THE LIBRARY 
 
 OF 
 
 THE UNIVERSITY 
 
 OF CALIFORNIA 
 
 LOS ANGELES

 
 ^00^6 bp ^nsQ f^mattxbtxs 
 
 PSYCHOLOGY AND LIFE. Boston, 1899. 
 
 GRUNDZUGE DER PSYCHOLOGIE. Leipzig, 1900. 
 
 AMERICAN TRAITS. Boston, 1902. 
 
 DIE AMERIKANER. Berlin, 1904. 
 
 PRINCIPLES OF ART EDUCATION. New York, 1905. 
 
 THE ETERNAL LIFE. Boston, 1905. 
 
 SCIENCE AND IDEALISM. Boston, 1906. 
 
 PHILOSOPHIE DER WERTE. Leipzig, 1907. 
 
 ON THE WITNESS STAND. New York, 1908. 
 
 AUS DEUTSCH-AMERIKA. Berlin, 1908. 
 
 THE ETERNAL VALUES. Boston, 1909. 
 
 PSYCHOTHERAPY. New York, 1909. 
 
 PSYCHOLOGY AND THE TEACHER. New York, 1910. 
 
 AMERICAN PROBLEMS. New York, 1911. 
 
 PSYCHOLOGIE UND WIRTSCHAFTSLEBEN. Berlin, 
 1912. 
 
 VOCATION AND LEARNING. St. Louis, 1912. 
 
 PSYCHOLOGY AND INDUSTRIAL EFFICIENCY. Bos- 
 ton, 1913.
 
 PSYCHOLOGY AND 
 INDUSTRIAL EFFICIENCY
 
 PSYCHOLOGY AND 
 INDUSTRIAL EFFICIENCY 
 
 BY 
 
 HUGO MUNSTERBERG 
 
 BOSTON AND NEW YORK 
 HOUGHTON MIFFLIN COMPANY 
 
 dbe RitetjSiDc pte0 <fl:ambrilJoe 
 1913
 
 COPYRIGHT, 1913, BY HUGO MUNSTERBERG 
 ALL RIGHTS RESERVED 
 
 Published February iqij
 
 Bus. Admin. 
 Library 
 
 MS8 
 
 TO 
 
 HAROLD F. McCORMICK 
 
 1312637
 
 PREFATORY NOTE 
 
 THIS book corresponds to a German book, 
 which I published a few months ago, under 
 the title Psychologie und Wirtschajtslehen: Ein 
 Beitrag zur angewandten Experimental-Psychologie 
 (Leipzig: J. A. Barth). It is not a translation, 
 as some parts of the German volume have been 
 abbreviated or entirely omitted and other parts 
 have been enlarged and supplemented. Yet the 
 essential substance of the two books is identical.
 
 CONTENTS 
 
 INTRODUCTION 
 
 I. Applied Psychology S 
 
 11. The Demands of Practical Life . . 11 
 
 III. Means and Ends 17 
 
 I. THE BEST POSSIBLE MAN 
 
 IV. Vocation and Fitness 27 
 
 V. Scientific Vocational Guidance . . 37 
 
 VI. Scientific Management .... 49 
 
 VII. The Methods of Experimental Psy- 
 chology 57 
 
 VIII. Experiments in the Interest of Elec- 
 tric Railway Service .... 63 
 
 IX. Experiments in the Interest of Ship 
 
 Service 83 
 
 X. Experiments in the Interest of Tele- 
 phone Service 97 
 
 XI. Contributions from Men of Affairs . 116 
 
 XII. Individuals and Groups .... 129 
 
 II. THE BEST POSSIBLE WORK 
 
 XIII. Learning and Training .... 141 
 
 XIV. The Adjustment of Technical to Psy- 
 
 chical Conditions 158 
 
 vn
 
 CONTENTS 
 
 XV. The Economy of Movement . .180 
 
 XVI. Experiments on the Problem of 
 
 Monotony 190 
 
 XVII. Attention and Fatigue . . . 206 
 
 XVIII. Physical and Social Influences on 
 
 THE Working Power . . . .221 
 
 III. THE BEST POSSIBLE EFFECT 
 
 XIX. The Satisfaction of Economic De- 
 mands 243 
 
 XX. Experiments on the Effects of Ad- 
 vertisements 255 
 
 XXI. The Effect of Display .... 272 
 
 XXII. Experiments with Reference to Il- 
 legal Imitation 282 
 
 XXIII. Buying and Selling .... 294 
 
 XXIV. The Future Development of Econo- 
 mic Psychology 303 
 
 Notes 311 
 
 Index ' . . 317
 
 INTRODUCTION
 
 PSYCHOLOGY AND 
 INDUSTRIAL EFFICIENCY 
 
 INTEODUCTION 
 I 
 
 APPLIED PSYCHOLOGY 
 
 OUR aim is to sketch the outlines of a new 
 science which is to intermediate between 
 the modern laboratory psychology and the pro- 
 blems of economics : the psychological experiment 
 is systematically to be placed at the service of 
 commerce and industry. So far we have only 
 scattered beginnings of the new doctrine, only 
 tentative efforts and disconnected attempts which 
 have started, sometimes in economic, and some- 
 times in psychological, quarters. The time when 
 an exact psychology of business life will be pre- 
 sented as a closed and perfected system lies very 
 far distant. But the earlier the attention of 
 wider circles is directed to its beginnings and to 
 the importance and bearings of its tasks, the 
 quicker and the more sound will be the develop- 
 ment of this young science. What is most needed 
 to-day at the beginning of the new movement are 
 
 3
 
 INTRODUCTION 
 
 clear, concrete illustrations which demonstrate 
 the possibilities of the new method. In the follow- 
 ing pages, accordingly, it will be my aim to ana- 
 lyze the results of experiments which have actu- 
 ally been carried out, experiments belonging to 
 many different spheres of economic life. But these 
 detached experiments ought always at least to 
 point to a connected whole; the single experiments 
 will, therefore, always need a general discussion 
 of the principles as a background. In the interest 
 of such a wider perspective we may at first enter 
 into some preparatory questions of theory. They 
 may serve as an introduction which is to lead 
 us to the actual economic life and the present 
 achievements of experimental psychology. 
 
 It is well known that the modern psychologists 
 only slowly and very reluctantly approached the 
 apparently natural task of rendering useful serv- 
 ice to practical life. As long as the study of the 
 mind was entirely dependent upon philosophical 
 or theological speculation, no help could be ex- 
 pected from such endeavors to assist in the daily 
 walks of life. But half a century has passed since 
 the study of consciousness was switched into the 
 tracks of exact scientific investigation. Five 
 decades ago the psychologists began to devote 
 themselves to the most minute description of the 
 mental experiences and to explain the mental life 
 
 4
 
 APPLIED PSYCHOLOGY 
 
 in a way which was modeled after the pattern of 
 exact natural sciences. Their aim was no longer 
 to speculate about the soul, but to find the psych- 
 ical elements and the constant laws which con- 
 trol their connections. Psychology became exper- 
 imental and physiological. For more than thirty 
 years the psychologists have also had their work- 
 shops. Laboratories for experimental psychology 
 have grown up in all civilized countries, and the 
 new method has been applied to one group of 
 mental traits after another. And yet we stand be- 
 fore the surprising fact that all the manifold results 
 of the new science have remained book know- 
 ledge, detached from any practical interests. Only 
 in the last ten years do we find systematic efforts 
 to apply the experimental results of psychology to 
 the needs of society. 
 
