacific Northwest represent one great industry which did not profiteer during the war. The average worker is no fool. He does not want to kill the goose that lays the golden eggs, but he will certainly not take his employer's unsupported word on the question of profits. Having demonstrated to the men by the books that the employers were not making exorbitant profits, it became possible to ask them to play fair and to join with the employers in bettering the condition of the industry. The first requisite of fairness is to have all the cards on the table; we had all of them on the table. I had learned during seventeen years as an officer in the Army, that it is not the power to enforce obedience, but the willingness to obey, that brings results, and that an absolutely square deal will inevitably induce that willingness. I carried that same thought into the management of a large state prison some years ago. That prison was also an industrial establishment doing a business of three million a year; instead of running it as a prison I managed 2i8 PRACTICAL PSYCHOLOGY FOR it as a factory. We raised wages, reduced hours, and got together in frequent talks to explain what we were trying to do. And the prisoners cooperated gladly. I wanted to have those same basic principles at work cutting lumber. We had meanwhile organized the "Loyal Legion of Loggers and Lumbermen" on a patriotic basis. The members pledged themselves to do their part in the winning of the war. Our only object was war and we had no thought of a permanent organization for the management of the lumber industry. I was simply recruiting an industrial army a big army of nearly two hundred thousand men scattered among more than a thousand camps and mills in three states. The agitators had of course preached against the war with the usual text that it was but another capitalist scheme to bear down the worker and they had made some headway, but it did not take long for patriotism to sweep away the obstructionists. In the forming of the organization, patriotism had its large part but I am sure we should not have succeeded without the coupling of substantial justice with patriotism. During the first year we held four conventions to which came representatives of the various camps of the sections, and out of them grew the Headquarters' Council representative sys- tem which I shall presently describe. The big thing is that once the employers and the employees each found that the other was perfectly human, a great many matters which had formerly seemed impossible of settlement now appeared to be merely subjects for mutual discussion. That is always the case let people sit down and talk and they will find a solution for nearly anything if only the conviction exists that both sides want to be fair. The early elections for workers' members of the Headquarters' Council showed the attitude of the workers toward representa- tion. The delegates at the meeting to nominate and elect these members did not know one another; of the various nominees probably not more than two were known even by name by the vast majority of those present. A delegate suggested that each nominee tell what he expected to do if elected remember these men were supposed to be ultra-radicals. It would not have been surprising if the occasion had been taken to let off a good deal of anti-capital stuff. But nothing of the kind happened; two BUSINESS EXECUTIVES 219 or three nominees started on approved I.W.W. tirades, but they did not get far the delegates howled them down; they wanted to hear doers and not talkers. Finally they elected their representatives Americans, who had stated the most sensible and constructive ideas on these points : 1. To discover first if the operators were sincere in their intentions, or if there was "a nigger in the woodpile." 2. The stabilization of the industry so that twelve months' work might be given. 3. Keeping in touch with constituents so that, as repre- sentatives, they would always represent. . . The Armistice came with the Northwest lumbering going at full swing. Instead of a limitless market with guaranteed prices and wages, operators and workers saw ahead a very unsteady market, unknown prices, and a possible return to worse than the pre-war conditions. After a taste of better living nobody wanted to go back to the old ways. They had dis- covered that, acting together, the industry could do more than if it were composed, as before, of a thousand camps disorganized on the throat-cutting basis. I had no longer any right to mix into the industry beyond the winding up of affairs; as a war measure, the Loyal Legion was scheduled to pass out of existence. But the members thought otherwise. They would not have it die; they wanted it and in two conventions held in December, 1918, the one in Portland, Oregon, and the other in Spokane, Washington, the Loyal Legion of Loggers and Lumbermen began as a peace organization, faced with the reconstruction of the lumber trade in the Northwest. They drew up a constitution and by-laws and the objects as stated in the constitution give an idea of the broad purposes which dominated : To maintain the basic eight-hour day. To ensure to the workman a just and equitable wage, and to the employer a maximum degree of efficiency. To standardize working and living conditions in camps and mills. To create a community spirit by the promotion of matters pertaining to public welfare, in each locality. To encourage, when and where it is found feasible, cooper- ative hospitals for the care of the sick and injured, and medical attention to the families of members. 220 PRACTICAL PSYCHOLOGY FOR To cooperate with the legislative bodies of the various states for the improvement of laws relative to accident insurance and the prevention of accidents. To institute, when feasible, employment service. To further recreation and educational facilities in the camps and mills. To provide an organization on the basic principle of the "square deal," in which both employer and employee are eligible for membership and may meet on common ground. To promote closer relationship between employer and em- ployee in the lumber industry. To provide means for the amicable adjustment, on an equitable basis, of all differences that may arise between employer and employee. To foster personal relationship and the spirit of loyalty be- tween the employers, their representatives, and the employees. To provide methods of informing its members upon all questions of trade interest to operators and workmen. To favor the development of logged-over lands for actual settlers, upon a reasonable system of payments. To develop, to the highest degree possible, loyalty to the United States and its laws and government, and to promote and demand proper respect for its flag. The patriotic urge still remained and the following pledge which every member is required to take might serve as a model for any organization. "I, the undersigned, firmly convinced that the best interests of both employer and employee in the lumber industry are con- served by the principles set. forth in the constitution and by-laws of the Loyal Legion of Loggers and Lumbermen, and that the great principles of democracy upon which the United States was established and upon which it must continue to operate, are based upon the mutual cooperation which is the foundation of the Loyal Legion of Loggers and Lumbermen, do solemnly promise and vow that I will, to the utmost of my ability, seek to promote a closer relationship between employers and employees of the industry; to standardize and coordinate working condi- tions ; to improve the living environment in camps and mills ; to promote the spirit of cooperation and mutual helpfulness among the workers and operators, as a patriotic endeavor look- BUSINESS EXECUTIVES 221 ing toward the welfare of our citizens; to build up the efficiency of the industry for the prosperity of every individual connected therewith; and to stamp out anarchy and sabotage wherever I may find it." In consequence of these policies the lumber industry has gone from a war to a peace basis without more than a tremor. Neither the employers nor the employees have found it neces- sary to talk about "reconstruction" or to hold investigations or to collect statistics. There is no unemployment and there is not even the rumor of a strike for there is nothing to strike about. Why? The employer and the employee are thinking in terms of each other. THE SUCCESSFUL MAINTENANCE OF LOY- ALTY AND MORALE 1 We asked this unusual manager to consider us one of his committee and give us exactly the kind of thing he had been handing out to his men the hour before, or previous hours. He agreed, and this is what he gave us: We do not know which way the country is going. A financial readjustment is certain to come. But whatever the result White Motor wants to survive, and wants to govern itself and not be dictated to by outsiders. How can we survive and keep control of this business among ourselves whichever way the country goes? And what is there in it for you to have helped the White Motor keep on in the way it has started, regardless of what happens outside? Let us see. There are three hundred manufacturers of motor trucks in America. A large number of them will go to the wall. We manufacture about ten per cent of the total output of the country. We want to keep that ten per cent. If we do we shall have to keep on absorbing our ten per cent of all those that go under. That means that we shall need to double our plant in, say two years, and triple it in five years. Now, if we double or triple our plant what will it mean for us? 1 John R. Commons. Industrial Government. The Macmillan Com- pany. New York. 1921. p. 3-12. Reprinted by Permission. 222 PRACTICAL PSYCHOLOGY FOR Well, we doubled it during the past five years and here is what it meant: While our plant value increased from $1,879,000 in 1914 to $3.650,000 in 1919 our production value increased from $9,000,000 in 1914 to over $35,000,000 in 1919. This means that five years ago for every dollar we invested in our plant we produced about $4.80 worth of motor trucks, and this year for every dollar in the plant we produced $9.60 worth of trucks. The number of employees has more than doubled. The ave- rage number of men in 1914 was 2202 ; now it is 5475. The pro- duction per man in 1914 was 1-92/100 trucks; in 1919, it was 2-75/100 trucks, an increase of forty three per cent. We have increased the earnings of our employees from an average of $15.03 a week in 1914 to $31.64 in 1919, or an in- crease of one hundred eleven per cent. Our total pay roll for factory employees in 1914 was $1,688,000, now it is $8,835,000. All this has been done without any material increase in the price to the purchaser of our trucks. Our price has been in- creased only ten per cent, at a time when all prices, wages, and cost of material have gone up fifty per cent, one hundred per cent, or more. Looks wonderful, doesn't it? Can we keep it up? See where we must be to double in two years and triple in five years, if we can keep it up. The figures given below show the estimated fac- tory value of production for each of the next five years: Factory Value of Production 1920 $ 1921 67,244,100 1922 82,526,850 1923 97,809,600 1924 113,092,350 The big thing is, where are we going to get the capital in order to expand? The business that does not expand is really falling behind. We must expand further than our competitors, or else we are falling behind. If we take five years we can probably build up our plant out of earnings. If we have to go too fast in order to take up our share of the business of those BUSINESS EXECUTIVES 223 who fail we may have to go and get outside capital. As long as we have the present control you can be certain that the pres- ent labor policy will be carried out. Our policy has been in the past and is now, to limit payment of dividends to eight per cent on capital stock. On what devices does the White Motor depend for keeping up and increasing production? The White Motor has neither any system of bonuses, prem- iums or piece rates. Everything is a straight day wage. No time and motion studies, no specific inducements to individuals to increase their output. There is, of course, a very careful system of scheduling the work through the factory and there is a standard output figured out for a year ahead showing how many trucks must be made if they keep up to the plan of expansion. The year's output has been narrowed down to four types of motor trucks, with some variations within the types, and all models are scheduled for erection daily. The figure of each day's output of com- pleted trucks is filed with the various superintendents so that the organization is familiar with the result of each day's work and the production both of completed trucks and the main as- semblies, such as engines, axles, and transmissions, is published each month in the regular issue of the White-Book so that the workmen are kept informed concerning the product of the fac- tory. No individual is speeded up by a piece rate, bonus or premium the whole factory is simply watching that the schedule is met or exceeded. Then, if a department falls behind, or if the whole factory falls behind, the fifty-eight hundred employees want to know where the fault lies. The committees and the management begin to inquire. Cases come along occasionally where the men in a department freeze out a loafer. The man- agement is proud of the fact that they seldom fire a man, and, most of all, that the men seldom quit. The turnover records are astonishing. During the year 1919 the rate was about 2454 per cent. It got as low as 1.23 per cent in February ; as high as 2.65 per cent in Ma}'. In 1916 the turn- over was the highest 77 per cent for the year; in 1917 it was 66 per cent; in 1918, it was 63 per cent, but this should come 224 PRACTICAL PSYCHOLOGY FOR down to 54 per cent after deducting army enlistments. The average for other factories that year in Cleveland and vicinity was stated by the company to have been about 300 per cent. To sum it all up, what are the White Motor's substitutes for the motion studies, piece work, profit sharing and all the other scientific methods of appealing to the individual for in- creased product. Isn't it something like this? Thinking and planning for the future. Keeping the mind of every man away from whatever there is of dullness and monotony in his task. Just touching the imagination ; arousing in every heart zeal for progress and pride in a great common enterprise; lighting up the most menial and stupefying task with the rays of a great industrial vision. But all this is not as easy as it may sound. How are you going to get a good red-blooded workman to sit down and be lectured to on the subject of a great industrial vision? How are you going to get him to believe that expansion has some- thing in it for him? The White Motor Management does it by the policy of hon- esty and openness. It furnishes copies of its annual report to all employees requesting it, and sets forth in the White-Book the essential facts contained in the report. The White-Book is sent every month into the homes of every employee and it forces information about itself not only to the men but also on their wives and families. It shows what they have to fear and what they have to hope, and then promises to keep faith with them in sharing prosperity with them. It does not offer all this information in the name of indus- trial democracy. The shop committee in the White Motor Com- pany was started neither as a grievance committee nor a legis- lative body. The idea back of it was not in any sense the idea back of the inside organization of workmen which union men are accustomed to designate with greater or less scorn as "a company union." The company has never made any attempt to give the employees any degree of industrial self-government. One of the objects of this committee was apparently exactly the opposite it was that some day employees may assume a greater or less degree of self-government, and if this company is going to be one of those which survive it must prepare the workmen BUSINESS EXECUTIVES 225 to exercise intelligently whatever degree of power they may have. It is not for the company to give power, it is for it to give the information which may save it when the workmen have power. The company is not trying to determine the form of organization under which the power may sometime be wielded. The company keeps in its employ strong, responsible, intelligent leaders of every variety of organization which is likely ever to be in control. This seems to be all that it cares to do toward securing a safe transition into any form of industrial govern- ment which may come. Which form this industrial government will take is still a question. Many trades are to be found in the factory, most of them at least partially organized. Cleveland is one of the most highly organized cities in the country, so that although White Motor has an open shop policy, a large part of the men probably are or have been at some time members of the union of their trade. No union, however, has ever presented a demand to the com- pany. Informal shop committees have asked for wage in- creases or other changes in conditions, and their requests have been listened to, but the unions have not interfered in the question of wages. Only once have they shown any great de- gree of activity and that was when the men got an idea that a change of management was impending. Then how can the White Motor Company get production like this on a straight hourly rate? In the long run, according to the officials of the company, time rather than piece rates will prove to be the cheapest. It costs too much to hurry. It is more economical to employ a young man and keep him until he grows old, than to wear out a man, or lose him when he is young. They point to their average age of over thirty-five and their annual turnover of 24^ per cent in connection with their increased per capita produc- tion figures. Time and motion studies, they maintain, are al- most necessarily liable to grave error. They are not elastic enough. In order to be fairly accurate they need to be taken on very hot days and comfortable days; early in the morning and just before closing time; early in the week and late in the week ; during periods of political and industrial turmoil, and during periods of political and industrial calm. They vary 226 PRACTICAL PSYCHOLOGY FOR under conditions of domestic difficulty and domestic tranquillity. Human beings are not constant in their ability to perform. Their attainments must be measured over reasonably long periods. Is there any other factor that can help to account for increasing per capita production on an hourly rate? When you offer desirable conditions you get your pick of employees. As might be expected there is never any lack of applicants for work at the White Motor. As a matter of fact, the employ- ment department takes about one out of every thirty or forty applicants. Two conditions are required of each one who is employed; he must live in Cleveland and he must have taken out his first citizenship papers. Preference is given to married men and returned soldiers. The word "he" is used literally here. It means what it says. The company aims to pay a family wage and endeavors to employ family men. Much of the work could be performed by women, but it is the intention of the company to use only men. There is in the White Motor plant a considerable amount of "service work." It takes the usual forms of furnishing lunch and medical aid. Then there is the consultation bureau where legal aid and other forms of advice are dispensed on company time. The company shows that this is no loss to them since it furnishes a convenient place to transact the necessary business for which employees might otherwise have to lay off during working hours. And it is on record that the men themselves once petitioned to have more men in the Industrial Service Department to answer their requests in order that they need not spend so much time away from their work. The foremen and all executives get a special kind of service work. It is one hour a day in the gymnasium, on company time, and it is mandatory. If a foreman cannot arrange his work so as to be away from it for an hour, he is not the kind of a foreman they want. This is the White Motor course of instruction for foremen and executives it gets them acquainted with each other undressed ; it keeps them in splendid physique ; and it keeps them from indigestion and getting cross and sour with their workmen ; it keeps them at the top notch of initiative and pep. BUSINESS EXECUTIVES 227 The educational work does not stop with the shop. There are in addition the classes of Americanization. Suspicion need not be aroused here with regard to employers' propaganda. The man at the head of Americanization is a man of liberal thought. He attends national Socialist conferences and he is first of all a teacher and an American. He has lived in this country twenty years. There are only thirty men out of fifty-eight hundred employees who have not taken out their first papers, and that is because they intend to go back to Europe soon. The teacher in Americanization has connected up with the public schools and three hundred men are in the classes an hour a day on their own time. The company gives them fifteen minutes on company time to wash up and reach the Public School. The cost of all this work is figured out for the men and they see that it takes eight cents a day from their possible wages. But they see that it adds much to their actual wages. Is anything more needed to explain why they work as they do? What is back of it all? Not a strong union with power to secure for the men the benefits of increased production. Not industrial democracy. Not a premium or a bonus. Nothing but a knowledge of all the facts which the company itself possesses ; the company's verbal assurance that it will do certain things in the future; the company's reputation for keeping faith with employees in the past; for not having tried to "put anything over," and, added to this, the knowledge that the company has not weeded out of its employ all those who disagree with the present industrial system. On the contrary, it has deliberately encouraged the presence of strong and trusted leaders of the people, in whom they have confidence and on whose judgment and intentions they can rely. Real power is here potential largely, but power which makes it possible for the men at the White Motor to accept their responsibility and satisfaction in thinking and planning for the future. XII. LABOR'S PART IN WELFARE WORK Many managers refuse to use the name "welfare work" for the benefit features of their plant policy because the name has become associated in the minds of workers with a patronizing form of charity. It is being called "service work" in many cases for the purpose of avoiding the offensive associations of "welfare work." Business men have countless times been dis- appointed because the workers showed little or no gratitude for the gifts, benefits and services bestowed upon them free of cost. The fact of the case is that what has seemed to employers to be sheer ingratitude on the part of their workers has been simply a normal human self-respect. People, whether employers or employees, resent gifts which smack of charity. There is no denying that in the past a very large part of welfare work has proceeded upon the assumption that the normal worker does not have the same self-respect which his employer prides himself upon. Not a few employers who would feel sharply insulted at the insinuation that they personally were the recip- ients of charity cannot understand why their workers term similar profferings "hell-fare" work. There is only one solid psychological basis for welfare work and that is a due recog- nition of the sentiments of self-esteem, self-respect and self- expression of men. PSYCHOLOGICAL LIMITS TO WELFARE WORK 1 As the Commission (on adult education) phrased the prob- lem, it is "to humanize the working of an industrial system which is based on the perfection of the machine." Obviously, yes. But how? There are two suggestions that we ought to consider before proceeding further. They are those offered by the social uplifter and the manufacturer. "Improve the living 1 John Manning Booker. Industrial Partnership. Yale Review. Jan- uary, 1020. p. 293-5- 230 PRACTICAL PSYCHOLOGY FOR conditions of the laborer," says the former; "and stimulate his interest in moulding these conditions." "Give him a better industrial training," says the latter; "the more he knows about his work, the better he will like it." We can readily believe that such measures would aid in quieting industrial unrest; we cannot conceive how they would allay it. For three-quarters of a century the social uplift worker has been nobly engaged in bettering the conditions of living created by modern industry. With much to be done, he has accomplished much ; but his most has failed to bring content. Even where he has secured the active cooperation of the state and the individual manufacturer and, in consequence, succeeded in attaining or approximating his ideals, he has failed, we venture to say, to bring content. Houses designed with a view to please the workman's eye and reduce the labor of his wife sewered, drained, centrally heated, electrically lighted, equipped with "all the modern con- veniences," and with a stunted evergreen in a garden box on each side of the front door; hospitals and community nurses; schools that have theatres, refectories, gymnasiums, pictures on the walls, and even real teachers in the class rooms; libraries open or closed shelf ; parks and playgrounds with trained attendants, one to show the larger children how to use the gymnastic apparatus, another to lead the songs and dances of the middle-sized children, and a third to dust the babies ; churches with every conceivable parish house activity and preachers who make using the Ten Commandments seem easy and natural all this is paradise, but it is not content. And the real man would be just about as contented in such a community as he would be in paradise; which is to say, not much. Unless, con- trary to everything we have been led to expect, he should be permitted to tumble it down and build it over again. We could get used to walking on golden pavements in no time ; but it would make us extremely nervous and depressed to know they were permanently laid. The industrial education idea appeals to us as nearer the mark; but it falls short. It benefits too few. It benefits the real craftsman the designers among laborers. But this element has decreased in proportion to the increase of quantity output. In past times every skilled workman was a designer or an apprentice to a designer; but nowadays the only survivor of BUSINESS EXECUTIVES 231 the craftsman is literally one in a thousand. Tens of thousands engaged in making clothes for American men; and how many cutters! Industrial education is a splendid thing; but it is for the few, because under modern conditions only the few have a chance to use it. The betterment 'of living conditions and the spread of indus- trial education, therefore, will not, in our opinion, suffice to content the workman and allay the industrial unrest. At its present stage this discussion may be thus summed up. If the workman is to be happy in his work, his building instinct must be satisfied. This instinct, which formerly found relief in making a whole thing, has been choked by the processes of modern manufacture involved in quantity output. The machinery of modern industry has made a machine of the workman; it has brutalized him. But the industrial system is here to stay. The problem is how to humanize it. How can we change the workman's job so that while he is at it he will feel like a man building something? Like a man? Like a god. And then to find enough of such jobs. A large order that. Profit-sharing will not fill it, or betterment of living conditions, or industrial education. We cannot see how any of these things alone will correct the existing evil, because, to our mind, none of them is aimed at the root of it, namely, the industrial system's stultification of the individual workman's building instinct. ESSENTIAL CONDITIONS OF WELFARE WORK 1 Since Owen's time there have been many well-intentioned plans of workers, but they have not met with the success expected. The failure of Pullman, Illinois, still lingers in memory as an exhibition of what a short-sighted labor policy may result in, however kindly the spirit in which the plan is launched. In other cases, by ignoring the wishes of the workers when providing for them, considerable losses have been incurred. A widely known textile company in Rhode Island spent $20,000 in providing a well-equipped clubhouse for its workers; but it met with little success. One of the largest corporations in this 1 Daniel Bloomfield. Labor Maintenance, p. 14-22. The Ronald Press Company. New York. 1920. 232 PRACTICAL PSYCHOLOGY FOR country spent over a million dollars in establishing "welfare" work but this did not prevent a very serious and costly strike. Organised Labor Suspicious Organized labor has been particularly hostile to welfare work as ordinarily practiced. And why? It is not that the worker is unappreciative, but that he will not be patronized. He objects to having his initiative weakened or destroyed. Furthermore, he has had bitter experience with employers who have used welfare work as a club over him, who have conducted it for advertising purposes, or who have used it as a substitute for a fair, living wage. He has had experience with employers who boasted of their fine plan for sick benefits, when sanitary conditions in their plants were intolerable and the object of attack by the health authorities. He remembers employers who produced and dis- tributed finely printed, expensive pamphlets describing the "wel- fare" work at their mines while they robbed the employee at the "company" store because no other store existed or was allowed to exist in the town. He cannot forget the employer's "model" town with its model houses from which he was evicted without a chance to find other shelter because a foreman "had it in for him" and he was discharged from the plant. He still meets friends who lost many an hour wearily waiting for frequent shortages of pay to be adjusted while the publicity representative of the company was telling of the fine things being done for the workers' welfare. "Trade Union Views" An unusually clear statement is found in the memorandum prepared by the Joint Committee of the Woolwich Trades and Labor Council, and the Woolwich Labor Party. This paper states that: The following conditions are essential to any scheme of welfare supervision that is to win the full confidence and support of the workers: 1. Welfare supervision must aim primarily at promoting the welfare of the workers, and not at increasing the workers' output. 2. In the interest of welfare supervision and of the workers, duties which conflict with welfare supervision must not be included in the works of welfare supervisors. BUSINESS EXECUTIVES 233 3. Welfare schemes and supervisors must be under a demo- cratic system of control in which the workers shall have equal participation with the employers. 4. The established field of operations of trade unions and their officials must be clearly and loyally recognized by welfare schemes and supervisors. 5. Welfare supervisors should be drawn, as far as possible, from among the workers. 6. Welfare supervisors should not be appointed without pre- liminary training or experience, such training to include a knowledge of trade union aims and methods. 7. The remuneration and hours of all assistants in welfare supervision work (e.g. canteen workers) must be of a trade union standard. 8. If government control of welfare supervision is maintained after the war, such control must be transferred from the Min- istry of Munitions to the Ministry of Labour. We submit further that: 9. There should be the maximum of efficient cooperation among local welfare schemes, especially with regard to small factories. 10. There should be the maximum of efficient cooperation between local welfare schemes and the municipality, especially with regard to health, housing, transit, and recreation. 11. As welfare supervision will probably become a permanent and extending element of the industrial system, there should be held in each industrial center, one or more conferences, convened by the Trade Council, or where there is also a local labour party, both bodies jointly, for the purpose of considering the aims, scope, and methods of welfare supervision; and that such local conferences should be followed by a joint conference of the Trade Union Congress and the National Labour Party. In short, labor does not want the worker bound to his employer by any scheme no matter how great its benefits. The worker wants no "benevolent feudalism." On the other hand, to quote the words of Bolen in Getting a Living, the statement cited above shows also that: The staunchest unionists are not so unreasonable as to be hostile to the welfare institutions of the employer who asks no surrender of manly right, nor attempts to reimburse himself from wages and who, not posing as a philanthropist nor expect- 234 PRACTICAL PSYCHOLOGY FOR ing gratitude, treats his men well because it is the only right way a way equally as profitable to himself as to them or to society. There need be no trouble here if the employer's designs are those of straightforward business. In her recent book on the subject, Miss E. Dorothea Proud defines welfare work to consist "of voluntary efforts on the part of employers to improve, within the existing industrial system, the conditions of employment in their own factories." She excludes profit-sharing and co-partnership from this defini- tion. George M. Price in The Modern Factory, defines welfare work as "all devices, appliances, activities, and institutions voluntarily created and maintained by employers for the purpose of improving the economic, physical, intellectual, or social con- ditions of the workers in their industrial establishments." With such a conception of "welfare work" organized labor has no quarrel. SUCCESSFUL ADMINISTRATION OF WELFARE WORK 1 It will be found that in slightly more than one-half the cases the administration of this work is by employers alone. This may give a somewhat wrong impression, since there are neces- sarily many firms reported which do comparatively little along these lines. The companies which do the least are those most likely to control entirely such features as they have, partly because the kinds of work first introduced are usually those which naturally remain under the immediate direction of the firm, and partly because it usually takes some experience to realize the desirability of giving the employees an active part in the conduct of the welfare activities. It is natural that the employer should direct the work of the emergency hospital, although there are a number of cases where this has been given over to the benefit association; similarly several firms allow their employees to manage the lunch room, whether on a cooperative basis or using the profits for the benefit or athletic association. The employees quite frequently 1 Welfare Work for Employees in Industrial Establishments in the United States. United States Bureau of Labor Statistics. Bulletin. 250. p. 121-2. BUSINESS EXECUTIVES 235 have a voice in the management of the club rooms or houses, in several instances being given entire control of the clubhouse. In the matter of athletics and recreation more often the em- ployer plays a passive part, assisting financially and providing rooms for meeting purposes, gymnasiums, and athletic fields. The work among families, except what is done in connection with the benefit association, is entirely under the direction of the companies through the medium of the welfare secretary or visiting nurse. The administration of the benefit association is in most cases either mutual or in the hands of the employees. Pensions and group insurance funds, generally being provided by the firms, are administered by them, as is much of the educational work, although frequently members of the force assist in teaching, especially in the classes in English for foreigners. Mention must be made of one conspicuous and well-known example of cooperative management by the firm and its em- ployees of both the business and the welfare organization. It has been the policy of this company, in increasing degree through the past quarter of a century, to give the employees a share in the management. An association of the employees is maintained, to which all of them belong. The affairs of this organization are conducted by a group elected by the employees, and this executive body has the power to make, change or amend any rule that affects the discipline or working conditions of the employees. This can be carried even over the veto of the management by a two-thirds vote of all the employees. This association is also represented by four members on the board of eleven directors of the corporation. All the parts of the welfare organization have been carefully built up and are con- trolled and managed by the council of the association through committees. The firm contributes club and business rooms, certain salaries, and any other assistance necessary. The funda- mental principle followed by the club in the management, however, is that these activities shall be in the main self-supporting and that financial or other assistance rendered by the firm shall receive a direct return from the employees in increased efficiency. There is no doubt that in this particular instance the generous and broad-minded policy of the firm is reflected in the very unusual personal interest in the business which is evidenced by the employees as a whole. XIII. THE MIND OF THE ALIEN AND AMERICANIZATION The chief factor left out of account in a great deal of Americanization work is the mind of the alien. The assumption has been that a certain amount of moral preaching on the duty of the immigrant to appreciate what America has done for him, a certain amount of night school teaching of the English language, and a certain amount of information about the history and life of America would create a new loyalty and a new mental outlook. This assumption leaves out of account the fundamental influences upon the psychological structure of the alien. It grossly underestimates the grip of the cultural back- ground of the alien's previous life upon his present thoughts and emotions. It decidedly overestimates in any number of cases the benefits for which the alien ought to feel grateful. Working conditions, through the effect of low wages on the possessive instincts and the parental instincts, through the effect of long hours and of fatigue and monotony upon the nervous organism, through the effect of industry upon the creative and self-assertive impulses of the worker, are building hour by hour into the worker's life his basic loyalties, gratitudes, and satis- factions. If working conditions are sound, the foundation of Americanization is secure. Propaganda, language teaching, in- struction in history, and the like, are at best a superstructure. They cannot shake the fundamental loyalties of the worker as they are fashioned in the thousand experiences of the alien's daily life. When both approaches are made, Americanization is a natural, spontaneous outcome. Americanization is a thing that cannot be forced; it must grow from within as a feeling and a mental outlook. Americanization should establish itself psychologically by recognizing first and last the mind of the alien. 238 PRACTICAL PSYCHOLOGY FOR THE DISTINCT PSYCHOLOGICAL BACK- GROUND OF THE ALIEN 1 If assimilation is the establishment of an identity of interest expressed through common reactions to American thought and life, through a unity of public opinion, and through a common belief in American government and institutions, what then are the principles which native and foreign born alike can under- stand and apply in the every day affairs of life? Recognition is the first of these principles recognition by the American of the capacities, qualities, and contributions which the immigrants bring; and by the immigrant of the ideals and achievements of Americans. Americans, hitherto, have been inclined to "lump their appreciation" of what the various races have brought to America. They judge racial traits largely by direct and indirect contact with individual members or with isolated groups of the various races, and not by a knowledge of the history and culture of the races as a whole, of which the individual is but the product. But recently a systematic effort has been made, notably by the Literary Digest and other maga- zines, to bring before the American people the characteristics and achievements of the various races. This new interest on the part of America toward racial information has been one of the contributions which the war has stimulated. But the application of this racial information to practical affairs is hardly begun. For instance, Americans regard quite differently the Italian in America who is doing rough labor, than they do the Italian in his native environment; and they seem to see little connection between the ditch digger and the literature and art of his race. Also, it scarcely occurs to us that there is reason for a joint celebration on Columbus Day by native Americans and foreign born Italians, and only recently have we begun to recognize their national holidays. By such lack of appreciation we have failed to convey to the members of almost every race whatever concept we may have had of their racial accomplishments. This apparent unwillingness or inability of the Americans to connect in their own minds the immigrant with his heritage, 1 From Immigration and the Future. By Frances Kellor. p. 259-64. Copyright 1921. George H. Doran Company, Publishers. BUSINESS EXECUTIVES 239 has caused us to pay but little attention to the individual. On the one hand he has been admitted to the country, which in itself may be taken as a recognition, either of his desirability or of his labor. American citizenship has been offered to him a decided recognition that he could appreciate a free government. American schools have been opened to him, a recognition of his desire to learn our language and history. An earnest effort was made to Americanize him a recognition, from one point of view of his worthiness, or from another point of view of its necessity to America. Coincident with the war there has also been established a number of joint societies a recognition of the desirability of bringing the various races and native Americans together. Increasing attention has also been given to the holdings of exhibitions of the arts and crafts of the races a recognition of the cultural contribution which the immigrants have made to America. But what of the day's work the place and time where most theories are tested and where most ambitions are realized? Here the tendency has been to limit our recognition of the immigrant to his value as a laborer. As a result, discriminations in employment, in promotions, in treatment and in living con- ditions have, to a considerable extent, usurped the place of recognition. This limitation of recognition to labor values explains, in a large measure, our inability to absorb or to incorpo- rate other racial values into the native American system. This has resulted in a loss to American business, as a few observations will show. Deterioration in workmanship, no less than low production, is creating anxiety among American manufacturers; not only because of the increased cost but because of its possible effect upon international markets. A considerable part of this deterio- ration is due unquestionably to the loss of immigrants and to our past neglect to conserve the quality of workmanship of immigrants. It is also due to our failure to note the varying qualities in different races, qualities which best fit them for American industry, by giving the highest return in the quality and quantity of production. What are some of these qualities that deserve recognition? First, the immigrants of the majority of the races which supply America with unskilled labor have a capacity for faithful operation and a natural instinct for perfection. As part of 240 PRACTICAL PSYCHOLOGY FOR the craft training of the old world they take pride in their work, and their desire for perfection yields more slowly to the insistent pressure for quantity. Second, they have a definite "work sense," which they do not constantly seek to evade. Third, they possess a better discipline in working together. Fourth, the peasant has the patience to do the drudgery incident to monot- onous work and the endurance to stand its strain. Fifth, they have a sense of frugality which eliminates waste in plant operations. Sixth, they have a capacity for self-discipline and for working together within the narrow confines of mechanical work, an asset to which Americans have given little thought. The American producer who must compete in the markets of the world, including America, with the products which these races will make in their native lands, may well consider whether the encouragement of immigration of races possessing these qualities in a high degree is not a matter of considerable importance to American commerce. When competition with the frugal peoples of Europe, with their lower cost of production and higher quality of output, begins to make itself felt throughout the world, American employers may realize, when it is too late, the importance of knowing how to reach, at its source, the labor supply of the races which will ultimately produce the most of the best qualities at the least cost. The steady capability of the immigrant workman and his resistance to change are of considerable importance in production. These qualities could be utilized to a greater extent if the employer understood his racial workmen. Before the war the average employer was skeptical if he was told that his racial workman required a special recognition. Today many plants have a different atmosphere due to an increasing recognition of the immigrant. As an illustration, in a certain plant where more than a thousand Italians were employed, a condition pre- vailed which showed a lack of harmony between management and men. The management complained that the immigrant workmen did not appreciate the lunch room; and that they would not learn English, even though the classes were conducted on part company time. The men were suspicious of every advance and innovation. It was suggested to the management that it show some simple form of recognition, such as an appreciation of what the Italian national holiday meant to the workmen. On that day every member of the management BUSINESS EXECUTIVES 241 appeared wearing a red carnation. The Italian workmen under- stood the act of appreciation and, from that simple beginning, there has grown an intelligent and sympathetic method of dealing with racial workmen. Another quality, the value of which business has failed to recognize, is the frugality which most immigrants practice. The peasant, trained in a hard school of privation and want, is not prone to waste even when he acquires plenty in America. In a country where the business mind tends to act without mature deliberation, the immigrant's instinct for definition may be utilized if put into play in operations where it will count for the most. Where the American business mind is only too ready to accept new propositions, the immigrant's greater power of refusal may furnish a much needed check to hasty action and may prevent the adoption of wasteful and half-baked experi- ments. His natural tendency to preserve traditions creates a center, however ill adapted and uninformed it may be as to American conditions, to which appeals on labor and other con- troversial matters can be referred for judgment. Vast as the wealth of America is today, it furnishes no excuse for the neglect of small assets, one of which is the thrift of the immigrant. His tendency to hoard his savings and to withdraw them from circulation and thus destroy their immediate usefulness for capitalization purposes and also their earning power to himself, has not been recognized by the American. If such qualities are among the resources of immigrants, which are largely unused