 It is clear that the reason for this late begin- 
 ning is not an unwillingness of the last century to 
 make theoretical knowledge serviceable to the de- 
 mands of life. Every one knows, on the contrary, 
 that the glorious advance of the natural sciences 
 became at the same time a triumphal march of 
 technique. Whatever was brought to light in the 
 laboratories of the physicists and chemists, of the 
 physiologists and pathologists, was quickly trans- 
 formed into achievements of physical and chem- 
 ical industry, of medicine and hygiene, of agricul- 
 
 5
 
 INTRODUCTION 
 
 ture and mining and transportation. No realm 
 of the external social life remained untouched. 
 The scientists, on the other hand, felt that the 
 far-reaching practical effect which came from their 
 discoveries exerted a stimulating influence on the 
 theoretical researches themselves. The pure search 
 for truth and knowledge was not lowered when 
 the electrical waves were harnessed for wireless 
 telegraphy, or the Roentgen rays were forced into 
 the service of surgery. The knowledge of nature 
 and the mastery of nature have always belonged 
 together. 
 
 The persistent hesitation of the psychologists 
 to make similar practical use of their experimental 
 results has therefore come from different causes. 
 The students of mental life evidently had the feel- 
 ing that quiet, undisturbed research was needed 
 for the new science of psychology in order that a 
 certain maturity might be reached before a contact 
 with the turmoil of practical life would be advis- 
 able. The sciences themselves cannot escape in- 
 jury if their results are forced into the rush of the 
 day before the fundamental ideas have been 
 cleared up, the methods of investigation really 
 tried, and an ample supply of facts collected. But 
 this very justified reluctance becomes a real dan- 
 ger if it grows into an instinctive fear of coming 
 into contact at all with practical life. To be sure, 
 
 6
 
 APPLIED PSYCHOLOGY 
 
 in any single case there may be a difference of 
 opinion as to when the right time has come and 
 when the inner consoHdation of a new science is 
 sufficiently advanced for the technical service, 
 but it ought to be clear that it is not wise to wait 
 until the scientists have settled all the theoretical 
 problems involved. True progress in every scien- 
 tific field means that the problems become mul- 
 tiplied and that ever new questions keep coming 
 to the surface. If the psychologists were to refrain 
 from practical application until the theoretical 
 results of their laboratories need no supplement, 
 the time for applied psychology would never come. 
 Whoever looks without prejudice on the develop- 
 ment of modern psychology ought to acknowledge 
 that the hesitancy which was justified in the be- 
 ginning would to-day be inexcusable lack of initi- 
 ative. For the sciences of the mind, too, the time 
 has come when theory and practice must support 
 each other. An exceedingly large mass of facts 
 has been gathered, the methods have become re- 
 fined and differentiated, and however much may 
 still be under discussion, the ground common to all 
 is ample enough to build upon. 
 
 Another important reason for the slowness of 
 practical progress was probably this. When the 
 psychologists began to work with the new experi- 
 mental methods, their most immediate concern 
 
 7
 
 INTRODUCTION 
 
 was to get rid of mere speculation and to take 
 hold of actual facts. Hence they regarded the 
 natural sciences as their model, and, together 
 with the experimental method which distinguishes 
 scientific work, the characteristic goal of the 
 sciences was accepted too. This scientific goal 
 is always the attainment of general laws; and so 
 it happened that in the first decades after the 
 foundation of psychological laboratories the gen- 
 eral laws of the mind absorbed the entire atten- 
 tion and interest of the investigators. The result 
 of such an attitude was, that we learned to under- 
 stand the working of the typical mind, but that 
 all the individual variations were almost neg- 
 lected. When the various individuals differed in 
 their mental behavior, these differences appeared 
 almost as disturbances which the psychologists 
 had to eliminate in order to find the general laws 
 which hold for every mind. The studies were ac- 
 cordingly confined to the general averages of 
 mental experience, while the variations from such 
 averages were hardly included in the scientific ac- 
 count. In earlier centuries, to be sure, the interest 
 of the psychological observers had been given al- 
 most entirely to the rich manifoldness of human 
 characters and intelligences and talents. In the 
 new period of experimental work, this interest was 
 taken as an indication of the unscientific fancies 
 
 8
 
 APPLIED PSYCHOLOGY 
 
 of the earlier age, in which the curious and the 
 anecdotal attracted the view. The new science 
 which was to seek the laws was to overcome such 
 popular curiosity. In this sign experimental psy- 
 chology has conquered. The fundamental laws 
 of the ideas and of the attention, of the memory 
 and of the will, of the feeling and of the emotions, 
 have been elaborated. Yet it slowly became evi- 
 dent that such one-sidedness, however necessary it 
 may have been at the beginning, would make any 
 practical application impossible. In practical life 
 we never have to do with what is common to all 
 human beings, even when we are to influence 
 large masses; we have to deal with personalities 
 whose mental life is characterized by particular 
 traits of nationality, or race, or vocation, or sex, 
 or age, or special interests, or other features by 
 which they differ from the average mind which 
 the theoretical psychologist may construct as a 
 type. Still more frequently we have to act with 
 reference to smaller groups or to single individ- 
 uals whose mental physiognomy demands care- 
 ful consideration. As long as experimental psy- 
 chology remained essentially a science of the 
 mental laws, common to all human beings, an ad- 
 justment to the practical demands of daily life 
 could hardly come in question. With such gen- 
 eral laws we could never have mastered the con- 
 
 9
 
 INTRODUCTION 
 
 Crete situations of society, because we should have 
 had to leave out of view the fact that there are 
 gifted and ungifted, intelligent and stupid, sensi- 
 tive and obtuse, quick and slow, energetic and 
 weak individuals. 
 
 But in recent years a complete change can be 
 traced in our science. Experiments which refer 
 to these individual differences themselves have 
 been carried on by means of the psychological 
 laboratory, at first reluctantly and in tentative 
 forms, but within the last ten years the move- 
 ment has made rapid progress. To-day we have a 
 psychology of individual variations from the point 
 of view of the psychological laboratory.^ This 
 development of schemes to compare the differ- 
 ences between the individuals by the methods of 
 experimental science was after all the most im- 
 portant advance toward the practical application 
 of psychology. The study of the individual dif- 
 ferences itself is not applied psychology, but it 
 is the presupposition without which applied psy- 
 chology would have remained a phantom.
 
 n 
 
 THE DEMANDS OF PRACTICAL LIFE 
 
 WHILE in this way the progress of psy- 
 chology itself and the development of 
 the psychology of individual differences favored 
 the growth of applied psychology, there arose 
 at the same time an increasing demand in the 
 midst of practical life. Especially the teachers and 
 the physicians, later the lawyers as well, looked 
 for help from exact psychology. The science of 
 education and instruction had always had some 
 contact with the science of the mind, as the peda- 
 gogues could never forget that the mental devel- 
 opment of the child has to stand in the centre 
 of educational thought. For a long while peda- 
 gogy was still leaning on a philosophical psycho- 
 logy, after that old-fashioned study of the soul had 
 been given up in psychological quarters. At last, 
 in the days of progressive experimental psycho- 
 logy, the time came when the teachers under the 
 pressure of their new needs began to inquire how 
 far the modern laboratory could aid them in the 
 classroom. The pedagogical psychology of mem- 
 ory, of attention, of will, and of intellect was 
 systematically worked up by men with practical 
 
 11
 
 INTRODUCTION 
 
 school interests. We may notice in the move- 
 ment a slow but most important shifting. At first 
 the results of theoretical psychology were simply 
 transplanted into the pedagogical field. Experi- 
 ments which were carried on in the interest of 
 pure theoretical science were made practical use 
 of, but their application remained a mere chance 
 by-product. Only slowly did the pedagogical 
 problems themselves begin to determine the ex- 
 perimental investigation. The methods of labora- 
 tory psychology were applied for the solving of 
 those problems which originated in the school ex- 
 perience, and only when this point was reached 
 could a truly experimental pedagogy be built on a 
 psychological foundation. We stand in the midst 
 of this vigorous and healthy movement, which 
 has had a stimulating effect on theoretical psy- 
 chology itself. 
 
 We find a similar situation in the sphere of the 
 physician. He could not pass by the new science 
 of the mind without instinctively feeling that his 
 medical diagnosis and therapy could be furthered 
 in many directions by the experimental method. 
 Not only the psychiatrist and nerve specialist, 
 but in a certain sense every physician had made 
 use of a certain amount of psychology in his pro- 
 fessional work. He had always had to make clear 
 to himself the mental experiences of the patient, 
 
 12
 
 THE DEMANDS OF PRACTICAL LIFE 
 
 to study his pain sensations and his feehngs of 
 comfort, his fears and his hopes, his perceptions 
 and his voHtions, and to a certain degree he had 
 always tried to influence the mental life of the 
 patient, to work on him by suggestion and to help 
 him by stimulating his mind. But as far as a real 
 description and explanation of such mental ex- 
 periences came in question, all remained a dilet- 
 tantic semi-psychology which worked with the 
 most trivial conceptions of popular thinking. The 
 medical men recognized the disproportion be- 
 tween the exactitude of their anatomical, physi- 
 ological, and pathological observation and the 
 superficiality of their self-made psychology. Thus 
 the desire arose in their own medical circle to 
 harmonize their psychological means of diagnosis 
 and therapy with the schemes of modern scien- 
 tific psychology. The physician who examines the 
 sensations in a nervous disease, or the intelligence 
 in a mental disease, or heals by suggestion or 
 hypnotism, tries to apply the latest discoveries 
 of the psychological laboratory. But here, too, 
 the same development as in pedagogy can be 
 traced. The physicians at first made use only of 
 results which had been secured under entirely dif- 
 ferent points of view, but later the experiments 
 were subordinated to the special medical problems. 
 Then the physician was no longer obliged simply 
 
 13
 
 INTRODUCTION 
 
 to use what he happened to find among the re- 
 sults of the theoretical psychologist, but carried 
 on the experiments in the service of medical pro- 
 blems. The independent status of experimental 
 medical psychology could be secured only by this 
 development. 
 
 In somewhat narrower limits the same may 
 be said as to the problems of law. A kind of popu- 
 lar psychology was naturally involved whenever 
 judges or lawyers analyzed the experience on the 
 witness stand or discussed the motives of crime 
 or the confessions of the criminal or the social 
 conditions of criminality. But when every day 
 brought new discoveries in the psychological lab- 
 oratory, it seemed natural to make use of the new 
 methods and of the new results in the interest of 
 the courtroom. The power of observation in the 
 witness, the exactitude of his memory, the char- 
 acter of his illusions and imagination, his suggest- 
 ibility and his feeling, appeared in a new light in 
 view of the experimental investigations, and the 
 emotions and volitions of the criminal were under- 
 stood with a new insight. Here, too, the last step 
 was taken. Instead of being satisfied with experi- 
 ments which the psychologist had made for his 
 own purposes, the students of legal psychology 
 adjusted experiments to the particular needs of 
 the courtroom. Investigations were carried on to 
 
 14
 
 THE DEMANDS OF PRACTICAL LIFE 
 
 determine the fidelity of testimony or to find meth- 
 ods for the detection of hidden thoughts and so on. 
 Efforts toward the application of psychology have 
 accordingly grown up in the fields of pedagogy, 
 medicine, and jurisprudence, but as these studies 
 naturally do not remain independent of one an- 
 other, they all together form the one unified sci- 
 ence of applied psychology. ^ 
 
 As soon as the independence of this new science 
 was felt, it was natural that new demands and new 
 problems should continue to originate within its 
 own limits. There must be applied psychology 
 wherever the investigation of mental life can be 
 made serviceable to the tasks of civilization . Crim- 
 inal law, education, medicine, certainly do not con- 
 stitute the totality of civilized life. It is therefore 
 the duty of the practical psychologist systemat- 
 ically to examine how far other purposes of mod- 
 ern society can be advanced by the new methods 
 of experimental psychology. There is, for in- 
 stance, already far-reaching agreement that the 
 problems of artistic creation, of scientific obser- 
 vation, of social reform, and many similar en- 
 deavors must be acknowledged as organic parts 
 of applied psychology. Only one group of pur- 
 poses is so far surprisingly neglected in the realm 
 of the psychological laboratory: the purposes of 
 the economic life, the purposes of commerce and 
 
 15
 
 INTRODUCTION 
 
 industry, of business and the market in the widest 
 sense of the word. The question how far apphed 
 psychology can be extended in this direction is the 
 topic of the following discussions.
 
 Ill 
 
 MEANS AND ENDS 
 
 APPLIED psychology is evidently to be 
 classed with the technical sciences. It may 
 be considered as psychotechnics, since we must 
 recognize any science as technical if it teaches us 
 to apply theoretical knowledge for the further- 
 ance of human purposes. Like all technical 
 sciences, applied psychology tells us what we 
 ought to do if we want to reach certain ends; but 
 we ought to realize at the threshold where the 
 limits of such a technical science lie, as they are 
 easily overlooked, with resulting confusion. We 
 must understand that every technical science 
 says only: you must make use of this means, if 
 you wish to reach this or that particular end. But 
 no technical science can decide within its limits 
 whether the end itself is really a desirable one. 
 The technical specialist knows how he ought to 
 build a bridge or how he ought to pierce a tunnel, 
 presupposing that the bridge or the tunnel is de- 
 sired. But whether they are desirable or not is a 
 question which does not concern the technical 
 scientist, but which must be considered from 
 
 17
 
 INTRODUCTION 
 
 economic or political or other points of view. 
 Everywhere the engineer must know how to reach 
 an end, and must leave it to others to settle 
 whether the end is in itself desirable. Often the 
 end may be a matter of course for every reason- 
 able being. The extreme case is presented by the 
 applied science of medicine, where the physician 
 subordinates all his technique to the end of curing 
 the patient. Yet if we are consistent we must ac- 
 knowledge that all his medical knowledge can 
 prescribe to him only that he proceed in a certain 
 way if the long life of the patient is acknowledged 
 as a desirable end. The application of anatomy, 
 physiology, and pathology may just as well be used 
 for the opposite end of killing a man. Whether 
 it is wise to work toward long life, or whether it 
 is better to kill people, is again a problem which 
 lies outside the sphere of the applied sciences. 
 Ethics or social philosophy or religion have to 
 solve these preliminary questions. The physician 
 as such has only to deal with the means which lead 
 toward that goal. 
 