by American business, it is also true that some races bring to America certain qualities which make their incorporation into American institutions difficult, and it is equally important to gauge their effect upon business. The immigrant peasant moves slowly away from the beliefs, traditions and habits of his native land, and scarcely at all, unless he has the approval of some recognized authority. The processes of his mind are simple. His reactions to the complex American city are governed by a tenacity of early ideas and training, and by a routine existence which is appallingly narrow. His absorption in the day's work, with the ever present anxieties of food, shelter, and clothing, shuts him out from much of the new world about him. He is often filled with a deep-seated rancor, which is based on centuries of oppression and race feuds 242 PRACTICAL PSYCHOLOGY FOR which cause him to respond in most unexpected ways to over- tures from the American. He has a credulity growing out of an unbridled imagination which prevents him from readily per- ceiving abstract rights. His limitations in comprehending public events in a strange country create barriers through which few Americans have yet found the way. His untrained mind, unac- customed to reflection and with few resources to fall back upon to tide it over the break with the home country, requires that the simple ties of religion and of physical restraints be established immediately upon arrival. In the abscence of these, the immi- grant does not respond during crises in a way wholly under- standable to the American; and indicates a slower adaptation to American business operation and life which should be reckoned with in all industrial management experiments. But if the American has failed in his recognition of the immigrant's qualities and possible contributions to America, the immigrant has no less failed to recognize the finer traits of the American and to appreciate American achievement. He has come to know the dollar far better than he has the man. He has come to judge of American institutions, not by their illimit- able possibilities but by the pettiness of his narrow experiences. He has been contemptuous of the literature of a country which he thinks is without the richer traditions and simplicity of his older world. He has by comparison not .only disparaged much that the new country has to offer, but he has acquired some- times a supercilious and even critical attitude concerning much which, not having had a hand in the building, he does not yet fully understand. He has often mistaken liberty for license and duties for privileges. Abstract recognition of the qualities of races and of person- ality of their members will not do much for assimilation, unless a way can be found to make recognition not only apparent but mutual by effecting an exchange of ideas and ideals between the various races and between them and the native born. Thus reciprocity becomes the second principle of assimilation. Much is now being done to acquaint Americans with a knowledge of the history and an interpretation of the races, many of whose members are now in America. But as yet we have done little with our interracial problems of bringing, for instance, the ideas and ideals of the races together; or of bringing about an exchange of literature and opinion and of combining them with American thought and expression. BUSINESS EXECUTIVES 243 This is essential if we are to apply the third principle of participation which will put into operation recognition and reci- procity between races and between them and Americans. For only through the full participation of each immigrant in Amer- ican affairs will economic assimilation obtain. It is by drawing out the full contribution which immigrants can make and by utilizing their full powers, that identity of interest is finally established. This means giving to them the full opportunity to put into practice their ideals of freedom as well as their capacity for work. This means the elimination of discrimina- tions, of a sense of race superiority, of imposition of regulations without consultation, and of many similar attitudes of mind which now limit the immigrants' participation in American affairs and which now turn their attention to institutions and countries where they can find a fuller expression. Economic assimilation of immigration, then, is the applica- tion of the principles of recognition, reciprocity, and participation by native and foreign born in the day's work. It has for its objective the irrevocable integration of the immigrant into American life at every economic point. NEW OPPRESSIONS FOR OLD * In America we have inherited all the oppression problems of Europe and out of them we are trying to build up a cooper- ating democracy in which men may rise to their full human dignity. One-tenth of our population is Negro with its actual or potential psychoses, and approximately one-third of the re- mainder is either foreign born or of foreign-born stock. Counting the Irish, it is no exaggeration to say that there are in the United States more than twenty million people who are more or less psychopathic on account of one or all forms of oppression previously or at present experienced in Europe. The problem of merging these peoples of varying backgrounds and intense attitudes ought not to be, and cannot be, the method of the melting-pot which aims to make a uniform society. It can be solved only by the paradoxical method of indirection. Central Europe has proved conclusively that lan- 1 Herbert Adolphus Miller. The Oppression Psychosis and the Im- migrant. Annals of the American Academy. January, 1921. p. 137-44- 244 PRACTICAL PSYCHOLOGY FOR guage cannot be assimilated by attacking it directly. In my opinion more progress would have been made in "Americaniza- tion" if no one had ever thought of it, although that does not mean that it is not an advantage to promote humane relation- ships. What should be meant by Americanization is the bringing of all the people of America into participation in a progressive democracy, with tolerance toward the varying customs and beliefs, so as to articulate a society rich in content and orderly in process. America to the immigrant is an opportunity in those direc- tions in which he has previously been oppressed. The great danger is that similar forms of oppression may be found here. He brings a complex of attitudes and he needs a proper meeting of those attitudes. What he can give us most definitely is an object lesson in political science. If we heed it we may almost reform the world; if we ignore it we shall help to perpetuate what the war sought to banish from the earth. But the teaching of English should be called education, not Americanization, which is likely to offend because it implies the same old culture domination which is more hateful than political domination. We should foster the self-respect of the immigrant by respecting the language for whose very existence his people have struggled for centuries. As Chicago and Mil- waukee have already done, we should offer in the high schools courses in any foreign language for which there are children demanding it in numbers sufficient to form a class. We could thus preserve the language possession already attained by the children, and also promote respect in the children for their parents ; and in the parents we should be dislodging the suspicion that America practices the hated policy of Europe. There is no other way comparable with this for making English respected and loved, for it will thus stand out as a medium of opportunity and not as an instrument of annihilation. In the same way the foreign born need their press. They need it because there is no way in which they can learn the news of the world and the facts and purposes of American life. Even if they learn English they will not be able to get its spirit as they still live in that of their native tongue. How many of us who have studied French and German much more than the average immigrant will ever be able to study English would choose a French or German newspaper in preference to an English one? BUSINESS EXECUTIVES 245 We must accept at their face value, and with infinite patience, both the normal and the pathological attitudes. The foreign born will never forget the land of their origin and their responsibility for it so long as injustice prevails there; the identification of America with the problems of Europe, there- fore, is so close that we can not escape our share in the responsibility however much we may wish. There can be no real Americanization of the immigrant unless there is a real league of nations, as the symbol of a real organization which will substitute in Europe a reign of justice for the reign of immortality. The isolation of America is pure illusion. The only way it can be regained is by identifying ourselves with a democratic reorganization of Europe. If an unjust domination is imposed on Germany, the many millions of German stock in America will gradually and inevitably develop a political solidarity such as they never knew before. Most of the nations of Europe have only one or two inter- national problems, but we have every one of the problems of all the nations within our borders. To deny or overlook this is to pull down over our own heads the pillars upon which rest our political and social structures. No country in Europe is so dependent on just relationships as is the United States. Fifty per cent of the Irish, twenty per cent of the Poles, and a large percentage of all the other long-oppressed peoples are in America and constitute from one-third to two-thirds of the population of many of our leading centers. The foreign born need a renewal of the faith that has been waning in the freedom and democracy of America to obtain which they came to these shores. Through what those who came here told their oppressed kinsmen in Europe, the latter came to look to America for salvation, and through them the real purpose of America may still be the salvation of Europe. To discriminate against those who are living among us means a perpetuation in America of the hatreds of the past in Europe. We must devise a political science and social practice which will give them the self-expression here that self- determination aims to give in Europe. Just as finally the American authorities tried to mobilize the attitudes of the immigrants for purposes of war, so they must mobilize them for peace. Foolish and frantic methods of Americanization should yield to the realization that we are dealing with a psychological and moral problem, and that a 246 PRACTICAL PSYCHOLOGY FOR league of nations is potential in the United States. If we could organize the representatives of the countries of Europe who are in America behind a program for a reconstructed world, we should have an instrument for world-order whose potentiality can not be measured. Instead, we hide our heads in the sand and think to make them forget by teaching them English ! There is no panacea for dealing with the immigrant simpler than that required for the whole world. And the existing deep- seated psychoses can only be cured through a long process of time. We must deal as wise physicians with a soul-sick people for whose trouble we have no responsibility but who have become an integral part of our lives. ADAPTATION OF AMERICANIZATION TO THE ALIEN'S MAKE-UP 1 The night school is praiseworthy, but does not give the immigrant a fair chance to learn. After a man has labored for ten hours at monotonous, tiresome work, the fatigue toxins have dulled the brain. Only the exceptional individuals among the unskilled men have enough initiative left to attend school at night. Further, the night school method gives an outsider the impression that the physical work, that the unskilled immi- grant can do, is the thing that is of paramount importance. It appears as though we consider his mental and spiritual development secondary. If the choice had to be made between giving the illiterate foreigner the poorest or the best hour of the day to secure his training in citizenship, the best hour should be his, not only for his sake but for ours as well. In order that all the workers may be reached, it will be necessary for the school to go to the factory. According to this method, the alien is given a half hour or an hour per day without wage- reduction, whereby under the direction of public school teachers who go to the shops, he may pursue the study of English and of citizenship. The public school system furnishes the teachers and the equipment; and the employers, the space, artificial light, 1 Emory S. Bogardus. Essentials of Americanization. . p. 223-5. The Foreign-Born. University of Southern California Press. Los Angeles. 1919. BUSINESS EXECUTIVES 247 their cooperative interest, and perhaps one-half hour of the time of the men without wage- reduction. Employers are learn- ing that such welfare work is economically profitable. The forces of religious education must greatly increase their efforts, or else hundreds of thousands of immigrants will lose their religious faiths and beliefs. If religion is a vital force in human life, as is generally believed, then the public educational forces must face squarely the problem and introduce adequate training in the fundamentals of religion in the public school system. The teaching of English, of civics, and of American ideals must be made so worth-while and attractive that all immigrants will desire to avail themselves of these opportunities. Employers must feel their responsibilities in regard to increasing the indus- trial efficiency and civic earnestness of their immigrant em- ployees to the extent that they (the employers) will give at least a portion of the day's time on pay so that the foreign-born adult may have a fair chance to learn the rudimentary principles of Americanism. The public must see the need of giving the honest but unlearned immigrant a cordial handshake, sympathetic glances of the eye, and full opportunities for a self-expression that is in harmony with the best American principles. If we protect the immigrant from exploitation and insist on better standards of living, of sanitation, of recreation, of education for him, he will almost automatically become a good American. If we give him a cordial welcome, a practical fraternalism, and democratic opportunities in our every-day life, he will gladly give his all to America. As a class, the immigrants are teachable and patriotic. Often they appreciate better than we the meaning of freedom. When they fairly understand Americanism, they are quick to repudiate autocracy and to push forward the cause of democracy. FUTILE DEVICES VERSUS FUNDAMENTAL SOCIAL CONTACTS 1 To many interested in Americanization, the social and polit- ical assimilation of the immigrant appears as a process of 1 Carol Aronovici. Americanization, p. 35-6. Keller Publishing Com- pany. St. Paul, Minn. 1919. 248 PRACTICAL PSYCHOLOGY FOR education. Teach the foreigner the English language, educate him about American standards, inform him about American political institutions, impress him with the opportunities afforded to him by the United States, preach to him about the moral codes of the American people, make him feel his responsibility toward America, these are the ways and means by which we expect to achieve the task that is before us. While no one would venture to discount the value of the educational processes outlined above, they imply a thoroughly developed educational system, leisure time during which this educational program can be carried out and a mental and physical receptivity in the immigrant attained through a favor- able economic and social environment. To assume that education without adequate control of environment will accomplish the assimilation of the immigrant groups is to fail to realize the value of direct, personal contact as against bookish and oratorical forcible feeding. With housing conditions unsuited for the attainment of the American ideal of home life; with low wages, irregularity of employment, bad working conditions, absence of adequate insurance against sickness, death, accident, and unemployment; with an enforced sectionalism prompted by national and racial discrimination and the constant and entirely too obvious effort to Americanize consciously or unconsciously, prompted by a sense of fear or a sense of superiority on the part of the native elements, we cannot expect a sudden change of mind in the immigrant without reservation and with full confidence in the honesty of purpose of those most active in Americanization work. The social agencies which have fought against child labor, which have made every effort to improve living conditions, the organizations interested in the promotion of social insurance, and all the other societies, organizations, and agencies working toward the improvement of living conditions in this country, have done more in the past and will continue in the future to do more toward the Americanization of the immigrant than all the Americanization leagues, societies, committees, commis- sions, boards, etc., could do under the most favorable circum- stances. Americanization without social amelioration is futile; assimilation without friendly social service is inconceivable BUSINESS EXECUTIVES 249 SOUND INDUSTRIAL ENVIRONMENT THE VITAL AMERICANIZING -INFLUENCE * After all, we really cannot Americanize the alien; he must do that for himself. It is for us to show the way; and as Americanization requires an atmosphere of mutual confidence, it is absolutely essential to win the good-will of those whom we would influence. We must look for the best methods, and try to sum up in a practical way just what is and what is not desirable. The Importance of First Impressions When the immigrant comes to this country, he brings with him the desire to enjoy the freedom and reputed good-will of America. Whatever his nationality, the lonesome stranger is ready to respond to the least sign of cordiality and consideration. Sympathetic assistance in learning the habits, customs, and traditions of the new country will bring out the best in him. If he is to become an integral part of our industrial structure he must not be treated as an interloper, but as a friend. He must find it worth while to make this country his permanent home and in doing so must understand our ideals and see the relationship of our industrial and political organization to his own job and his personal welfare. These facts are appreciated and utilized by such concerns as the Schwartzenbach-Huber Company which is carrying on an Americanization campaign in its New England plants as a part of the campaign for labor maintenance. The company believes that more can be done to establish the right spirit at the time when the foreign-born worker receives his first impres- sions than later when his opinions have been formed. Its policy, therefore, is to treat the newcomer with the courtesy and consideration with which an American would desire to be treated in a strange country, and American employees of the plant are encouraged to make their foreign co-workers feel at home. 1 Daniel Bloomfield. Labor Maintenance, p. 125-31. The Ronald Press Company. New York. iqao. 250 PRACTICAL PSYCHOLOGY FOR Managerial Attitude A Determining Factor The real work of industrial Americanization begins with employers, foremen, and bosses, for their attitude is the deter- mining factor in the success of any Americanization plan. To the foreigner, they are the persons who represent this country and American ideals. These men must get away from the notion that foreign-born workers are merely "wops," "mutts," and men without intelligence. A manager of a large industry in speaking of his foreign employees to the author called them "animals who want nothing but money," and another, expressing his labor needs, exclaimed, "We want men who don't use their brains; we want foreigners!" How little did these men know of the forces at work among these "foreigners" to capitalize their man-power and help "show the bosses that we are human beings and intend to take the control of industry away from the slave-drivers!". . . The Americanization Committee Like other service work, Americanization depends for its success upon the full cooperation of all the parties in the industrial enterprise. The alien should be given a place in the councils dealing with this type of plant activity. One of the best methods of handling this work is through a committee of workers and representatives of the management, which should, if possible, represent every nationality in the plant. We are always in danger of overlooking human distinctions of importance when we generalize about people in a wholesome way. All aliens are not alike, though some of their problems may be; nor all nationalities in daily contact likely to conform to the rough classifications we may use concerning them. The Americanization Committee of the United States Rubber Com- pany plant at Naugatuck, Connecticut, is composed of two men selected from each racial group. They have done a good deal to stimulate activity among foreign-born workers. The committee, thus constituted, should hold meetings often to discuss plans and procedure. Such representation will go a long distance to bridge the gap between the management and the new Americans. They will receive this attention as a sign of respect and consideration, and their appreciation will take the practical form of helping to keep up attendance, interest, and loyalty for the project. Moreover they will now and again offer hints and counsel of utmost practical usefulness. BUSINESS EXECUTIVES 251 Where the above suggested method has been tried, an enthusiasm has been developed which compensates the manage- ment many times over. In New Britain, Connecticut, for example, a number of the factories are cooperating in this work, and have committees some of whose functions are: 1. To assist all employees in acquiring the English language. 2. To distribute advertising leaflets and posters in order to stimulate evening school attendance. 3. To plan for special recognition of those who attend evening classes, and to encourage absent students to return. 4. To promote citizenship interest among employees. 5. To enlist foremen's interest and to help them develop a more thoughtful and sympathetic attitude. 6. To provide opportunities for social contact, through such activities as community singing and so on. The Influence of Plant Spirit The best and most lasting achievements in Americanization work have resulted from indirect, rather than direct influences. If the spirit and surroundings of the plant definitely suggest Americanism, a large part of the work has been accomplished, and a fertile soil for further successful work has been prepared. Posters, flags, first-rate and cleanly surroundings, produce an atmosphere distinctive of American work places. This environ- ment is in sharp contrast to that which many an alien has been accustomed to abroad. As the proper atmosphere has a direct bearing on the success of any Americanization plan, every executive, every foreman, and every employee must be impressed with the matter of maintaining American standards with regard to the immediate surroundings of shop, mine, and mill. This requires attention to detail, but the effort will bring better discipline, and greater care of tools and other property. Right plant relationships and an interest in the constructive educational work of the organization will also be manifest. Getting Behind the Returns A point to be borne in mind, however, in checking up Americanization projects is the inadequacy of routine statistics, necessary though they may be. Figures can never tell us how the people influenced by various projects really have been affected. There has been a tendency to make much of classroom records. It is important to go behind the returns. To accomplish this, 252 PRACTICAL PSYCHOLOGY FOR a closer contact with the groups being Americanized is required than is always found. These groups have something to say, if wise methods are used in getting at their ideas. At times, they are treated in too mechanical a fashion, and much helpful counsel is lost, which if gathered in time would do much to help improve the work. Every graduated group should be treated as an alumni group whose interest in the future good of the service that has helped them is expected for the sake of others who come after them. There is cumulative good-will in such a treatment of the groups, and the assurance of continued improvement and larger effectiveness of the whole enterprise. A California Commission A few years ago the state of California established a com- mission on housing and immigration. This commission has been a great success because from the very outset its members sought to see the immigrant problem not only from their own stand- point, but from that of the immigrant. They believed in him; they felt and showed their respect for his customs and his traditions. Nothing they ever said' caused any loss of self- esteem on the part of those they sought to help. By building on the loyalties that were natural to the alien they placed the new loyalties they sought to instil on a much stronger foundation. The new environment of the alien was a matter of large concern to the commission. Was the local environment, they inquired, such as helped or retarded real Americanization? Were influences at work on the alien which, unless checked, would embitter his spirit and develop in him a hostile attitude toward the new land? In other words, those practical Calif ornians threw mouth-filling phrases aside and faced the facts squarely. They saw that poor housing was an enemy of Americanization ; that abuses and oppressions of various kinds suffered by the alien at the hands of both his own more sophisticated country- men and those who called themselves Americans were doing more than anything else to alienate and prejudice him. These things had to be dealt with in a sensible manner if American- ization could make any headway at all. XIV. FACTORS IN INDUSTRIAL EDUCATION THE NEED FOR POLICIES OF INDUSTRIAL EDUCATION l The business of the vocational teacher is to make industry interesting. Very few laborers can reach the top. On this account some people despair of ever making work interesting. They feel that, since the workers are compelled to settle down in grooves, industry can have no meaning or incentive for them. If this conclusion is true, then the situation is hopeless. For, as far as we can see, the forces of steam, electricity, trans- portation, are driving industry into large concerns. Twenty thousand men in one factory can make automobiles cheaper than one thousand. Room at the top is lessening and the number of workers tied into grooves is increasing. The outlook is menacing for the worker, for industry, for the nation. The workers lose their interest in industry just at the time when they become more powerful than ever before in controlling industry through labor organization or politics. Without interest in their work they cannot be expected to pay attention or have any care for the economy, efficiency, or dis- cipline, without which business goes bankrupt. The inventors, the engineers, the business men, have brought on this situation. They have mastered the forces of nature and will increase their mastery. They have converted nature into capital and labor into an army. The problem of capital is the physical sciences chemistry, electricity, physics, biology. J The problem of labor is the human science, psychologyj If it is the engineer who is the expert in physical^science, it is the educator who becomes expert in psychology. *The future of industry is psychologicalA The inventors, engineers, business men of the 1 John R. Commons. Industrial Good-will, p. 139-42. McGraw Hill Book Company. New York. 1910. 254 PRACTICAL PSYCHOLOGY FOR future will be industrial psychologists. {^Industry must be educa- tional, and it is this very problem of opening up lines of promotion where physical science has closed them that is the problem of industrial education.^ For interest in one's work does not depend on a remote expectation of reaching the top. It is the next step that is interesting. The next step means accomplishment, means over- coming obstacles that are not hopeless, means initiative, means thinking on the job. To the mere "intellectual" who ponders over the labor problem, there is no hope if there is no room at the top. Hence efforts to interest workers even in the next step are despaired of. To the business man and the engineer whose opinions are formed in mastering the physical sciences, the worker is often preferred who does not think or talk back. But to the educator it is these very qualities which others reject that are his problem to b'e worked out. They are the psycho- logical problems of industry. If industry has lessened the chances of promotion it is the educator's business to open them up again. He must work out lines of advancement that may serve as a substitute, at least, for the lost chances of promotion. He must know how to suggest these lines of advancement to the employer and the worker and to work them out practically. If he sees workers confined to "enervating" jobs he must know how to get them "energized." And, just as the business man has employed and made use in the past of the inventor or engineer who reduces the physical sciences to practice, so must he enlist the inventive educator in making his business edu- cational. Then may we expect that industrial education will take its proper place. Schools and industry will dove-tail. Neither employer, laborer, nor educator will dominate. The educator will come out from his seclusion and will become industrial without being commercialized, for he will bring to industry the science of psychology. Business will become educational without being academic, for it will have its daily problems of education which cannot wait for a remote future. And labor will become more generally interested in the work, in addition to the com- pensation. BUSINESS EXECUTIVES 255 PROCESSES OF TRAINING 1 Having the training program under organized direction and control the spoiled work so common with new help drops to a remarkably low level, and the instruction being in accordance with factory requirements, production returns started with the first day of training. Many manufacturers have remarked concerning the noticeable effect of training upon the contentment of their workers and the corresponding decrease in labor turnover. They have sug- gested that previous to this, much of their turnover was due to the fact that many employees went on the job not only incom- petent, but also not well advised concerning either it or their relations to the factory. This lack of understanding breeds discontent and the consequent shifting to other jobs. In factories where few new employees were hired the training department afforded an excellent medium for improving those men and women who were below standard, either in the quality or the quantity of their production. When the older employees concerned appreciated the significance of this there was usually a scramble to grasp the opportunity. Several plants even required that their inspectors also be sent to the training room to make under instruction the parts they were daily inspecting. The decrease in "come backs" from their inspection following such a "recess" was noticed almost immediately. In a large manufacturing establishment the salesmen who had been called in for their regular spring meeting received several day's instruction in making the product they were repre- senting while on the road. Many factories have found the training room of great assistance to their planning departments. New tools and methods have been tried out to advantage before introducing them on the factory floor thus not interferring with the production schedules or causing other embarrassment. In some places the training room has even been called "the laboratory or the planning room." 1 James F. Johnson. Possibilities in Training Factory Help. Indus- trial Management. September, 1919. P. 221-4. 256 PRACTICAL PSYCHOLOGY FOR While it was not a difficult matter to sell manufacturers on this method of training still there were a few who inquired as to "the cost of the thing" more particularly than they did its benefits. Conditions for Good Training For a real training proposition, the separate training room has proven most successful. Good teaching necessitates a certain amount of privacy and it must be free from distracting influence. Besides this, the separate training room affords a constant supply of trained workers, and does not interfere with the factory schedules as does training upon the floor. It is far better suited for upgrading employees below standard, as well as better suited for investigation work of the planning department. From an economical standpoint there can be little question. The many records showing that separate training departments pay for themselves are sufficient proof of this. In most cases it was found that the results obtained depended primarily upon how the instruction was given. It required a carefully worked out policy with well planned methods of instruction and supervision, where the instruction itself was given upon regular shop equipment and the learners were required to make the factory product, or its parts, under the direction of a capable instructor, and up to the same standards and requirements as would be demanded of them when transferred to the factory proper. This furnished ideal teaching conditions, but necessitated that it be in the hands of a thoroughly capable director. Men expert in their trades did not always make good instructors, let alone directors. The teaching field was new to most tradesmen and in many instances it was necessary to give these men special training in their new job. They took to it well, and it was found that better success was obtained with these men than with men originally trained as teachers but who needed special assistance in the trade work. Spirit of Self-Expression j Training recognizes the latent qualities in men, also their desire for self-expression. Workmen the world over crave an opportunity to "get somewhere." When this quality is properly directed a fine type of employee is sure to result. Statistics show that help trained in this manner are quite contented and the labor turnover among them is remarkably low. BUSINESS EXECUTIVES 257 As a means of improving the ability of workmen who are below standard, yet not quite bad enough to fire, the training room has many times proven itself most valuable. Special instruction given to this class of workmen has often increased their production seventy-five per cent with a corresponding de- crease in their spoiled work. These men seem to take a new lease on life, and the reaction upon their fellow employees is beneficial. The privilege that is offered is eagerly accepted and the men show their appreciation in their daily work. Very few workmen look for charities from their employers. They feel that they have ability to sell and are anxious to dispose of it to advantage. It is true that whether or not this ability is fully developed, is not always considered. Yet the fact remains, nevertheless, and it is that which should be considered. To sort these men according to their abilities, or to develop these abilities in others is the manufacturer's choice. The process is highly desirable as well as profitable for both parties. But aside from this is not such procedure quite in line with the true meaning of what we hear concerning the recognition of the great human element in labor? Those manu- facturers who have training departments feel it is. FUNDAMENTALS OF TRAINING 1 The experience of the Recording and Computing Machines Company of Dayton, Ohio, affords a good example of the way in which vestibule schools were established during the war as well as an excellent statement of some of the fundamental principles involved in their management. This factory employed in 1918 about eight thousand six hundred people, of whom five thousand were women. Many of the operatives were engaged in manufacturing Russian combination time fuses, the work being done in aluminum, brass, and various other metals, and requiring accurate machining and close measurements. Manufacturing limits ran as low as five thousandths of an inch in metals quite difficult to work. 1 Roy W. Kelley. Training Industrial Workers, p. 154-9, 163-5. The Ronald Press Company. New York. 1920. 258 PRACTICAL PSYCHOLOGY FOR Meeting a Skilled Labor Shortage The supply of labor in Dayton in 1917 seemed inadequate to meet either existing or future demands. Men were scarce and the few who were available were either in clerical occupations or belonged to trades not at all allied to the mechanical work the plant had to offer, such as brick laying, structural steel working and masonry. The men engaged in these trades, intel- ligent and accustomed to high wages, were naturally unwilling to accept other war work at laborer's pay, and yet were unable to bridge the gap caused by their ignorance of mechanical methods. It was the function of the new vestibule school to train these men and at the same time to make use of the large number of women who were eager to do their part in winning the war. Forming a Training Department The training department was located in a well-lighted room entirely separate from the factory. In it were placed all of the different types of machines upon which training was con- sidered necessary, such as hand-turret screw machines, auto- matic screw machines, thread millers, drill presses, and special machinery designed and built by the company. In addition there were the necessary benches and fixtures for teaching inspection and assembly. The employment department was charged with the selection of employees, and when students had finished their training in the school, requisitions were filled for the factory departments through the same office. The foremen were never permitted to employ people nor were they allowed the right of discharge without the sanction of the employment department. Selecting Instructors For the head of the training school a workman was selected who was an expert mechanic and operator, but the teachers in charge of female learners were all women. Each teacher handled from three to five girls at a time, the number depending upon the nature of the work. Every student went through a preliminary study of the character of the metal being used, the nature and functions of the tools she was expected to handle, and the method of operating the machine. When the new employee started the work for herself, she was carefully super- \ BUSINESS EXECUTIVES 259 vised, her errors were corrected in a kindly manner, aiid every encouragement was given to help her to make as rapid progress as possible. Confidence Inspired Before the training department was started it was noticed that many new girls upon coming into the shop were extremely nervous. They would often break down and wish to leave the shop at once because of the fear of the large machine tools which appeared to them so dangerous and complicated. Their natural fear of the shop was multiplied by the fact that they were expected to begin their work in the midst of the rush and roar of the factory. In a separate shop under women teachers, confidence was gained at once. It was only natural for beginners to feel that if other women could accomplish the work without danger that they too could learn it rapidly. Purpose Limited No effort was made to train for more than one particular job. The training was not advertised as general mechanical education, but every pupil understood that she was being taught in a very short period and that if she came to have any mechan- ical skill it would have to be acquired through her work in the shop. In less than ten days the girls were trained to operate hand-turret lathes on work requiring a high degree of precision, and it is claimed by the company that these girls when entering the shop attacked the work on their machines with vigor and confidence. In less than three weeks they reached a high average of production and began to earn the bonuses distributed under a graduated system of pay. Continuation Training The training of the vestibule school was continued in the factory by carefully selected men known as "job bosses." Each of these supervisors had under his control only a small group of persons, the number ranging from seven to thirty according to the difficulty of the operation. The pay of the job boss depended in part upon the average bonus of all the operatives, and these men were carefully supervised to make sure that they understood the losses to the company which might be caused by injuring the health or welfare of those under their care. 26o PRACTICAL PSYCHOLOGY FOR Results Achieved The following statements made in Industrial Management, May, 1918, by C. U. Carpenter of the Recording and Computing Machines Company indicate some of the results achieved after only a few months' experience with the training department: We have a large assembly department, employing over two thousand girls. Two sets of prominent engineers who investi- gated the possibilities of production from this plant reported that the best output possible from this assembly division was fifteen thousand complete fuses per day in two shifts. By thoroughly training the girls we have been able to reach an average production of thirty-eight thousand per day in one shift. In addition to the fuse work, our company is building optical instruments of a character that requires the greatest precision, much of the work being held within limits of twenty- five hundred thousandths of an inch. This work requires not only close manufacturing, but also most careful work in lens- making and grinding. Before beginning this work, the organization made a minute survey of each operation, no matter how small, involved in the production of these instruments. This included all the manu- facturing, assembly and lens-grinding work. This company was compelled to build its own lens-grinding machinery, as none could be purchased in this country. When we finished this survey, we had before us a description of exactly what was required on each operation. There was necessarily much work that was entirely new to us, as well as to other American manufacturers, owing to the lack of experience in this work in the United States. It is interesting to note that we were advised that it would be impossible for us to get any high-grade lens-grinders in the United States, and many dire prophecies were made as to our probable failure. However, we started the training school in the grinding of lenses, and have developed a high-grade body of lens-grinders, both men and women, within the past six weeks. We produce our base forgings of aluminum on hand-turret screw machines. On this particular forging there are fifty-six gauging points, with allowable limits on different operations ranging from five hundred thousandths of an inch to two thou- BUSINESS EXECUTIVES 261 sanths of an inch. In January, 1916, the average production of thirty-one women employees was eight, pieces per hour. While the operatives were apparently busy at this rate of production, my experiments showed that there should be produced from those machines as a fair production an average of thirty-five pieces per hour. We put our old operatives into the training department, and within four weeks after the new and old operatives had been through this training department, the average production was raised to over twenty-five pieces per hour, and today the average is over fifty-five pieces per hour. The same results were obtained on all of our work, such as machining, inspection and assemblage. It is particularly important and interesting to' note that many of our most skilled operatives are men and women well along in life. We find that while the young worker has more vigor, the older one is usually more careful and steady, and more anxious to keep up a high average rate of production. Their continuous work on their jobs brings this average produc- tion up to that of the younger and more vigorous. We have demonstrated that strong, healthy women can do work requiring great precision after they are thoroughly trained quite as well as skilled men mechanics. They work on hand- turret screw machines, hand millers, power millers, drill presses, thread millers, punch presses, routers and special machines of all types. They are remarkably efficient as inspectors. We have also taught them to be excellent tool-makers. . . Advantages of the Vestibule Method The advantages of the vestibule method of training may be summarized under the following headings: 1. Instruction does not interfere with work being carried along in the normal process of manufacture. 2. Expensive machine tools and other department equipment can be kept up to the standard production, thus decreasing the losses from fixed charges and overhead expense. 3. Breakage and waste materials due to carelessness and lack of supervision are greatly minimized. 4. The bulk of the turnover is taken from the shop and kept in the school. Persons not fitted for the work are discovered before they cause the company a loss by being put on regular work. Ability along other lines can sometimes be discovered, 262 PRACTICAL PSYCHOLOGY FOR thus allowing transfers to be made with the minimum loss to employer and employee. 5. The time of workmen and foremen can be given entirely to the routine duties of the shop. 6. Right methods can be taught in detail from the start, thus preventing workmen from falling into wasteful or inefficient habits which must later be overcome. 7. Learners have their habits fixed before becoming acquainted with methods of slighting their work in order to increase pro- duction. 8. Skilled workers and foremen are reluctant to teach begin- ners and do -not adapt themselves to individual needs. This is overcome by securing trained instructors who devote more time to each beginner. 9. Few skilled workers are able to analyze operations into their elements and teach them in the best instructional order. This is accomplished by analyses made before the vestibule school is started, and standard practice insures that each instructor follows the approved procedure in teaching. 10. Better sequence of work in good instructional order can be maintained in the vestibule school than in the shop. 11. Uniform methods and standards of quality can be insisted upon throughout the plant. 12. The general rules and regulations governing the habits and daily routine of workers can be taught before they are sent into departments, thus tending to maintain better discipline. 13. Working conditions in the training section are less likely to cause nervousness and discouragement. This is particularly true with women employees, and has an important bearing upon the work of young persons, who are thus freed from the observation and ridicule of expert workers. 14. Emergency demands can be met where it would be im- possible to train sufficient numbers in the shop within a reasonable length of time without seriously disturbing the flow of work. 15. The vestibule school gives opportunity for the experimental try-out of machines, tools, fixtures, and methods of operation before they are put into the factory. It is possible to combine the school and the experimental shop. BUSINESS EXECUTIVES 263 Disadvantages of the Vestibule Method Among the disadvantages of the vestibule method of training pointed out by various manufacturers who have tried it, the following appear to be significant : 1. Fluctuations in the number of employees to be trained for a given operation may make it uneconomical to retain full-time instructors or maintain school equipment. 2. Production work is always better than work done for practice purposes on waste materials. Since commercial produc- tion is not always attainable in the vestibule school, this some- times becomes a disadvantage. 3. Beginners tend to attain maximum production more quickly when associated with expert workers than when among unskilled companions. 4. The spirit of the students in the school may become that of careless learners rather than earnest workmen. In other words, the spirit of the schoolroom rather than of the shop is sometimes engendered. 