 We must make the same discrimination in 
 the psychotechnical field. The psychologist may 
 point out the methods by which an involuntary 
 confession can be secured from a defendant, but 
 whether it is justifiable to extort involuntary 
 confessions is a problem which does not concern 
 
 18
 
 MEANS AND ENDS 
 
 the psychologist. The lawyers or the legislators 
 must decide as to the right or wrong, the legality 
 or illegality, of forcing a man to show his hidden 
 ideas. If such an end is desirable, the psycho- 
 technical student can determine the right means, 
 and that is the limit of his oflSce. We ought to 
 keep in mind that the same holds true for the 
 application of psychology in economic life. Eco- 
 nomic psychotechnics may serve certain ends of 
 commerce and industry, but whether these ends 
 are the best ones is not a care with which the 
 psychologist has to be burdened. For instance, the 
 end may be the selection of the most efficient la- 
 borers for particular industries. The psychologist 
 may develop methods in his laboratory by which 
 this purpose can be fulfilled. But if some mills 
 prefer another goal, — for instance, to have not the 
 most efficient but the cheapest possible laborers, 
 — entirely different means for the selection are 
 necessary. The psychologist is, therefore, not en- 
 tangled in the economic discussions of the day; it 
 is not his concern to decide whether the policy 
 of the trusts or the policy of the trade-unions or 
 any other policy for the selection of laborers is 
 the ideal one. He is confined to the statement: 
 if you wish this end, then you must proceed in 
 this way; but it is left to you to express your pre- 
 ference among the ends. Applied psychology can, 
 
 19
 
 INTRODUCTION 
 
 therefore, speak the language of an exact science 
 in its own field, independent of economic opinions 
 and debatable partisan interests. This is a neces- 
 sary limitation, but in this limitation lies the 
 strength of the new science. The psychologist 
 may show how a special commodity can be adver- 
 tised; but whether from a social point of view it is 
 desirable to reinforce the sale of these goods is no 
 problem for psychotechnics. If a sociologist in- 
 sists that it would be better if not so many useless 
 goods were bought, and that the aim ought rather 
 to be to protect the buyer than to help the seller, 
 the psychologist would not object. His interest 
 would only be to find the right psychological 
 means to lead to this other social end. He is par- 
 tisan neither of the salesman nor of the customer, 
 neither of the capitalist nor of the laborer, he is 
 neither Socialist nor anti-Socialist, neither high- 
 tariff man nor free-trader. Here, too, of course, 
 there are certain goals which are acknowledged on 
 all sides, and which therefore hardly need any 
 discussion, just as in the case of the physician, 
 where the prolongation of life is practically ac- 
 knowledged as a desirable end by every one. But 
 everywhere where the aim is not perfectly a mat- 
 ter of course, the psychotechnical specialist fulfills 
 his task only when he is satisfied with demon- 
 strating that certain psychical means serve a cer- 
 
 20
 
 MEANS AND ENDS 
 
 tain end, and that they ought to be applied as 
 soon as that end is accepted. 
 
 The whole system of psychotechnical knowledge 
 might be subdivided under either of the two as- 
 pects. Either we might start from the various 
 mental processes and ask for what end each men- 
 tal factor can be practically useful and important, 
 or we can begin with studying what significant 
 ends are acknowledged in our society and then 
 we can seek the various psychological facts which 
 are needed as means for the realization of these 
 ends. The first way offers many conveniences. 
 There we should begin with the mental states of 
 attention, memory, feeling, and so on, and should 
 study how the psychological knowledge of every 
 one of these mental states can render service in 
 many different practical fields. The attention, 
 for instance, is important in the classroom when 
 the teacher tries to secure the attention of the pu- 
 pils, but the judge expects the same attention from 
 the jurymen in the courtroom, the artist seeks to 
 stir up the attention of the spectator, the adver- 
 tiser demands the attention of the newspaper 
 readers. Whoever studies the characteristics of 
 the mental process of attention may then be able 
 to indicate how in every one of these unlike cases 
 the attention can be stimulated and retained. 
 Nevertheless the opposite way which starts from 
 
 21
 
 INTRODUCTION 
 
 the tasks to be fulfilled seems more helpful and 
 more fundamentally significant. The question, 
 then, is what mental processes become important 
 for the tasks of education, what for the purposes 
 of the courtroom, what for the hospital, what for 
 the church, what for politics, and so on. 
 
 As this whole essay is to be devoted exclusively 
 to the economic problems, we are obliged to 
 choose the second way; that is, to arrange applied 
 psychology with reference to its chief ends and 
 not with reference to the various means. But the 
 same question comes up in the further subdivision 
 of the material. In the field of economic psycho- 
 logy, too, we might ask how far the study of at- 
 tention, or of perception, or of feeling, or of will, 
 or of memory, and so on, can be useful for the pur- 
 poses of the business man. Or here, too, we might 
 begin with the consideration of the various ends 
 and purposes. The ends of commerce are differ- 
 ent from those of industry, those of publishing 
 different from those of transportation, those of 
 agriculture different from those of mining; or, in 
 the field of commerce, the purposes of the retailer 
 are different from those of the wholesale merchant. 
 There can be no limit to such subdivisions; each 
 particular industry has its own aims, and in the 
 same industry a large variety of tasks are united. 
 We should accordingly be led to an ample classi- 
 
 22
 
 MEANS AND ENDS 
 
 fication of special economic ends with pigeonholes 
 for every possible kind of business and of labor. 
 The psychologist would have to find for every one 
 of these ends the right mental means. This would 
 be the ideal system of economic psychology. 
 
 But we are still endlessly far from such a per- 
 fect system. Modern educational psychology and 
 medical psychology have reached a stage at which 
 an effort for such a complete system might be 
 realized, but economic psychology is still at too 
 early a stage of development. It would be entirely 
 artificial to-day to aim at such ideal completeness. 
 If we were to construct such a complete system 
 of questions, we should have no answers. In the 
 present stage nothing can be seriously proposed 
 but the selection of a few central purposes which 
 occur in every department of business life, and a 
 study of the means to reach these special ends by 
 the discussion of some typical cases which may 
 clearly illustrate the methods involved. 
 
 From this point of view we select three chief 
 purposes of business life, purposes which are im- 
 portant in commerce and industry and every eco- 
 nomic endeavor. We ask how we can find the 
 men whose mental qualities make them best fit- 
 ted for the work which they have to do ; secondly, 
 under what psychological conditions we can se- 
 cure the greatest and most satisfactory^ output 
 
 23
 
 INTRODUCTION 
 
 of work from every man; and finally, how we can 
 produce most completely the influences on human 
 minds which are desired in the interest of business. 
 In other words, we ask how to find the best possi- 
 ble man, how to produce the best possible work, 
 and how to secure the best possible effects.
 
 PART I 
 
 THE BEST POSSIBLE MAN
 
 PART I 
 
 THE BEST POSSIBLE MAN 
 IV 
 
 VOCATION AND FITNESS 
 
 INSTEAD of lingering over theoretical discus- 
 sions, we will move straight on toward our first 
 practical problem. The economic task, with re- 
 ference to which we want to demonstrate the new 
 psychotechnic method, is the selection of those 
 personalities which by their mental qualities are 
 especially fit for a particular kind of economic 
 work. This problem is especially useful to show 
 what the new method can do and what it cannot 
 do. Whether the method is sufficiently developed 
 to secure full results to-day, or whether they will 
 come to-morrow, is unimportant. It is clear that 
 the success of to-morrow is to be hoped for, only 
 if understanding and interest in the problem is 
 already alive to-day. 
 
 When we inquire into the qualities of men, we 
 use the word here in its widest meaning. It covers, 
 on the one side, the mental dispositions which may 
 still be quite undeveloped and which may unfold 
 
 27
 
 THE BEST POSSIBLE MAN 
 
 only under the influence of special conditions in 
 the surroundings; but, on the other side, it covers 
 the habitual traits of the personality, the features 
 of the individual temperament and character, of 
 the intelligence and of the ability, of the collected 
 knowledge and of the acquired experience. All 
 variations of will and feeling, of perception and 
 thought, of attention and emotion, of memory 
 and imagination, are included here. From a 
 purely psychological standpoint, quite incompar- 
 able contents and functions and dispositions of 
 the personality are thus thrown together, but in 
 practical life we are accustomed to proceed after 
 this fashion : If a man applies for a position, he is 
 considered with regard to the totality of his qual- 
 ities, and at first nobody cares whether the par- 
 ticular feature is inherited or acquired, whether it 
 is an individual chance variation or whether it is 
 common to a larger group, perhaps to all mem- 
 bers of a certain nationality or race. We simply 
 start from the clear fact that the personalities 
 which enter into the world of affairs present an 
 unlimited manif oldness of talents and abilities and 
 functions of the mind. From this manif oldness, 
 it necessarily follows that some are more, some 
 less, fit for the particular economic task. In view 
 of the far-reaching division of labor in our modern 
 economic life, it is impossible to avoid the ques- 
 
 28
 
 VOCATION AND FITNESS 
 
 tion how we can select the fit personahties and re- 
 ject the unfit ones. 
 
 How has modern society prepared itself to 
 settle this social demand? In case that certain 
 knowledge is indispensable for the work or that 
 technical abilities must have been acquired, the 
 vocation is surrounded by examinations. This is 
 true of the lower as well as of the higher activ- 
 ities. The direct examination is everywhere sup- 
 plemented by testimonials covering the previous 
 achievements, by certificates referring to the 
 previous education, and in frequent cases by the 
 endeavor to gain a personal impression from 
 the applicant. But if we take all this together, 
 the total result remains a social machinery by 
 which perhaps the elimination of the entirely un- 
 fit can be secured. But no one could speak of a 
 really satisfactory adaptation of the manifold per- 
 sonalities to the economic vocational tasks. All 
 those examinations and tests and certificates re- 
 fer essentially to what can be learned from with- 
 out, and not to the true qualities of the mind and 
 the deeper traits. The so-called impressions, too, 
 are determined by the most secondary and exter- 
 nal factors. Society relies instinctively on the hope 
 that the natural wishes and interests will push 
 every one to the place for which his dispositions, 
 talents, and psychophysical gifts prepare him. 
 
 29
 
 THE BEST POSSIBLE MAN 
 
 In reality this confidence is entirely unfounded. 
 A threefold diflBculty exists. In the first place, 
 young people know very little about themselves 
 and their abilities. When the day comes on which 
 they discover their real strong points and their 
 weaknesses, it is often too late. They have usually 
 been drawn into the current of a particular voca- 
 tion, and have given too much energy to the 
 preparation for a specific achievement to change 
 the whole life-plan once more. The entire scheme 
 of education gives to the individual little chance 
 to find himself. A mere interest for one or another 
 subject in school is influenced by many accidental 
 circumstances, by the personality of the teacher 
 or the methods of instruction, by suggestions of 
 the surroundings and by home traditions, and 
 accordingly even such a preference gives rather a 
 slight final indication of the individual mental 
 qualities. Moreover, such mere inclinations and 
 interests cannot determine the true psychological 
 fitness for a vocation. To choose a crude illustra- 
 tion, a boy may think with passion of the vocation 
 of a sailor, and yet may be entirely unfit for it, 
 because his mind lacks the ability to discriminate 
 red and green. He himself may never have dis- 
 covered that he is color-blind, but when he is 
 ready to turn to the sailor's calling, the examina- 
 tion of his color-sensitiveness which is demanded 
 
 30
 
 VOCATION AND FITNESS 
 
 may have shown the disturbing mental defi- 
 ciency. Similar defects may exist in a boy's atten- 
 tion or memory, judgment or feeling, thought or 
 imagination, suggestibility or emotion, and they 
 may remain just as undiscovered as the defect 
 of color-blindness, which is characteristic of four 
 per cent of the male population. All such defi- 
 ciencies may be dangerous in particular callings. 
 But while the vocation of the ship officer is for- 
 tunately protected nowadays by such a special 
 psychological examination, most other vocations 
 are unguarded against the entrance of the men- 
 tally unfit individuals. 
 
 As the boys and girls grow up without recog- 
 nizing their psychical weaknesses, the exceptional 
 strength of one or another mental function too 
 often remains unnoticed by them as well. They 
 may find out when they are favored with a special 
 talent for art or music or scholarship, but they 
 hardly ever know that their attention, or their 
 memory, or their will, or their intellectual appre- 
 hension, or their sensory perceptions, are unusu- 
 ally developed in a particular direction; yet such 
 an exceptional mental disposition might be the 
 cause of special success in certain vocations. But 
 we may abstract from the extremes of abnormal 
 deficiency and abnormal overdevelopment in 
 particular functions. Between them we find the 
 
 31
 
 THE BEST POSSIBLE MAN 
 
 broad region of the average minds with their num- 
 berless variations, and these variations are usually 
 quite unknown to their possessors. It is often 
 surprising to see how the most manifest differ- 
 ences of psychical organization remain unnoticed 
 by the individuals themselves. Men with a pro- 
 nounced visual type of memory and men with a 
 marked acoustical type may live together without 
 the slightest idea that their contents of conscious- 
 ness are fundamentally different from each other. 
 Neither the children nor their parents nor their 
 teachers burden themselves with the careful 
 analysis of such actual mental qualities when the 
 choice of a vocation is before them. They know 
 that a boy who is completely unmusical must not 
 become a musician, and that the child who cannot 
 draw at all must not become a painter, just as on 
 physical grounds a boy with very weak muscles 
 is not fit to become a blacksmith. But as soon 
 as the subtler differentiation is needed, the judg- 
 ment of all concerned seems helpless and the 
 psychical characteristics remain disregarded. 
 
 A further reason for the lack of adaptation, and 
 surely a most important one, lies in the fact that 
 the individual usually knows only the most ex- 
 ternal conditions of the vocations from which he 
 chooses. The most essential requisite for a truly 
 perfect adaptation, namely, a real analysis of the 
 
 32
 
 VOCATION AND FITNESS 
 
 vocational demands with reference to the desir- 
 able personal qualities, is so far not in existence. 
 The young people generally see some superficial 
 traits of the careers which seem to stand open, 
 and, besides, perhaps they notice the great re- 
 wards of the most successful. The inner labor, the 
 inner values, and the inner difficulties and frictions 
 are too often unknown to those who decide for a 
 vocation, and they are unable to correlate those 
 essential factors of the life-calling with all that 
 nature by inheritance, and society by surround- 
 ings and training, have planted and developed in 
 their minds. 
 
 In addition to this ignorance as to one's own 
 mental disposition and to the lack of understand- 
 ing of the true mental requirements of the vari- 
 ous social tasks comes finally the abundance of 
 trivial chance influences which become decisive in 
 the choice of a vocation. Vocation and marriage 
 are the two most consequential decisions in life. 
 In the selection of a husband or wife, too, the de- 
 cision is very frequently made dependent upon 
 the most superficial and trivial motives. Yet the 
 social philosopher may content himself with the 
 belief that even in the fugitive love desire a deeper 
 instinct of nature is expressed, which may at least 
 serve the biological tasks of married life. In the 
 choice of a vocation, even such a belief in a bio- 
 
 33
 
 THE BEST POSSIBLE MAN 
 
 logical instinct is impossible. The choice of a vo- 
 cation, determined by fugitive whims and chance 
 fancies, by mere imitation, by a hope for quick 
 earnings, by irresponsible recommendation, or by 
 mere laziness, has no internal reason or excuse. 
 Illusory ideas as to the prospects of a career, 
 moreover, often falsify the whole vista; and if we 
 consider all this, we can hardly be surprised that 
 our total result is in many respects hardly better 
 than if everything were left entirely to accident. 
 Even on the height of a mental training to the 
 end of adolescence, we see how the college grad- 
 uates are too often led by accidental motives to 
 the decision whether they shall become lawyers or 
 physicians or business men, but this superficiality 
 of choice of course appears much more strongly 
 where the lifework is to be built upon the basis 
 of a mere elementary or high school education. 
 