5. Vestibule training often tends to become superficial and gives the worker no real understanding of shop procedure. It tends to limit the operator to one or at most a few simple tasks. XV. THE VALUE OF PSYCHOLOGICAL TESTS THE PSYCHOLOGY OF INDIVIDUAL DIFFERENCES x An unquestioned acceptance of the concept of the equality of man results in inefficiency wherever applied. In the army it results in seniority promotion. In labor unions it results in an insistence upon an equality of wages for all the workers of a craft. In popular thought on matters of social control it leads to communism and syndicalism. In industry it results in the shaping of jobs to suit the capacity of the average man, with the consequent elimination of adequate stimulus to action for the superior individuals. The concept of the equality of all normal men is a psychological error that has perverted the thinking and weakened the action of all peoples inspired with a true and worthy ideal of democracy. Possibly the greatest single achievement of the members of the American Psychological Association is the establishment of the psychology of individual differences. You have discovered that normal adult men differ greatly in all human capacities and attainments. You have demonstrated that such differences are much greater than had ever been imagined. You have found that individual differences are relatively small in such matters as height, weight, physical strength, and reaction-time, but that normal adults differ enormously in the so-called higher mental qualities. Guided by this new conception of individual differences you have entered the schools and insisted that pupils be grouped by their mental ages rather than by their chron- ological ages. You have entered the army and urged that enlisted men be assigned according to their fitness for army tasks rather than by the location of their place of enlistment. You have insisted that commissioned officers be promoted ac- 1 Walter Dill Scott, President of the Scott Company, President of the American Psychological Association. Address reprinted in the Psychological Review. Vol. 27. 1920. p. 84-5. 266 PRACTICAL PSYCHOLOGY FOR cording to merit rather than by seniority. You have cooperated with progressive labor unions in developing a conception and practice adequate to provide protection for the weak and oppor- tunity for the strong. You have entered industry and insisted that applicants be accepted according to fixed standards; that workers be promoted according to attainments and that each employee be inspired by the particular stimulus most effective for him. Your gospel of diversified talents is permeating our national thought and indicating, on the one hand, the wisdom of a democracy utilizing experts in all fields and, on the other hand, the hazard of all methods of social control based on the assumed equality of normal adults. . . CAN WORKERS BE TESTED ?*- CAUSES OF SUCCESSES AND FAILURES 1 A contemporary vocational counselor, whom I have met, is said to receive each of his clients in an office which has no hat rack and no extra chair. The client enters and the counselor abruptly orders him, "Hang up your hat! Sit down!" The amazed young chap, seeing no place to hang his hat and finding no chair to sit on, does either of two things. He may resent the insult, register anger, and perhaps make a justly impudent reply. If so, he is advised to become a salesman. Or, he may be so astounded by the counselor's unexpected impertinence as to stand awkwardly fumbling his hat, grinning or blushing, with a demeanor that is at least awkwardly meek and humble, in which case he is advised to become a pharmacist. Such illustrations serve to introduce some of the traditional methods of vocational guidance, occupational placement, and em- ployee selection,, based as they are on the observations of a tender parent, the candidate's statements about himself and the impressionistic theory of a prejudiced and ignorant interviewer. We may add to these, three further traditional methods the letter of application, the photograph, and the recommendation. Perhaps these last three methods are today in better popular repute than are the first three. But whatever their repute, they are little if any more reliable. 1 H. L. Hollingvvorth. Business Personnel. November, 1920. p. 16-18, 46-7. BUSINESS EXECUTIVES 267 A bona fide advertisement for a stenographer was inserted in a New York newspaper and over one hundred letters of appli- cation were received. Each gave, in the applicant's own hand- writing and on stationery individually chosen, the main facts of the applicant's business career education, experience, previous employment and set forth, with such clearness as the applicant could command, the particular qualifications for the job. Every fourth letter, in the order opened, was taken, giving a set of twenty-five random samples. Twelve employers were asked separately and individually to rank these letters in an order of merit for neatness. A week later they were approached again and asked to arrange them in order for intelligence, and a week later, for tact. Whatever these traits may mean, a stenographer should have them. Three months later, the same twelve employers, without previous warning, were given the same set of letters, and asked to do the same three things once more to arrange the letters in order of merit for neatness, intelligence and tact. This gives data for two points it will show how much agreement there is among employers in their judgment of these letters of applica- tion, and it will show how well a given employer agrees with himself on two different occasions when he tries to judge the letters for the same trait. The letter marked "A" for purposes of identification was given highest place (i), lowest place (25), and occupied posi- tions all the way along the scale, from poorest to best in neat- ness. Letter B was placed as high as position 4, as low as 25, and was given positions all along the scale by the various em- ployers. Letter C ranged from second to twenty-fifth place, and all the other letters produced this same disagreement among the judges. A letter thrown by one judge into the waste basket as the worst of the lot was placed by some other judge at the top of the list as the best of the lot. The applicant who would have been flatly rejected by one employer, and never even given an interview, was given first chance at the job by some other em- ployer. In arranging the letters for intelligence, the situation was even worse. Almost never did two employers agree, and every letter was assigned positions all along the scale, from I to 25. The arrangements for tact were of just the same inconsistency. 268 PRACTICAL PSYCHOLOGY FOR The data are too elaborate to reproduce here, but I shall be glad to show the figures to anyone who is interested. Consider now the case where the same employer judged the same set of letters again after a three-month interval. Repre- sent complete agreement between the two arrangements by + 100%; no relation at all, except a random one, by 00%; and a complete reversal of the previous order by 100%. We may then get coefficients of agreement ranging all the way from + 100% down, and if an employer's judgment of a letter of application is really reliable, his two arrangements should be very, very similar that is, the coefficient should be nearly +100% in each case. As a matter of fact, the average coefficient is only 52%; there are coefficients as low as 8% for intelligence, 18% of tact, and even a partial reversal, giving only 14%, in the case of neatness. That is to say, these judgments are so unreliable that an employer who places a given application very high in the series for neatness, or intelligence, or tact, on one occasion, will, three months later, when given the same series of letters, make such different judgments that you would never suppose him to be the same man. The applicant whom he flatly rejected three months ago, may now stand among the very highest in his esteem. This is a type of psychological study that is much needed in personnel work, since it seeks to evaluate in definite terms the actual validity of the traditional methods. Judgments based on the photograph and on letters of recommendation exhibit the same unreliability. The usual employer does not discover the fact, for he seldom makes many of his ratings twice and almost never compares them with the judgments of another employer. Is there no way out of the dilemma? There are two ways. In the first place, even these traditional methods, if the proper technic is followed, can be made to yield information of surpris- ing reliability and practical value. Even the much-maligned photograph can be made to reveal with a high degree of ac- curacy the candidate's relative intelligence, refinement, or vul- garity, although it conveys no information as to his neatness, his conceit nor his sociability. The letter of recommendation has high value when it concerns the applicant's originality, quick- ness, or intelligence, whereas it has extremely little value if it relates to his integrity, his co-operativeness or his cheerfulness. BUSINESS EXECUTIVES 269 Studies of the recommendation, in which one person gives his estimate of another, have been made by comparing the estimates given by different acquaintances relating to the same individual. Indicating human qualities by an array of twenty- four familiar expressions, it appears that on some of these qualities different acquaintances or different previous employers or supervisors will agree closely with each other. For these traits then the single recommendation tells the same story as would be told by all the others. On other qualities however different judges, in their recom- mendations or estimates of a person, disagree so strikingly with each other that it would be poor policy to put any faith in a single recommendation bearing on these traits, because the very next person asked would, in all probability, have formed a very different opinion of the person considered. Two other groups of traits fall intermediate in position between these two extremes. Every recommendation, before being accepted, should be analyzed in the light of this table of traits. If the qualities reported fall in the upper part of the list, considerable faith may be put in the correctness of the opinion expressed. The lower in the list the trait falls, the less con- fidence should be placed in the recommendation. The practical value of this psychological study of the reliability of recom- mendations is so great that it seems worth while giving here ' the list of traits in the order in which they stand as a result of this investigation. A. Efficiency, Originality, Quickness, Intelligence With respect to these traits, different judges will agree closely, hence a single recommendation bearing on these traits may be accepted with considerable confidence. B. Perseverance, Judgment, Will, Breadth, Leadership On these traits there is fair agreement, and the testimony of a single acquaintance should be given serious consideration. C. Clearness, Balance, Intensity, Reasonableness, Independ- ence, Refinement, Health, Emotions, Energy, Courage On this long array of traits different judges, in estimating the same person, tend to disagree with each other to such an extent that no one statement of opinion should be given much weight unless supported by the testimony of another supervisor, employer or acquaintance. 270 PRACTICAL PSYCHOLOGY FOR D. Unselfishness, Integrity, Cooperativeness, Cheerfulness, Kindliness With respect to these qualities the applicant will have impressed different people in such different ways that only a census of many opinions is likely to reveal the true facts, and practically no weight should be given to a single recom- mendation relating to these qualities. Since this article is to deal mainly with test methods, the matter of improving the technic of traditional methods cannot be further elaborated here, but it is my opinion that one of the most valuable contributions of psychology to the personnel work is in this field of the critical examination, improvement and standardization of the traditional methods. The second way out of the dilemma that has been proposed consists in measuring the candidate's ability, more or less directly, instead of relying on indirect symptoms. The applicant is strictly speaking, put to the test. Since either mental or moral aptitudes, on the one hand, or motor dexterity and skill, on the other, lie at the bottom of all industrial and business processes, the tests become psychological tests, rather than gymnastic, medical or social. Important in most cases is that combination of mental alert- ness and adaptability which we call intelligence. Data accumu- lated by the army psychologists show, beyond reasonable doubt, that if the intelligence of the average carpenter, plumber, cook or blacksmith is for convenience called 100%, then to be an average bookkeeper, photographer, filing clerk or band musician requires an intelligence of 115%. But one can be an average tailor, barber, boilermaker, farmer or horseshoer with an intel- ligence of less than 86%. Furthermore, the average dentist, draughtsman, stenographer, accountant, Y. M. C. A. secretary or physician requires an intelligence of over 120%; and engineer- ing officers and clergymen becoming army chaplains averaged as high as 130%. Note now the striking differences between these groups in regard to the nature of the materials with which they deal. The 86% intelligent deal with raw materials or with domestic ani- mals; the 100% intelligent (the average man) can handle ma- terials in a semi-finished state and can use simple tools, but can- not deal effectively with abstract symbols. Dealing with simple symbols, records, etc., requires an average of 115%. Individuals in the 120% class can handle complex symbols and can deal in BUSINESS EXECUTIVES 271 the simpler relations with other human beings. Officers and chaplains, dealing directly with human material, with other men, require the exceptional average of 130% (and this, as one of my students remarked, seems to fit the chaplain at least to deal with the Almighty Himself). We hear much in vocational guidance and elsewhere of spe- cial ability to work with animals, with tools, with abstract sym- bols, with other people, etc. The point I wish to emphasize here is that these abilities are not special aptitudes, but instead seem to represent lower or higher degrees of general intelli- gence. In guidance, in placement and in selection it is impor- tant that these facts be known. It is still more important that there now exist several equally good and valuable systems, whereby any individual not actually insane (he may, however, be blind, deaf, illiterate or foreign) can be measured in mental alertness with an error of not more than 5%. To describe this array of methods is, of course, impossible in this account and the interested reader should consult the special articles and monographs relating to them. But it is wrong to assume that intelligence represents every- thing, either in choosing a vocation or while on the job. There are, after all, such things as special aptitudes. Everyone knows color-blind men, women who cannot carry a tune, and both men and women who, after years of practice, are unable to play a decent game of checkers, although none of these need be lack- ing in general intelligence. On the other hand, inmates of feeble-minded institutions sometimes display a startling skill with just these materials. I have in my laboratory the psycho- graphs (charted measures of mental abilities) of two boys of precisely equal general intelligence. One of them cannot reas- semble the scattered parts of a patent clothespin, but he is a mathematical prodigy and writes poetry. The other is a poor hand at free verse, but he can make a decrepit gasoline engine hum. In vocation and employment, then, tests are needed for such special aptitudes as are revealed by the job analyst. These spe- cial vocational tests have now developed along four lines, as follows : i. The Reduced Model: Here a miniature of the actual in- dustrial process is set up a toy switchboard, a laboratory trol- ley car, a reduced landscape garden, etc. The candidate's skill 272 PRACTICAL PSYCHOLOGY FOR is judged by his ability to handle the miniature. This method, though often experimented with in industry, has not brought good results. In the first place, it shows only what the appli- cant can do now, not what he may be able to do a year hence. In the second place, although a Shetland pony is a fairly good miniature of a Percheron stallion, in handling the latter one encounters factors never presented by the Shetland pony. 2. The Specimen Task: Here a selected sample of the work is so standardized as to constitute a uniform test: the secretary takes a standard dictation, the clergyman preaches a trial sermon, the prospective office boy is sent on a puzzling errand, the aspiring machinist is set at a standard piece of lathe work or milling, etc. This method differs from the old "try out" in that the task is standardized, is measurable, and is given to all applicants alike. This is the method on which the modern "trade tests" are based, and the trade test idea is now familiar to all who are interested in personnel problems. Among the de- fects of the method are the facts that it reveals, at best, only present, not potential, skill, and hence can be of little use in guidance or in selection of raw material. Among its virtues is the fact that it is thorough, relevant, susceptible of constant adjustment, and is (if properly handled) solidly based on pre- liminary trials with operatives of known competence. In the performance, picture and oral form, the method of the sample has marked value in certain limited fields. 3. The Method of Analogy: A third method often tried out in industry is what I shall call that of analogy. Thus it has been assumed that quickness of visual discrimination is an ability required by ball-bearing inspectors. Measures of visual discrimination are then taken, using opticians' charts, etc., and the candidate's ability thus rated. Never, in my experience, has this method met with the success that its obvious character leads one to hope for. The reason is that, although different people show varying skills in working with diverse materials, we can- not break up the mind into faculties and test these separately. In fact, there is no evidence that the mind is composed of such faculties. Nor has any job analyst, to my knowledge, been suc- cessful in the enumeration of this and that "trait" as called for by a given kind of work. What jobs are more diverse than prize fighting, plumbing and peddling? Yet all of them may be said to call for energy, industry, judgment, and ability to deal with people. BUSINESS EXECUTIVES 273 4. Method of Correlation: The method that I have found most directly useful, both in selection and placement as well as in guidance, is what is called the method of correlation. I have seen it used with salesmen, telegraphers, typists, stenographers, telephone operators, line inspectors, business secretaries, hand stitchers, machine operators, label pasters, shell inspectors, effi- ciency engineers and filing clerks, in every case with definite and provable success. It succeeds not only in detecting present skill, but can be used also to predict potential capacity in one who has never yet tried his hand at the job. The method is simple and straightforward; it is laborious in the beginning, but speedy in the end. Let me illustrate in the case of typists. Twenty or thirty tests are devised in the laboratory, varying in the materials used, the task set, etc., as much as possible. These tests are given to typists now on the job whose competence is already registered in various ways (production records, supervisors' estimates, etc.), which are combined to give the best possible objective rat- ing. They then stand in a certain order of merit for actual skill. But in each of the tests they also stand in some order of ability. In some tests the order of ability is very like the order of rated skill on the job. Proper mathematical technic will show pre- cisely how close the agreement is. These tests which show ranking of the workers similar to or approximately their known order of merit are then tried out on other groups of typists, in order to make sure that only those tests are finally chosen that yield consistent results. Out of the original thirty tests, involv- ing a great variety of materials and tasks, five tests stand up under repeated trial with the typists engaged in the particular work of a particular firm. All the thirty tests are now tried on beginners, who are then set to work learning the job, and, in a year or so, after they have reached what seems to be their probable limit of skill, their firm rating and production records are compared with the rank- ings in all the tests. Certain tests again agree with the objec- tive facts, and among them are the five tests that survived the trials when given after skill was already acquired. These five tests then constitute a team that will identify either a good skilled typist or a potentially good beginner. In- deed, again by the use of proper mathematical technic, the score in the five tests can be made to reveal the future degree of pro- ficiency of an unskilled applicant within any limits of accuracy 274 PRACTICAL PSYCHOLOGY FOR desired by the firm or compelled by the state of the labor mar- ket. If you now ask what traits these five tests measure, it is possible only to reply that they measure typing ability, either actual or potential, with at least four times the accuracy of the traditional methods. From his ability in handling the material of these tests, the beginner can know, within reasonable limits of accuracy, what degree of skill in typing he may hope to at- tain, and this affords a suggestion basis for vocational guidance as well as for employee selection and for placement. From a prac- tical point of view, this is all that need ever be known. Only the academic psychologist will be worried because he is not able to analyze the processes in greater detail. It is true, of course, that these tests do not measure the honesty, the morality, the interest or the ambition of the appli- cants, at least in any direct sense, and it is also true that these character traits are an important part of the morale of industry. "It is well enough," you may say, "to test the memory span, at- tention type and reaction time of a street-car motorman, but it is equally important to know the strength of his ambition, his fear of Hell, his belief in sabotage and his devotion to his family." That these motives bulk large in vocation and industry goes without saying. They present problems for further solu- tion. In the meantime it is something to have available prac- tical tests of mental alertness and general intelligence, standards of intelligence for general groups of jobs, trade test technic in active development and a sure and accurate, even if laborious, method of relating particular tests to particular types of work. It is especially in this last field that the future developments in job analysis and in vocational direction will be found. Somewhat aside from the main topic of this article is the importance of the fact that even the traditional methods are capable of a technic that at least trebles their original and usual value. Some of these, such as the systematic interview, the standardized rating based on subjective impression, the analyzed recommendation and, in certain cases, the group reaction to photograph or to personal appearance in general, may be made to yield such useful results that they should always be included in a sizing-up system. Complaints are often made that test methods have not pro- duced the positive results claimed for them. I make a practice BUSINESS EXECUTIVES 275 of inquiring further into such reports, and inevitably it has been found that these represent cases where misguided enthusi- asts have misapplied the test method and arbitrarily adopted some second-hand set of tests, without understanding the prob- lems involved in the preliminary try-out and choice of particular tests for the particular work under the particular conditions of a particular industry and a particular labor market and source of supply. The original laying out of a set of occupational tests requires close study of the industrial setting combined with a high degree of professional psychological skill. The actual use of the tests, once they are laid out, does not require either of these virtues, except in so far as changing shop conditions and labor supply make occasional revisions of standards expe- dient. The employer who flatly rejects all standardized test technic, and the personnel man who fancies that he can become an industrial psychologist over night and thus solve all employ- ment problems, are both overlooking a good bet. Iodine, in competent hands, is a useful medicine, but it will not cure all ills, and its indiscriminate use may mean certain death. Test methods in vocational guidance, employee selection and industrial placement have, in these respects, properties similar to those of iodine. VARIETY OF PRACTICAL APPLICATIONS * For each individual, it may be said, there is one occupation which is more suitable than any other, and in every occupation some succeed better than others. This arises from the wide physical and mental differences distinguishing individuals from one another. For example, in some the constructive instinct, in others the acquisitive, in others again the submissive instinct, is paramount. Some are predominantly of the hunting type, others are rather of the pastoral or agricultural type, with appropriate instincts of aggressiveness, tenderness, etc., peculiar to each. Individuals also differ innately in manual dexterity, span of apprehension and memory, etc. Thus in a pencil factory, where twelve pencils have to be picked up from a pile with one Charles S. Myers. Mind and Work. p. 75-91. G. P. Putnam's Sons. New York and London. 1921. 276 PRACTICAL PSYCHOLOGY FOR hand, some fail after many attempts, while others are successful at once ; and in a printing establishment, some linotype operators never pass beyond the twenty-five-hundred-em class (the em be- ing a measure of output), whereas others, with no effort, can manage, it is said, to set five thousand ems. Obviously much can be done to prevent the "round peg" from getting into the "square hole" by means of vocational guidance offices for lads and girls on leaving school. A great deal could be effected there merely by sympathetic interviews aided by school records and knowledge of the special requirements and openings in different occupations. Such a procedure would at least help in coming to a broad decision as to whether a given boy or girl is better fitted for mental work or manual employ- ment, for indoor work or outdoor work, for a settled or a roving life, for direction or dependence, etc. But the scientific study of vocational guidance must be founded on something more than "general impressions" (undeni- ably valuable though they be). It must undertake a careful physiological and psychological analysis of (i) the requirements of different occupations, and (2) the individual mental and physical differences among those intending to work at them. For the groundwork of the latter task, and for methods of procedure, we are indebted to the experimental psychology of the laboratory. Some of the earliest psychological investigations, those on reaction time, were devoted to a study of the nature of the individual differences observed. It was found that, when instructed to react as rapidly as possible to a prescribed signal, some persons were naturally of the quicker, less reliable, so- called "muscular" type, attending predominately, to the movement by which they had to react, while others were naturally of the slower, more reliable, "sensorial" type, attending predominately to the signal which they were expecting to receive. The advan- tages of choosing employees for certain occupations according to their reactions have been shown in a certain bicycle-ball factory . . . where after the selection of the best workers on the basis of reaction tests, it was found possible to increase the output by over two hundred forty per cent and to in- crease the accuracy of the work by two-thirds. . . Psychological tests of foresight have been applied in investi- gations upon motor-tram drivers. A close inverse relation has been found to obtain between the degree of a driver's success BUSINESS EXECUTIVES 277 at the laboratory tests and the number of accidents recorded against him during his everyday work. The value of such investigations needs no comment. Tests of the accuracy and speed of reasoning have also been devised. Tests of general information have been frequently employed. These and other tests are now introduced into Colum- bia University, New York, as an alternative for the matriculation examinations, so as to select those who can best profit by a University career. Among other available tests may be mentioned those of sensory discrimination, manual dexterity, mechanical skill, aesthetic appreciation, rate of reading, spelling ability, tests which reveal the subject's special interests, his muscular or mental fatigability, his accuracy, steadiness, and neatness, his memory for names, figures, faces or facts, the breadth or detail of his observation, his improvability, distractibility, suggestibility, etc. Their application to those who offer themselves for different occupations, e.g., for machinist's or assembler's work, designing, clerical or secretarial work, salesmanship, etc., is obvious. On the physical side, tests of muscular strength and endur- ance are of great importance for certain occupations. Length of arm reach, and the span and shape of fingers may be like- wise of value; in one industry, for example, it has been stated that an increased output of from six to nine per cent may be expected by taking such factors into account in the choice of girls for the different departments. Again, in regard to sexual differences, it is clear that there is great scope for research by appropriate tests to determine the occupations which are best fitted to men and to women. Tests have been devised to measure the worker's rate of feeding a machine, and success in these tests has been proved to be correlated closely with the known fitness of the worker for a fast- or a slow-running machine in the factory. The value of such tests for selection is confirmed by the observation that some workers who are distinctly below the average on a slow operation may be very much above it in work requiring speed and vice versa. Certain tests which have been applied to measure dexterity and rate of assembling have been found to be closely correlated with the workshop ability, and some- times indeed have proved the foreman's original estimate of the worker's ability to be wrong, as his judgments agreed far 278 PRACTICAL PSYCHOLOGY FOR more closely with the results of the tests after he had come to know the workers more intimately. During the war such psychological tests were developed with great success. In the United States a staff of experts was engaged (i) in applying tests for estimating the educational level and intellectual ability of each recruit, (2) in recording the men's pre-war experiences and in devising and applying appro- priate tests to prove their special qualifications, and (3) in devising and applying tests for the selection and training of telegraphists, gunners, and others. Among the objects of the first of these groups of tests were (a) the allotment of a mental rating to each soldier, so as to help the personnel officers in the formation of organizations of equal or of appropriate mental strength, (b) the assistance of regimental company and medical officers, rendered by careful examination and report on men who were not responding satisfactorily to training, who were otherwise troublesome, or who, in accordance with their degree of mental deficiency, should be recommended for discharge, development battalions, labour organizations, etc., (c) the dis- covery of men of superior ability who should be selected for non-commissioned officers, for officers' training camps, for pro- motion or for assignment to special tasks. It is generally agreed that such tests saved many months of needless camp life and that by means of them the right man was far more often put in the right place. . . Many of the mental characters hitherto mentioned can be readily and speedily tested on groups of fifty or more persons simultaneously. But an objection may be raised that such tests throw no light on the higher, moral qualities of the candidate, such as honesty, courage, loyalty, perseverance, promptness, punctuality, resourcefulness, imagination, organizing ability, self-control, and presence. In point of fact, however, several of these qualities are revealed by many existing tests or by others that can be devised for the purpose, whilst full light can be readily thrown on the rest in the course of individual examination and cross-questioning. None but those who have had experience in psychological tests can realize what a wealth of information in regard to the general "character" of the subject is incidentally gained from a few tests systematically and individually applied during an interview. . . BUSINESS EXECUTIVES 279 General impressions are notoriously unreliable, besides being, as already explained, insufficient. The object of psychological tests is, so far as possible, to substitute scientific methods of universal validity in place of individual, intuitive, often ca- pricious and prejudiced, opinions. Enough has been already said of these tests to indicate that they may be classified under two heads. On the one hand, we may adopt a test which is more or less exactly comparable to the conditions under which the subject will be working; e.g., we may test his powers of typewriting by actual typewriting, we may test his ability to assemble a machine by giving him some parts to put together, or we may supply him with apparatus which will compare with the rapid feeding of a machine. On the other hand, we may test him for isolated mental character- istics, e.g., dexterity, speed of reaction, span of apprehension, appreciation of differences in visual form, and we may utilize and combine the results of his various performances in the following way. First of all, we ascertain what special psycho- logical processes are required for success in the occupation for which the tests are needed. Next, we ascertain how closely success or failure at the tests which we have devised in order to measure these processes is correlated with known success or failure at the occupation in question ; that is to say, we compare the order of excellence of a large number of trained (good, bad, and indifferent) operatives at each of the tests with their order of excellence in the workshop as determined by the estimates of foremen, by piece-rate earnings, etc. Then we proceed to "scrap" the tests which show insufficient correlation and we "weight" the useful tests according to their different proved degrees of correlation. Finally, we are able to apply the tests to the actual examination of candidates whose capacity for the work we are desirous of estimating. By this means the relative, as well as the absolute, value of each test is accurately ascertained before it is employed in actual practice, and the likelihood of the candidate's success in any particular occupation can be expressed in the well-known quantitative terms of probability. . . Because tests are in their youth, it would be ridiculous to urge that therefore they must be put aside until they reach fuller maturity. We might as well have banned surgery and 280 PRACTICAL PSYCHOLOGY FOR medicine a hundred years ago because they had not then reached their present stage of advancement, or ban them today because they are not so efficient as they will be a hundred years hence. Applied sciences can grow only by use. Their success must largely depend on the skill with which they are applied. Like any other instruments which man employs, they may be rightly or wrongly used ; but this does not mean that vocational selection is unscientific. VOCATIONAL SELECTION BY PSYCHOLOG- ICAL TESTS 1 For the purpose of vocational selection, all individuals may be roughly divided into four classes, according to two factors, ability and training. We may show the four possible combina- tions of these factors by means of the following table : Natural ability Natural inability Good training Poor or very little training The four possible combinations to be deduced from this table are: (i) those with natural ability supplemented by special training in some special field; (2) those with natural ability but with no particular training; (3) those with poor natural ability but a thorough training in some particular activity; (4) those with neither training nor ability. The word training is used here to cover both education and experience. All individuals, how- ever, whether they are already enrolled in an organization and looking for or being sought for other work, or whether they are new candidates, first applying for a position, may be roughly classified under these four heads. The first task of vocational selection or training is to dis- cover these facts. Until they are known, no intelligent choice can be made. For instance, when a boy, either within the organi- zation or without, applies for admission to the apprentice course, 1 Henry C. Link. Employment Psychology, p. 174-87. The Mac- millan Company. New York. 1919. Reprinted by permission. BUSINESS EXECUTIVES 281 a course which occupies a period of years and which is very costly, the question as to whether this boy has the necessary prerequisite education and the natural ability to succeed is sure to arise. He has undoubtedly had some education, but whether his education has gone far enough, or whether he has profited by his educational opportunities to the extent of being able to handle the necessary mathematical problems, is a matter which must be carefully determined. In addition to this it is necessary to know whether the boy possesses the natural ability which will enable him to succeed as an apprentice. How shall these two very important facts be determined? This is just the question for which psychological tests provide the answer. All tests may be divided roughly into two kinds : Those de- signed to discover an individual's degree of innate ability in cer- tain directions, and those designed to measure the extent and quality of an individual's previous training and acquired ability. This distinction is by no means a clear and sharp-cut one, for every test whatsoever involves to some extent both natural or innate ability and the ability due to training and education. The tests described in preceding chapters have already made this fact clear. However, for practical purposes, tests may be divided into these two general kinds. When, therefore, the question of vocational training or selection arises, the application of these tests makes it possible to discover what the natural and acquired abilities of an individual are and under which of the four heads given he is to be classified. Let us take, for instance, the case of the candidate for apprenticeship. It is necessary to discover, first of all, what this candidate's training has been, particularly his education in mathematics. In order to ascertain this he is given a mathematical test. This test will indicate quite clearly whether the boy has had the necessary preliminary education and whether he is sufficiently well up on what he has studied to warrant immediate admission into the course. However, in addition to this it is desirable to know whether the boy pos- sesses the right kind of natural ability to make him a successful journeyman. This is a more subtle problem; but in order to obtain a forecast of the boy's development, tests which have previously proved their significance in this respect are given. These tests, described in the chapter on tests for apprentices, do not involve education or training in any particular subject but rather the ability to think and act quickly and appropriately in 282 PRACTICAL PSYCHOLOGY FOR certain desirable directions. When these two facts have been ascertained; namely, the boy's education or acquired ability, and his capacity or innate ability, it can be intelligently decided whether or not he should be taken into the apprentice course and trained in the vocation of a tool maker or some other trade. . . Now, let us suppose that the candidate shows by her per- formance in the tests for acquired ability that she has had a very poor training in dictation and transcribing. Shall she be engaged or not? If, in addition to her poor training in these respects, she also shows lack of education in spelling, grammar, and the fundamentals of the common-school education, it would probably be unwise to engage her for stenographic work. And, if in addition to her poor education, she displays a lack of innate ability by her performance in the group of tests given for this purpose, the decision would be quite obvious. On the other hand, if the applicant has natural ability, a good common-school education, and is lacking only in ability to take dictation and transcribe, it is very advisable to engage her for a trial, or for special training in the fields in which she is weak. Her inability in dictation and transcribing may be due to poor training or to poor opportunities, and may therefore be deficiencies which, under favorable conditions, the natural capacity of the worker can easily overcome. Workers of this kind are of the utmost potential value, and should be given the most careful consider- ation by the employment and educational branches. It is in dis- covering cases of this kind that the use of tests can be of great value in helping industrial organizations to make the best pos- sible use of the human material at their disposal and in pro- viding for the vocational adaptation of their employees. Wherever tests indicate that an applicant for a certain kind of work is poor in both ability and training, it is unwise and unprofitable, from the point of view both of the individual and of the organization, to hire him for that work. It is advisable, in such cases, to try out the applicant with other tests in order to discover whether he is better fitted to learn some other kind of work. All employment managers and educational directors are troubled with the urgent pleas of candidates who, in their opinion, are unfit for the work or training they demand. Hitherto there has always been a sense of injustice or apparent injustice in situations of this kind because the disappointed BUSINESS EXECUTIVES 283 candidate felt that he was not being given a square deal. And as long as it was a question of one man's judgment against that of another, there was always a measure of truth in this suspicion. The use of tests makes it possible to decide, with much less ambiguity and on much more impersonal grounds, whether a person shall be chosen or not. Often, however, when an appli- cant is particularly insistent upon a trial at a certain work or training, it is advisable to give him the opportunity even though his performance in the tests is poor. This is because the presence of a genuine and driving ambition will sometimes take an individual over the most difficult obstacles. . . While it is highly advisable to recognize ambition and to give it its just deserts, it is just as desirable to detect impulse. Very many candidates apply for a certain kind of work or a certain course of training, not because they are extremely am- bitious in that direction, but because they have heard from some successful friend how pleasant the work is and how easy it is to make a high wage in a short time. The new candidate does not stop to consider that what is pleasant and profitable to his friend may not be equally pleasant and profitable for him. In cases of this kind and every employment office and industry meets them in abundance the verdict of the tests should be followed. If it is not, and the ill-adapted applicant is hired, the result is quite likely to be another turnover. For as soon as the new worker discovers that the work is not quite as enjoyable and remunerative for him as it is for his friend, he will probably leave. The vocational value of tests is particu- larly great in this respect. Many useless and costly vocational experiments can be eliminated by their application, and successful ones made possible instead. . . One of the most important factors in vocational selection is the factor of the individual's choice. Many reasons determine the individual's choice of a vocation, but nearly all of them rest upon sotrfe individual peculiarly or bias. One boy may want to be a blacksmith because his father was one. Another, for the very same reason, may want to be anything but a black- smith. Another boy may want to be an automobile mechanic because he likes to ride around the country. Still another may wish to become an electrician because he has seen an electrician doing some work at his house and the electrician good-naturedly allowed him to help with some of the work. This boy's com- 284 PRACTICAL PSYCHOLOGY FOR panion may want to become an electrican also because he wishes to remain in the company of his friend. In a great many strange ways, boys and girls acquire a deep-rooted desire to be or do some particular thing. This desire, whatever its origin may be, is one of the most potent factors in the vocational direction of the individual, and many individuals are made unhappy because circumstances have prevented them from fol- lowing out their chosen vocation. An industrial organization, however, can not be guided in its selection by this factor except in a superficial way. Every organization is limited in the number of jobs and positions it has to offer, and the vocational guidance and training which it gives are strictly limited accord- ingly. The institution which can best turn this dynamic force of desire and dislike to account is the primary and secondary school, working in conjunction with all the industries of the community. In the schools, where the emphasis is not primarily on the production of material things, there is sufficient leisure and opportunity to give every pupil a trial at his favorite work. And there should also be sufficient opportunity for the pupil at other kinds of work in order to provide a basis upon which to guide his likes and dislikes into the most promising channels. . . There is, however, a strong tendency to confuse lack of education with lack of intelligence, a tendency which has pro- moted much trouble. Foremen and employment managers are too prone to think that an illiterate Pole or Russian or Italian is far down in the scale of intelligence. Consequently, they can not understand why these stupid foreigners should object vigorously when they are put at some low grade of work, work which requires no manual or mental ingenuity and which is often merely dirty and monotonous. One of the problems of the psychologists is to find tests which will enable him to divorce intelligence from education, or rather intelligence from a par- ticular language. . . The vocational value of tests in industries may now be briefly summarized. The problem of every industrial organi- zation is to select and train its workers in such a manner as to make the best possible use of their abilities. In order to do this successfully, it is necessary to discover the exact ability, both innate and acquired, of each individual. Unless these facts are known, it becomes impossible to assign the individual to the work for which he is best fitted or to give him the training BUSINESS EXECUTIVES 285 which he deserves. The applying of psychological tests in those fields where their value has been verified is the only method, short of the laborious and costly method of trial and error, which makes it possible to discover these facts. Once the potential and actual ability of an individual has been dis- covered, the vocational selection or training of that individual can be decided with a measurable degree of intelligence. Whether we interpret vocation in terms of work for its own sake or work for the sake of the reward which it brings, the ap- plication of tests makes it possible to promote both the interests of the organization and the welfare of the individual workers. INDUSTRIAL LESSONS FROM ARMY MENTAL TESTS 1 The following discussion is quoted in the main, from a manuscript by Major Yerkes. The convincing demonstration of the practicability of mental measurement in connection with placement is one of the con- spicuously important contributions of psychological service to the Army. It is generally admitted by those who have taken the trouble to consider the matter, that the methods prepared to meet military needs have wide applicability and possibility of indefinitely increasing value. Within the Army, experienced officers as well as men new to the service recognize that the utilization of mental ratings has increased efficiency by improv- ing placement and facilitating elimination. Psychological ser- vice has suddenly created a large demand for technological work. This demand is most insistent from education and indus- try, although the sciences are making their needs known. Be- fore the war mental engineering was a dream ; today it exists, and its effective development is amply assured. . . Within the industrial sphere, as contrasted with educational, intelligent employment management requires abundant informa- tion and the development and use of scientific methods. Indi- viduals, if hired and placed at random, seldom hold their jobs for more than a few days. The enormous labor turnover of many industrial concerns is due chiefly to three causes : (a) the relative unfitness by nature or training of the individual for the 1 C. S. Yoakum and R. M. Yerkes. Army Mental Tests, p. 196-7, 199-201. Henry Holt and Co. New York. 1920. 286 PRACTICAL PSYCHOLOGY FOR work assigned, (b) unsatisfactory conditions of labor, (c) the mechanization and the resulting dehumanizing of industrial processes. For wise and effective industrial placement and occupational guidance, two things at least are absolutely essential : first, defi- nite knowledge of the physical and mental requirements (speci- fication) of the job, and second, equally definite knowledge of the physical and mental characteristics and capacities of the in- dividual to be placed. If these requirements are to be met satisfactorily, occupa- tions will have to be carefully analyzed in their relations to the individual and definite specifications will have to be prepared. In addition, individuals will have to be classified in accordance with intelligence, temperament, education and occupational taste or preference. It is now possible to prepare specifications and suitably to classify individuals with reference to intelligence, education and occupational taste. For the present, at least, it is probable that if three grades of intellect were distinguished in industry, as has been suggested for the school, a very great gain would be a degree of fitness of the individual for his task, and in his resulting content and effi- ciency. Concerning temperamental measurement and classification, there is little to say, for the methods at once simple and reliable are not yet available. It is nevertheless obvious that tempera- ment is as important as intelligence for industrial placement and vocational guidance. Despite the seemingly infinite variety of temperaments, there are probably just a few classes which have great occupational importance. It is possible, indeed, that even three classes, as in the case of intelligence, might suffice for im- mediate practical requirements, could we but devise methods of measuring temperamental characteristics as satisfactory as those now used for measuring intelligence. THE NEED OF CONSTANT VERIFICATIONS a In connection with the inventory of each man's abilities, tests to measure proficiency in each of about a hundred trades were devised, in eight months from March, 1918. By the end of Oc- 1 E L. Thorndike. Science. Vol. 49. 1919. p. 56-8, 60. BUSINESS EXECUTIVES 287 tober these tests were in regular operation in twenty-one can- tonments, and about one hundred twenty-five thousand men had been tested. Their operation made it sure that a man said to be journeyman ship-carpenter really could do the work of a journeyman ship-carpenter if he was to be sent to the Emer- gency Fleet Corporation as such ; that a man said to be a skilled truck-driver really could drive a truck as required in war-work, if he was to be sent to France for that work, that in general each man's statements and reported career were checked by ob- jective tests and measurements. These trade tests were devised to fit the needs of the army in the war emergency and did so. They would need modifica- tion and extension to meet the needs of employers, labor unions, civil-service examining boards and the like. But the principles and methods according to which they were made have been fully justified. To the question "How well does individual A know trade I?" we can obtain a definite quantitative answer and can reduce its probable error to harmless dimensions. Just as we framed standard, workable, convenient, inexpensive, ob- jective instruments to make sure that men assigned to certain work in the army could do that work satisfactorily, so we could upon order frame instruments which labor unions or civil ser- vice boards could use as admission examinations, which econ- omists or business men could use in investigations of wages and production, or which a local survey could use in an intimate study of the total life of a community. . '. ' Early in the war, the problem of selecting from a given number of men those best fitted for rapid training as gun point- ers on ship-board was referred to the Subcommittee on the Psychology of Special Abilities, and at their request referred to Dr. Raymond Dodge. He studied the task of the gun-trainer and pointer, the situations and responses involved, the methods of testing their ability then in use, the men from whom selec- tions would be made, and the practical conditions which any system of selection for this work must meet. He had the prob- lem of imitating the apparent movements of the target which are caused by the rolling and pitching of the gun-platform as a distant object would appear to a gun-pointer on a destroyer, a battleship or an armed merchantman. He solved this by mov- ing the imitation target through a series of combined sine curves at variable speeds by a simple set of eccentrics, motor- 288 PRACTICAL PSYCHOLOGY FOR run. He had the problem of imitating the essentials of the con- trol of the gun by the gun-pointer and of recording in a fullei and more convenient form the exact nature of the gunner's reac- tions in picking up the target, in getting on the bulls-eye, in keep- ing on, in firing when he was on, and in following through. He solved these by a simple graphic record showing all these reac- tions on a single line that could be accurately measured, or roughly estimated. Subsequently he made an apparatus that could be used not only to test a prospective gun-pointer's ability, but also to train both gun-trainers and firing gun-pointers four at a time. The demand for these instruments has been so great that sixty have been built for the Navy for use at short training stations. The success of this led to further similar work, especially on the problem of the listener, the lookout and the fire control party. . . The applied psychology or human engineering which has been developing so rapidly in the last decade has learned, in the war, if not before, that nothing short of the best in either ideas or men can do its work. Applied psychology is much more than cleverness and common sense using the facts and principles found in the standard texts. It is scientific work, research on problems of human nature complicated by conditions of the shop or school or army, restricted by time and labor cost, and directed by imperative needs. The secret of success in applied psychology or human engi- neering is to be rigorously scientific. On every occasion when the principles of sound procedure were relaxed because of some real or fancied necessity, the work suffered. The chief prin- ciples in much of this personnel work concerned obtaining data from the sources possessed of fullest and most intimate knowl- edge, working only with data of measured reliability, determin- ing the significance of facts by their proved consequences and correlations, and verifying conclusions by a prophecy and ex- periment. Whenever we made the extra effort and sacrifice necessary to tap the best sources of information about a man, rather than the next to the best, there was a gain. When we took pains to compute the reliability coefficients of all our data before going further with them, we saved time in the long run. Every failure to check apparent meaning by objective correla- tions was disastrous. An unverified hypothesis may possibly be a relatively harmless luxury if all one does with it is to think; to act on it is a grave danger. BUSINESS EXECUTIVES 289 Making psychology for business or industry or the army Is harder than making psychology for other psychologists, and intrinsically requires higher talents. The scientist doing work for the inspection of other men of science is in large measure free to choose his topics, and to follow up any one important out- come regardless of what task he originally set himself. The scientist who is assigned a problem and is without credit if, in- stead of its answer, he produces something eventually far more important, has to be more adaptable, more persistent and more ingenious, if he is to succeed equally often. It is relatively easy to be scientific when you can direct your talent in any one of ten thousand directions; yourself asking the questions for which you proceed to find answers ! Psychology applied to the com- plicated problems of personnel work represents scientific re- search of the most- subtle, involved, and laborious type. A CAUTION AGAINST OVER-EXPECTATIONS 1 A majority of the writers on this subject have been willing to admit, as did Dr. Hugo Munsterberg, that "completed investi- gations do not as yet exist in this field," but the sanguine tone of their reports coupled with the natural desire of employers to find quicker and surer methods for selecting workers has led to a great deal of misplaced faith in the utility of psychological tests and experiments. The following points ought to be very carefully considered by any firm that contemplates the introduction of methods of this sort. 1. Aside from modifications of the Binet scale for determin- ing mental ability, there are no tests which have been tried on a sufficient number of individuals to give standards that are in any degree trustworthy. Even the modified Binet standards are not to be depended upon for persons over fifteen years of age. 2. Better methods of securing standards must be devised in order to obviate errors arising from chance samplings. Because of the small number of individuals examined, it is likely that many of the proposed tests fail to cover the full range of the abilities or qualities tested. 1 Roy W. Kelly. Hiring the Worker, p. 93-7. The Engineering Magazine Company. New York. 1918. 290 PRACTICAL PSYCHOLOGY FOR 3. The low percentage of correlation between the results of tests so far proposed and the success of individuals in the occu- pations implies that injustice is certain to be done in many cases, if the standards set are applied indiscriminately and without the exercise of careful judgment. 4. Results from the tests now offered cannot be successfully interpreted by persons who lack a wide experience in psycholog- ical methods. Their use ought not to be recommended indis- criminately to employment managers who are not fully prepared to carry on work that still partakes very much of the nature of research experimentation, and who lack the training in statistical methods required for the interpretation of results and the com- pilation of new standards. 5. The best psychological tests so far devised seem to be those which create situations as nearly as possible like the actual shop task. JOB ANALYSIS TO CORRELATE WITH HUMAN ANALYSIS x Every worker should be placed in that position where he has the best possible chance to make the most of himself. This must be interpreted as consistent with the larger interests of society as a whole. Our practice is diverse from this principle. Thus one practice which may seem far afield but one which played a very large part in the history of the world is a caste system, such as that of India, where "by the will of the gods" people are placed in a particular calling. Similarly the guilds of Europe determine the vocations which a person should be allowed to enter. The mere proximity of the job and the available jobs have played too large a part in our practice. Lastly, social ap- proval of certain jobs and disapproval of others play a very large part at present in vocational placement in America. If we should attempt to analyze the reasons which have brought us to the jobs that we now occupy, we might find that the general practices here referred to are significant factors. 1 Walter Dill Scott. Annals of American Academy. Vol. 90. 1921- p. 139-40. BUSINESS EXECUTIVES 291 Practices for Placements in Industry Here are some of the practices which have been believed in and followed by wise men in all ages for placements in indus- try. No man believes in very many but most men believe in some. Astrology, augury, chance as manifested in drawing of straws, casting of lots or the flipping of a coin, chirography, chiromancy, character analysis, divination, fortune-telling, horo- scopes, hypnotism, intuition, magic, mediums, mind-reading, necromancy, omens, occultism, oracles, palmistry, phrenology, physiognomy, premonitions, psychological tests, sooth-saying, sorcery, sortilege, sub-conscious hunches, stigmata, talisman, trade tests and telepathy are some of these practices. If we do not follow these practices in placing the individual in employment then we must depend upon the judgment of the maiden school-teacher, the indulgent mother, the ambitious father, the listless recruiting officer, the mercenary employment agent, or worse yet, the indifferent employment clerk. Vocational guidance has been wholly unscientific and unsatisfactory. People have not been placed with adequate care. Our practice has fal- len far short of our principle. Indeed, our practice cannot come up to the principle until the necessary preliminary steps have been taken. These preliminary steps may be analyzed. Judging Applicants and Workers We cannot place people wisely until we have developed a skill and a technique of judging applicants, whether that judg- ment be based on previous experience, whether it be based on the desire of the individual and his interest, whether it be based on some objective measurement of skill or of capacities or an interpretation based upon actual accomplishments in present tasks or whatever it is, we must develop a technique of judging people before we begin an adequate system of scientific place- ment. Job Description We cannot place people in positions until we know the posi- tions; that is, we must make an adequate occupational descrip- tion of every job in the house to which the person appears as an applicant or in which he exists as a worker, before we can place people where they belong. That description must include 292 PRACTICAL PSYCHOLOGY FOR many items, e.g., the experience essential; the duties and re- sponsibilities; the conditions under which the work is per- formed; how each particular job falls in with the other parts of the organization, the kind of a man necessary, the induce- ments provided. A whole list of items must be provided on every job before we know whether any particular individual is adequately adjusted to that position. We cannot place people wisely until we have instituted a per- sonnel staff with adequate training and interest to make a study of employees and applicants, and a study of jobs; and with authority to place the workers where they belong, and to pro- Vide opportunities for change and promotion. When we have taken these steps we are then in a position to begin to place people where they may be contented, where they may render the greatest service to the company and where every individual will have the best possible chance to make the most of himself. Labor will not be stable until we have adequate placement. THE FUNCTIONS OF TRADE TESTS 1 There are two fundamental criteria which a trade test must satisfy : 1. It must differentiate between men of varying trade abilities and knowledge. 2. Its ratings must be objective. No test can be considered satisfactory unless, in the first place, it distinguishes the person with no specific trade experi- ence, whom we may call the novice, from the apprentice who has spent some little time in his trade. It must also distinguish the ordinary apprentice or learner or helper from the average skilled workman. In addition, if the test is to have its maximum usefulness, it should also enable us to differentiate the ordinary tradesman from the workman who is exceptionally skilled or has had exceptional experience. The ability which a test has to make these distinctions may be called its differentiating power. Whenever the word "differentiating" is used, we must bear in mind that it is a relative term. When we say that a trade test must differentiate, all that is implied is that it must *J. Crosby Chapman. Trade Tests, p. 17-19. Henry Holt and Com- pany. New York. 1921. BUSINESS EXECUTIVES 293 distinguish between individuals who differ by a certain amount in trade ability. Thus, for example, a test may well serve to differentiate between the individual who has one year's trade experience and the individual who has five years' trade experi- ence, but it may be expected to fail to differentiate between the individual who has had eighteen months and another who has completed nineteen months. We shall, therefore, find it necessary at a later stage to define with great exactness precisely the groups between which we expect the tests to distinguish. Any method of testing ability which will make this differentiation be- tween the novice, apprentice, journeyman and expert has the widest application in the realms of selection and promotion within the industry. The second requirement, which we shall refer to as that of objectivity, is so closely related to the first that it is only neces- sary to consider them separately chiefly for convenience in thought. Unless a test is objective, the rating which is given will vary from examiner to examiner. The ratings which are made at one time and at one place will not correspond with the rat- ings at another time and place. Thus, while the measuring rod may be used to divide men roughly into three classes tall, med- ium and short thereby fulfilling the differentiating function, much of the advantage of the measurement is lost unless for each individual or group of individuals the specific measure- ments are given and are recorded in units or in terms upon which all are agreed. Outline With this general introduction we are in a position to discuss the various types of trade test which were employed in the army. The succeeding chapters will, therefore, deal in order with : 1. Oral trade test methods. 2. Picture trade test methods. 3. Performance trade test methods. 4. Written trade test methods. LIMITATIONS OF MENTAL TESTS 1 V If experimental psychology has shown anything, it has demonstrated that capacity for improvement varies greatly with *H. D. Kitson. School Review. Vol. 24. 1916. p. 208-13. 294 PRACTICAL PSYCHOLOGY FOR different individuals, and the initial standing in a test does not indicate what the standing will be in successive performances. I This brings up the question how far the individual may be trained in an activity, and when one observes the astounding in- creases in capacity displayed in every day life one hesitates to limit the individual to any single vocational possibility. How to arrange conditions of testing so as to provide for this is prob- lematic. Perhaps learning tests will be arranged whereby one learns laboratory samples of activities in the vocations under consideration. At any rate it is clear that any system of tests must take into consideration the fact that the first test does not measure ultimate ability. The current doctrine is further befogged by its neglect of the volitional factor in human endeavor. Behind all specific capacities lies something that is loosely called will, character, volition, etc. It has to do with the exercise of mental traits which are not directly measurable, at least not readily isolated. Psychological tests appear to be limited when one undertakes to measure such traits as industry, persistence, honesty, etc., and the limitations make it impossible to predict what reaction will take place in future situations. The psychologist is forced to conclude that careers of willing, variable humans cannot be mapped out with scientific precision, as are the courses of the planets. Professor James pointed this out when he wrote, "However closely psychical changes may conform to law, it is safe to say that individual histories and biographies will never be written in advance, no matter how 'evolved' psychology may become". ^. Most persons will agree that it is possible by means of psychological tests to distinguish between an individual who is characteristically slow and one who is characteristically fast ; between one who is characteristically accurate and one who is characteristically inaccurate, as these characteristics are in cx- tremest form. It also is possible to grade people with respect to the presence of certain qualities of ingeniousness, ability to adjust to new situations, etc. The methods for accomplishing these ends, however, are still far from standardized, and vast areas of technical ground mut be covered before the tests will have vocational significance. ^ Dr. Walter Dill Scott of Northwestern University has been using psychological tests in the selection of salesmen, making BUSINESS EXECUTIVES 295 measurements of association-time, accuracy of reasoning, mem- ory, etc. It should be mentioned that the psychological tests are not the sole criteria by which selection is made; measurements are also made from physiological and sociological standpoints, and judgments of experienced employers are used. The method employed by Dr. Scott, it will be observed enables one to make selections on an eliminative basis. The results of the tests are used to admit men only to the position of salesman. As to his fitness for other occupations nothing is said. Out of a number of applicants for a position, the attempt is simply made to select the one who shows the greatest mental ability. He is hired on the supposition that with high records in the mental traits tested plus interest and experience, he would be most likely to meet the exacting conditions of the selling occupations. Psychological tests are similarly used at the University of Chicago as an aid in designating students, for honor courses. A group of tests is used which exercises var)pus kinds of mental ability, and students who stand highest in the tests are considered likely timber for advancement in the special courses. The results of such a group of tests permit the assignment of ranks on the basis of amount of mental ability possessed without specifying relation to partic- ular occupational tasks, lit is quite astonishing to see how surely psychological tests will pick out the brightest persons in a group.J All that is needed is a group of good tests measuring fundamental types of mental activity, and some method of com- bining the records in the several tests into* a resultant score. This gives basis for a quantitative statement of amount of in- telligence. The qualitative statement which involves specifica- tion with respect to occupations is another problem, and is the next step to be taken by experimental psychology. XVI. THE FAR-REACHING CONSEQUEN- CES OF FEAR IN INDUSTRY THE MENACE OF THE FEAR DISCIPLINE x The most demoralizing of industrial poisons is the poison of fear and fear of joblessness pervades the work-relation. All that Professor Cannon of the Harvard Medical School has taught us about the striking bodily reactions of strong emo- tions such as worry, anger and fear, we can without violence to language translate into industrial terms, and visualize some such effects and consequences taking place in a field where human nature and its attitude are so decisive the field of industrial relations. No one who is alive to the economic importance of industrial good-will can be indifferent to the havoc from unsteady employ- ment on industrial morale, efficiency, and organisation itself. Irregular work means irregular manhood, and irregular in- dustrial loyalties. No program for output, no progressive or- ganization, is possible against the undertow of intermittent work. Picture what a recurrence of bank failures would do to our credit system ! As in finance, mutual confidence is the bedrock of industrial relations, indeed of production itself, and nothing tends to shatter this system of mutual confidence so surely as recurring work-failures. Regarded from any standpoint the situation is too wasteful to be tolerated. Industrial relations can no more prosper where work is spasmodic than can industrial habits in a country af- flicted with crop failure and famine. Reasonable security of em- ployment is the first step in any genuine industrial relation pro- gram. It conditions everything that follows. It is the mother of industrial morale. Joblessness is next to godlessness. 1 Meyer Bloomfield. Steady Work: The First Step in Sound Industrial Relations. American Labor Legislation Review. Vol. n. p. 38-40. March, 1921. 2Q8 PRACTICAL PSYCHOLOGY FOR EFFECTS OF FEAR ON THE WORKER'S THINKING l . . . And when a man has no job or when he is simply in the grip of fear that all the future is going to be just as bad as the present, there is no such thing as having the rest of the circle all right. It is impossible to lay too much emphasis on the way in which men come into what we think are strange ideas and strange feelings, as the result of the lack of a job, the irregu- larity of a job, the unsteadiness of a job, the insecurity of a job. One of the first effects of such uncertainty is to make men begin to feel favorable to the restriction of output. It is hard to blame a man for not keeping a close eye upon the pile of rough material that means his job, as he sees the pile getting smaller, and the pile of finished material growing larger and larger. It is hard for that man not to go slow, when he realizes that at five o'clock when the whistle blows, the boss may come to him and say: "Joe, this will get you your time. Won't need you in the morning. Ye see, th' work's all done." This summer, outside of the great dock in London, I found a man who had only about three days work as a docker in about six weeks. I tried to cheer him up by saying: "Well, Jack, I saw a lot of men down there in the Surrey dock that were un- loading about six thousand tons of frozen beef from the Ar- gentine, and they were piece-workers, I understand, and they were making fifty shillings." I couldn't have gotten more of a rise out of the man if I had slapped him in the face. He said : "Yes, I know them fellows. Them's the fellows that's takin' the bread and butter out of the mouths of the wives and children of such workmen as you and me. Them's the fellows that's doin' three days' work in one. It ain't right, I tell you ! But what do they care, as long as they get their time the rest of us can starve !" There was another man on the same dock, who said to me: "Well, you'll be knowin' the reason for this 'ere lack of work, I suppose. "Well," he explained, "of course it's this 'ere more produc- tion propaganda. 'More production more production!' they 1 Whiting Williams. The Job and Utopia. American Labor Legislation Review. Vol. n. p. 13-23. March, 1921. BUSINESS EXECUTIVES 299 say. Well, it's bloody lucky that some of us don't 'eed it, or there wouldn't be no jobs for any of us." Then, too, I am quite sure that the unsteadiness of the job does perhaps more than anything else to substantiate the un- avoidable and the inevitable conflict between the employer and employee. When the wheels of industry suddenly stop as they are stopping today, it appears to prove to the worker that his idea of too much production is absolutely right. And I have not a doubt that today men all over this country ivorkingmen arc saying what I heard them saying in Great Britain; that of course with all the need there is of materials, with all the ways in which the world has run out of its supplies, this sudden stopping of the wheels of production means absolutely only one thing that the employers have brought it about for teaching labor its place. Every time we have a cessation of work, or every day that we have an unsteady job, conflict is being registered, making education more and more difficult. Therefore, the common in- terests of all of us are involved in this matter of the steadiness of industry. But the most important aspect of this unsteadiness of the job, this irregularity of work, is that it destroys men's moral fibre. We are too apt to think that the job is simply a matter of bread and butter. That idea, I think, misses the biggest factor in the psychology of the worker, which is that men think of their jobs as offering to them the chief basis for their self-respect. . . The irregularity and uncertainty of the job probably does more than anything else to open men's thinkings (if you can say "thinkings," because it is really their feelings) to the words of the radical who wants to sweep everything away by means of a sudden bloody revolution, and take a new start. INDUSTRIAL LESSONS FROM WAR DANGERS AND FEARS x Fear is the emotional or affective aspect of the instinctive process called into activity by danger. It is the modification of consciousness which accompanies certain instinctive forms of 1 W. H. R. Rivers. Instinct and the Unconscious. The J^acmillan Company. 1920. p. 241-6, Reprinted by permission. 300 PRACTICAL PSYCHOLOGY FOR action in response to danger, and especially the response by flight. It is especially intense when there is interference with this or any other form of reaction to danger. . Reaction to actual danger The most frequent reaction to danger in man is one of heightened capacity for the activities by which the danger may be met without any trace of the fear which, if present, would inevitably interfere with this capacity. A man in the presence of danger will carry out with the utmost coolness, and often with a degree of skill surpassing that which he usually shows, the measures necessary for the aversion of the danger or his escape from it. In such a case there is complete suppression of the emotion of fear which the danger might be expected to produce, and this suppression is nearly always accom- panied by suppression of pain, so that an injury derived from the dangerous object, or from any other source, is not perceived. A second mode of reaction is the assumption of an aggressive attitude toward the source of danger with the accompaniment of the affective state of anger. In this case there is not simply a suppression of fear, but its place is taken by another emotion belonging to the instinct of aggression. If these lines of action fail, if the serviceable activity which would lead to escape from the danger is interfered with or becomes impossible to carry out, or if the aggressive reaction does not succeed, fear supervenes as an accompaniment either of flight or of the col- lapse which is apt to occur when the more normal and service- able reactions fail. In some cases, however, the suppression of fear is so well established that this emotion remains completely absent even when the danger is so insistent and unavoidable that death or violent injury is inevitable. Thus, the emotion of fear may be completely absent during the fall and crash of an aeroplane in which death seems certain, being replaced by an interest such as might be taken by the mere witness of a spec- tacle, or by some apparently trivial line of thought. It is when some line of action is still possible, but this action is recognized to be fruitless and in vain, that fear, often in the acute form we call terror, is likely to supervene. Reactions to prospective danger. The state most commonly produced by prospective danger is one of that degree of fear which we call apprehension. This may be so intense as to be- come indistinguishable from the fear which accompanies the actual presence of danger, but it is more usually a vague dis- BUSINESS EXECUTIVES 301 comfort, with minor degrees of the tremor and muscular weak- ness which accompany fear. . . Still another form of fear is the more or less persistent state of anxiety which forms so prominent a feature of the functional nervous disorders arising out of warfare that has been adopted in the nomenclature of one of the most frequent forms taken by these disorders. In the healthy person anxiety is a state which comes into existence in consequence of some prospective misfor- tune or danger, but in morbid conditions it shows itself in the form of more or less continuous apprehension colouring the whole mental life, so that even the most ordinary occurrences are seen in the blackest light as sources of trouble or danger. Suppression and repression in relation to fear. In the form of reaction to danger which seems to be characteristic of the normal healthy man, there is a complete absence of fear. No effort is needed to keep this emotion out of the mind for it shows no tendency to appear in consciousness. Fear in the pres- ence of danger is, however, so necessary a part of the mental equipment of animals, and is so frequently manifested in child- hood, that we can confidently assume this emotion to be potentially present, but in a state of suppression. This assump- tion is supported by several lines of evidence. A man who when exposed to danger experiences no trace of fear, and behaves with the utmost coolness and bravery, may yet suffer subse- quently from acute fear in his dreams. If, as there is much reason to believe, suppressed affective states find expression in dreams owing to the weakening of control normally exerted in the waking state, the occurrence of fear in dreams following a dangerous experience would be a natural consequence of its ordinary existence in a state of suppression. Still more important and conclusive is the occurrence of fear as the result of shock or long-continued strain and fatigue which lower the efficiency of the higher controlling levels of mental activity. Thus, one of the earliest signs of the strain of war- fare is the occurrence of apprehensions in one who until then has passed through the dangers of warfare without fear. The occurrence of fear either manifestly, or in the form of vague apprehensions, when shock or strain has lowered efficiency is naturally explained if the fear has been there throughout, but in so complete a state of suppression that it never passed the threshold of consciousness. . 302 PRACTICAL PSYCHOLOGY FOR The special feature of practical importance in the foregoing statement of the various forms taken by the emotion of fear is that the occurrence of this emotion may be a symptom, often the earliest sympton, of a state of fatigue and strain. Owing to the way in which the society to which we belong, and especially those whose business it is to fight, look upon fear, its occurrence, especially without adequate cause, arouses other emotions, and especially that of shame, which greatly enhance the strain to which the fear is primarily due. RELATIONS BETWEEN FEAR AND OUTPUT 1 Fear In this connection (as a cause for lack of interest) I wonder if it is generally realized what a determining part fear has played in shaping the mental life of manual workers. Fear is an emotion which gives rise to a strained, tense and abnormal state of both body and mind. The subject of. fear, particularly if the fear is continuous, is balked and in a sense prohibited from the use of all his faculties. Whatever alertness or respon- siveness the fearful person has is all in the direction of remov- ing his fears, or of protecting himself from having them realized. Of foremost importance to the worker is the fear of unem- ployment. The fear of losing one's job, either because business has become slack or because, through arbitrary exercise of au- thority, there may be an unfair discharge, is constantly present. As Whiting Williams says in his interesting article on What the Workers Think, in Colliers, February 21, 1920, "give us this day our daily job," is the secret prayer of every worker, partic- ularly if he has a family. There is fear that wages will not cover necessary expenses; fear of the undesired arrival of an- other child, or of sickness that will bring an emergency demand on income. There is also the fear of reprimand the fear of being "bawled out" by the foreman. "I doubt," said Henry S. Dennison in a recent address at Richmond, Va., "if there is a man here who believes that he can make better progress in his factory by bellowing at his men and I doubt if there is a man here in whose plant there cannot be found some sample of the bello wing-bull type of foremanship." 1 Ordway Tead. The Problem of Incentives and Output, p. 170-9. Annals of the American Academy. May, 1920. BUSINESS EXECUTIVES 303 There is the fear, sometimes conscious and sometimes not, that the reorganization of process and method, which is fre- quently taking place in factories, means such a change in the method of doing the work that the worker's acquired skill will no longer have value. This applies particularly, of course, to the introduction of machinery, the incidence of which, as it falls upon the individual worker, may be temporarily unfair and cruel. Then there is a fear, which has in the past unfortunately had all too good a basis in fact, that the more work the individual did the less return he would get for it because wage rates would be cut or orders would be more quickly completed and a lay-off would ensue. A TECHNIQUE FOR CONTINUOUS PLANT OPERATION * The fluctuation of employment due to seasonal conditions of demand is always a bugbear to any manufacturing business that is endeavoring to operate harmoniously. Through it the work- ing force is disorganized; some capable employees drift away or lose their keenness ; and newcomers at the next period of in- creased production have to be familiarized with their duties and with local conditions. It is true that the seasonal decline af- fords an opportunity of ridding the organization of those whose services are least profitable to retain, and here and there an employer might be found who would consider the uncertainty of tenure as working out to his own advantage; but since the significance of labor turnover has become apparent, and the spirit of cooperation is found to work, not only justly but profit- ably, there has been a widespread desire to stabilize employment, and to reduce the seasonal variation to a minimum. At the plant of the Dennison Manufacturing Company a marked reduction of seasonal employment has been affected by the application of certain clearly conceived principles. These principles were not put at once into sudden and complete oper- ation, but were given a practical tryout, and were extended first in one direction and then in another, as conditions made possible. 1 Plan in Use by an American Industry for Combating Unemploy- ment. The Personnel Division, Dennison Manufacturing Company, Fram- ingham, Massachusetts. American Labor Legislation Review, Vol. n. March, 1921. p. 53-5. 304 PRACTICAL PSYCHOLOGY FOR In the nature of things, any very considerable reduction must be a matter of gradual development. It is, indeed, going on here today, with the goal far ahead of present attainment; but results so tangible have been secured that the means through which they have been attained are no longer untested. The five principles applied include: 1. Reduction of seasonal orders by getting customers to order at least a minimum amount, well in advance of the season. This has been accomplished partly by merely asking for the business, partly by persuasive salesmanship and partly by promising a greater security as to delivery. For ex- ample, originally paper box production was extremely seasonal. Orders would not come in in any large number until late in the Summer, and then there would be a pain- ful rush of work until Christmas. As a result of modified . sales policies, however, we now secure a considerable num- ber of our holiday orders in January, and even get a fairly large proportion of orders for Christmas delivery in No- vember and December of the preceeding year. Similar results have been accomplished in the crepe line. 2. The increase of the proportion of non-seasonal orders with a long delivery time. These orders are either "hold orders," not to be delivered until a certain date, or orders to be delivered when ready. This increase is brought about by the same methods of selling that proved effective in securing the transfer of the seasonal orders to the next seasonal period as outlined in ( i ) above. 3. The planning of all stock items more than a year in advance. The general method is as follows: Over a year in ad- vance a detailed statement of just what stock items are wanted is placed with our Warehousing Department. The Warehousing Department works out a minimum monthly schedule, based on the distribution of the last year's sales. BUSINESS EXECUTIVES 305 Except that production must be kept up to this minimum, the producing department can distribute the work as seems best. 4. The planning of inter-departmental needs well in ad- vance. Thus the orders of our Gummed Label Department for boxes are placed at the beginning of the year. By the means suggested in the foregoing principles, we have converted all possible seasonal and time-limited orders into articles on which we have long delivery time, and can thus be produced according to a schedule based on production rather than delivery needs. It would, how- ever, probably be impossible to realize benefits as fully as at the present time, if we were in a trade characterized by sharp style variations ; but even under such conditions it is probable that some benefits could be received. 5. The building up of "out-of-season" items and the vary- ing of our lines so as to balance one demand against another. For example, we are developing new paper box items of a sort that are not used for holiday purposes, so that we can make and sell them for delivery at times when the holiday work is light. Items, too, that are securely staple in nature, can safely be made at any time for stock. It is our policy to increase up to the point of a healthful ad- justment the number of such items. Measures of this type are attempts to build the normal business of a concern up toward the peak level of the busy season. They aim not at removing the peaks, but at filling up the hollows. They constitute a healthy, levelling- up process, which achieves a positive increase of the total output, at the same time that it decreases the fluctu- ations. Besides these methods of decreasing the pressure of seasonal demands, and evening out the inequalities, we can meet seasonal employment by conforming ourselves somewhat to it. We can balance the decrease in work of one department against the sur- plus of another. We can transfer operatives not needed in one 306 PRACTICAL PSYCHOLOGY FOR line to another where there is work on hand. In doing so, we make it a rule to transfer operatives to the same off-season work each time, so that they will develop proficiency in these off-sea- son trades. We can go a step further: we can plan to adjust the work of one department so as to use to advantage the un- employed operatives of another department. An illustration of this is found in the sample work of our crepe paper department. This requires little special training, and can be handled well by the paper box makers in their dull season. As a matter of deliberate policy, this work is always saved up for December and January, when the slack season of the box makers is at hand. This method often works incidently to our advantage in other ways besides those which have led to its adoption. It tends, for example, toward producing a more versatile operating force, from whose numbers emergency transfers may at other times more easily be made, As a still further measure, we have ar- ranged to transfer operatives to outside industries. This course of action we resort to only in extreme cases. It has the disad- vantage of relaxing the bond of connection between the employee and our company; but it has been found to preserve a certain relation of considerable advantage over complete discharge, or incurring the risk that employees whom we might wish later to take on again might be led to obtain other continuous employ- ment during the period while we were unable to furnish them work. SECURITY OF THE JOB BY NEW BANKING STANDARDS l The credit problem is our biggest problem, because it lies at the bottom of the question of unemployment and that question is the point of bitterest contact between capital and labor today. One might even say that socialism and trade unionism are both founded on the fear of unemployment. It is with this conviction that leaders of opinion in Wiscon- sin, the state which so often has been the pioneer in industrial legislation, have devoted much thought to the problem of un- 1 John R. Commons. Unemployment. Compensation and Prevention. Survey. Vol. 47. p. 5-9. October i, 1921. BUSINESS EXECUTIVES 307 employment prevention. The result of this, in tangible form, has been the so-called Huber Unemployment Prevention bill, which was before the legislature last winter and the enactment of which will come up again during the coming session. . . The sales department must be subject to the production de- partment, so that rush orders are not taken on that cannot be delivered except by an over-expansion of the business with a certainty that men must be laid off after the rush orders have been finished. The cycle of unemployment is the cycle of rush orders. When credit is good and prosperity is around, people will not wait, The business man thinks then that he must ex- pand his factory; he must take on more laborers, he must get out his orders quickly or some-one else is going to get those orders. A great firm in Wisconsin pulled in laborers from the farms and Negroes from the South, then suddenly laid them off, to be supported and policed by a little city. But more important than the employer is the banker as the stabilizer of. employment. During the recent over-expansion a certain manufacturer applied for a loan of $250,000 in order to enlarge the plant. The banker turned the application over to the bank's industrial engineer, recently added to the staff, and he showed the manufacturer how, by better economy and better labor management, he could get along without that loan of $250,000. The banker put the screws on the manufacturer. Six or eight months afterward, when the collapse came, the manu- facturer was profuse with thanks to the banker. The service of refusing him credit in order to prevent expansion was much greater than would have been the service of furnishing him credit. The banking system, which is the center of the credit system, more than the business man who is the actual employer, can stabilize industry, and, in stabilizing industry, stabilizes employ- ment. The difficulty is that no one individual can do it alone; no bank can do it by itself; no one business man can do it by himself; it is a collective responsibility and collective action is necessary. If one person is trying to stabilize his industry by not over-expanding and not taking too many rush orders, he simply knows that his competitors will get his business. But if all the business men, who are competing with each other, know that the banks are treating the others in the same way, then stabilization might be expected to work. So that the in- 308 PRACTICAL PSYCHOLOGY. FOR ducement to stabilize employment in order that it may be really effective must not only take the example of those manufac- turers who have pioneered the way themselves, but must interest the entire banking system of the state or nation in the plan. Now the Huber bill proposes that when an employer lays off a man, if the man has had six months' work in the state during the year, the employer shall pay him a dollar a day for a period of thirteen weeks, and pay the state ten cents a day additional toward expenses of administration. This creates a possible lia- bility of about $90, added to every man taken on in case he is laid off through no fault of his own, but simply through fault of the management. It means an added liability which the em- ployer assumes when he hires a workman, so that, under such circumstances, it should be expected that when an employer wants to expand, and he cannot ordinarily expand except by get- ting credit, he will go to the bank for additional credit and the banker will necessarily inquire as to what security he has that, at the end of these rush orders, he will be able to continue the employment or pay the possible $90. In other words, the busi- ness man and the banker together are the controllers of credit, and it is the control of credit which can stabilize business. The over-expansion of credit is the cause of unemployment, and to prevent the over-expansion of credit you place an insurance liability on the business man against the day when he lays off the workmen. . . In any proposition of this kind there are two questions. Is it practicable? Is it desirable? The foregoing has indicated its practicability. It is based on the knowledge gained from the experience of various European countries and upon the experience of the Industrial Commission with the acci- dent compensation law. If we recognize that this question of capital and labor acquires its bitterness from this failure of capitalism to protect the security of labor, then we shall conclude that unemployment compensation and prevention is of first importance. We have already removed from the struggle between capital and labor the bitterness over the responsibility for accidents. Labour agi- tators formerly could stir up hatred of the employer on the ground that the employer gets his profits out of the flesh and blood of his workmen. No longer do we hear that language; but we do hear them say that capital gets its profits out of the poverty and mfsery of labor and the reserve army of the unem- BUSINESS EXECUTIVES 309 ployed. That is the big remaining obstacle which embitters the relation between capital and labor. While individuals may think it is undesirable, yet from the standpoint of the states and of the nation, we must submit somewhat our individual prefer- ences to what may help to prevent a serious menace in the fu- ture, and must impose upon capital that same duty of establish- ing security of the job which it has long since assumed in estab- lishing security of investment. XVII. FATIGUE CONTROL AND INDUSTRIAL EFFICIENCY Emphasis in fatigue control is upon "methods, such as mo- tion study, by which the amount of work required for a given quantity of output can be decreased." This criterion, laid down by Bernard Muscio in a report to the Industrial Fatigue Re- search Board of Great Britain, indicates the general trend of careful opinion. Fatigue tests which aim to find the amount of fatigue present at any time have proved almost wholly futile. Successful fatigue control arises from testing the relative effects of various methods of performing industrial operations on max- imum output and on steady physical and mental health for the individual. That combination of technical methods and environ- mental conditions which produces the greatest output without damage to the human constitution gives the clue to the most effective means of fatigue control in each individual case. The reduction of useless motions in job processes, the tim- ing of rest periods, the adjustments of benches and seats, the control of lighting and colors, the elimination of distracting noises and sights, etc. and the effect of such factors upon quan- tity and quality of output as well as upon the health of workers, these are the real elements in fatigue tests and control. THE ECONOMIC LOSS FROM UNNECESSARY FATIGUE 1 Unnecessary fatigue is one of the greatest of wastes. We believe that a conservative estimate of the loss to our nation in productivity alone is more than twenty cents per worker for each and every working day. We have arrived at this estimate after many years of intensive study of this subject, in connec- tion with our work as consulting production engineers in this country and in Europe. 