 The final result corresponds exactly to these 
 conditions. Everywhere, in all countries and in 
 all vocations, but especially in the economic ca- 
 reers, we hear the complaint that there is lack of 
 really good men. Everywhere places are waiting 
 for the right man, while at the same time we find 
 everywhere an oversupply of mediocre aspirants. 
 This, however, does not in the least imply that 
 there really are not enough personalities who might 
 be perfectly fit even for the highest demands of 
 
 34
 
 VOCATION AND FITNESS 
 
 the vocations ; it means only that as a matter of 
 course the result in the filling of positions cannot 
 be satisfactory, if the placing of the individuals is 
 carried on without serious regard for the personal 
 mental qualities. The complaint that there is 
 lack of fit human material would probably never 
 entirely disappear, as with a better adjustment 
 of the material, the demands would steadily in- 
 crease; but it could at least be predicted with high 
 probability that this lack of really fit material 
 would not be felt so keenly everywhere if the 
 really decisive factor for the adjustment of per- 
 sonality and vocation, namely, the dispositions of 
 the mind, were not so carelessly ignored. 
 
 Society, to be sure, has a convenient means of 
 correction. The individual tries, and when he is 
 doing his work too badly, he loses his job, he is 
 pushed out from the career which he has chosen, 
 with the great probability that he will be crushed 
 by the wheels of social life. It is a rare occurrence 
 for the man who is a failure in his chosen voca- 
 tion, and who has been thrown out of it, to happen 
 to come into the career in which he can make a 
 success. Social statistics show with an appalling 
 clearness what a burden and what a danger to the 
 social body is growing from the masses of those 
 who do not succeed and who by their lack of suc- 
 cess become discouraged and embittered. The 
 
 35
 
 THE BEST POSSIBLE MAN 
 
 social psychologist cannot resist the conviction 
 that every single one could have found a place in 
 which he could have achieved something of value 
 for the commonwealth. The laborer, who in spite 
 of his best efforts shows himself useless and clumsy 
 before one machine, might perhaps have done satis- 
 factory work in the next mill where the machines 
 demand another type of mental reaction. His 
 psychical rhythm and his inner functions would 
 be able to adjust themselves to the requirements 
 of the one kind of labor and not to those of the 
 other. Truly the whole social body has had to pay 
 a heavy penalty for not making even the faintest 
 effort to settle systematically the fundamental 
 problem of vocational choice, the problem of the 
 psychical adaptation of the individuality. An 
 improvement would lie equally in the interest of 
 those who seek positions and those who have posi- 
 tions to offer. The employers can hope that in all 
 departments better work will be done as soon as 
 better adapted individuals can be obtained; and, 
 on the other hand, those who are anxious to make 
 their working energies effective may expect that 
 the careful selection of individual mental char- 
 acters for the various tasks of the world will in- 
 sure not only greater success and gain, but above 
 all greater joy in the work, deeper satisfaction, and 
 more harmonious unfolding of the personality.
 
 V 
 
 " SCIENTIFIC VOCATIONAL GUIDANCE 
 
 OBSERVATIONS of this kind, which refer 
 to the borderland region between psycho- 
 logy and social politics, are valid for all modern 
 nations. Yet it is hardly a chance that the first 
 efforts toward a systematic overcoming of some 
 of these diflSculties have been made with us in 
 America. The barriers between the classes lie 
 lower; here the choice of a vocation is less deter- 
 mined by tradition; and it belongs to the creed 
 of political democracy that just as everybody can 
 be called to the highest elective offices, so every- 
 body ought to be fit for any vocation in any 
 sphere of life. The wandering from calling to 
 calling is more frequent in America than anywhere 
 else. To be sure, this has the advantage that a 
 failure in one vocation does not bring with it such 
 a serious injury as in Europe, but it contributes 
 much to the greater danger that any one may 
 jump recklessly and without preparation into 
 any vocational stream. 
 
 It is fresh in every one's mind how during the 
 last decade the economic conscience of the whole 
 American nation became aroused. Up to the end 
 
 37
 
 THE BEST POSSIBLE MAN 
 
 of the last century the people had lived with the 
 secure feeling of possessing a country with inex- 
 haustible treasures. The last few years brought 
 the reaction, and it became increasingly clear how 
 irresponsible the national attitude had been, how 
 the richness of the forests and the mines and the 
 rivers had been recklessly squandered without 
 any thought of the future. Conservation of the 
 national possessions suddenly became the battle- 
 cry, and this turned the eye also to that limitless 
 waste of human material, a waste going on 
 everywhere in the world, but nowhere more 
 widely than in the United States. The feeling 
 grew that no waste of valuable possessions is so 
 reckless as that which results from the distrib- 
 uting of living force by chance methods instead 
 of examining carefully how work and workmen 
 can fit one another. While this was the emotional 
 background, two significant social movements 
 originated in our midst. The two movements were 
 entirely independent of each other, but from 
 two different starting-points they worked in one 
 respect toward the same goal. They are social 
 and economic movements, neither of which at 
 first had anything directly to do with psycholog- 
 ical questions; but both led to a point where the 
 psychological turn of the problem seemed un- 
 avoidable. Here begins the obligation of the psy- 
 
 38
 
 SCIENTIFIC VOCATIONAL GUIDANCE 
 
 chologist, and the possibility of fulfilling this 
 obligation will be the topic of our discussion con- 
 cerning the selection of the best man. 
 
 These two American movements which we have 
 in mind are the effort to furnish to pupils leav- 
 ing the school guidance in their choice of a voca- 
 tion, and the nowadays still better known move- 
 ment toward scientific management in commerce 
 and industry. The movement toward vocational 
 guidance is externally still rather modest and 
 confined to very narrow circles, but it is rapidly 
 spreading and is not without significant achieve- 
 ments. It started in Boston. There the late Mr. 
 Parsons once called a meeting of all the boys of 
 his neighborhood who were to leave the element- 
 ary schools at the end of the year. He wanted to 
 consider with them whether they had reasonable 
 plans for their future. At the well-attended meet- 
 ing it became clear that the boys knew little con- 
 cerning what they had to expect in practical life, 
 and Parsons was able to give them, especially in 
 individual discussions, much helpful informa- 
 tion. They knew too little of the characteristic 
 features of the vocations to which they wanted to 
 devote themselves, and they had given hardly 
 any attention to the question whether they had 
 the necessary qualifications for the special work. 
 From this germ grew a little ojQSce which was 
 
 39
 
 THE BEST POSSIBLE MAN 
 
 opened in 1908, in which all Boston boys and girls 
 at the time when they left school were to receive 
 individual suggestions with reference to the most 
 reasonable and best adjusted selection of a calling. 
 There is hardly any doubt that the remarkable 
 success of this modest beginning was dependent 
 upon the admirable personality of the late or- 
 ganizer, who recognized the individual features 
 with unusual tact and acumen. But he himself 
 had no doubt that such a merely impressionistic 
 method could not satisfy the demands. He saw 
 that a threefold advance would become necessary. 
 First, it was essential to analyze the objective 
 relations of the many hundred kinds of accessible 
 vocations. Their economic, hygienic, technical, 
 and social elements ought to be examined so that 
 every boy and girl could receive reliable informa- 
 tion as to the demands of the vocation and as to 
 the prospects and opportunities in it. Secondly, 
 it would become essential to interest the schools 
 in all these complex questions of vocational 
 choice, so that, by observation of individual tend- 
 encies and abilities of the pupils, the teachers 
 might furnish preparatory material for the work 
 of the institute for vocational guidance. Thirdly, 
 — and this is for us the most important point, — 
 he saw that the methods had to be elaborated in 
 such a way that the personal traits and disposi- 
 
 40
 
 SCIENTIFIC VOCATIONAL GUIDANCE 
 
 tions might be discovered with much greater 
 exactitude and with much richer detail than was 
 possible through what a mere call on the voca- 
 tional counselor could unveil/^ 
 