1 Frank B. and Lillian M. Gilbrcth. Unnecessary Fatigue A Multi- Billion Enemy to America. Journal of Industrial Hygiene. Vol. I. May, 1920. p. 542-5- 312 PRACTICAL PSYCHOLOGY FOR There are more than three hundred working days in each year, and the United States census shows more than thirty-five million workers in this country, the output of a large majority of whom is undoubtedly affected by unnecessary fatigue. An instant's figuring shows that unnecessary fatigue, therefore, causes a loss in production that is colossal. This loss is much larger than the total fire loss, and the preventable fire loss alone is shocking. This tremendous loss from fatigue is not for one year only. It is year after year; it is 'continuous. An astounding loss in production is by no means the total loss which is chargeable to unnecessary fatigue. There is also the loss in materials that are spoiled and in overhead charges caused by the unnecessarily fatigued worker. Again, there is loss due to absences caused by accident and sickness which are often the indirect results of unnecessary fatigue. Statistics show that the over-tired workers are the ones oftenest injured and oftenest absent. There is also the loss due to the lack of cooperation that comes as a result of the discontent due to over-fatigue, and the resentment due to a belief that the man- agement has not done all it could to provide for the worker's relief from unnecessary fatigue. These losses are real and tre- mendous, though to some they may seem intangible. To those who have not considered the astounding costs to our nation by reason of unnecessary fatigue, or who do not believe that their own particular organization is paying heavily for not eliminating such fatigue, we recommend the making of a regular fatigue survey of their own conditions. We have found that such a survey will pay in an organization, large or small. It will pay when there are ten thousand employees and it will also pay in the smallest organizations, even in one's household. We have found it to pay large dividends in the one, and to aid in solving the help problem in the other. HEALTH, EFFICIENCY AND FATIGUE * The true sign of fatigue is diminished capacity, of which mea- surement of output in work will give the most direct test. The output must be measured under the ordinary conditions of the 1 Final Report of the British Health of Munition Workers Com- mittee. United States Bureau of Labor Statistics. Bulletin 249. p. 39-4 , 43-S, 2SI-2. BUSINESS EXECUTIVES 313 work, and, in cases where from the nature of the work the out- put cannot be automatically measured, it must be tested by methods which do not allow the workers to be conscious at par- ticular times of the test being made. In this way the errors due to special efforts from interest or emulation will be eliminated. The result of work expressed in output must be corrected by allowance for all variable factors save that of the worker's changing capacity; changes in supply of steam or electric power and of raw material, for instance, must be determined for cor- rection and interpretation of the actual output returns. The output must be estimated for successive short periods of the day's work, so that the phenomena of "beginning spurt" and "end spurt" and other variations complicating the course of fatigue as such, may be traced and taken into account. Isolated tests of output taken sporadically will be misleading. The rec- ords must also extend over longer periods to show the onset of fatigue over the whole day and over the whole week, and under particular seasonal or other conditions, in order to detect and measure the result of accumulating fatigue. Measurements of output must obviously be recorded at so much for each individual or for each unit group. The size of total output will be meaningless of course without reference to the numbers engaged. But it will also be important for proper management to take account of the output of particular indi- viduals. This in many factory processes is easily possible, and when it has been done the results have shown surprising varia- tions of individual output which are independent of personal willingness and industry, and have generally been quite unsus- pected by the workers and their supervisors before the test was made. Information so gained is valuable in two respects. Good individual output is often the result of escape from fatigue by conscious or unconscious adoption of particular habits of manipulation or of rhythm. Its discovery allows the propaga- tion of good method among the other workers. In the second place these tests of individual capacity (or its loss by fatigue) give an opportunity for rearrangement of workers and their as- signment to particular and appropriate processes of work. Astonishing results, bringing advantage both to employer and employed, have been gained in this and other countries by the careful selection of individuals for particular tasks, based not 314 PRACTICAL PSYCHOLOGY FOR upon the impressions of foremen but upon the results of experi- ment. In passing it may be said that if the proper adaptation to particular kinds of labor of the relations of spells or shifts of work to rest intervals and to holidays is to be determined, as it can alone be, by appeal to experiment, it will of course be an essential condition for success that the workers should cooper- ate with the employing management and give their highest vol- untary efforts toward the maximum output during the spells of work. It is not surprising that where employers, following tra- dition rather than experiment, have disobeyed physiological law in the supposed interest of gain and for a century this has been almost universal the workers have themselves fallen very com- monly into a tradition of working below their best during their spells of labor. In so far as hours of work in excess of those suitable for maximal efficiency have been imposed, during the last two or three generations of modern industry, upon the workers a tradition of slowed labor must necessarily have arisen, probably in large part automatically, as a kind of physio- logical self-protection. Without some conscious or unconscious slackening of effort indeed during working hours of improper length in the past, the output might have been even more un- favorable than it is known to have been for the hours of work consumed. Accidents and Spoiled Work An important and early sign of fatigue in the nervous centers is a want of coordination and failure in the power of concen- tration. This may not be subjectively realized, but may be shown objectively in an increased frequency of trifling acci- dents, due to momentary loss of attention. Such accidents may result in personal damage to the worker, trifling or serious, breakage of tools or materials, or the spoiling of work. In well- managed factories the incidence of accidents of this kind is recorded for unit periods throughout the day, and these records may provide a good secondary index to fatigue, but only in so far as they are corrected by reference to the rate of work being done and other variables. . . Taking the country as a whole, the committee are bound to record their conviction that conditions of reduced efficiency and lowered health have often been allowed to arise which might BUSINESS EXECUTIVES 315 have been avoided without reduction of output by attention to the details of daily and weekly rests and other similar means of welfare and favoring conditions. The signs of fatigue are even more noticeable in the case of managers and foremen, and their practical results are probably more serious than in the case of the workmen. Finally, it must be remembered that when fatigue passes beyond psychological limits ("overstrain") it becomes ill health, which leads not only to reduced output but to more or less ser- ious damage of body or mind. There is also, of course, much industrial sickness and disease which bears no exact relation to fatigue, though it may follow or precede it. Subsequently sec- tions of the present report are concerned with general and spe- cial diseases associated with factory life and an account of means for their amelioration. Here it is only necessary to draw attention to the primary and fundamental importance of main- taining a high standard of health in the industrial worker. For without health there is no energy, and without energy there is no output. The actual conduct of business is thus primarily de- pendent upon physical health. Moreover, health bears a direct relation to contentment, alertness, and the absence of lassitude and boredom, conditions bearing directly upon industrial effi- ciency. In this matter the interests of the employer and the workmen are identical. Nor are their respective responsibilities separable. The employer must provide a sanitary factory and suitable conditions of labor. The workplace must be clean and wholesome, properly heated and ventilated; there must be suit- able and sufficient sanitary accommodations; dangerous machin- ery and injurious processes must be safeguarded; circumstances necessitate in many factories the establishment of industrial canteens, the provision of seats, suitable overalls, lavatories and baths, rest rooms, and first aid appliances. Owing to the factory employment of many workers for the first time, and of increased numbers of women, often at a distance from home, arrange- ments must be made for individual supervision and the -main- tenance of their health. The employment of boys also calls for special vigilance and attention. Further, it has been recognized for many years that the wise employer considers the personal well-being of his workpeople. He cannot be only satisfied with the external betterment. He 316 PRACTICAL PSYCHOLOGY FOR will have regard to the individual worker. Their nutrition, their rest and recreation, their habits of life, are all of interest and importance in relation to their health and efficiency. The problems of industrial fatigue and ill health, already soluble in part by reference to an available body of knowledge well known and used in other countries, have become acute dur- ing the great recent development of the munitions industries of Great Britain. It is not too much perhaps to hope that the study of industrial fatigue and the science of management based upon it, which is now being forced into notice by immediate need, may leave lasting results to benefit the industries of the country during succeeding years of peace. The national experience in modern industry is longer than that of any other people. It has shown clearly enough that false ideas of economic gain, blind to physiological law, must lead, as they led through the nineteenth century, to vast national loss and suffering. It is certain that unless industrial life is to be guided in the future, (i) by the application of physiological science to the details of its management, and (2) by a proper and practical regard for the health and well-being of our work- people in the form both of humanizing industry and improving the environment, the nation can hope to maintain its position hereafter among some of its foreign rivals, who already in that respect have gained a present advantage. . . The subject of industrial efficiency in relation to health and fatigue is in large degree one of preventive medicine, a question of physiology and psychology, of sociology and industrial hygiene. Fatigue is the sum of the results of activity which show themselves in a diminished capacity for doing work. Fatigue may spring from the maintained use of intelligence, the main- tenance of steady attention, or the continued use of special senses. When the work is monotonous fatigue may appear in the psychical field; monotony may diminish capacity for work; on the other hand "interest" may increase it. Fatigue should be detected and its causes dealt with while it is still latent and before it becomes excessive. The tests of fatigue are diminished output, the failure of concentration as shown in increased accidents and spoiled work, staleness, ill health, and lost time. BUSINESS EXECUTIVES 317 Without health there is no energy; without energy there is no output. More important than output is the vigor, strength, and vitality of the nation. The conditions or those favorable to the body itself (e.g., food, fresh air, exercise, warmth, and adequate rest), and, secondly, a satisfactory environment (e.g., a safe and sanitary factory, suitable hours of work, good housing accommodation, and convenient means of transit). SIGNS AND SYMPTOMS OF FATIGUE 1 It must be repeated that the subjective sensations of fatigue are not a measure, or even an early sign, of it. Real or objective fatigue is shown and is measurable by the diminished capacity for performing the act that caused it. Bodily fatigue'. Fatigue following muscular employment is primarily nervous fatigue, as explained already, and we have seen that no advanced degree of muscular fatigue as such can be obtained by voluntary action, for fatigue in the nervous system outstrips in its onset fatigue in the muscles. In accus- tomed actions, however, as in walking or digging, where there had been habituation, the activity may be so prolonged without great nervous fatigue as to give approaching "exhaustion" that is, notable loss of chemical substance in the muscles. Industrial work is habitual work, but the case in which muscular labor is so intense and prolonged as to give exhaustion in this sense need not be considered here, nor the causation of the special symptoms which arise. It must be noted, however, that practically the whole of the mechanical energy and heat yielded by the body during work comes from the chemical energy stored in the muscles. In proportion as this store is called upon, and quite apart from the question of fatigue, it must be made good by supplies from the blood and ultimately from the food. Practically the whole of the energy transformed in the muscles is derived from carbohydrate material, and the impor- tance of this in relation to the diet of workers is discussed in Memorandum No. 3. 1 Signs and Symptoms of Fatigue. Memoranda of the British Health of Munition Workers Committee, 1917. United States Bureau of Labor. Statistics. Bulletin 221. p. 50-2. 318 PRACTICAL PSYCHOLOGY FOR For work in which severe muscular effort is required it seems probable that the maximum output over the day's work and the best conditions for the workers' comfort and maintained health will be secured by giving short spells of strenuous activity broken by longer spells of rest, the time ratio of rest to action being here, for maximal efficiency, greater than that for the employments in which nervous activity is more prominent or more complicated than in the processes involved during familiar muscular work. This difference may be connected directly with the greater bulk of chemical material which must be mobilized when, as in severe muscular exercise, so large a proportion of the whole body mass is engaged in the chemical events involved in movement and doing work; but further scientific study is needed here. Nervous and Mental Fatigue It is under this head, as we have seen, that the special prob- lems of industrial fatigue arise. The signs and symptoms of the fatigue will depend upon the nature of the particular work done, whether it be general bodily work of this or that kind, carried out in fixed routine, or whether it involve mental activity of a simple or of a more complicated kind. The fatigue may spring from the maintained use of intelligence and obser- vation with varying degrees of the muscular effort necessary in every kind of work, or from the maintenance of steady attention upon one skilled task, or of distributed attention, as when several machines are to be tended or other manipulations performed ; or, again, it may depend upon the continued use of special senses and sense organs in discrimination, whether by touch or sight. It will be affected greatly according to whether the worker has opportunity for obeying his natural rhythms, or whether unnatural rhythm is imposed upon him by the pace of the machine with which he works or by that of his fellow workmen. Considerations so inexplicable at present in terms of physiology as to be called "psychology" will also arise; if the work is of a "worrying" or "fussy" kind, with a multiplicity, that is to say, of imposed and irregular rhythms, fatigue will be more rapid, perhaps on account of the more numerous and "higher" nervous centers which become implicated. BUSINESS EXECUTIVES 3*9 Monotonous Work And much industrial work is monotonous offers some special problems. It has been seen that uniformly repeated acts tend to become in a sense "automatic," and that the nerve centers concerned become less liable to fatigue the time ratio of neces- ary rest to action is diminished. But when monotonous series are repeated, fatigue may appear in what may be called the psychical field, and a sense of "monotony" may diminish the capacity for work. This is analogous to, if it does not represent, a fatigue process in unrecognized nervous centers. Conversely, "interest" may improve the working capacity even for a uniform monotonous activity, and the interest may spring from emotional states, or, as some think, from states of anticipatory pleasure be- fore mealtime and rest ("end spurt"), or again, from a sense of patriotism eager to forward the munitions output. It may be remarked that mental processes, like those involved, for instance, in adding up figures, may be maintained for very long periods subject to the needs of change of posture and of diurnal sleep with no great loss of capacity, that is, without marked fatigue in that particular process. Such diminution of capacity as occurs, and the sense of fatigue that is felt sub- jectively by common experience in such a task, appear to be due to "monotony," and to be removable by means of "interest." For practical purposes in industrial management two chief characters of nervous fatigue must be observed. First, during the continued performance of work the objective results of nervous fatigue precede in their onset the subjective symptoms of fatigue. Without obvious sign and without his knowing it himself, a man's capacity for work may diminish owing to his unrecognized fatigue. His time beyond a certain point then begins to be uneconomically spent, and it is for scientific man- agement to determine this point, and to determine further the arrangement of periods of rest in relation to spells of work that will give the best development over the day and the year of the worker's capacity. Second, the results of fatigue which advances beyond physiological limits ("overstrain") not only reduce capacity at the moment, but do damage of a more permanent kind which will affect capacity for periods far beyond the next 320 PRACTICAL PSYCHOLOGY FOR normal period of rest. It will plainly be uneconomical to allow this damage to be done. For these reasons, chief among others, it will be important to detect latent fatigue, and since sensations of fatigue are unpunctual and untrustworthy, means must be sought of observing the onset of fatigue objectively. It has happened, moreover, that, rightly or wrongly, a sus- picion has grown up among workers that any device for increas- ing output will be used for the profit of the employer rather than for the increased health and comfort of the workers. It would be out of place here to touch on the economic and social problems which arise in this connection, but until such solutions are found for them as will bring a hearty cooperation between employers and employed, in the task of finding the optimum condition of work for the benefit of both, there will be no certain prospect of determining the true physiological methods for get- ting the best results in modern industrial occupations. The committee believes that in the present time of crisis patriotic incentive has done much to abolish customary reduction of effort among munition workers, but it is of great importance to note that a special and strenuous voluntary effort in labor, if it be maintained under a badly arranged time-table of work and rest, does not necessarily bring increased output over a long period, however praiseworthy the intention of effort may be. Under wrong conditions of work, with excessive overtime, it is to be expected indeed that some deliberate "slacking" of the workers might actually give an improvement of output over a period of some length by sparing wasteful fatigue, just as the "nursing" of a boat crew over part of a long course may improve their performance. It cannot in such circumstances be said that a workman so restraining himself, consciously or unconsciously, is doing more to damage the output on the whole than the employer who has arranged overlong hours of work on the baseless assumption that long hours mean high output. THE PREVENTION OF FATIGUE * Everyone knows that continuous muscular effort necessarily involves more or less weariness or fatigue. Such fatigue is 1 Reynold A. Spaeth. Prevention of Fatigue in Industry. Industrial Management. January, February, May, 1920. p. 7-9, 120-1, 411. BUSINESS EXECUTIVES . 321 in no sense harmful to normal people, provided they rest from time to time. Just how long one may work or how often and long one should rest varies with the individual. Normal fatigue of this sort is no more injurious to the human machine than running is to a steam engine. Indeed it is less injurious. For the human machine unlike the steam engine carries an auto- matic repair kit that begins to operate the moment the machine comes to rest. The process of automatic repairing is so deli- cately adjusted that, as we all know, a rational amount of exercise and work actually increases the machine's strength. It is as if we started with a diminutive half horsepower engine which gradually and automatically increased to five or ten horse power. So far there is no problem ; nature seems to have designed the human machine on foolproof lines. Yes and no! Unfortunately an automatic stop was somehow omitted in the original specifications. Local safety devices, however, do exist. It has been clearly demonstrated, for example, that the conduction of a nervous impulse to a muscle ceases long before the muscle is actually and totally played out. If we consider the human will as a power generator, the nerves as the line wires and the muscles as a motor mechanism (which they obviously are), this safety device corresponds to an unseen hand opening a switch to prevent an overload. The stubborn fact remains, however, that we cannot be absolutely sure just when we have worked long enough. Our subjective sensations of weariness are unreliable. Sometimes, especially if work is monotonous and uninteresting, we tire quickly; again, we may become so absorbed or fascinated by the job in hand that we lose our sense of time and drive our- selves abnormally without any consciousness of discomfort. These facts complicate the study of the fatigue problem. We do not know when to stop, and we cannot be sure that we are seriously overworked until we become so certain that it is too late. Then the damage has been done. The various delicate protection and compensation mechanisms are thrown out of alignment and our machine refuses to work. We must therefore distinguish clearly between normal fatigue from which we recover over night or over the week end and cumulative fatigue which in an advanced stage is often asso- ciated with a nervous breakdown, a pathological condition from which simple rest in the ordinary sense gives little or no relief. Normal fatigue may merge almost insensibly into cum- 322 PRACTICAL PSYCHOLOGY FOR ulative fatigue; it is impossible for physicians or physiologists to say just where fatigue ceases to be normal and becomes cumulative. Cumulative or pathological fatigue may develop in any worker, in any industry. Unlike certain poisons, or exposed gears and belts, this particular danger is not limited to any specific occupation and it constitutes, therefore, the most widely distributed industrial health hazard. The chief reasons why cumulative fatigue is considered a formidable health hazard are: (i) the difficulty of detecting it in its early stages; (2) the fact that a "nervous breakdown" frequently means a permanent injury to health; and (3) the fact that unlike the more obvious and spectacular hazards cumulative fatigue is not well understood and neither the symptoms nor the treatment have received the attention they deserve, . . The exact relation between cumulative fatigue and emotional over-stimulation that incites to excessive effort is not known. Both conditions approach the pathological through the using up of energy reserves which are not normally accessible, and in failing to be cured by a brief rest. The net results of long continued cumulative fatigue and over-stimulation are: (i) "breakdown" variously interpreted as mental, nervous, neuroses, psychoses, etc.; (2) loss of workers in the turnover; (3) shorten- ing of trade life. The economic disadvantages of these results are too obvious for further comment. . . In passing through a modern factory it is astonishing to observe the amount of energy that is wasted by workers. We can scarcely begin to discuss the host of environment factors that contribute to the normal fatigue of industrial workers. Some of these factors, such as illumination and ventilation, have already developed to highly specialized branches of engi- neering. In both of these cases, however, development has been one-sided ; the technical phase has been highly perfected while the physiological side has been neglected. The most ideal system of illumination cannot produce and maintain a maximum output unless the eyes of the workers have been functionally perfected, either by nature or the oculist. Optohietrists know that a perfect pair of eyes adapted for both near and far vision is the rare exception, not the rule. Progressive managers are just beginning to appreciate this fact. In launching our attack upon unnecessary fatigue, we can well begin by a routine examination of eyes. Every individual BUSINESS EXECUTIVES 323 should be included, for even if glasses are being worn there is no guarantee that their optical formula is not obsolete. In making this systematic examination of eyes, it should be borne in mind that the fatigue associated with so-called "eye-strain" is frequently due to unbalanced eye muscles, i.e., a tendency to be cross- or wall-eyed. Even when vision is perfect, apparently mysterious digestive disturbances and headaches often result from defective eye muscles. Both vision and eye musculature must therefore be critically examined. The selecting of a first class man to make the eye survey is an economic investment that will amply repay the management both in production and morale. The economic advantages of proper illumination are univer- sally appreciated by intelligent managers. More light means greater production; nothing could be simpler. But when we approach the more complex field of heating and ventilation the answer is not so obvious. To a physiologist it seems astonish- ingly paradoxical to find the most elaborate routing systems, time-study methods and other paraphernalia of scientific man- agement in a plant where some workers perspire beside uncovered steam pipes and others in the same room are cramped by cold. Frequently managers install highly accurate therm-regulating devices which hold the temperature but disregard humidity entirely. And yet we know that the "zone of comfort" is determined both by moisture and temperature. The discomfort, lassitude and avoidable fatigue associated with a hot, over-moist working environment are well known. Here again the physio- logical aspects of the problem have been accorded a secondary place. . . Whenever an industrial process involves heavy work or work requiring constant standing or sitting, and especially when the task is repetitive and demands constant and close attention, rest periods should be introduced. For ideal results, both the duration and the distribution of the rest periods must be deter- mined experimentally for each individual process. A five- minute period in the middle of the morning and afternoon sessions is a good way to begin. In some plants, at the sound of a bell, the power is shut down, windows are opened and the group operators perform a few simple breathing exercises. This Is sound physiological practice for by increasing respiration the "fatigue products" in the blood tend to disappear by oxidation. 324 PRACTICAL PSYCHOLOGY FOR The calisthenics likewise tend to distribute the fatigue products in a uniform way, which reduces unpleasant local sensations of discomfort and weariness. Unless the exercises are conducted by a spirited leader they are likely to become very casual and lose much of their effect. In such cases it is better to defer the exercises until a proper leader can be developed. . . What, then, is our final conclusion regarding "standard" times and the time-study method? Must the entire technique be considered faulty, unscientific and unpractical? By no means. Astonishing results can be obtained under ideal conditions. But in order clearly to understand these results we must first ask why time study was ever considered necessary? What ever led Taylor to think of the scheme? Briefly, it was because an antagonism rather than a harmony existed between the interests of workers and managers. We are not concerned with deciding where the fault lay. Both workers and managers were often ignorant, prejudiced, fooling themselves or deliberately dishonest all along the line. But Taylor saw, through the eyes of an idealist, that if mutual confidence and trust could be established in place of soldiering, driving, rate cutting and the thousand other throat-cutting devices, growing out of mutual suspicion efficiency, production, harmony and profits must result. Now where time study and task setting get results is (i) in teaching the management what it has forgotten or never known about the difficulties and annoyance of individual jobs and (2) in actually establishing mutual confidence and loyalty between the workers and management. Less "scientific" but equally success- ful managers have found that where man and master really believe in each other conscientious work is bound to result. In other words, loyalty and fairness are fundamental and can get results without "elementary times"; and elementary times get just nowhere alone. It is not the God-like irrevocability of a "standard time" that makes task setting successful, but the feeling among your men and women th-.it the cards are on the table face up, and everyone is getting a square deal. The engi- neers, conscious of the third decimal in their time elements, are still shouting about the exactness of the .time-study method. They keenly resent Hoxie's criticisms and retaliate by calling him "queer" and "prejudiced." But they must face the fact that task setting is a dangerous tool in unscrupulous, ignorant or inexperienced hands. They must realize that time-study BUSINESS EXECUTIVES 325 methods are unstandardized. They should insist upon a com- mittee appointed by the Society of Industrial Engineers to agree upon a unified time-study method. Such a committee should include, in addition to a group of representative time-study men, at least one expert statistician, a psychologist, a psychiatrist, an industrial physician, a scientifically trained social service worker and a physiologist. PRACTICAL APPLICATIONS l This principle has been applied practically in the case of five hundred shovellers who were being employed in shovelling, with a shovel of constant size, material of very varying weight, sometimes coal, sometimes ashes, at other times heavy iron ore, etc. Experiments were conducted with shovels of different sizes in order to ascertain the optimal weight per shovel load for a good shoveller. The best average weight was found to be twenty-one pounds. Accordingly shovels were made of different sizes, in proportion to the heaviness of the material shovelled, so that each shovel whether full of coal, ash or iron, etc., weighed twenty-one pounds. This was the 'most important inno- vation, although others were at the same time carried out. The results were as follows: (i) the average amount shovelled per day rose by nearly 270 per cent from 16 to 59 tons per man, (2) 150 men could now perform what 500 men had performed under previous conditions, (3) the average earnings of the shovellers increased by 60 per cent, (4) the cost to the manage- ment, after paying all extra expenses, was reduced by 50 per cent, (5) there was no evidence of increased fatigue of the shovellers. . . Laboratory experiments have shown that the subjective feel- ing of fatigue is no criterion of an incapacity to perform satisfactory work. We have experimental evidence that an excellent output of work may be obtained when the feeling of fatigue is severe. A similarly untrustworthy (but opposite) feeling of efficiency occurs under the influence of alcohol and in certain conditions of fatigue, when the work performed under its influence is actually less accurate and reliable. 1 Charles S. Myers. Present Day Applications of Psychology, p. 8, 14-15. Methuen and Company, Ltd. London. 326 PRACTICAL PSYCHOLOGY FOR During rest after a period of work a certain amount of practice is lost, but as an offset to this, a certain amount of fatigue is lost, and there is also, on the other hand, a loss of incitement and settlement. Various experiments have been con- ducted in order to find the "most favourable pause," i.e. the pause in which the various factors so operate as to produce a maximal amount of work after the pause. In the factory the importance of interpolating more frequent rest pauses is only just beginning to be realized. There can be no doubt that an unbroken morning or afternoon's work of four or more hours is economically unsound, and that the systematic introduction of rest pauses (together with the elim- ination of periods of slackness, needless movements, etc.) must lead to a vast improvement in quantity and quality of work. Let me exemplify this by quoting* the results of a trench- digging competition during the present war between two com- panies. The officer of one company allowed his men to work uninterruptedly until their condition demanded a rest. The officer of the rival company divided his men into three sections, of which each section successively worked their utmost for five minutes and rested for ten minutes. This systematic arrange- ment resulted in an easy win for his company. So too in a certain munitions factory, the interpolation of a fifteen-minute rest in each hour is reported to have yielded a definite increase in the output of work, despite the initial objection of the men, who were being paid by piece-work. The German shipbuilders have recognized the better output of work on the Clyde, despite, nay rather because of, the shorter hours of their daily work. A certain firm in Manchester had factories both in Lancashire and Belgium. The hours of work in their Lancashire factory were fifty-one a week: in their Belgian factory sixty-six a week. Yet for identical work, the Lancashire operatives produced the larger output. PHYSIOLOGY OF MONOTONY 1 It goes without saying that monotony of work, of which these are random examples, cannot be avoided in our industries. 1 Josephine Goldmark. Fatigue and Efficiency, p. 67-8. New York Charities Publication Committee. 1912. BUSINESS EXECUTIVES . 327 ? It is a part of their development, and even when ingenious machines are invented to do work previously done by hand, the running and feeding of such machines often provides only another form of monotonous work for the human agent. With subdivision, and the loss of craftsmanship, monotony of work in greater or less degree is inevitable, and may well be accepted as such. For when once monotony is recognized as a real hardship, and as in itself a source of fatigue, rational means of relieving it may be sought, in shortening hours of monotonous labor and alternating work of different kinds. . . From our physiological point of view, this is entirely logical, because the strain of monotony is not due merely to the distaste for work and the aversion it engenders. Monotony of occupa- tion is a true factor in inducing fatigue, because it has a true physiological basis, which 'can briefly be made clear. We know that with repetition and sameness of use there results continu- ous fatigue of the muscle or organ used. So, too, with the nerve centers from which our motive power springs. We must bear in mind that the special functions of the brain have separate centers. Thus, there is a center for hearing, another for sight, another for speech, etc. When certain centers are working con- tinuously, monotonously, from morning to night, day by day and week by week, it is physiologically inevitable that they should tire more easily than when work is sufficiently varied to call upon other centers in turn. The monotony of so-called light and easy work may thus be more damaging to the organism than heavier work which gives some chance for variety, some outlet for our innate revolt against unrelieved repetitions. Monotony often inflicts more in- jury than greater muscular exertion just because it requires con- tinuous receiving work from nerve centers, fatigue of which, as we have seen, reacts with such disastrous consequences upon our total life and health. The evils of monotony illustrate again how closely all the functions of our life are bound up together; how the physical and nervous and psychic parts of us react and interact upon one another. Aversion from a monotonous grind of work, the effort of the will to "keep up," requires just so much more nervous stimulus from already tired nerve centers. 328 PRACTICAL PSYCHOLOGY FOR SCIENTIFIC CONTROL OF FATIGUE FACTORS 1 If a search after ways of eliminating fatigue is to be thorough the individual worker should be carefully observed and the conditions of his task should be carefully analyzed. Such an analysis reveals that there are primary and secondary sources of fatigue. The primary source of fatigue lies in the performance of the essential part of the operation itself involv- ing the transformation of a definite amount of energy. This is the irreducible minimum, stripped of all non-essential ac- companiments. It is sometimes possible, as will be shown later, to measure with a fair degree of accuracy the amount of work performed in this essential part of the operation and thus de- termine the primary fatiguing capacity of the task. This source of fatigue is unavoidable. But it is different with the secondary sources of fatigue. These comprise certain actions and bodily positions which ac- company but are not needed in performing the task, together with certain other environmental conditions under which the task is performed. Gilbreth found that with the customary way of laying bricks eighteen motions were employed in laying a single brick, but eleven of these could be omitted altogether, and some of the others could be combined, so that the required mo- tions were reduced to one and three-quarters. The material and the tools which the worker uses are often placed at a distance from his hands and not where he can get them with the least possible movement and expenditure of energy. A worker is often forced to stand at his work, when he might more eco- nomically sit. Stools are less efficient as labor savers than are chairs; and a chair should have an adjustable back. A high chair should be provided with an adjustable foot rest, especially with women workers. The rate of a factory machine run by power is usually set more or less arbitrarily and the worker is expected to conform to it, although his own neuromuscular rhythm, the rhythm at which he can do his best work, may be slower. Such conditions of work, while they may appear trivial, nevertheless, may cause needless muscular contractions, 1 Frederick S. Lee. The Human Machine and Industrial Efficiency, p. 19-23, 45-8. Longmans, Green and Company. New York. 1918. Re- printed by permission. BUSINESS EXECUTIVES 329 needless and unwise expenditure of energy, and thus may add to the fatigue of the worker. Their avoidance is usually a simple matter. Other environmental contributing causes of fatigue relate to illumination, ventilation, food, and various sanitary conditions. Here may be mentioned lack of sufficient illumination, mis- placed artificial lights, and location of workers and machines so as not to secure the full benefit of window lighting. Even. when general illumination is sufficient a glare of light on the work bench or the material may be harmful. Lack of proper ventilation is a frequent condition of un- necessary fatigue. The investigators of the Public Health Ser- vice have found that the different members of a group of work- ers on the same job frequently show similar variations in total strength ; and the same is shown by different groups of workers who have different jobs but similar external environments. Such facts indicate that strength is affected by external in- fluences, and the investigators have found that air temperatures of 85F., or above, especially when maintained for several days, reduce the worker's strength. My colleague, Dr. Scott, and I have shown by a series of experiments on animals that the heat and humidity of the air diminish muscular power. At an average temperature of O9F. (2iC.) and an average humidity of 52 per cent the total amount of work that could be performed by certain selected muscles before they were exhausted was re- garded as 100 per cent; after the animals had been exposed for six hours to an "intermediate" condition of temperature of 75 F- (24C.) and humidity of 70 per cent the total work possible fell to 85 per cent, and after a "high" of 9iF. (33C.) and humidity of 90 per cent, the work dropped to 76 per cent. Not only a hot and humid but a still atmosphere is bad ; the air of the working place should be reasonably cool, moderately dry, and kept in motion. An absolutely constant temperature is not so beneficial as one that is varied. The enervating effect of a high tempera- ture may be much avoided by the use of electric fans. A purely artificial system of ventilation is probably never so efficient as one that makes use also of open windows, with their possibili- ties of playing upon the skin a variable air supply. Variety is one of the essentials of good ventilation. Lack of adequate and properly selected and cooked food is a frequent obstacle to high productivity. The same may be said 330 PRACTICAL PSYCHOLOGY FOR of a lack of adequate bathing and toilet facilities. The time has gone by when these aids to cleanliness are to be considered as mere needless luxuries. If the human machine is to be in its best working condition it must be kept clean within and without. While these causes of fatigue are secondary they are none the less real and their elimination conduces to the greater pro- ductivity of the human machine. In order to preserve the working power daily fatigue should not be so great that it cannot be substantially removed by the night's rest; weekly fatigue ought likewise to be dispelled by the rest of Sunday. If this is not accomplished, if there is a residue of this powerful obstacle to efficiency accumulating from day to day and from week to week, serious results will surely follow. This was precisely the situation in the munitions industry of England. Sixteen months after the war began the British Health of Munitions Workers Committee wrote: "Tak- ing the country as a whole the Committee are bound to record their impression that the munitions workers in general have been allowed to reach a state of reduced efficiency and lowered health which might have been avoided without reduction of out- put by attention to the details and weekly rests. And again, twenty-two months later, the Committee wrote : "The conditions are not the same now as they were in the early days of the war; not only have large numbers of the youngest and strongest workers been withdrawn for military service, but those who re- main are suffering from the strain inseparable from a continu- ous period of long hours of employment. . . The effects of the strain may even have been already more serious than appears on the surface, for while it is possible to judge roughly the general condition of those working in the factory today, little informa- tion is available concerning the large number of workers who, for one reason or another, and often because they find the work too arduous, are continually giving up their job." This experi- ence of England ought to serve as a lesson to other countries, and especially to America. A particularly insidious way of nullifying the 'advantages of a short working-day that is not uncommon is the imposition of overtime, keeping the employee for an evening of work after the day's work is done. Here a peculiarity of the human ma- BUSINESS EXECUTIVES 331 chine is of interest. Mosso showed long ago that fatigue does not increase in arithmetical proportion to the increase in work done, but that added work imposed upon an already fatigued individual is disproportionately more fatiguing and requires a longer time for recuperation. Kent found that the keenness of the sight of industrial workers is diminished in a greater degree by a day with overtime, than by a day of the usual length. When overtime is imposed the further call upon the depressed tissues can, indeed, be answered for a while by further action the human machine can spurt but the more healthful occupa- tion of the evening, in view of the work of the morrow, would be one of recreation and rest. If overtime is ever thought necessary, as in a real and serious emergency, it should be only occasional and should be followed by an added compensating resting period. What is said of overtime applies with equal force to Sunday labor following six days' occupation. Here, again, the example of England is instructive. As a direct result of the study of industrial fatigue since the war began the British Committee puts it tersely in saying "It is almost a commonplace that seven days' labor only produces six days' output," and adds that in Great Britain "Sunday labor for men is now greatly restricted in amount and has been practically abolished for women and young persons." A further matter of importance may here be mentioned. An observant visitor to the factories cannot fail to notice that he rarely sees old men or women among employees. This is so evident that the presence of an aged worker appears anomalous. There is a widespread opinion that forty-five represents the re- tiring age for most industrial workers. In an investigation of 1761 brass foundrymen in Chicago in 191 1, Hayhurst found that there were but 17, or 0.97 per cent, over fifty years of age, and but 180, or 10.2 per cent, estimated at over forty years. The question immediately arises: What is responsible for the ab- sence of workers beyond middle life; and the answer inevitably comes to mind that the rigor of the game incapacitates them at an age when human beings are expected still to be doing excel- lent work. If this is so, the accumulated fatigue of many years is the decisive factor. The remedy would appear to be a diminution in the hours of labor and the installation of other conditions not so severe for the human machine and conducive 332 PRACTICAL PSYCHOLOGY FOR to its longer usefulness. In a field in which accurate data are largely wanting and an intensive study is much needed, it is impossible to draw decisive conclusions, but the subject offers food for enticing speculation. SOME GUIDING PURPOSES IN FATIGUE STUDIES x Efficiency engineers and psychologists are actively engaged in experimentation upon many other factors which may affect the worker and his output. One such form of experimentation is upon the effect of distraction (introduction of conflicting stimuli). In every business office or factory there are, of course, noises of machinery, typewriters, telephone conversations and the like. Morgan has shown that where the stimulating value of the problem is kept high, loss in the output from any function though distraction is very much less than is popularly supposed (although the subject exerts greater muscular effort, presses down harder upon the keys, etc.). It is well known that sudden noises and those infrequently met with have a disturbing effect on account of their tendency to arouse the fear reaction. Where the disturbances are regular the phenomenon of adaptation enters in and the worker ceases to be disturbed by extraneous stimuli. One of the most striking illustrations of this was observed in the Army. In the Air Personnel office when the force was small, typewriters had to be stopped when long-distance calls were answered. As the pressure of the work increased and as the office force trebled and quadrupled, it was no uncommon sight to see a man answering a long-distance telephone call with fifteen or twenty typewriters going in his immediate neighbor- hood and a hundred or more going in the one large room. Again, while experimentation over short periods of time may show that such stimuli are without immediate effect, it still seems safest to have offices and factories arranged so that the worker is as free as possible from extraneous disturbances. The wear and tear on the human organism is probably a positive thing even though temporary laboratory studies fail to give marked evidences of it. 1 J. B. Watson. Psychology from the Standpoint of a Behaviorist. p. 379-81, J. B. Lippincott Company. Philadelphia. 1919. BUSINESS EXECUTIVES 333 Recently a large number of experiments have been made upon the most satisfactory systems of lighting. Indeed, there is now a well-organized society of illuminating engineers. There is general agreement that bright lights are disturbing and that evenness and uniformity in illumination rather than great intensity are the conditions to be striven for except in those cases where the task demands high intensity, as in drafting and the doing of fine work generally. It seems that a general caution on all efficiency experimenta- tion is not out of place here. In recent years there has been a constant tendency to turn to the study of man: the technic and machine sides of industry have been worked up to a point of maximum efficiency. Output if increased must come from a better understanding of man. Psychologists have aided and abetted industry in solving this problem. When the improved output comes from selecting the most suitable man for the task, from eliminating waste effort, improving training methods, and allowing recreation and proper periods of rest, such efforts are in the right direction. But the industries are undoubtedly abus- ing the situation. Every effort is being made, by the bonus sys- tem, appeal to loyalty, patriotism and pride, to grind as much out of the organism as possible in the shortest space of time. We would not stay the advance of efficiency engineering for a moment, but we would urge that every device for getting in- creased output from the worker should, before being recom- mended and adopted, be studied from the standpoint of its ef- fect upon the total activity of the worker in popular terms, its effect upon his happiness and comfort. STANDARD OBJECTIVES FOR REDUCTION OF FATIGUE x Closely bearing on the subject of the length of the working day, and intimately related to the economy in power production, is the question of fatigue. It would be without our province to discuss here the effects of "fatigue toxins" on the nervous system and vitality of workers; and many excellent researches have re- cently been made on the subject. The point of immediate import- 1 Walter N. Polakov. Fatigue and Industrial Efficiency. Industrial Management. December, 1919. p. 448-52. 334 PRACTICAL PSYCHOLOGY FOR ance is the ill effects of fatigue in industry, on society, and some means of its elimination. It has been pointed out by those studying the subject that the greatest proportion of occupational fatigue is of nervous origin. Mr. Charles S. Myers, Director of Cambridge Psychological Laboratory explained that, "The central nervous system (the brain and the spinal cord) acted as a protection against muscular fatigue, and it was only in the extremely strenuous work of comparatively few occupations that there was a serious degree of muscular fatigue." Indeed, when a person was actually fatigued, he might temporarily do far better muscular work than when he was not, for a certain status of fatigue produces a feeling of ability to work, though the work may fall very far short in quality if not in quantity. This fact is of great importance to power plant work, where the quality of work is of paramount importance, while quantity is economically of slight value. In cases of firemen attending hand-fired furnaces numerous tests are on record plainly indi- cating that as fatigue grows the ability of shoveling coal into the fire does not diminish, while the quality of combustion is getting steadily poorer as indicated by the number of pounds of steam produced per pound of coal. In cases of mechanically stoked boilers physical fatigue plays a still more subordinate role, whereas that of nervous and men- tal origin obviously predominates. It is significant to note that the monotony of work in the fire rooms equipped with stokers, whose motions are hardly perceptible, where silence or monoton- ous humming is seldom broken, while the illumination is usually best adaptated for slumbering meditation, has a most ruinous effect on economy. Feelings of weariness and fatigue arising from this deadening monotony make long hours for firemen not only nerve-wrecking but highly extravagant from the viewpoint of economy. While periodic rest and recreation may prevent a large turnover among firemen and a don't care spirit, means for dispelling the monotony are extremely valuable both from the standpoints of welfare and economy. The rule almost with- out exception that proportionally larger savings of fuel may be made in the mechanically stoked boiler rooms than in the hand fired ones is to be attributed principally to this fatigue- producing monotony. Installation of instruments, requests for log-keeping and brighter lighting alone show in the writer's ex- perience a marked increase in economy, sometimes reaching BUSINESS EXECUTIVES 335 twelve per cent improvement in efficiency. Yet such measures alone cannot be depended upon to produce lasting effect, as they themselves, in course of time, will lose their stimulating value of novelty, and become familiar, monotonous adjuncts of the "old dirty hole." Intellectual awakening, training, competition, sport- ing spirit, bonuses and other forms of incentives are therefore producing as a rule favorable results, even when clumsy and unfit, yet if inaugurated with proper thoughtfulness, upon thorough analysis of all circumstances and in accordance with a far-sighted policy, these and similar measures are completely regenerating for the spirit. Generalizations from a typical case or from individual, single-day tests, however interesting, are lacking the indications as to how the fatigue accumulates day by day during the week. Monday's chart shows undoubtedly a feeling of fatigue after Sunday's rest; while power demand is fairly steady and peaks are uniformly high in both morning and in the afternoon spells, they do not reach the same heights as on Tuesday when the feel- ing of realization of fatigue is somewhat worn off; the periods of high output during spells are noteworthy by their durations. On Wednesday morning the fatigue is not felt yet, but in the afternoon it begins to manifest itself by a steadily decreasing use of power. Thursday is a day when the industrial community becomes really tired ; after short effort in the early morning the work drags fourteen to fifteen per cent less actively than on Tuesday. On Friday a supreme effort is made at the start of the day by tired men to work hard, but collapse follows at once and the output rapidly falls in an avalanche fashion to the lowest point on the record; Saturday morning finds men without any ambition left, no peaks to indicate any vestige of the morning spell, although fairly high, men probably being spurred by antici- pation of the holiday, while some likely are rushing to finish their week's tasks. The accumulative fatigue, so plainly evident from these graphs, is of the utmost importance: it seems to indicate that the seven-day week (traditional since Biblical times and suitable for occupations of that degree of civilization) is too long for our days of strenuous effort. But it also suggests a desirability of securing similar data for fifty-two weeks of the year showing the accumulation of fatigue throughout the year. Unfortunately, this kind of data is exceedingly difficult to secure because of 336 PRACTICAL PSYCHOLOGY FOR seasonal fluctuation of the amount of work, number of employ- ees, climatic changes and numerous other interfering factors. However, these wavy lines of fatigue and spells have a great deal more than academic value. By careful study of them the possibility of combating the ill-effect of fatigue on health, safety and productivity may be devised. In certain manual operations performed in power plants such as wheeling of coal, the inter- mittent work and rest periods were arranged after exhaustive tests with the result that men who were fatigued and ready to "fire the job" not wanting to "kill themselves" by wheeling in forty-five thousand pounds of coal in twelve hours, were made contented, and thought the job a "cinch" when, by following our instruction, they wheeled in sixty thousand to sixty-five thou- sand pounds in eight hours. The reduction and general gradual elimination of fatigue through adequate rest and proper recreation, better adapted tools and surroundings of work, substitution of interest in work for monotony, etc., is the task of utmost importance from the view- point of national economy as it at once not only conserves the health of the nation and increases the productivity and well- being of the community but it materially conserves our fuel re- sources for posterity. The task of engineers viewed in this light is this, to provide opportunities for leisure rather than to invent new yokes and tread mills. XVIII. THE PATHOLOGY OF THE WORKER The application of the principles of mental hygiene to indus- try is in its initial stages, and the time is not ripe to make hard and fast conclusions. It is not too early however to draw the attention of business executives to the practical progress that has already been made and to the main lines of development. The actual accomplishments thus far and the angle of approach to some of the most baffling industrial problems are sufficient to suggest the great contributions that may be expected steadily in the future from this source. THE MENTAL HYGIENE OF INDUSTRY 1 Just as nobody would now think of denying the routine value of physicians and surgeons in industrial plants, so nobody can fail to note the good done by ordinary social workers in connection with industry. There is simply no dispute on either of these matters. To be sure, some managers may stress the welfare values of the doctor and the social worker, while other managers think of them as contributing to plant efficiency. But these are questions of the temperament of the managers, not of the nature of the results in the plants. Now it requires no great refinement of viewpoint to see that, instead of a general practitioner of medicine, for some plant purposes (e.g., discharge, grievance, and certain turnover problems) a physician with psychiatrist training would serve far better. The psychiatrist is by training and experience a specialist in grievances; why is it not logical to apply this specialism to the grievances of industrial plants? On precisely the same grounds, the social worker with psychiatric experience is preferable to the general social worker for the purposes of 1 E. E. Southard. The Mental Hygiene of Industry. Industrial Man- agement. February, 1920. p. 101-4. 338 PRACTICAL PSYCHOLOGY FOR industry, if we can prove that a considerable number of the more difficult plant problems are psychiatric or have a psy- chiatric tinge. For the present argument, may I take for granted that the values of psychiatric, social workers outside of industry, both in war work and in peace work, are generally admitted? To be sure, there may not be over two hundred trained and experienced psychiatric social workers in the country at the present writing; accordingly it is only where they do exist or have been at work that their values are even understood, much less questioned. But there is, so far as I am aware, no dissen- tient word anywhere about the results of these workers, where they are in evidence at all. . . The problem of mental hygiene is wider than medicine and wider than the branch of medicine that deals with nervous and mental diseases. The problem touches mental and social sciences and arts of the greatest breadth. Yet the indispensable core of the problem may well turn out to be medical. I had the privilege, in the Spring of 1917, of many remarkable hours of consultation with the late Carleton Parker. He had, as every- body knows, come to a view of the great importance of the underlying ideas of mental disease and defect in the problem of industrial unrest. Every psychiatrist who appeared on the Pacific Coast was eagerly interviewed by Parker for what said psychiatrist might say on problems like those of temperament, monotony, fatigue and the like. It is a great wonder that an economist could have come independently to this point of view. Perhaps if more economists with thoroughly scientific training should live with the workmen as Carleton Parker did with the hoboes, the problem of hiring and firing, of promotion, of job selection, and in fact the entire problem of personnel, would get settled faster. . . Miss Mary C. Jarrett, now working on this topic under the Engineering Foundation, published briefly certain studies of the psychopathic employee as a result of her Psychopathic Hospital work. . . In a later paper Miss Jarrett has discussed what she has termed shell-shock analogues under civilian conditions. She says concerning the war neuroses themselves; "The considera- tions that strike the psychiatric social worker in this situation are, first, the desire that this new, widespread knowledge of BUSINESS EXECUTIVES 339 the neuroses that war is making prominent may be turned to the advantage and relief of civilians who suffer from similar troubles and receive inadequate consideration; second, that experience in the social care of civil cases of similar nature may be used to advantage in restoring soldiers suffering from shell-shock to normal social condition; third, that a thorough, intelligent public understanding of these disorders should be established against the day when the soldier who suffered shell- shock shall have again become a civilian, and the cause of his trouble may not be remembered acutely enough to arouse sym- pathy for symptoms that still persist." She found that the analogues of shell-shock in civil life appeared frequently at the Psychopathic Hospital. The range of exciting causes was from trivial incidents, such as- a quarrel or reprimand, to a profound shock, such as an accident in which the patient is severely injured and a companion killed. She found another feature of the situation, which the layman can- not readily understand, namely, that the severity of the symptoms is not at all proportionate to the size or apparent importance of the cause. Treatment, however, must be relative to the gravity of the disease and not to the nature of the particular strain or shock which induced the condition. She narrates cases in detail to show first certain failures in social treatment which come about through lack of medical resources and in- ability to compel treatment, secondly, cases of pronounced success obtained by comparatively slight service, such as advice to the family or finding the patient a suitable position, and thirdly, cases in which results were only obtained with the most intensive social care. These cases included a failure to cure a perfectly curable neurosis, in an Italian laborer simply because medical facilities were not available in his home town and he could not be brought to a central clinic; cases of character change following acci- dent, cases of amnesia, and the like. Some of these cases might seem to run far afield from industry, but Miss Jarrett was able to find important connections between these cases and a variety of employment situations with the net result in many instances of complete adjustment. Something like half the cases of social work in mental hygiene clinics, such as that of the Psychopathic Hospital in Boston, will be found to throw light on various aspects of the employment problem. 340 PRACTICAL PSYCHOLOGY FOR Readers of engineering journals are familiar with turnover analyses in which sizeable lists of the causes of discharge and unemployment are to be found. Jau Don Ball gives certain methods of examination which he has used, in his own phrase, "as scientific aids to industrial efficiency." It would be equally true to say that Ball's methods and those of others engaged in this work are also practical aids to industrial welfare. Effi- ciency experts and welfare workers can unite in this mental hygiene program. Ball gives the following list of persons that might especially come under examination, queer guys, eccen- trics, disturbers, querulous persons, unreliable and unstable fel- lows, misfits, the irritable, the sullen, socially disgruntled, unso- ciable, negative, conscientious, litigious, bear-a-grudge, peculiar, glad-harid, gossipy, roving, restless, malicious, lying, swindling, sex pervert, false accusator, abnormal suggestibility and mental twist types. . . Ball described the analysis of certain employees in a firm where two months after Ball's examination a strike occurred. Ball states that "in the case of every employee terminated for the group examination whether discharge or voluntarily leaving, the prediction of a possible abnormal conduct or a dissatisfac- tion was made in the laboratory report and recommendations to the employer." And further, "according to the records, every- one of the strikers had something wrong with them from a nervous or mental standpoint (nearly all having a psychopathic history) ; it was noted that with three exceptions the 'strikers' cited as agitators were among those grading the highest on the intelligence scale used." The intelligence scale used was a selection of tests made by Dr. A. W. Stearns during his naval work on the Pacific Coast, as examiner of recruits. Stearns promises early publication of his work, of which an advance account was given at a meeting of the National Association of Psychiatrists. Of course no mental hygienist, least of all Drs. Ball and Stearns, would assert that all or many strikes could be prevented by advance studies of workmen. In fact Ball specifically says that "it could not be concluded from this or any other examina- tion that all strikers, whether agitators or not, are psychopaths ; but his examination does show that the agitators in this group were the self-assertive ones and the ones grading the highest BUSINESS EXECUTIVES 341 in intelligence, the others simply followed the leader. Nobody needs to say that there are not strikes having purely economic causes. Nobody needs to say that there are not strikes and other labor troubles due to mental disease or character defect either in the employment managers and minor executives or in the plant owners themselves. Some of the very conditions which make for self-assertiveness and success of a sort among labor leaders are conditions which make for the success of financial magnates and captains of industry. Nobody claims one hundred per cent efficiency for any of these or kindred proposals. REPORT OF THE ENGINEERING FOUNDATION 1 In industry, also, therefore, mental hygiene would apply to: first, a small but potentially important group of mentally dis- eased employees; second, a large group of individuals whose mental character is such as to require special consideration, pos- sibly nearly half of the working force; third, the largest group of workers, possibly a little over half, who have no appreciable mental difficulties and whose problem is chiefly to develop their mental ability. The practical situation divides itself into three propositions which present themselves in the form of questions: (i) Does industrial organization call for attention to individual mental characteristics? (2) Can the mental sciences give prac- tical help in dealing with minds in every day action? (3) Is it feasible to use mental science in industrial organization? There would be few found today to deny the first question. The second has been answered affirmatively in innumerable instances and places, and the answer can readily be found by anyone who can take time to gather the evidence. Psychiatry and psychology have already advanced far enough to make con- tributions to mental hygiene, that are of great practical value. Propositions one and two may be said to be proved. The time has come to work upon proposition number three. The inquiry into this subject undertaken by Dr. Southard !M. C. Jarrett. Massachusetts State Psychiatric Institute. A report of work done in collaboration with Dr. E. E. Southard in an investi- gation for the Engineering Foundation. Reprinted from The National Conference of Social Work. 1920. p. 336-42. 342 PRACTICAL PSYCHOLOGY FOR for the Engineering Foundation was the outcome of some work begun at the Psychopathic Hospital in Boston in 1914. When I went there to develop its social service in 1913, I found at once that many of our patients who were started on an industrial decline were competent and even excellent workmen, and that with a little assistance in adapting themselves to their employ- ment and an explanation of their condition to their employers, they could be refitted into industry. This led to the idea that similar methods of understanding and assistance might keep other employees from falling into the condition of hospital patients, and further to the thought that mental hygiene, neces- sary for the psychopathic employee, would also be beneficial to all persons in employment, to the end of promoting their effi- ciency and personal satisfaction. There was no lack of evidence, in my visits to industrial plants, that psychopathic employees were a recognized problem. Usually the cases cited were among the best workmen, and a problem was how to keep them at work. It will be of interest to list some of the instances that were told to me, and also some of the opinions expressed. The following cases are selected to mention : 1. Man who thought he could not do his job, and was found to be worrying about the headaches of his wife, also an em- ployee. When given assurance that his wife would be trans- f erred to a position more favorable to her health, he made good. 2. Girl who would get "fussed" over her work and finally have a hysterical fit the doctor found she had a sex obsession. She was a good worker. She is now considered one of the best workers and one of the nicest girls in the plant. 3. Girl who could concentrate only until an early hour of the afternoon. Every few weeks she would get wild and leave her work, saying she could not stand it another moment. Her problem was solved by putting her on two different jobs changing her work every day at noon. 4. Man who ieels "bum" all the time and is one of the best workers. 5. Foreman who asked to have his wife visited. His wife, he said, was "nervous." It was found that the man himself was so nervous that his wife thought he had changed very much in the last few years. She said that he cried in his sleep and BUSINESS EXECUTIVES 343 that he complained of the conditions of his work although he was absorbingly interested in it. He is a strong, healthy looking man. He was very suspicious of direction and would not accept an assistant foreman. The failure to break in an assistant would mean loss to the company if this man should become incapacitated. 6. Girl with hysteria, cause of which was found to be the serious illness of an intimate girl friend. 7. Case of traumatic neurosis in which permanent paralysis resulted after a useless operation upon the hand. 8. Man with back curved after a slight accident, from which no physical injury remains. 9. Man who occasionally stops work to sing and preach ; suddenly stops, and with a laugh goes back to work. 10. Young man several years in army service who was mute for a month after a shell explosion; now shows hesitation in speech and is slow in manner. Although he has made good at machine work, he feels shaky. He thinks he feels worse and wants to be transferred to office work. n. Man who had "shell shock" in the army who seems peculiar and does not do satisfactory work. 12. Superintendent who has no use for women. Carries this to such an extent that women employees cannot consult him. 13. Stenographer who is a fairly competent worker but seems dull and makes mistakes. Employment manager feels that there is something wrong with her. 14. Man laid off in slack season after fifteen years of em- ployment, has such an unfavorable reputation that it will be hard for him to find another job. Talks continually, is suspicious, thinks everybody is against him, and has given some reason to question his honesty. 15. Over-busy girl who is a fine worker. When allowance for her peculiarities was made she proved to be very useful. 16. Man who prided himself upon expert knowledge by which he could revolutionize industry. He wrote various letters denouncing all who opposed him. Once he was the leader of a small group of workmen. 17. Very capable "normal" girl who made unusual mistakes in her typewriting for several days and then had an attack of hysteria. After a few days at home she seemed all right. 344 PRACTICAL PSYCHOLOGY FOR 18. Foreman, a high-strung man, in whose department all the employees seem tense and irritable. 19. Man who ran up and down the shop with a bucket of molten metal. He was committed to a hospital for mental diseases. 20. Morose, surly Italian discharged for drawing a razor upon a fellow employee. This man had a record of having been employed by the same firm seven times within three years. The reasons for leaving were as follows: refused to do work; did not show up ; not satisfied ; dissatisfied ; left without notice ; dissatisfied with earnings ; discharged. He seems to have done about the same grade of work throughout and not to have shown mental deterioration. 21. Colored laborer who would dress up once or twice a month on Saturday in white trousers, frock coat, and silk hat and walk up and down the main street of the works. On that day he would not report for work, but otherwise was a satis- factory employee. 22. Good worker, employed for twenty years, has a belief that there is an electric current in his body pulling him from side to side. Once in a while he comes to the superintendent to talk about his condition. Apart from this delusion he is "quite normal." He gets along well with his mates and has not fallen down in his work. 23. Foreman who went to pieces six months after being promoted from the bench. He became excitable and was irritable when spoken to by his men and would sit and cry in the super- intendent's office. After two weeks of such behavior he was sent away for several weeks and seemed all right on his return. When put at his former work he was quite competent. * * * Some of the opinions expressed in regard to the importance of mental factors in industrial organizations: 12. An employment manager said he would like to have mental hygiene talks for his foremen, realizing that almost everyone has some wrong mental processes that stand in the way of his being positively constructive. 13. The director of industrial relations department in an extensive industry said that employers now realize that temper- ament is a factor in industry, and are aware of the importance BUSINESS EXECUTIVES 345 of allowing for different temperaments; but they do not yet recognize that these temperamental differences can be evaluated and dealt with successfully by medical experts. It will be necessary to demonstrate that temperamental peculiarities are due to fairly well understood mental processes. 14. A trade unionist thought that the labor leaders are be- ginning to realize the possibilities of a combination between science and industry. He thought that an experiment in the application of psychiatry, to industry would do more than any- thing else to convince the labor unions that the trend in industry is already toward individualization of the employee and that if psychiatry can contribute to that, it will be doing an important service. 15. The head of an industrial service department in a large plant had listed as part of his program for the coming year the education of department heads in mental hygiene. He said he hoped to teach them to recognize and deal intelligently with mental deficiency and with mental disorder. . . In the future, results should be sought through practical measures to supply in particular plants proof of what psy- chiatry has to contribute to personnel problems. Such practical measures are the mental hygiene working party to survey a plant, the consulting psychiatrist, and the psychiatric social worker connected with the personnel service. Many studies could be made within the plants for the purpose of indicating the value of such measures, but the emphasis should be upon an actual trial on a large scale of methods already proved to be of value in individual cases. Application of what is already known will not only yield immediate practical results, but will also be the shortest road to further knowledge. The difficulties of practical application may loom large. One manufacturer who was kind enough to list for us the objections that might be raised by industrialists was able to set down seventeen typewritten pages of possible objections. They can all be met by trial but probably not by argument. The objection in the foreground is that large industrial firms employing thousands cannot give attention to the individual employee. This is a problem of organization which is tersely put by Dr. Otto P. Geier when he says, "While it is advisable to think in terms of the mass, it is even more important to act in terms of the individual." Another industrial manager facing 346 PRACTICAL PSYCHOLOGY FOR the difficulty squarely says, "The mistaken idea that a workshop becomes so large that it is impossible to deal with the individual is doing tremendous damage today. Does a firm ever get so large that it cannot deal individually with its customers? If it is possible to deal and make individual adjustments with cus- tomers, why should it not be less difficult to deal with the employee individually? Just as the circumstances surrounding the purchase of the customer must be different, so are the cap- abilities, class of work, personalities, etc., of the individual worker incapable of satisfactory mass adjustment." The terminology of medical science is a minor cause of pre- judice in the industrial field. But workers who have familiarized themselves with the almost unbelievable names attached to some of the machines and materials used in manufacturing industries will not hesitate long before accepting such easily acquired terms as "psychiatry," "paranoia," and "cyclothymia." Even "hypophrenia" and "pseudologia" may come in time to replace the harsher terms of "stupidity" and "lying!" The fear that the recognition of mental disorder will dis- credit the worker may act as a deterrent to the movement. Big mental diseases cannot be concealed, but it is customary to ignore the little bits of mental disorder that stand to mental disease about as a cold in the head stands to pneumonia. Yet these little mental troubles often impair efficiency and happiness more in the long run than a severe attack of some disorder. Most of us would rather have an attack of pneumonia than a chronic cold in the head. It is thought that the worker will be alarmed at the idea of attributing his difficulties to disease or to innate weakness. It has not been found difficult in in- dividual cases dealt with in hospitals to reconcile employees to the idea that their difficulties have recognized causes. In fact, as a rule they welcome the idea, as it is a relief to them to know that there are means to help. In one plant visited, the head of the medical department thought of beginning a mental hygiene program with the executive force where turnover was lower and intelligence higher. The best argument with the worker of the value of mental hygiene methods will be the increased satisfaction of individual employees who take advan- tage of them. In relation to one mental disorder, feebleminded- ness, it has been proved and generally accepted that the worker profits by recognition of his mental condition. Individual BUSINESS EXECUTIVES 347 consideration for the feebleminded has led to better realization of their productive capacity and has tended to increase the pro- ductivity of this class. Gradually all points of view from which industry is studied economics, medicine, engineering, labor, capital are coming to a focus upon the basic fact that production rests upon the mind. Mental power is the greatest force in the world, and it is still to be studied from the standpoint of industrial production. The beginning made by the Engineering Foundation is full of promise. DEFICIENCIES OF CHARACTER AMONG EMPLOYEES * The most striking feature of the problem of the psychopathic employee is the general ignorance of its existence. When an effort was being made by the Social Service of the Psychopathic Hospital to secure private support for a study of this subject, some fifteen employers who were visited almost without excep- tion stated confidently that they had no such persons as our patients in their employ. While they expressed interest in the project as a good cause in helping such unfortunate persons to be self-supporting, they could not see that the subject had anything to do with their business. If a person suffered from mental disease, he seemed to them an object of benevolence. One employer who was interested enough to make a contribution of money, begged that his firm should not be asked to employ our patients. Shortly after, the employment manager of this firm hired a man who was described to him as having had an attack of confusion and excitement, during which he prayed aloud on the street and was brought to our hospital where his mind had become entirely clear. He was engaged to do work for which he had references of proficiency. This incident is a crude sketch of the present situation, the employment managers and foremen adapting themselves in a rough and ready fashion to conditions as they find them, and attributing symptoms of mental disorder to "a difference of temperament," as one fore- man put it; while the members of the firm and the executive M. C. Jarrett. The Psychopathic Employee: A Problem of Industry. Medicine and Surgery. September, 1917. P- 727- 348 PRACTICAL PSYCHOLOGY FOR force are unaware that there is any mental disease in the shop. . . In the Final Report of the Commission on Industrial Rela- tions, under causes of unemployment, among "conditions deter- mining the worker's ability to grasp or retain the opportunity to be employed which industry offers," are cited "those personal factors, such as dishonesty, laziness, intemperance, irregularity, shiftlessness, and stupidity, which are commonly included under the term 'deficiencies of character'." That these characteristics are to a considerable extent symptoms of mental defect and mental disorder cannot be doubted. Among the reasons for discharge that appear on the record cards of one firm in Boston are the following: causing trouble about the work; not steady; incompetent; tardiness; slackness; poor attendance and indolence; drinking to excess; fainting spells ; troublesome ; not wholly reliable as a man, but a good fireman; constant disagreement with foreman; quarrelsome; assault. A conference with several of the foremen of this firm recently brought out the pains that they take to deal with the peculiarities of the employees under them. The superintendent asked one of the foremen if he would have had the patience to keep a certain quarrelsome man if he had known that he was a patient from the Psychopathic Hospital. He replied, "My patience works the other way. I want to give every man a chance. And he does his work all right." This man had just received a raise in pay. He is a case of general paresis, a man who had been a street car conductor. His foreman said that he and the other men in the shop explained the patient's peculiarities on the supposition that he took "dope," because on some days he was more excitable than at other times. Another employee was described as having "a temper like a meat-axe, but when he's calm he's one of the best workers I've got. I never saw a fellow get as angry as he does you couldn't hold him with a chain." These two instances illustrate the adjustment the foreman may be able to make without special instruction, but another case that was told indicates the possi- bility of failure. This man also did his work well, but "he thought everybody was talking about him, and we were afraid we wouldn't get rid of him before he had done some harm." BUSINESS EXECUTIVES 349 One wonders what happened in the next shop where he worked. . . There are some evident conclusions that stand out in our experience. In most of these cases inebriety is a prominent factor, since the habit of alcoholism is an easy channel for these unstable temperaments. Alcoholism in these cases may be regarded as one of the symptoms of a psychopathic constitution. Its effect in turn is to exaggerate the original defect. With- drawal of alcohol increases the patient's chances of social ad- justment, but alcohol is by no means the only stumbling block. Family discord is a large factor both as cause and effect; and in treatment the cooperation and intelligent understanding of the family are essential. Economically it is a distinct gain if a psychopathic patient who was in process of industrial decline can be self-supporting and competent for the greater part of the time, even if he has an occasional attack. One of our patients employed as an expert chemist was about to be dis- charged three and a half years ago as hopeless after an alcoholic attack of psychopathic nature ; but when the man's condition was explained to the firm, they gladly retained him, saying that they could afford to allow him occasional leave of absence, if necessary, for the special value of his work. He was in the hospital again once six months later, but for the last three years has worked steadily. This case illustrates both the eco- nomic value to society of keeping competent but psychopathic individuals employed, and also the possible value to industry. A firm that discharged one of their best salesmen after an attack of maniac-depressive insanity lost an asset. The patient has not had another attack since, now four years, and has been competent in every way. He was safer for the firm than ever before in the six years they had employed him; for, instructed in the nature of his disease, they could have gotten him to the hospital at the earliest signs of an attack, and by early treatment possibly could have decreased the duration of the attack. In general we find employers quite willing to employ patients whose mental condition and industrial efficiency are frankly described, and to retain them as long as they are able to do the work. Understood by their employers, and taught to understand them- selves, psychopathic individuals who would otherwise be thrown out of industry, may keep their places as efficient employees. 350 PRACTICAL PSYCHOLOGY FOR A REASONABLE APPLICATION OF PSYCHI- ATRY TO INDUSTRY 1 A lucid statement as to what seems to be a reasonable application of psychiatry to industrial hygiene under the present limited understanding of this branch of medicine, combined with the limitations imposed upon its practice by industrial conditions, is presented by Dr. Stanley Cobb, neuropsychiatrist in indus- trial hygiene of the Harvard Medical School, in the Journal of Industrial Hygiene. Dr. Cobb believes that much of the chaos in industry today is due to the unhealthy mental condition of the workers, and that this unhealthy condition is only the natural consequence of long endurance of an environment which ignores the funda- mental needs of human nature and thus represses normal emo- tional and mental expression. He considers it no exaggeration to agree with Carleton Parker in saying that "Modern labor unrest has a basis more psychopathological than psychological, and it seems accurate to describe modern industry as mentally insanitary." Stated in non-technical language^ the practical usefulness of industrial psychiatry lies in the study of the individual worker and his environment.!. . A hypothetical case is cited of what is commonly known as "nervous breakdown" in a department store employee, which might have been prevented by a half hour interview of an intelligent psychiatrist leading to a little material assistance and a simple readjustment of the woman's personal problem. Such cases, variously called "neurasthenia," "psychas- thenia," and "psychoneurosis" are common in wards and dis- pensaries, it is stated, where the doctors do little for them, the need being for an investigation and readjustment of the patients' personal problems. These conditions and need for this kind of treatment are found not only among people positively ill, but among the restless, inefficient, and the radical elements of society. "A striking number of the histories (Army cases) showed that in civil life these men drifted from one employment to another, never breaking down enough to consult a physician, 1 Abstract printed in Monthly Labor Review. Vol 10. 1920. p. 226-9. From original article by Dr. Cobb in Journal of Industrial Hygiene. No vember, 1919. P- 343-7- BUSINESS EXECUTIVES 351 but adding their number to the shifting, inefficient labor element so costly to employers. It took the rigor of army life, with no possibility of escape by moving on, to bring out their symptoms. Before these people have left their work or have been fired for inefficiency, they should be interviewed by someone competent to understand them and their personal troubles. At such times, advice from a physician, the loan of some money, a visit to a sick child or wife, or any of the thousand possible personal and individual aids, might save the worker from becoming soured, keep him from joining the ranks of the discontented, and prevent the development of a litigant and paranoid personality. . ." When the instincts for self-assertion, creation, and excite- ment are suppressed through the workings of the present indus- trial system the result is an abnormal frame of mind which is evidenced in striking, drinking, etc., unless some outlet for the workers' energies is provided. This whole field is so large, however, that Dr. Cobb believes the average industrial physician will be satisfied to watch for and treat sympathetically the psychotic symptoms as they appear in individuals. In regard to the claims made as to the value of mental tests of applicants for industrial positions, he believes that they are some use from the point of view mainly of determining sub- normal individuals, although they are of service in reducing misfits in shops a condition conducive to mental breakdowns. While mental fatigue has received much attention from psychiatrists, Dr. Cobb thinks that overwork is not the funda- mental cause of neuroses or psychoneuroses, but that these are fundamentally emotional breakdowns. Although the symptoms are similar to those of neuromuscular fatigue, this is cured by simple rest, which is not the case in the nervous diseases under discussion. "Work that represses emotional cravings often brings out neuroses, just as satisfactory work is the greatest curative agent we have for these conditions. Let us no longer fool ourselves into thinking that overwork, per se, is the cause of mental breakdown." y'The problems of industrial psychiatry, therefore, summed up briefly are: Prevention of mental breakdowns by giving the worker the proper environment and removing causes of dis- content, and treating such cases from an individual standpoint, as well as considering as psychiatric cases those persons who, 352 PRACTICAL PSYCHOLOGY FOR until recently, have been given such unsympathetic names as "the groucher," "the kicker," "the troublemaker," and "the hobo." A reasonable application of psychiatry to industry under present conditions would seem to be as follows: 1. Physical examination of all applicants for work. 2. Mental examination by (a) a period of training and observation, or (b) thorough mental tests. 