 It is well known how this Boston bureau has 
 stimulated a number of American cities to come 
 forward with similar beginnings. The pedagog- 
 ical circles have been especially aroused by the 
 movement, municipal and philanthropic boards 
 have at least approached this group of problems, 
 two important conferences for vocational guid- 
 ance have met in New York, and at various 
 places the question has been discussed whether 
 or not a vocational counselor might be attached 
 to the schools in a position similar to that of the 
 school physician. The chief progress has been 
 made in the direction of collecting reliable data 
 with reference to the economic and hygienic con- 
 ditions of the various vocations, the demand and 
 supply and the scale of wages. In short, everything 
 connected with the externalities of the vocations 
 has been carefully analyzed, and sufficient reliable 
 material has been gained, at least regarding cer- 
 tain local conditions. In the place of individual 
 advice, we have thus to a certain degree obtained 
 general economic investigations from which each 
 can gather what he needs. It seems that some- 
 times the danger of letting such offices degenerate 
 
 41
 
 THE BEST POSSIBLE MAN 
 
 into mere agencies for employment has not been 
 avoided, but that is one of the perils of the first 
 development. The mother institute in Boston, 
 too, under its new direction emphasizes more the 
 economic and hygienic side, and has set its centre 
 of gravity in a systematic effort to propagate un- 
 derstanding of the problems of vocational guid- 
 ance and to train professional vocational counsel- 
 ors in systematic courses, who are then to carry 
 the interest over the land.^ 
 
 The real psychological analysis with which the 
 movement began has, therefore, been somewhat 
 pushed aside for a while, and the officers of those 
 institutes declare frankly that they want to return 
 to the mental problem only after professional psy- 
 chologists have sufiiciently worked out the specific 
 methods for its mastery. Most counselors seem to 
 feel instinctively that the core of the whole matter 
 lies in the psychological examination, but they 
 all agree that for this they must wait until the 
 psychological laboratories can furnish them with 
 really reliable means and schemes. Certainly it 
 is very important, for instance, that boys with 
 weak lungs be kept away from such industrial vo- 
 cations as have been shown by the statistics to be 
 dangerous for the lungs, or that the onrush to 
 vocations be stopped where the statistics allow it 
 to be foreseen that there will soon be an over- 
 
 42
 
 SCIENTIFIC VOCATIONAL GUIDANCE 
 
 supply of workers. But, after all, it remains 
 much more decisive for the welfare of the com- 
 munity, and for the future life happiness of those 
 who leave the school, that every one turn to those 
 forms of work to which his psychological traits 
 are adjusted, or at least that he be kept away from 
 those in which his mental qualities and disposi- 
 tions would make a truly successful advance 
 improbable. 
 
 The problem accordingly has been handed over 
 from the vocational counselors to the experimen- 
 tal psychologists, and it is certainly in the spirit 
 of the modern tendency toward applied psychol- 
 ogy that the psychological laboratories undertake 
 the investigation and withdraw it from the dilet- 
 tantic discussion of amateur psychologists or the 
 mere impressionism of the school-teachers. Even 
 those early beginnings indicate clearly that the 
 goal can be reached only through exact, scientific, 
 experimental research, and that the mere naive 
 methods — for instance, the filling-out of ques- 
 tionnaires which may be quite useful in the first 
 approach — cannot be suflScient for a real, per- 
 sistent furtherance of economic life and of the 
 masses who seek their vocations. In order to 
 gain an analysis of the individual. Parsons made 
 every applicant answer in writing a long series of 
 questions which referred to his habits and his 
 
 43
 
 THE BEST POSSIBLE MAN 
 
 emotions, his inclinations and his expectations, his 
 traits and his experiences. The psychologist, how- 
 ever, can hardly be in doubt that just the mental 
 qualities which ought to be most important for 
 the vocational counselor can scarcely be found out 
 by such methods. We have emphasized before 
 that the ordinary individual knows very little of 
 his own mental functions : on the whole, he knows 
 them as little as he knows the muscles which he 
 uses when he talks or walks. Among his ques- 
 tions Parsons included such ones as: "Are your 
 manners quiet, noisy, boisterous, deferential, or 
 self-assertive.'^ Are you thoughtful of the comfort 
 of others? Do you smile naturally and easily, 
 or is your face ordinarily expressionless? Are you 
 frank, kindly, cordial, respectful, courteous in 
 word and actions? Do you look people frankly 
 in the eye? Are your inflections natural, cour- 
 teous, modest, musical, or aggressive, conceited, 
 pessimistic, repellent? What are your powers 
 of attention, observation, memory, reason, imag- 
 ination, inventiveness, thoughtfulness, receptive- 
 ness, quickness, analytical power, constructive- 
 ness, breadth, grasp? Can you manage people 
 well? Do you know a fine picture when you see 
 it? Is your will weak, yielding, vacillating, or 
 firm, strong, stubborn? Do you like to be with 
 people and do they like to be with you?" — and 
 
 44
 
 SCIENTIFIC VOCATIONAL GUIDANCE 
 
 so on. It is clear that the replies to questions of 
 this kind can be of psychological value only when 
 the questioner knows beforehand the mind of the 
 youth, and can accordingly judge with what de- 
 gree of understanding, sincerity, and ability the 
 circular blanks have been filled out. But as the 
 questions are put for the very purpose of revealing 
 the personality, the entire effort tends to move 
 in a circle. 
 
 To break this circle, it indeed becomes neces- 
 sary to emancipate one's self from the method of 
 ordinary self-observation and to replace it by 
 objective experiment in the psychological lab- 
 oratory. Experimentation in such a laboratory 
 stands in no contrast to the method of introspec- 
 tion. A contrast does exist between self -observa- 
 tion and observation on children or patients or 
 primitive peoples or animals. In their case the 
 psychologist observes his material from with- 
 out. But in the case of the typical laboratory 
 experiment, everything is ultimately based on 
 self -observation ; only we have to do with the self- 
 observation under exact conditions which the ex- 
 perimenter is able to control and to vary at will. 
 Even Parsons sometimes turned to little experi- 
 mental inquiries in which he simplified some well- 
 known methods of the laboratory in order to 
 secure with the most elementary means a cer- 
 
 45
 
 THE BEST POSSIBLE MAN 
 
 tain objective foundation for his mental analysis. 
 For instance, he sometimes examined the mem- 
 ory by reading to the boys graded sentences con- 
 taining from ten to fifty words and having them 
 repeat what they remembered, or he measured 
 with a watch the rapidity of reading and writing, 
 or he determined the sensitiveness for the dis- 
 crimination of differences by asking them to make 
 a point with a pencil in the centres of circles of va- 
 rious sizes. But if such experimental schemes, 
 even of the simplest form, are in question, it 
 seems a matter of course that the plan ought to 
 be prescribed by real scientists who specialize in 
 the psychological field. The psychologist, for in- 
 stance, surely cannot agree to a method which 
 measures the memory by such a method of hav- 
 ing spoken sentences repeated and the quality 
 of the memory faculty naively graded according 
 to the results. He knows too well that there are 
 many different kinds of memory, and would al- 
 ways determine first which type of memory func- 
 tions is to be examined if memory achievements 
 are needed for a particular calling. 
 