3. Keeping in personal touch with employees by means of (a) good foremen, (b) a system for watching individual effi- ciency, or (c) a sympathetic staff with a psychiatric point of view in the employment management office, thus salvaging the men who might otherwise be fired. 4. Training the industrial physicians to a knowledge of how human nature is constituted, not in conventional terms, but in the light of a dynamic and living psychology that considers the behavior of human beings in terms of instinctive sources of energy, integrated into motives, these motives needing outlet through energy transformation into satisfactory activity. UNDERSTANDING INDUSTRIAL MISFITS J It seems clear, therefore, that the only possible way to attack this problem is by ... the psychiatric method. ^This method presupposes that human conduct, like conduct or behavior observed anywhere in the organic world, is dependent upon fundamental reactions. These reactions may be combined into complex forms which may baffle analysis. Above all, one should note that the fundamental concept of organic activity requires the participation of at least two forces more or less directly opposed. This opposition of forces is continuous or intermittent, and, in perfect repose, is in equilibrium. . . The emotions are associated with the conscious mind, but also more fundamentally with other functions of the body, so that an emotion may be evoked by other than psychic disturbance. The mental content will be correctly associated with this, except in complete dementia. Ordinarily, emotional impulses are well correlated with conscious mental processes, so that on the receipt of unpleasant news and in the face of a pleasant experience the 1 Herman P. Adler. Unemployment and Personality. Mental Hygiene. January, 1917. P. 16-24. BUSINESS EXECUTIVES 353 corresponding emotions are experienced. On the other hand, emotional impulses may arise from causes outside of the mind, outside even of the subconscious mind in the meaning of the psychoanalytical school. Thus, for instance, one may wake up in the morning feeling depressed. This may be due to purely physical causes and need not be necessarily due to supposed complexes, as Sigmund Freud maintains. The work of Dr. Cannon at the Harvard Medical School on the role of the ductless glands in pain, hunger, fear and rage has shown at least one way in which this may occur. When such an emotional impulse is aroused, the whole human being resists it. He tries to free himself from it as soon as possible, and does so by many devices, such as following his routine occupations, interesting himself in his work, seeking distraction by conversation with interesting, stimulating persons ; but, whatever he may do to relieve the emotional tension, he does not allow it to affect his conduct in any serious way. His inhibition, his judgment, what- ever it is that he uses, is sufficient to oppose these tendencies up to a certain point. There is, however, a threshold above which he can no longer inhibit. If the stimulus is strong enough, therefore, the individual would not be able to resist. Just where this threshold or this breaking strain lies has to be determined in each individual. Normal individuals show a certain range of variation in this respect. In fact, a single individual may at different times show a variation, but ordinarily these variations are within compar- atively narrow limits, so narrow that it has been possible to construct a huge code of laws which without great injustice fits practically all the normal members of the community. When this threshold varies, however, beyond these limits, then conduct results which is sufficiently outside of the normal limits to call for attention. It is very important, however, to realize that such variations, while they may be fundamental, congenital, and even more or less fixed, are not absolutely fixed and permanent. Were this so, the problem of dealing with the deviates would be greatly simplified. Then it would be merely a matter of rounding them up and either executing them or at least segregating them. \ The difficulty in the management of delinquency is caused chiefly by the fact that individuals vary somewhat in their ability to fit into the existing community and that, therefore, an appearance is created that their misdeeds are intentional, and that the best 354 PRACTICAL PSYCHOLOGY FOR remedy is to teach them the stern lessons of reality by making them suffer for their acts. This method has failed all along the line, and nowhere more than in the treatment of unemployment. . . V As a first step, therefore, in determining what could be done in the way of corrective education, it is necessary to determine the exact nature of the individual in question in regard to his ability to learn. |To do this we have analyzed one hundred cases in such a way as to group all the patients under three headings. The headings indicate in a very schematic way our opinion as to their character or personality. The first of the three classi- fications is the paranoid personality. Under this heading are grouped all individuals who have shown by their conduct that their reaction to the world is entirely egocentric. No matter what they experience, no matter what they desire, their own ego is in the centre of the plot and dominates everything. This may be associated with a variety of emotional reactions so that the resulting picture is a varied one. It included individuals who are convinced of their own ability. They are always ready to undertake new schemes, they are usually working for the betterment of the rest of the world and claim all sorts of altruistic motives, and even may be altruistic to some extent, seeking merely the satisfaction of being in the limelight. Or the emotion may be a depressed one and the individuals are contentious, surly, suspicious, claim abuse, ill-treatment, recog- nize no kindness that is done them, appreciate no favors, etc. This by far the largest group in our table, comprising forty- three cases, or almost half. The next largest group, which we call inadequate personality, comprises cases which show evidence in their conduct of a lack of judgment, a lack of intelligence. Under this heading are placed all cases which have been shown by the psychological tests to be defective or feeble-minded, or those suffering from a deteriorating disease other than maniac-depressive insanity or the paranoid psychoses. Finally, we have a third group, which we called the emotion- ally unstable group. Under this heading we have included all the cases that show sufficient mental ability and judgment to satisfy the ordinary demands of life and who have no marked tendency to the egocentric attitude or to enlarge upon their own significance, accomplishments, or the jealousies of others. These BUSINESS EXECUTIVES 355 include individuals who show excessive emotional reactions, who at times are buoyant beyond all reason, and while in this condition show considerable psychomotor activity. Their minds are very active, they have many new ideas, they have a marvelous imagination, they undertake a dozen different obligations, none of which they can carry out. They tire of one thing before it is half begun and go rapidly to another. In another mood, the equivalent of a depression, the more pronounced cases may show a slowing up of the mental activity, an interference with thought, a lack of initiative, a tendency to be unhappy, a brooding disposition. This group of individuals also often exhibit violent outbursts of temper. They are extremely irascible, usually on account of some external provocation. The latter may be very slight. The reaction, however, is always extremely violent. Impulsiveness, amounting often to obsession, is frequently found in these cases. Throughout these changes, whether they are hypomaniacal or depressed, they assume an attitude toward the rest of the community which is that of more or less self-efface- ment and modesty. The normal individual reacts to another in a friendly fashion if he considers him modest. Every politician knows this and uses little tricks in order to show how unassum- ing and democratic he is. Universally detested, on the other hand, is the person who appears to be conceited and arrogant, who has an idea of self-importance. A behavioristic distinction may roughly be applied to these cases: that the paranoid per- sonality is one with which we may sympathize, but dislike; the emotionally unstable individual, on the other hand, is one that may be extremely annoying to have about, that causes untold trouble, not to say misery, and yet that is very likable. With this in mind, it is not surprising that the emotionally unstable group contains only twenty-two cases. The inadequate group, on the other hand, contains thirty-five cases. The inad- equate and paranoid together, therefore, form 78 per cent of the cases studied. It is not likely that these figures represent the conditions in the community at large, possibly for the reason that in the first place an emotionally unstable individual in the hypomaniacal condition is a very useful citizen and is not likely to get into difficulties unless his trouble becomes more intense. Also, on account of the fact that these people are all very popular, their friends and acquaintances will gather about them in times of need and will by united efforts keep them "on the 356 PRACTICAL PSYCHOLOGY FOR job." With the paranoid individual this is not so. The paranoid individual gets into difficulties and one is glad to get rid of him, if possible. Where his abilities are such that the employers do not like to let him go, the other employees sooner or later will force them to dismiss him. Furthermore, the paranoid individual will throw up his job on his own accord where there seems no adequate reason for the step. It is interesting to consider the reasons for the unemployment in our cases. The patient was asked to state his reason for leaving and then the employer, wherever possible, was seen and his statement was taken. While these data have not yet been completely analyzed, the following points have been made. It seems that with the paranoid individuals the reasons stated by the patient are identical with those of the employer forty-four times out of one hundred thirty-four cases, or thirty-three per cent. In the cases grouped under the heading inadequate the patient's and employer's accounts agree twenty- nine times out of ninety-five cases or thirty-one per cent. In the emotionally unstable group the patient's and employer's rea- sons are the same eighteen times out of forty-nine, or thirty- seven per cent a percentage slightly higher than in the previous groups. . . The only conclusions that we may allow ourselves at present on the basis of this material are as follows: 1. There are individuals in the community who for a variety of reasons are not able to regulate their conduct on the basis of experience. One of the difficulties that such individuals get into is unemployment. The result of their unemployment brings hardships on themselves and on their dependents. 2. While some of these individuals show defects of such a severe nature that they may be regarded as hopeless and, there- fore, can be segregated, there are others in whom the deviation from the normal is not sufficient to make them incapable of supporting themselves at all times and it is unwise to segregate them and prohibitively expensive. 3. From our analysis it appears that there are two types of individuals that experience these difficulties. One type, which is grouped under the headings of inadequate and paranoid, is afflicted with certain characteristics of personality which are not amenable to treatment. To maintain these people in the com- munity it is necessary to modify the environment so far as BUSINESS EXECUTIVES 357 possible in order to prevent, in the first place, the calling out of their peculiar reactions and, furthermore, to prevent their suffering the results of their acts; in other words, to keep a man "on the job" in spite of his personal unpopularity or inadequacy. The other type, grouped under the heading of emotionally unstable, suffers from the results of temperament. These individuals are subject to variation of tempera- ment and the treatment of their unemployment must be guided by a knowledge of their tendencies so that environment on the one hand can be suitably influenced or chosen for them, and that the individuals themselves may be trained to counteract their impulses to some extent. PSYCHOLOGICAL PHASES OF INDUSTRIAL MISBEHAVIOR x Among the great primary instincts which provide the opposing forces responsible for mental conflict a dominant place must be assigned to "herd instinct." It has been explained in Chapter X. that a vast part of the beliefs and conduct of man is due to the operation of this instinct. From it the tendencies generally ascribed to tradition and to education derive most of their power. It provides the mechanism by which the ethical code belonging to a particular class is enforced upon each individual member of that class, so that the latter is instinctively impelled to think and to act in the manner which the code prescribes. That is to say, a line of conduct upon which the herd has set its sanction acquires all the characters of an instinctive action, although this line of conduct may have no rational basis, may run counter to the dictates of experience, and may be in direct opposition to the tendencies generated by the other primary instincts. This opposition to other primary instincts is well exemplified in the case of sex, where the impulses due to the latter are constantly balked and controlled by the opposing tendencies arising from the moral education and tradition. It will be immediately obvious that in these struggles between the primary instincts and the beliefs and codes enforced by the operation of herd instinct we have a fertile field for the develop- ment of mental conflict. The factors involved each possess an 1 Bernard Hart. The Psychology of Insanity, p. 90-2. G. P. Putnam's Sons. New York, and Londort. 1914. 358 PRACTICAL PSYCHOLOGY FOR enormous emotional force, and we should, therefore, expect that their opposition would produce a plentiful crop of the abnormal mental phenomena described in the preceding chapters of this book. Trotter, who has fully developed the subject in the papers to which we have already frequently referred, has pointed out the immense significance which the conflict between primitive instinct and herd tradition possesses for the human mind. He remarks that the manifestations of mental disintegration thereby produced "are coming to be recognized over a larger and larger field, and in a great variety of phenomena. . . This field includes a part of insanity, how much we cannot even guess, but certainly a very large part; it includes the group of conditions described as functional diseases of the nervous system, and, finally, it includes that vast group of the mentally unstable which, while difficult to define without detailed consideration, is sufficiently precise in the knowledge of all to be recognizable as extremely large." In the last chapter we have described several cases in which the outbreak of insanity depended upon the existence of a conflict between the dominating complexes of the mind and the circumstances in which the individual was compelled to live. It was shown that the abnormal phenomena finally produced could be regarded as biological reactions whose purpose was to provide a way of escape from the strain of this intolerable struggle. The individual found a refuge in dissociation, and retired into an imaginary world where the complexes attained a delusional fulfillment, while all the mental processes incompatible with this imaginary world were shut out of the field of con- sciousness. Now in cases of this type it is interesting to note that among the processes thus excluded from effectual partici- pation in consciousness are to be found almost all the tendencies due to the operation of herd instinct. The patients have lost the gregarious attributes of the normal man, and the sanctions of traditional conduct have no longer any significance for them. In the milder cases this change shows itself merely as a loss of interest in the affairs of their fellows, a tendency to be solitary and unsociable, an atrophy of their affections for friends and relatives, and an indifference to the ordinary con- ventions of society. In the advanced cases the change is much more marked, and the mind is completely withdrawn from participation in the life of the herd. The code of conduct BUSINESS EXECUTIVES 359 imposed by convention and traditions no longer regulates the patient's behaviour, and he becomes slovenly, filthy, degraded, and shameless. In this picture, to which so many chronic lunatics conform, may be recognized the absolute negation of herd instinct and of the vast group of mental activities which arise therefrom. MENTAL CONFLICTS AND MISCONDUCT 1 The term mental conflict represents an idea that is not at all difficult to understand. Few would question the existence of such a phenomenon. Technical discussion hardly makes the concept any stronger, and, yet, perhaps some attempt at definition is desirable in order that there may be no misunderstanding whatever about what is meant. A mental conflict, then, is a conflict between elements of mental life, and occurs when two elements, or systems of elements, are out of harmony with each other. This is the barest possible statement. Why do mental elements in the same individual become conflicting? This ques- tion leads us, in turn, to consider other mental mechanisms. Memories or ideational elements forming the content of our mental storehouses are largely constellated ; on account of the activity of various laws of association mental elements are so related to each other that there is a bond between them. The particular form of a constellation is the result of the special grouping or linking together of perceptive experiences or of their reproductions as they arise in the mind. A constellation of ideas is thus a system of mental elements having some special relationship of the elements to each other. We must next consider the complex, the theory of which is at the heart of the psychoanalytic method; this according to our own findings in mental analysis represents a vitally im- portant subject. Various authors have sketched their concep- tions of a mental complex, particularly as they have taken or modified the idea from Freud, who develops such an extensive psychological superstructure upon this foundation. (There is no doubt that the concept of a mental complex existed long before Freud's day, albeit with little consideration of the 1 William Healy. Mental Conflicts and Misconduct, p. 22-8. Little, Brown and Company. Boston. 1917. 360 PRACTICAL PSYCHOLOGY FOR phenomenon and no attention to practical applications.) We may gather from all these writers that a complex is a constellation of mental elements permeated with a vigorous emotional tone, a system or association of ideas grouped about an emotional core or center. The existence of such peculiarly disposed constellated systems no one can doubt; how important they are for us as students of misconduct will appear many times to our readers. The complex has other essential characteristics. Being possessed of an emotional tone it has energy-producing powers; by reason of this it may be, and often is, a great determiner of thoughts and actions. This is merely following the general law that emotion-tinged portions of the mental content are the dynamic elements of mental life. And it also appears that only parts of complexes active as producers of behavior appear in consciousness. This is proved by the fact that a very distinct effort or exploration is necessary to bring any such entire system of ideas into view. Discovery that portions of an active complex are left in the mental background as subconscious led to study of the phenom- enon known as repression. When a mental experience, or group of thoughts with an emotional tone, or part of such a constellated system of ideas, is pushed back, "put out of mind," "forgotten," it is said to be repressed. This seeking oblivion for an experience may be more or less of an automatic, hardly conscious reaction, perhaps directly dictated by naturally falling in line with social conformities, either family or general, or it may be a thoroughly deliberate attempt to get rid of something conceived as undesirable. Here we are brought sharply up against the question of whether there can be any real "forgetting" and "putting out of mind." Above all, we know that anything once experienced as mental content is subject to being stored. And it is a matter of everyday knowledge that the storage places of the mind contain many things that the conscious self is not aware of, either in detail or as being stored. No one has had a keener insight into the nature and importance of memory processes than the phil- osopher Bergson, and our own appreciation of this side of mental life may well be served by quoting from him a paragraph that must have caught the eye of many students of mental analysis. Speaking of memory he says, "And as the past grows without BUSINESS EXECUTIVES 361 ceasing, so also there is no limit to its preservation. . . In reality, the past is preserved by itself automatically. In its entirety, probably, it follows us every instant; all that we have felt, thought, and willed from our earliest infancy is there, leaning over the present which is about to join it, pressing against the portals of consciousness that would fain leave it outside. The cerebral mechanism is arranged just so as to drive back into the unconscious almost the whole of this past, and to admit beyond the threshold only that which can cast light on the present situation or further the action now being prepared. . . Doubtless we think with only a small part of our past, but it is with our entire past, including the original bent of our soul, that we desire, will, and act. Our past, then, as a whole is made manifest to us in its impulse; it is felt in the form of tendency, although a small part of it only is known in the form of idea." From these words we get a picture of mental life that is peculiarly valuable as a background upon which some fundamental conceptions of mental analysis in relation to misconduct may be developed. . . Subconscious mental life, which is one of the main concerns of dynamic psychology, although hardly mentioned by name in many textbooks of psychology, requires from us some discussion concerning certain points of special import. (I hold no brief for the term subconscious as opposed to or distinct from the meaning of the word unconscious, which is sometimes used in this connection, but it does seem more serviceable, since the latter, as applied to mental processes, seems to offer a contradiction in terms. As might be expected in a newly developed science, words have been utilized that have meanings attached not altogether suitable for subsequent finer discrimina- tions). The subconscious part of the mind may be defined in its widest significance as that portion of mental life which, at least for the time being, is outside the general field of attention. Of course, the only proof of the existence of this background of mind material is the fact that on occasion portions of it are presented above the threshold of consciousness, namely, in the field of attention. Now, part of what is subconscious may be voluntarily recalled, with small or with greater difficulty. Some of it only makes itself known by involuntarily flashing or jumping into consciousness. Still other portions, in order to get above the threshold of conscious thought, need the use of 362 PRACTICAL PSYCHOLOGY FOR artifices, such as hypnotism, hypnoidal states, or the free asso- ciation methods, or require directive insistence on closely tracing associations for special memories. That an enormous number of past experiences cannot be voluntarily remembered is un- doubtedly true. In the storehouse of the subconscious mind some of the material is near the portals of easy exit, some material is far off in dark nooks and crannies, far from the doorway and the light of conscious thought. Particularly well conserved in subconsciousness, as I have already stated, are mental experiences or groups of mental elements which are stored away accompanied by a strong emo- tional tone. This is a matter of common-sense observation with all of us. These special constellations are peculiarly the ones of which parts flash up into the field of attention, and which cause substitutive reactions of various sorts. The most virile of these complexes are those in which the original emotion or "affect" was powerfully repressed, totally unreacted to, strangu- lated. The strength of a complex as a producer of unusual and abnormal mental, physical, or social behavior is not measured by the length of time since it was repressed. Neither is its force to be judged by the fact of easy recognition or of complete disguise of any part which appears at the surface of conscious- ness, nor by the comparative difficulties experienced in pulling the complex up to the surface to be seen and known for what it is. XIX. CONTRIBUTIONS OF ABNORMAL PSYCHOLOGY TO BUSINESS PROBLEMS RELATION OF ABNORMAL PSYCHOLOGY TO EVERYDAY LIFE 1 The flood of light thrown upon the workings of the human mind by the discoveries and the resulting conceptions of modern psychopathologists has illuminated the mental mechanism, not only of the hysteric and the madman, but of the normal human being. It is clear beyond all possibility of doubt or cavil that the mental factors which produce the characteristic behavior of the neurotic and the lunatic are at work in the "normal" mind and give rise to many well-known traits of "normal" behavior as to behavior and conduct which we may not care to call "normal," but which falls short of anything for which the help of a physician would be sought. Much of the modern work in psychopathology has in fact a most direct and intimate bearing on the everyday life of us all, and on every human problem. . . .The modern study of psychopathology, the greatest ad- vances in which we owe to Janet, Freud and Jung, has brought to light a great mass of data and some fundamentally important conceptions of the highest value to psychology, and these have given the impulse to a new development of psychological theory. The most important general conclusion reached is that the abnormal activities of the mind, as seen in cases of hysteria and insanity, are but extreme and unbalanced developments of char- acteristics and functions which form integral parts of the normal healthy mind. On the basis of this conclusion we are able to interpret many of the most baffling phenomena of the normal mind in the light of these pathological developments, and thus to obtain a far deeper insight into menial structure and func- tions, in just the same way that pathological developments of the tissues and functions of the body throw light upon normal 1 A G. Tansley. The New Psychology, p. 5, 13-14- Dodd, Mead and Company. New York. 1920. 364 PRACTICAL PYSCHOLOGY FOR physiological processes. In both cases the reactions to extreme stimuli, the behavior of the organism when it loses the normal balanced adaptation of parts to one another and to the environ- ment which characterizes healthy life, do not differ in kind, but only in degree from reactions to normal stimuli and from normal behavior. Both classes of reaction and behavior the normal and the abnormal are conditioned absolutely by the original structure and capacities of the organism. When the reaction and behavior are extreme, we are presented, as it were, with an analysis of the normal functions; we are able to study the deranged function more or less in isolation, and to get an idea of its real meaning and character which we cannot get when it is kept in check by the opposing tendencies which ordinarily maintain the balance of the whole organism. The new psychology, then, looks upon the human mind as a highly developed organism, intimately adapted, as regards its most fundamental traits, to the needs of its possessor, built up and elaborated during a long course of evolution in constant relation to those needs, but often showing the most striking want of adaptation and adjustment to the rapidly developed and rapidly changing demands of modern civilized life. Its most fundamental activities are non-rational and largely unconscious activities. The power of conscious reasoning is a later develop- ment, playing but a minpr part, even in the most highly developed human being, on the surface, so to speak, of the firmly built edifice of instincts, emotions, and desires, which form the main structure of the mental organism. In many cases the apparent importance of rational activity is seen to be illusory, forming as it were a mere cloak for the action of deep-seated instincts and desires. THE INDUSTRIAL COST OF SUBNORMAL AND ABNORMAL EMPLOYEES * CASE 3. Young man, thirty years old, of Irish-American parents. . . He has kept an elaborate work record from 1910 to 1919, 1 M. J. Powers. Mental Hygiene Committee, State Charities Aid Association, New York. Report in Proceedings of National Conference of Social Work. 1920. p. 344-6. BUSINESS EXECUTIVES 365 showing one hundred twenty-three jobs, the year in which he held them, the city, type of work, name of employer, wages received, length of employment, and whether he was discharged or left voluntarily. Most of these positions have been verified and the statistics which they present are of especial interest to the problem under discussion. The one hundred twenty-three jobs represent one hundred three different firms for whom he worked and thirty-three different occupations which he followed. His longest period at any one job was eight months, his shortest period of work being one day, with an average of twelve and a half days spent at each. He worked a total number of 1,545 days for the time covered, or about one day out of every two. He was eighty times discharged, resigned twenty times, and nineteen of the positions were temporary work. His total earnings for the ten years were $3,316.21. The kinds of work which the patient did can be grouped under three main headings, jobs as laborer, of which there were thirty, clerical positions thirty- two, and jobs as semi-skilled worker, where proficiency is obtained after a few months' experi- ence, thirty-three. Satisfactory estimates or studies of the cost of breaking in men are very scarce. Those which are available have been made by personnel managers and the experts con- nected with certain industries and are more in the nature of roughly assumed estimates than scientific statistical studies. Using a scale which is considered conservative as a basis for computing the cost of the labor turnover for this one individual, his cost of hiring can be estimated at $47.50, cost of training $960, wear and tear $392, reduced production $1,879, r a total of $3,608.50, a sum which exceeds his earnings by about $300. If we estimate the normal earnings of a man of this class at $1,200 per year, then the total wages which he should have re- ceived for this time, or $12,000, must be added to the foregoing in calculating his cost to society. The statistics used here do not include the cost of rehiring by the same firm. This occurred twelve times, mostly in cases of newspaper press rooms where the night work afforded him lodging. Such efficiency methods as have been used in the past take care of only normal individuals, but the so-called normal workers make up only a certain percentage of the labor supply. The psychopathic employee is not sufficiently normal to fit into effi- ciency methods nor is he subnormal or abnormal enough to be 366 PRACTICAL PSYCHOLOGY FOR committed to an institution. Hence he is forced into a life of wandering which eventually works to his own detriment, and that of society. Receiving no help toward a more successful handling of his difficulties, he repeats his experience with an endless number of positions to the great cost of productive labor and capital. The case just cited shows clearly the extent of waste in present methods of handling such people. This man only earned $3,316.21 in the past ten years; the rest of the time he has lived upon the contributions made by charitably inclined persons who were moved to pity by his hard-luck stories, or else by social agencies. When these were not sufficient, he resorted to grafting, panhandling, borrowing, etc. His waste to industry is shown by the fact that his earnings were less than the cost of labor turnover. And his cost to society is much greater than the cost of maintaining him in a state hospital for the entire period. Such cases as the foregoing are illustrative of the psycho- pathic employee. It is not possible to estimate at present the exact percentage of labor constituted by such individuals, but that they make an appreciable number is certain. One indus- trial organization which is beginning to appreciate the existence of the problem, recently expressed the opinion that they feared to open a psychiatric clinic for fear of being swamped. Since such individuals exist in such large numbers, some plan must be created to make use of them. This can only be done through education of the public generally, as well as employers and employment managers specifically, in the under- standing of human nature from a psychiatric view point. Such a program must necessarily be slow, since the ignorance and prejudice of the public at large is one of the greatest factors in the problem. Society's own resistance to an insight into its own make-up leads it to treat as mysterious and dangerous all mental abnormalities. That the correction of society's state of mind is one of the tasks of mental hygiene is self-evident. It is not necessary, however, to await the general awakening on the part of the public at large before undertaking more practical measures to deal with the employment problems of the psychopathic worker. There are already in existence a number of excellent courses which train workers in the recognition of mental symptoms, something of their causation, and the means of assisting such individuals toward social and vocational adjust- BUSINESS EXECUTIVES 367 ment. Psychometric tests are of value and mark a decided step in advance, but since they do not take into account the emo- tional nor personality factors in the situation they are not a solution of the problem. In order to identify the psychopath in industry and effectively utilize him, each employment department should have on its staff at least one person who has been trained to recognize and handle such individuals, not alone for the purpose of placing him at work but of securing an adjustment to that work which will insure his maximum of productivity to industry and of satisfaction to himself. The cost of training one member of the staff of each employment department in mental hygiene principles is infinitesimal compared to the money wasted in allowing present methods to continue. The United States Commissioner of Labor Statistics has said that unemployment, although not yet recognized as an industrial accident, nevertheless causes more slowing down of production, demoralization and suffering than all other industrial mishaps. Among the various causes of unemployment he mentions the lack of a properly balanced organization of industry, lack of an intelligent employment policy for hiring and handling men, failure to gain the good-will of employees, failure to make use of the tremendous latent force lying dormant in the workers. Each one of these causes has a special significance to those who earnestly believe that in scientific inquiry and in more understanding of the needs and creative possibilities of the psychopathic states in human nature lies an effective weapon for striking at the roots of the current unrest. SOME MAJOR TYPES OF MALADJUSTMENT * We shall describe in a few words the twelve types of misfits mentioned, in order to make plain the problem and the need. First, the apparently unambitious employee, who refuses the opportunity to advance, tho apparently capable of advancement. Is this employee really unambitious, or is he simply modest and afraid to assume responsibility? Again, is he really capable of advancement or only apparently so? Dr. Southard tells us of many cases in his experience that showed that, where respon- 1 Frank B. Gilbreth and Lillian M. Gilbreth. Independent. June 12, 1920. 102:355, 376. 368 PRACTICAL PSYCHOLOGY FOR sibility was forced upon those who unwillingly assumed it, the individual upon whom it was imposed often could not rise to that which the new work demanded of him. On the other hand, we have not, in our experience, many cases in the indus- tries that show that, when a person has been gradually given more responsibility, and has been properly trained to assume it in accordance with our standard practice of the Three Posi- tion Plan of Promotion, the results are not satisfactory. Often what has seemed to be lack of ambition turns out to be timidity, over-conscientiousness, or a feeling of unpreparedness for the new duties. Who is to decide whether the employee is right in declining advancement, or whether the manager is right in urging certain placement? Only an expert in diagnosing and understanding states of mind and analyzing causes and results of experience can make an adequate decision. Second, the inquisitive employee, with an exaggerated curiosity incapable of sustained attention, who is apparently bored by standardized methods, and refuses to try them. Such curiosity shows itself in many ways, the distraction of attention if anyone passes through the room, or at the slightest new happening or even new noise, or if the desk of the foreman or other person in charge is in a location behind the worker while at work. The dislike of standardization and everything pertaining to it may show itself in a decided tendency never to do things twice alike. We have met cases where this applied even to so simple and elementary a matter as the form of checking mark used in checking off items on a list. The attitude of the worker toward the principle and practice of standardization is one of the most interesting and valuable tests of fitness and of need of special training. Sometimes this aversion to or hatred of standardization is conscious. Sometimes it is a mis- guided conception of the relation between standardization and monotony. Very often it is unconscious, and the worker seems to find it impossible to do anything twice alike. We have had cases where inability to do work twice the same way was the first indication we noticed of a , mental defect that was later recognized as insanity. Perhaps no one thing will do so much to interfere with one's progress, yet in most cases can be cured so easily, as an aversion BUSINESS EXECUTIVES 369 to or lack of habits of standardization of methods in small as well as large things. Demonstration of the benefits of standard- ization and its relation to the one best way to do work and teaching of efficient methods will show whether there is any- thing seriously wrong with the worker or not. Third, the worker who is constantly making valueless sug- gestions and inventions, or inventions downward in the path of cumulative improvement. This type is apt to tire even of his own inventions, as soon as they are made, to such an extent that he is loath even to "try them out" himself, as he often has a new invention, or at least a change, ready to suggest before his previous suggestion is even tried. His interest lies not at all in the result of improvement embodied in the suggestion or improvement, but simply in a desire to make changes from accepted standards, and in many cases he cares little or nothing for any changes with which his name as suggester is not identi- fied. This type is very common. It is by no means confined to those occupying humbler positions. It often includes a type high up, and particularly those thought of as "System Pests." One will realize how numerous are those of this type when one is engaged in installing management and finds how many people will suggest changes and new methods before they understand the method being installed, which is the "design from practice." Fourth, the ambitious employee with a strong desire for a specific job, for which he apparently is not suited. This type is very common, and our own experience has been that if a desire is strong enough, the worker will, in a surprising number of cases, overcome the apparent unsuitability, and will usually make good at the work he specially desires. It may be that he is therein gratifying a "suppressed desire." This is for the psychiatrist to find out. Countless examples of this type can be found among the crippled, and the number who have made good in spite of their apparent unsuitability has taught the manager and the psychiatrist that they must use the utmost care in making their decisions, as they may themselves be the ones who prevent the apparently unsuitable from fitting for his best opportunity. A safe rule to remember is that the man who has sufficient desire for a specific job, and who is willing to utilize his spare time in studying and fitting himself to fill it, will almost always make good at whatever he sets his heart on. Fifth, the young in years, who have apparently stopped 370 PRACTICAL PSYCHOLOGY FOR learning. To stop learning is the great tragedy of life. If the psychiatrist does nothing but discover why this type stopped learning, he will have done a wonderful piece of work for the individual involved and for industry as a whole. We hear of blind alley jobs. These are usually misunderstood. A blind alley job is not so frequently one that has no apparent line of promotion as one that makes it easy to stop learning. How shall this mental inertia be overcome? That is for the psychiatrist to say. Sixth, the restless, nomadic type who wants to "go some- where," though given high wages and as good a chance for advancement as he could expect. Here we have the typical "floater," capable and desirable from the employer's standpoint, but dissatisfied with any fixed occupation and always sure that his real opportunity lies in some other place. Possible advances in pay or promotion seem to have little or no effect upon this type. It seems as natural for this type to float as for birds to go south every winter. The type is not new. History has long recorded the wander- ings of the journeyman, the gypsy, the tramp, the tourist, the explorer and the pioneer. The younger one is, and the less responsibility one has, the stronger this fundamental "go some- where" instinct is. We all have it in some degree. But in the case of many of this type it is so strong and its call is so imperative that it interferes with progress, since the desire for travel has no definite industrial, vocational or promotion aim in view, and is not gratified for the sake of acquiring valuable experience. Seventh, the "fixed idea" group, with immovable ideas con- cerning capital, labor, employer, foreman, other workers, etc. These differ from those who have stopped learning in that they have very definite ideas on many subjects that prevent or post- pone the revision of ideas and the acquiring of additional knowledge. This type is often fond of arguing, but no matter upon what subject they speak, are sure to arrive at one of their fixed ideas. They hold themselves impervious to new ideas. Unfortunately these fixed ideas are often extremely radical, and the worker may become dangerous to himself, to his family, to the industry and to the entire community. Eighth, the type who refuse to take advantage of "safety first," and who think that it is smart to disobey or defy or evade rules for the practice of safety. These are not limited BUSINESS EXECUTIVES 371 to the young, although recklessness is usually thought to be a characteristic of youth. In the days when "safety first" was new, and recklessness was fashionable, it was more or less excusable. The man who did "safety first" stunts to amuse himself and his fellow workers, was looked upon as a "regular feller," as "good company" and as a man "not scared of anything." Today, when "safety first" is an established part of job and shop routine, and when recklessness is no longer fashionable or desirable, there is no excuse for it. However, the type still re- mains, and is at -present a menace. Ninth, the self centered type, who refuses to recognize the social side or to cooperate either with fellow workers or with the employer. This is a type which brings much more suffering to itself than to others, and is one of the types to which the attention of the psychiatrist can be immediately directed with profit It seems obvious that there is something decidedly wrong here, which is causing much unhappiness, and which the success of the psychiatrist in treating similar types out of industry, leads one to believe can be easily helped. Tenth, the timid, or over-fearful type, who dread even remote and improbable accidents from being struck by lightning to falling down stairs. Industry itself is doing much to help this type, by provisions for and evidences of safety, provisions for health and hygiene, by a definite plan for promotion and satisfying advancement, and by otherwise eliminating causes of possible fears. In the extreme of this type, however, there is found constant fear of things that are never likely to happen, and it is this type of fear with which the psychiatrist must cope. Eleventh, the indecisive type, who waver and hesitate over the simplest decision. In industry we cope with this type by so standardizing the work that the required decisions of their work cycles can be reduced in number, separated and individually explained, and their proper handling taught. It is, however, a slow and difficult problem to advance the indecisive type far without carefully planned methods of adjustment. Twelfth, the over-decisive type, who are carried away quickly by a partial knowledge of an idea, but who have little power to evaluate evidence as .distinguished from testimony, and no regard for the value of actual measurement in guiding decisions. These have some relationship to the self-centered, but are in many ways very different. The "fixed idea" people may have come to their ideas slowly. These over-decisive people rush 372 PRACTICAL PSYCHOLOGY FOR into things without proper deliberation. They are the type that makes the ideal mailing list for promotion of frauduleiit advertising, and are the most intolerable in religion, politics, and matters pertaining to fraternal orders and secret societies. As has been said, these twelve types are by no means the only such types to be found in industry. Neither must it be thought that these types are always in the extreme forms that we have outlined here. Nor, again, must it be thought that such types are receiving no attention at present, for in fact managers are doing their best in many cases to understand and advance them, and many cases how are under the care of psychiatrists, but not through industry itself. What we are pleading for is the discovery and treatment of such types in the early stages, through the initiative of industry. It must be apparent, as the late Carleton Parker so clearly realized and said, that the underlying cause of industrial ineffi- ciency lies in instincts that have been suppressed or diverted. Most of those who propose remedies for industrial unrest have this in mind, though they cannot or do not always make this clear. Any successful remedy must have it in mind. SHELL SHOCK AND ITS LESSONS * It is an axiom in medicine that correct diagnosis is the indispensable preliminary to the rational and intelligent treatment of disease. This fundamental principle is universally recognized in dealing with bodily affections; but it is the primary object of this book to insist that it is equally necessary to observe the same principle in the case of mental illness. It may seem ironical to stress this elementary consideration, but it is notorious that accurate diagnosis is too often ignored in cases of incipient mental disturbance. It is idle to pretend that such a procedure is unnecessary, or to urge in extenuation of the failure to search for causes that many patients recover under the influence of nothing more than rest, quiet, and ample diet. Many mild cases of illness, whether bodily or mental, may and do recover even if undiagnosed or untreated. But on the 1 G. Elliot Smith and T. H. Pear. Shell Shock and Its Lessons, p. 47-52. Longmans, Green and Company. New York. 1917. Reprinted by permission. BUSINESS EXECUTIVES 373 other hand many mild cases get worse; and it is the primary duty of the physician correctly to diagnose the nature of the trouble and to give a prognosis to decide whether the illness is mild or severe. Some of the most serious cases of incipient mental trouble are those of patients who do not seem to be really ill, and are easily overlooked by a visiting physician. They are quiet and inoffensive and display no obvious signs of the insidious processes that are at work in them. But all the time they may be, and often are, brooding over some grievance or moral conflict, worrying about their feelings, misinterpreting them and gradually systematizing these misunderstandings until they become set as definite delusions or hallucinations. If, acting on the belief that it is bad to talk about a patient's worries, the phxsician leaves such a man alone, he is clearly neglecting his obvious duty. For the trouble may be due to some trivial misunderstanding which he could easily correct. In the severer forms of mental disease, precise diagnosis is even more intimately related to treatment than in the case of bodily illness. For when a patient's illness is recognized as some bodily affliction, such as pneumonia or appendicitis, certain general lines of treatment are laid down as soon as the appro- priate label has been found for the complaint, though, in the case of the latter illness, there is added the further problem of whether or not surgical interference is indicated. In cases of mental disturbance, however, the general lines of treatment cannot thus arbitrarily be determined merely by finding an appropriate label. It is true that as in the treatment of bodily disease, certain general principles must be observed, such as the provision of abundant and suitable food, and the protection of the patient from all disturbing influences. But the essence of the mentally afflicted patient's trouble is some particular form of anxiety or worry which is individual and personal. The aim of the diagnosis, therefore, should be not merely to determine the appropriate generic label for the affliction, but rather to discover the particular circumstances which have given rise to the present state. The special object of the physician should be to remove or nullify the exciting cause of the dis- turbance; and in order to do this it is essential that he should discover the precise nature of the trouble. The diagnosis, therefore, must be of a different nature from that demanded in case of physical illness, where the condition may be ade- 374 PRACTICAL PSYCHOLOGY FOR quately defined by some such generic term as "lobar pneumonia" or "acute appendicitis," and its gravity estimated by the general condition and physique of the patient. In the case of mental trouble, the physician has to make an individual diagnosis, based not only upon an insight into the personality but also into the particular anxieties of each patient. But even when it is recognized that exact diagnosis of the particular circumstances of each individual patient is essential, if the trouble is to be treated rationally and with insight, there still remain many difficult problems as to procedure. Amongst those whom experience has convinced of the efficacy of psychology treatment for this class of case, there are indica- tions of a divergence of opinion in the matter of procedure. Some believe that it is sufficient if the medical man has discovered the real cause of the trouble and explained it to the patient. Other workers look upon a preliminary psychical examination merely as a means of diagnosis, the unveiling of the hidden cause of the trouble; and consider that the treatment should be the laborious and often lengthy process of re-educating the patient, and so restoring to him the proper control of himself. It is of the utmost importance to emphasize the undoubted fact that those who maintain either of these views to the exclusion of the other are committing a grievous and dangerous error, for there is no sharp line of demarcation between the two pro- cedures. A sensible and intelligent man, once the cause of his trouble has been made clear to him, may be competent to continue to cure himself, and completely to conquer the cause of his undoing. But the duller and stupider man may need a daily demonstration and renewal of confidence before he begins to make progress. It is precisely analogous to the experience of every teacher of a class of students; the brilliant man will seize hold of a principle at once and learn to apply it without further help, whereas the dull man needs repeated and concrete demonstrations before it sinks into his understanding. The Therapeutic Value of Work It should be unnecessary to emphasize the desirability of preventing the neurasthenic from dwelling upon his subjective troubles by occupying his mind with other things. This end may often be achieved by the provision of suitable occupation, BUSINESS EXECUTIVES 375 and where possible, for many obvious reasons, this occupation should take the form of useful work. The worker then feels that he is not a mere burden upon the hospital which is treating him : the institution in its turn benefits materially. But it is necessary to sound a note of warning against the indiscriminate prescription of work as a panacea. First of all it should be certain that the work is of such a kind as really to interest the patient and to occupy his mind. There are many varieties of work, especially of manual labour, which can be performed mechanically, and do not succeed in distracting the attention from worries and anxieties. But more important even than this is the consideration that there are some mental troubles from which no form of work will distract the patient. . . To suppose that the mere physical fatigue induced by a day's hard work will banish all forms of insomnia betrays an ignorance of one of the most important causes of this malady; viz., mental conflict. It is well known the bodily fatigue in the case of a mentally excited patient may merely increase his unrest at night. A CONDENSED ANALYSIS OF PSYCHOLOGICAL MECHANISM * The major purpose is to set forth certain of the newly dis- covered mechanisms, the unconscious, the censor displacement, projection, compensation, the use of symbols and rationalization, which have been developed by Freud, Jung, Ferenczi, Adler, Abraham, Pfister, Blueler, Jones, Brill, Frink and others, and to show how the instincts function through them, and how these mechanisms offer an explanation of the social behaviour called the economic motivation. In so brief a paper it will not be possible to -define these concepts very fully, however desirable it may seem in dealing with such strange concepts and dis- coveries. I shall define the concepts in a few words and then give a few illustrations, not claiming in any case that the proof is developed in the paper. To develop a proof of a particular illustration often requires many pages or even a book. In the extensive literature are many cases of scientific treatment and 1 William F. Ogburn. American Economic Review. Vol. 9. Sup. I. March, 1919. p. 299-301. 376 PRACTICAL PSYCHOLOGY FOR proof. Some of my audience may not be familiar with the general background and material, and to these I will say that my experience in such events has been that some of the illus- trations inevitably have seemed unconvincing, but a further reading of the literature usually makes them appear convincing. It may also be that those who have been accustomed to dealing with subjects of such high dignity as state craft, trade relations of nations, or general economic conditions, will find that illus- trations concerning sex and the behaviour of nervous women seem quite trivial. In anticipation, it may seem desirable to state that it is quite necessary to draw illustrations from these subjects, because such has been the field of research which has developed them. And as to their triviality, such an attitude is unwarranted, just as much so as to consider monographs on the earthworm or the amoeba as being trivial. These psychologists are engaged in the important task of working out cures for insanity and in curing cases of nervousness, which are increasing at such a rapid rate in our modern life. They are concerned with the very real problem of lessening human misery and bringing happiness, and bid fair to do it just as truly as will be done by the increase of material possessions or the extension of political liberty. Indeed, the discoveries of Freud have many times been claimed to be as significant as the discovery of the theory of. evolution by Darwin and Wallace. While many of the illustrations are from abnormal personali- ties, it is very important to remember that the psychologically insane are considered to differ from the normal only in degree, and that therefore the study of insanity is analogous to the use of the microscope in the laboratory. THE UNCONSCIOUS. A great many of our desires are un- conscious. They function in such a manner that we are uncon- scious of their real nature. Many of these desires cannot be brought to consciousness without the aid and assistance of some- one else. Some desires, though forgotten, do not die, but live on in an unconscious state. A vast amount of human behaviour is occasioned by unconscious motives. In some cases a series of repressed desires integrate into a sort of subconscious personality. That unconscious desires may exist, is seen in cases of double or multiple personality of the "Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde" type. The case of the Reverend Ansel Bourse, cited by Hart, and Janet's Irene are cases in point, as are the cases studied by Prince. BUSINESS EXECUTIVES 377 Dream analysis, as developed by Freud, furnishes abundant evi- dence of the unconscious, as most of the dream material comes from the unconscious state. Another illustration, mentioned by Frink, is that of a man who was exceptionally violent in railing against all manifestations of authority. The exceptional nature of his reaction was shown upon analysis to be due to a repressed feeling against a very dominating and authoritative parent; the repressed feeling, though long forgotten, had lived on in the unconscious since early childhood, and manifested itself in an exceptional rebellion against various forms of authority. The love of a woman for a pet lap dog is often the manifestation of a repressed, and, perhaps, unconscious, desire for children. These illustrations all bear evidence of a body of desires in the uncon- scious state. The fact that so many of our desires come from the unconscious, has been the occasion of comparing the process of their functioning to that of a magnet placed under a paper, upon which are placed iron tacks. The tacks move when the magnet is moved, but the magnet, the force which causes the tacks to move, is not visible. REPRESSION. Many of the desires of the unconscious are there because they are repressed from the field of consciousness. They are repressed because of mental conflicts. In a particular case there is a conflict between perhaps two sets of desires, one of which may be antisocial, and the other may be highly in ac- cord with the best moral tradition. This mental conflict causes pain and perhaps a loss of mental energy. Such a state of affairs is intolerable to the personality, and the mind acts usually ac- cording to what is called the pleasure principle, that is, it must find its pleasure in relief. The result will probably be that the antisocial desire will be repressed into the unconscious, in which it continues to live though forgotten. Much forgetting is there- fore purposeful. The particular repressing agency is sometimes called the "censor" or "censure." Thus, professional jealousy is sometimes so successfully repressed that one does not admit to himself its existence. Similarly, humiliating experiences, which are painful to remember, are forgotten, as has been often noted in unsuccessful love affairs which involve loss to one's hopes and ambitions, or one's self-respect. In these cases, if there was not repression and forgetting, the persons would suffer greatly from the pain of the mental conflict. The case of Irene, previ- ously referred to, although of a pathological nature, shows very 378 PRACTICAL PSYCHOLOGY FOR clearly the phenomenon of repression. This young woman nursed during a long illness, her mother, to whom she was exceptionally devoted, and with whom her future was quite bound up. The mother finally died, under very trying and impressive circum- stances. But for days at a time, afterward, the daughter seemed to be utterly unaware that her mother was dead. Then suddenly, perhaps 'during a conversation with friends, she would become transformed as it were, and reenact with consummate histrionic skill the scene at her mother's death bed, living it over in minute detail, all during which she would be oblivious to her surround- ings. She would not hear, for instance, remarks addressed to her. In this '.case the thought of her mother's being dead was so unbearable that she repressed the whole complex from her mind, and most successfully, but the repression was not perfect, and suddenly the repressed material would come to consciousness and result in reenacting the deathbed scenes. Where conflicts are acute and intolerable, and the repression inadequate, the mind cannot stand the strain and insanity results. This analysis of the cause of the psychological insanity is described by Jung, in his analysis of a maniacal type, the archaelogist from the University of B . Repressions of a minor scale go on through our daily life. Periods of very great repression occur in late child- hood. Such desires as sex, pugnacity, or selfishness are often re- pressed ; the repressing agency is usually the desires that accord with popular moral sanction. THE DISGUISED ACTIVITY OF UNCONSCIOUS DESIRES. These repressed unconscious desires, though forgotten, do not die, but live on, and they endeavor to escape the repres- sion. Thus, the force which repressed them in the first instance must continually keep watch lest these repressed desires break out into consciousness and express themselves. The "censor" acts, therefore, as if continually on guard. This ^censorship" is not always successful, for many of the desires escape. This they do by disguising themselves, very much as a Mexican revolution- ist who wants to buy ammunition may cross the border, disguised as a peasant working woman. The effectiveness of the disguises of repressed instincts explains why psychologists were not fully aware of them until the researches of the psycho-analysist ap- peared, and the illustrations which authors cite of these disguised desires seem so unsound, on first impression, for the very reason that the disguise is effective, These disguises which our motives BUSINESS EXECUTIVES 379 assume are the central feature of this paper, because of the thesis that the economic motives of history are disguised. A number of such disguises, therefore, will be presented in detail, to show their astounding ingenuity, their very great prevalence, and the ease and skill with which the human mind can perform these remark- able feats. DISPLACEMENT. A repressed desire may escape the cen- sor by displacing the true objective of the desire by a substitution. Thus Freud tells of a patient who was irresistibly compelled to examine the number of every bank note that came under her observation. She knew the act to be foolish, yet she could not help doing it, and suffered acutely because of this compulsion. Upon analysis it was found that she had suffered from an unrequited love affair. The conflict and pain which arose caused her to banish the painful chapter from her life, and -she forgot. The repression was successful, but the compulsion neurosis appeared. Further analysis showed that a bank note played a significant part in this love chapter. So that although she repressed the desire, it was never dead, and made a partial escape through a displacement on to the bank note. This account and explanation appear very strange. Yet, that such explanations are true accounts, seems to be indicated by the fact that cases are cured after an unmasking of the disguise. A number of such strange and morbid compulsions have been similarly ana- lyzed. A more ordinary illustration from normal behaviours, is that of affectation in dress or gait. Much affectation in dress is unconscious, as to the motive or particular desire expressed. One's egotism thus conceals itself in order to get by the censor, through a displacement upon the development of a peculiar mannerism. The term displacement is applied usually to dis- placement of words or word-ideas, chiefly in connection with dream analysis and such mental behaviour as wit, yet the term is being more widely used to cover a displacement on to another kind of activity in such a manner as to conceal the true motive. Thus, Frink claims a child with a strong exhibitionist tendency may in later life make an actor on the stage. The exhibitionist tendency, being incompatible with current morals, is repressed in late childhood, and later finds an outlet through a displace- ment in histrionic activities. Similarly, Freud advances the idea, in his brilliant study of Leonardo da Vinci, that Leonardo's great scientific interest was a sublimated sexual curiosity of 38o PRACTICAL PSYCHOLOGY FOR childhood. Some of the -disguises here called displacement are truly marvelous, and certainly at first hardly believable. SYMBOLISM. The use of symbols as a disguise is a type of displacement, yet so prevalent as to deserve especial mention. How an emotion will in great strength become concentrated upon a symbol as an objective, is readily seen in love keepsakes, or in a national emblem, like a flag. There is, of course, in these two illustrations, little of a disguise of the emotion, except that in any moment of response to a symbol, the great, full knowledge of the emotion cannot, of course, be in consciousness. Many symbols, however, are complete disguises. Thus clinical analyses have demonstrated the almost universal prevalence of certain sex symbols, such as the snake, the sword, and horseback riding. I cannot here explain how these are sex symbols, but I only wish to state that all students of psycho-analysis agree that these are sexual disguises. PROJECTION. Quite a different, though very important, type of concealment, is known as projection. In this case a person conceals a desire by projecting it on to others. To quote Hart, in his Psychology of Insanity : "Thus the parvenu, who is secretly conscious of his own social deficiencies, talks much of "bounders" and "outsiders" whom he observes around him, while the one thing which the muddle-headed man cannot tolerate is "a lack of clear thinking in other people." An illustration from Frink's Morbid Fears and Compulsions is that of an attractive young widow, who wished to move from a small town, claiming to be annoyed by the gossip that she was a "designing widow." There was really no substantial evidence of gossip, but, upon analysis it was shown that unconsciously she did wish to re- marry, but would not so soon admit the desire to consciousness, and the repressed wish expressed itself as a projection on to others. The reason of her peculiar disguise was this : the desire to remarry would have produced a conflict with her social code. To permit this secret wish conscious outlet would have resulted in abuse of herself, because of the social code. To spare herself this pain of conflict, she projected the desire on to the small town populace, where she could rebuke it, and at the same time spare herself the pain of her own mental conflict. Much of the phenomena of paranoia and insanity, involving delusions of persecution, have this specific otiology. BUSINESS EXECUTIVES 381 COMPENSATION. The analysis of the disguise known as compensation has been developed particularly by Adler in his book, The Neurotic Constitution. The idea is that a defect or weakness is compensated for by the development of another organ or trait, thus a leaky heart valve is partly compensated for by the strengthening of the heart muscle. It is observed that our emotions seem to occur in pairs, love and hate, fear and anger, humility and arrogance. An unusual desire of one of these pairs may be obscured by an exaggeration of the opposite, a sort of imaginary compensation for its absence. Thus we are sometimes unusually polite and courteous to persons we do not like, and our real motive is disguised. The absence of a friendly feeling will be compensated for by an exaggeration of courtesy. A very common form of compensation frequently seen in clinics among neurotics is an exaggerated concern for the health of a particular person, which serves to cover up a secret and, perhaps, unconscious wish of a contrary nature. A very good man, professing a religion of humility, will some- times compensate for a repressed ego by a developed intolerance and arrogance in the name of goodness. RATIONALIZATION. Perhaps the most widely used dis- guise among normal persons is that of giving a fictitious, but plausible, explanation for conduct, instead of giving the true reason or motive, a device called rationalization. It is as though we do what we want to do, and afterward give a reason that is plausible to the opinions of others, as well as to the censor. And it is surprising how often we are ignorant of the true motive. Thus a man claimed to have voted for President Wilson because of the President's exceptional ability, but analysis showed the real reason to be the fact that the man was really unconsciously cowardly, and felt that Wilson had kept us out of war. A man will go fishing on Sunday because he wants to, but gives as his reason the fact that it is good for his health. Perhaps the most ingenious of all rationalizations are those of sufferers from persecutory delusions. I knew a tailor once, who thought enemies were going to do him harm. A bystander waiting in front of his shop was planning to burn his shop. A very generous customer would be spying. It was impossible to convince such a person by argument. The real reason of his fear was inward and unknown to him, and not the behaviour of the bystander or the customer. Rationalizations are as 382 PRACTICAL PSYCHOLOGY FOR prevalent, though on a different scale, among normal persons as among paranoiacs. There are other disguises, such as transference, identification, and various distortion devices; but as they are seldom, if ever, found in disguising the economic motives of history, I shall not illustrate them. It is hoped that the foregoing list of mental mechanisms will have shown the really remarkable and astounding feats which the mind will perform to disguise motives, and that the presentation will give some hint of their great prevalence in human behaviour. It is the scientific determination of these various disguises which is the great contribution of psycho-analysis for the theory of the economic motivation of history. For if the human mind so lavishly disguises our various motives, the theory that economic motives of history are disguised does not appear so incredible. Economists have claimed that sugar partly caused the Spanish American war, and Boudin has claimed the selling of textiles made the peace epoch of the Gladstone era, while the selling of iron brought the warlike spirit of the present day. Whether these particular illustrations be true or not, they may not seem so incredible when we recall that a love motive finds an outlet in an obsession to examine the numbers on bank notes, and that a childish sexual curiosity finds an outlet in scientific research. Turning now to the analysis of the economic side of the paper, it is claimed that the economic causes of history are in large part unrecognized, which means that they are at least partially disguised. Before considering the particular disguises affected, it is desirable to analyze what the economic motives are and why they are disguised. The economic motive is essen- tially selfish. Selfishness, of course, finds many other modes of expression than the economic. The analysis of this paper does not imply, however, that all economic motives are selfish, nor that every selfish economic motive is against the common welfare. Nor does the validity of the thesis depend on what particular percentage of selfish motive is readily seen when we observe that we are loath to admit a selfish motive but are proud to display an altruistic or a righteous one. The reason for this difference in attitude between so-called altruistic and selfish motives arises from the fact that a certain amount of subordination of self must be made for the common good. There seems to be thus a conflict between immediate selfish interests and common wel- fare. The selfish tendencies are kept in bounds by what Ross BUSINESS EXECUTIVES 383 and Giddings call social control, by what Trotter calls the herd instinct, and by what Sumner calls the mores. We can all see that if each individual pursued self-centeredly and short-sightedly his own selfish impulses, group survival would be impossible. As to how and why this is so, we owe much to the researches of social psychology within the past decade. In society, there- fore, there is a conflict between collective selfishness and group welfare. This social control or mores or gregarious instinct acts as a sort of censor, and represses a good many selfish ten- dencies, and elicits praise for altruistic ones. Motives of col- lective selfishness are in a way repressed into the unconscious state. That is, we do not openly admit them, and the censorship is so great at times that we actually forget them. But because we refuse to recognize them or forget them is not proof that they may not exist. Certainly some of them live on and function in collective movements through disguises. In other words, the same mechanisms of conflict, censor, and disguise operate in the repression and escape of collective selfishness as were discovered by psycho-analysis to be so prevalent in sexual behaviour. The above reasoning sounds dangerously like reasoning by analogy, and suggests some of those ill-fated attempts of earlier days to apply the mechanism of physics to sociology. But I do not think that this is reasoning by analogy. In fact, I am attempting to show how two kinds of phenomena are based upon the same fundamental psychological mechanism. It should also be noted here that there is nothing mystical in the working of these mechanisms collectively. No special entity, as the social mind, with special mental laws is implied. The way these mechanisms of individual persons work out collectively is somewhat as follows. In a particular population of say a million, there will perhaps be only several thousand who are selfishly and economically interested in a movement. These thousands being in positions of influence will be able perhaps to prepare "copy," so to speak, for the population, and large numbers who are not acutely affected one way or another accept the prepared opinions. Trotter has shown that there is very much more accepting of prepared opinions by us than the most sophisticated of us suspect. And of these thousands who are economically interested perhaps only a small percentage, say ten or twenty per cent or less, are clearly conscious of the true nature of their selfish desires. Perhaps eighty or ninety per cent or more, depending of course on the particular occasion 384 PRACTICAL PSYCHOLOGY FOR or the nature of the movement, will partially or completely disguise the economic motive by some of the processes outlined. These disguised motives will be much more readily accepted by hundreds of thousands of citizens not acutely affected. And thus we have the collective phenomena occasioned by the oper- ation of individual mechanism. THE PSYCHOLOGICAL EXPLANATION OF MEN'S PECULIARITIES 1 \ \^The present condition of industrial unrest has been widely attributed to the recent war. \ When the life of a nation is at stake, overstrain is to some extent inevitable; and when "peace" has been signed, the effects of such overstrain cannot fail to mani- fest themselves. The writer is himself acquainted with the man- aging director of a factory who, with his work's manager, burst into tears when the latter came to him with the news of the armistice. The editor of an important London newspaper com- plained that his assistants were breaking down one after the other when the strain of warfare was at an end, and were so sensitive that even the mildest rebuke provoked an outburst of emotion. We have ample evidence, from official inquiries, that during the war, the factory workers complained of feeling "stale," "nervy," "done up," "fairly whacked," especially during the earlier years when excessively long hours, the Sunday labor and a large amount of overtime, were so widely adopted. It is now realised that those conditions of work were economically unsound, and that a far greater output would have been and indeed in the later years of the war was secured by the proper regulation of work- ing hours, the dangers of over-strain being correspondingly lessened. 3> /7 Thuslunrest arises not so much from merely physical over- strain as from the effect of worries and mental conflicts of all kinds, e.g., the unsatisfactory conditions of modern industrial employment and its failure to satisfy the natural instincts and emotions which have consequently to be suppressed. \Home troubles, dating often from early childhood, become frequent sources of worry. Such worries produce their effect especially 1 Charles S. Myers. Mind and Work. p. 137-49- G- ** Putnam's Sons. New York and London. 1921. BUSINESS EXECUTIVES 385 when sown on a favourable soil. This soil has been called the "psychopathic disposition" an innate tendency to mental insta- bility, sensitivity and discontentment, and to erratic mental development. p. However provoked, such mental instability provokes indus- trial unrest, not only general but also individual. The mentally unstable employee is an irritant to his fellows, and a nuisance to the management. His kind is responsible for much of the existing unemployment and labor turnover. Ever restless him- self, he is continually being discharged from one job to another as a worthless worker. He becomes more and more unfitted for a normal environment, and finally joins the ranks of the unemployable, the alcoholic, the criminal or the insane. We now know that, by the timely application of psycho- therapeutic measures (based on the recent developments of abnormal psychology) and by a judicious selection of environ- ment, such workers can, like early tuberculosis patients, be pre- vented from going downhill; many of the emotionally unstable can be healed ; and many of those with insane "egocentric" tendencies or with defective intelligence can be prevented from m^ng_a_danger to themselves or to society. It would be absurd, then, to attribute the present industrial unrest merely to the strain of warfare. Such unrest existed, though by many unrecognized, long before the war. It was becoming more intense during the period immediately preceding the war. Employers and employees had, by then, become definitely solidified into separate groups, each imbued with what has been termed its own "herd spirit," each developing purposely or instinctively its own defences, each resolved to defend its own position and to demolish that of the other "herd." The weapons of defense and attack used in such industrial warfare may be well seen in a comparison of the standpoints of the extremists on the two sides today. The extremist employer, refusing to "face the facts" of modern industrial conditions, insists on keeping labor "in its proper place." He claims the right to deal as he pleases with the men whom he employs. He resents interference from outside sources. He denies any responsibility for the welfare of his workers; their duty being to work, his to pay them wages. If he has been "through the mill" himself, he argues that, "what was good enough for me when I was a lad is good enough for you now." He objects to 386 PRACTICAL PSYCHOLOGY FOR any improvements in education or other social conditions on the ground that they make the worker more discontented with his lot. He regards labor as inevitable drudgery, and as a commodity purchasable according to the strict laws of supply and demand. His aim is frankly to "score off" it whenever possible, and to break up the trade unions which oppose his unfettered progress at every step. "Let others rise as he has risen" is his motto and the "devil take the hindmost." He looks upon the trade unions as hostile associations bent on getting for their members as high wages for as little work as possible and robbing him of what he considers the just fruits of his enterprise. He argues that if the workers pursue their present policy of restriction in output, he has the same right to restrict their pay and their control over industry. He may long ago have achieved the ideal for which he set out of making a fortune; his continuance as an employer now being due to an unquenchable thirst for industrial adventure, greater power and fresh conquests. The extremist employee, armed with "defense mechanisms" against his feelings of inferiority or self-respect, smarting under injustice, imagined or actual, presents a similarly "impossible" attitude. Why, he asks, should I increase my power of produc- tion, if so large a share in the resulting profits goes to the capitalist? Why is it necessary for the capitalist to reap enor- mous interest on his capital without serious risk, if he is willing to lend money to the state at the rate of five per cent? Why should I be in favor of motion study, if it is going to force me into a monotonous routine method of work and to transfer all my craft knowledge and skill from my possession to the depart- ment of management? What is the use of talking to me of vocational selection, until my "unfit" comrades are secured from unemployment, and until true vocations have been established throughout the world of labor? Does the textile industry, for example, offer a properly organized vocational system, when fifty per cent of the boys who enter it are said to leave it before they reach the age of twenty-two? Do you call the work of a postman or a porter a vocation? What chances are offered in such occupations for escape from a soulless life of unrelieved monotony? Are high productivity, good wages and short hours the ultimate objects of human existence, or should not the worker aim at a fuller, more interesting and intellectual BUSINESS EXECUTIVES 387 life, and in the exercise of the higher duties of citizenship? Is it inevitable that rulers and ruled should continue to exist as two distinct and opposing classes, and that the former should be in a position to skim off from the latter all the cream of leadership and ability in the schools, factories or businesses, for admission into their own class and for desertion from the ranks into which they were born? As a worker, I demand an adequate share in the control of the work in which I am engaged, just as I have a vote in the government of my country. I refuse to remain a mere "hand" ; I want to use my brain. Only then am I prepared to consider the application of scientific organization and man- agement. Before this can be done, the whole social fabric needs reconstruction. INDEX Adler, Herman P., 352 Alcoholism, 349 Americanization, 227; the mind of the alien, 237 ff.; and manage- ment, 243; and oppression psy- chosis, 244; and social contacts, 247; and industrial environment, 249; and labor maintenance, 249; committees, 250 American Federation of Labor, 88, 98, 156 Army tests, 44 ff., 270, 285. See also Psychological tests Aristotle, 62 Aronqvici, Carol, 247 Associations, human, 119 Attitudes, of business men, i ; of workers, 97, 131 Autocratic government of industry, "3, I3S, i45 ff-; losses from, 150 Automatic machinery, 64 Babson, Roger W., 91 Balked instincts, 57; and turnover, 59 J95-6; of contrivance, 63, 231; repressions, 58; results of, 58, 60, 6 1 Ball, Jau Don, 340 Bassett, William R., 168 Behavioristic psychology, 5 Beliefs, 106 Bloomfield, Daniel, 231, 249 Bloomfield, Meyer, 297 Bogardus, Emory S., 246 Booker, John Manning, 229 Brierley, Susan S., 97 Bryce, James, 32 Casual labor, 57, 59; causes of, 67, 197, 202; characteristics of casual laborer, 68 ff. ; industrial waste of, 66; relation of training, 200, 203; solutions, 215 ff Cecil, Lord Robert, 145 Censor, the, 377 Chapman, J. Crosby, 292 Character deficiencies, 347. See Pathology Clark, Walter E., 35 Closed shop, 94 Collective bargaining, 93; 2nd Na- tional Industrial Conference fa- vors, 140; and wages, 148; Cyrus McCormick, Jr. on, 163; Gary, Judge E. H. on, 136; labor's purposes in, 150 Commons, John R., 123, 221, 253, 306 Compensation, 381 Complex, 359 Conference, President Wilson's Sec- ond Industrial, 138 Conklin, Edwin Grant, 6 Constellation of ideas, 359 Cooley, Charles Horton, 22 Cooperation, 85, 126, 146; enlisting, 92 Creative instinct, the, 101 ff., 171; arousing, 104; in machine pro- duction, 112, 140; repression of, 113, 231 Credit system, relation to unem- ployment, 306 ff Crowd behavior, 117, 120 ff Defense mechanisms, 386; See Pathology; also Balked instincts Democracy, and morale, 142; in in- dustry, n, 33, 51; relative effi- ciency of, 141, 164, 165 Dennison, manufacturing company, 303 Dewing, Arthur Stone, 27 Desire for recognition, 152, 166 Displacement, 379 Disque, Brice P., 214 Douglas, Paul, 193 Education, and interest, 178, 182. See Industrial education Efficiency, and intelligence, 46; and incentives, 189 ff.; committees, 168; relation of psychology, 49 Emotional instability, 354 ff Employee representation, 92, 159, 163, 166, 168 ff Engineering, human, 12. See Man- agement Evolution of mind, 37 Executive management. See Man- agement Fatigue, and accidents, 314; and efficiency, 311 ff., 326; and monotony, 318, 321; and malnu- trition, 13; applications, 325; bodily, 317; control of factors, 328; economic costs, 312; nerv- ous and mental, 318; pathological, 321, 346, 351. See Overstrain and pathology, mental, prevention of, 320 ff.; reduction of, 333 ff. ; signs and symptoms, 317; unnec- essary, 311 Fear, 131, 134, 175, 210, 332; and aggressiveness, 300; and indus- trial strains, 301; and interest, 302; and output, 302; discipline, 297; of unemployment, 297, 298 390 INDEX Federal Commissions on Industrial Relations, report of, 154 ff Filene, A. Lincoln, 49 Filene, cooperative association, 39 Filene, William, 39 Fisher, Boyd, 204 Fisher, Irving, 101, 141 Floating workers, 66. See Casual labor Food, instinct for, 13 Frank, Glenn, 142 Franfurter, Felix, 144 Frey, John P., 152, 155 Gary, Judge E. H., 135 Gilbreth, Frank B., 311, 367; Lit lian M., 311, 367 Gleason, Arthur, 69 Goddard, Henry Herbert, 44 Goldmark, Josephine, 326 Gompers, Samuel, 70, 150, 154 Good-will, n, 162, 184 Great society, the 59 Gregariousness, 20, 117 ff Group behavior, 125 Group mind, the, 120; in armies, 121 ; and restriction of output, 123 ff Habits, fixity of, 42; selected, 40 Hall, G. Stanley, n, 36 Hammond, John Hays, 92 Hart, Bernard, 357 Health, and efficiency, 315; and fatigue, 313 Healy, William, 359 Herd, instincts of, 117 ff. ; charac- teristics of, 118, 119; relation to behavior, 357. See Gregarious- ness; Also Group mind Hodges, Frank, 95 Hollingworth, H. L., 266 Hoover, Herbert, 119, 140 Housing conditions, 248 Hoxie, Robert F., 147, 155 Huber Unemployment Prevention Bill, 307, 308 Human nature, 9; and individual specialization, 20 Humidity,323, 329 Identification, 382 Immigrant labor, 237 ff. ; skill of, 239; relation to production, 238 ft Incentives, 99, 125; administration of, 128; and interest, 171 ff. ; in- adequacy of wage, 127 ff., 179; importance of financial, 176; non- financial, 171 ff., 187 Individual differences, 19, 63, 271; and job analysis, 290; and monotony, 64; in learning pro- cesses, 293 ff. ; in mental path- ology, 353; in mental tests, 275 ff. ; psychology of, 265, 384 Industrial democracy, n, 33, 51, 89, 94. MI, 142. See Management, participation in Industrial education, 253 ff Industrial Relations Association of America, 130 Inferiority, sense of, 78, 79 Inge, Dean, 69 Instincts, and discipline, 88; and in- dividual differences, 19, 63; and industrial control, 143; and in- telligence, 8 ff. ; and social pres- sure, 9, 358; as prime movers, 6, 87; balked, 5? ff. See Balked instincts, classification of, 7, 63 ; creative, 101 ff. ; disintegrative, 8; gregarious, 9, 20, 117 ff. ; in- tegrating factors in society, 6; of contrivance, 63, 65; of curiosity, 17; of ownership, 15; parental, 14; Tightness of, 10; satisfied, and efficiency, 87 ff., 184; self-preser- vation, 143; sublimation of, 14; the subconscious, 364; univer- sality of, 7, 63 Intelligence, classification of, 45; levels of, 44; tests. See Psy- chological Interest, and education, 176, 178, 254; and efficiency, no ff., 179; and incentives, 171 ff., 188; and promotions, 180; arousing, 171, 177, 181; dominant, of workers, James, William, 41 Jarrett, Mary C., 338, 341, 347 Jenks, Jeremiah W., 35 Job analysis, 290 Job, the importance to worker, 73 ff., 297, 298 Johnson, James F., 255 Kelley, Roy W., 257, 289 Kellor, Frances, 238 Kimball, Harry W., 202 Kitson, Harry D., 177, 293 Labor market, 199 Laissez-faire, 137 Leaders, 78 Leadership, 227; and democracy, 86 Lee, Frederick S., 328 Lescohier, Don D., 196 Lighting, 323, 333 Link, Henry C., 280 Loyal Legion of Loggers and Lum- bermen, 218 Loyalty. See Morale Machine industry, 57 ff. ; psycho- logical effects, 143; social effects of, 97 Malnutrition and migration, 13 Man, original nature of, 9 Management, absentee, 93; and in- itiative, 89 ff. ; and incentives, 125 ff.; and service, 34, 210; and unrest, 81 ff. ; and the creative instinct, 107; challenges to, 33; Charles W. Schwab on, 109; ex- ecutive, 31; fatigue and health, 316; in Americanization, 250; of INDEX 391 White Motors, 224; participation in, 93, 95, 96, 108, 115, 138, 139, 145, 152, 162, 214; labor's atti- tude toward, 98 ff. ; relation of fear, 210 ff.; responsibility for right relations, 139; scientific, 52; self-assertive, 135 ff. ; traditional, 53; workers' attitude toward, 42, 152; worker's contribution to, 140; worker's interest in, 92 Marot, Helen, 102 Marshall, L. C., 125 McCormick, Cyrus, Jr., 162 McDougall, William, 6, 120 Meeker, Royal, 159 Mental conflict, 359, 377 Mental hygiene. See Pathology, mental; also Psychiatry Metcalf, Henry C., 171 Migratory workers. See Casual labor Misfits, 352 Monotony, 64, 161, 172 ff., 193, 316; and fatigue, .119; physiology of, 326 Morale, and democracy, 142; and fear, 210; and food, 13, 14; and group spirit, 122; and unemploy- ment, 213, 297; and unemploy- ment insurance, 84 ff. ; building, 209 ff. ; maintenance of, 221 ff Morals, relation to work, 74 Mores, 37; inertia of, 38; author- ity of, 39 Morgan, John J. B., 179 Motives, 22, 69; classified, 27 ff.; economic, 23, 71, 72; in big busi- ness, 27; pecuniary, insufficient, 26, 127; self expression, 24. See also Incentives Muscio, Bernard, 131 Myers, Charles S., 275, 325, 384 New York Times, 137 Non-financial incentives, 127, 187. See Incentives Ogburn, William F., 375 Open shop, 135 Organized labor, 70, 94, 98, 152 ff. ; attitude toward welfare work, 232. See Unions Overstrain, 315, 3*7, 319- See Path- ology, mental Overtime, 330 Parker, Carleton H., 57, 102 Paternalism, 80, 164 Pathology, mental, 175, 243 ff., 337 ff.; in strikes, 340; opinions on, 344 ff. ; relation to instincts, 357 ff.; shell shock, 372 ff.; type cases, 342 ff. ; types of, 340, 367 ff Pear, T. H., 372 Persons, Harlow S., 42 Polakov, Walter N., 333 Powers, M. J., 364 Projection, 380 Promotion, 76, 193; policy, 195 Psychiatry, 337, 341; and individ- ual differences, 345; applications of, 350, 352; relation to medical science, 338. See Pathology Psychological tests, 265 ff.; applica- tions of, 275 ff. ; in vocational se- lection, 280 ff.; limitations of, 293; selection by, 266 ff . ; types of, 271 ff., 281; use of, 289; vocational values, 286 Psychological mechanism, 375 Psychology of workers, 161 Psychoses, industrial, 59; oppres- sion, 243. See Pathology, mental; also Balked instincts Race problems, 245 Racial qualities, 238, 242 Rationalization, 381 "Reasonable satisfaction," 69 Record charts, 103, 190 Religious education, 247 Repetitive operations, 70 Repression, 58, 377; and fear, 301; and interest in work, 174; defi- nition, 360; results of 78, 79, "3- See Balked instincts Responsibility worker's desire for, i Hi J59 Rest periods, 335 Restriction of output, and fatigue, 312, 320; and instinct of contri- vance, 65; attitude of unions, 148; by groups, 123 ff.; fear in relation to, 303; insecurity of em- ployment, 124 ff.; motives for, 77, 124 Rewards, 90. See Incentives Rivers, W. H. R., 299 Rockefeller, John D., Jr., 165 Schwab, Charles W., 109 ff Scientific management, labor's ^atti- tude toward, 132, 153, 154. 156; personal relationships, 52; prin- ciples of, 56, 81; recognition of individuality, 54 ff Scott, Walter Dill, 5, 265, 290 Seasonal industries, 193, 34 Security of employment, 50; and fear, 297 ff. ; and morale, 210, 213, 297; relation to banking, 306; scientific management, 133 Self-assertion, 88 Self-expression 24 ff., 106, 114, 164, 172, 192, 229, 256 Self-respect, 91, 229 Service, a function of management, 34; recognition of, 212; service work, 226. See also Welfare work Shop committees, and right relations, 51. 139. 168; and means of edu- cation, 18. See Management Simons, A. S., 181 Skill in machine industry, 64 Slichter, Summer H., 209 Smith, G. Elliott, 372 392 INDEX Solidarity of labor groups, 131 ff.; under scientific management, 134 Southard, E. E., 337 Spaeth, Reynold A., 320 Speeding up, 89, 149 Speek, P. A., 66 Strikes, 92 Subconscious, the, 12, 361, 363 ff., 376 ff Sumner, William G., 37 Swift, Edgar James, 39, 88 Symbolism, 380 Tansley, A. G., 363 Task work, 132, 133, 324 Taussig, F. W., 63 Taylor, Frederick W., 56, 127, 186 Taylor system, the, 71; a deficiency of, 185 Tead, Ordway, 102, 171, 302 Thorndike, Edward L., 9, 286 Time study, 324 Todd, Arthur J., 104 Trade Tests, 270, 285; function of, 292. See also Army test and psychological tests Tradition, 39. See Mores Training, 200; department, 258. See Industrial education Transference, 382 Trotter, William, 117 Turnover, 193 ff., 223; and fatigue, 322; and industrial abuses, 196; causes of, 193 ff., 197; reduction of, 204 ff.; worker's attitude, 201 Unconscious, desires, 378. See Sub- conscious Unemployment, and pathology, men- tal, 352, 385, ff. See Security of employment; also Huber Bill Unemployment insurance, in Eng- land, 83, 84 Unions, 70, 86, 127, 137, 139, 152, 232; Bassett, William R. on, 168 ff.; Gary, Judge E. H. on, 135 ff . ; Hoxie, Robert F. on, 147 ff Unrest, and balked instincts, 57; and industrial relations, 144; and insecurity of employment, 125, 299; and malnutrition, 13; and mental conflict, 384; and morale, 209 ff. ; and welfare work, 230; pathological, 350; psychic origin, 12; R. W. Wolf on, in ff.; rea- sons for, 159, 1 60; Second In- dustrial Conference on, 138; sci- entific inquiry into, 81 Ventilation, 323, 329 Vestibule school, 261 Vocational guidance, 276 Vocational selection, 266; "by psy- chological tests, 280 ff. See Psy- chological tests Volition, 294 Wages, and unrest, 50, 82, 194; re- sult of bargaining, 148. See In- centives Wallace, L. W., 33 Wallas, Graham, 59 Waste, industrial, due to balked disposition, 66 ff Watson, John B., 332 Webb, Sidney and Beatrice, 95 Welfare work, 229 ff.; essential con- ditions of, 231; administration of, 234 Will, 104 ff Williams, Whiting, 71, 298 Wilson, William B., 91 Wolf, Robert B., 102, no, 187 Wood, Charles W., 109 Work, therapeutic value of, 374 Working conditions, worker's part in determining, 85 Yerkes, R. M., 285 Yoakum, C. S., 285 T TTt UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA LIBRARY This book is DUE on the last date stamped below. LD 21-100m-12,'46(A2012sl6)4120 VB "1 8668 UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA LIBRARY