 But even with a more exact method of experi- 
 menting, such a procedure would not be sufficient 
 to solve the true problem. A second step would 
 still be necessary: namely, the adaptation of the 
 experimental result to the special psychological 
 
 46
 
 SCIENTIFIC VOCATIONAL GUIDANCE 
 
 requirements of the economic activity; and this 
 again presupposes an independent psychological 
 analysis. Most of the previous efforts have suf- 
 fered from the carelessness with which this sec- 
 ond step was ignored, and the special mental re- 
 quirements were treated as a matter of course 
 upon which any layman could judge. In reality 
 they need the most careful psychological analy- 
 sis, and only if this is carried out with the means 
 of scientific psychology, can a study of the abili- 
 ties of the individual become serviceable to the 
 demands of the market. Such a psychological 
 disentangling of the requirements of the callings, 
 in the interest of guidance, is attempted in the 
 material which the various vocational institutes 
 have prepared, but it seldom goes beyond com- 
 monplaces. We read there, for instance,^ for 
 the confectioner: "Boys in this industry must be 
 clean, quick, and strong. The most important 
 qualities desired are neatness and adaptability to 
 routine"; or for the future baker, the boy "ought 
 to know how to conduct himself and to meet the 
 public"; or for the future architectural designer, 
 "he must have creative ability, artistic feeling, 
 and power to sketch"; or for the dressmaker, she 
 "should have good eyesight and good sense of 
 color, and an ability to use her hands readily; she 
 should be able to apply herself steadily and be 
 
 47
 
 THE BEST POSSIBLE MAN 
 
 fairly quick in her movements ; neatness of person 
 is also essential " ; or for the stenographer, she must 
 be "possessed of intelligence, good judgment, and 
 common sense; must have good eyesight, good 
 hearing, and a good memory; must have quick 
 perception, and be able to concentrate her atten- 
 tion completely on any matter in hand." It is 
 evident that all this is extremely far from any 
 psychological analysis in the terms of science. 
 All taken together, we may, therefore, say that 
 in the movement for vocational guidance prac- 
 tically nothing has been done to make modern 
 experimental psychology serviceable to the new 
 task. But on the one side, it has shown that this 
 work of the experimental psychologist is the next 
 step necessary. On the other side, it has become 
 evident that in the vocation bureaus appropriate 
 social agencies are existing which are ready to 
 take up the results of such work, and to apply 
 them for the good of the American youth and of 
 commerce and industry, as soon as the experi- 
 mental psychologist has developed the significant 
 methods.
 
 VI 
 
 SCIENTIFIC MANAGEMENT 
 
 BEFORE we discuss some cases of such ex- 
 perimental investigations, we may glance 
 at that other American movement, the well- 
 known systematic effort toward scientific man- 
 agement which has often been interpreted in 
 an expansive literature.^ Enthusiastic followers 
 have declared it to be the greatest advance in 
 industry since the introduction of the mill system 
 and of machinery. Opponents have hastily de- 
 nounced it as a mistake, and have insisted that 
 it proved a failure in the factories in which it has 
 been introduced. A sober examination of the facts 
 soon demonstrates that the truth lies in the middle. 
 Those followers of Frederick W. Taylor who have 
 made almost a religion out of his ideas have cer- 
 tainly often exaggerated the practical applicability 
 of the new theories, and their actual reforms in 
 the mills have not seldom shown that the system 
 is still too topheavy; that is, there are too many 
 higher employees necessary in order to keep the 
 works running on principles of scientific man- 
 agement. On the other hand, the opposition 
 which comes from certain quarters, — for instance, 
 
 49
 
 THE BEST POSSIBLE MAN 
 
 from some trade-unions, — may be disregarded, 
 as it is not directed against the claim that the effi- 
 ciency can be heightened, but only against some 
 social features of the scheme, such as the result- 
 ing temporary reduction of the number of work- 
 men. But nobody can deny that this revolu- 
 tionary movement has introduced most valuable 
 suggestions which the industrial world cannot 
 afford to ignore, and that as soon as exaggerations 
 are avoided and experience has created a broader 
 foundation, the principles of the new theory will 
 prove of lasting value. We shall have to discuss, 
 at a later point, various special features of the 
 system, especially the highly interesting motion 
 study. Here we have to deal only with those tend- 
 encies of the movement and with those interests 
 which point toward our present problem, the 
 mental analysis of the individual employees in 
 order to avoid misfits. 
 
 The approach to this problem, indeed, seems 
 unavoidable for the students of scientific man- 
 agement, as its goal is an organization of economic 
 work by which the waste of energy will be avoided 
 and the greatest increase in the efficiency of the 
 industrial enterprise will be reached. The recog- 
 nition that this can never be effected by a mere 
 excessive driving of the workingmen belongs to 
 its very presuppositions. The illusory means of 
 
 50
 
 SCIENTIFIC MANAGEMENT 
 
 prolongation of the working-time and similar de- 
 vices by which the situation of the individual de- 
 teriorates would be out of the question; on the 
 contrary, the heightening of the individual's joy 
 in the work and of the personal satisfaction in 
 one's total life development belongs among the 
 most important indirect agencies of the new 
 scheme. This end is reached by many character- 
 istic changes in the division of labor; also by a 
 new division between supervisors and workers, by 
 transformations of the work itself and of the tools 
 and vehicles. But as a by-product of these efforts 
 the demand necessarily arose for means by which 
 the fit individuals could be found for special kinds 
 of labor. The more scientific management intro- 
 duced changes by which the individual achieve- 
 ment often had to become rather complicated and 
 difficult, the more it became necessary to study 
 the skill and the endurance and the intelligence 
 of the individual laborers in order to entrust these 
 new difficult tasks only to the most appropriate 
 men in the factories and mills. The problem of 
 individual selection accordingly forced itself on 
 the new efficiency engineers, and they naturally 
 recognized that the really essential traits and dis- 
 positions were the mental ones. In the most pro- 
 gressive books of the new movement, this need of 
 emphasizing the selection of workers with refer- 
 
 51
 
 THE BEST POSSIBLE MAN 
 
 ence to their mental equipment comes to clear 
 expression. 
 
 Yet this is very far from a real application of 
 scientific psychology to the problem at hand. 
 Wherever the question of the selection of the fit 
 men after psychological principles is mentioned 
 in the literature of this movement, the language 
 becomes vague, and the same men, who use the 
 newest scientific knowledge whenever physics or 
 mathematics or physiology or chemistry are in- 
 volved, make hardly any attempts to introduce 
 the results of science when psychology is in ques- 
 tion. The clearest insight into the general situa- 
 tion may be found in the most recent books by 
 Emerson. He says frankly: "It is psychology, 
 not soil or climate, that enables a man to raise five 
 times as many potatoes per acre as the average 
 in his own state"; ^ or: "In selecting human as- 
 sistants such superficialities as education, as 
 physical strength, even antecedent morality, are 
 not as important as the inner attitudes, procliv- 
 ities, character, which after all determine the man 
 or woman." ^ He also fully recognizes the ne- 
 cessity of securing as early as possible the psycho- 
 logical essentials. He says: "The type for the 
 great newspaper is set up by linotype operators. 
 Apprenticeship is rigorously limited. Some op- 
 erators can never get beyond the 2500-em class, 
 
 52
 
 SCIENTIFIC MANAGEMENT 
 
 others with no more personal effort can set 5000 
 ems. Do the employers test out applicants for 
 apprenticeship so as to be sure to secure boys who 
 will develop into the 5000-em class? They do not: 
 they select applicants for any near reason except 
 the fundamental important one of innate fit- 
 ness." ^ But all this points only to the existence 
 of the problem, and in reality gives not even a hint 
 for its solution. The theorists of scientific manage- 
 ment seem to think that the most subtle methods 
 are indispensable for physical measurements, but 
 for psychological inquiry nothing but a kind of 
 intuition is necessary. Emerson tells how, for in- 
 stance, "The competent specialist who has supple- 
 mented natural gifts and good judgment by 
 analysis and synthesis can perceive attitudes and 
 proclivities even in the very young, much more 
 readily in those semi-matured, and can with al- 
 most infallible certainty point out, not only what 
 work can be undertaken with fair hope of success, 
 but also what slight modification or addition and 
 diminution will more than double the personal 
 power." ^^ The true psychological specialists 
 surely ought to decline this flattering confidence. 
 Far from the " almost infallible certainty," they can 
 hardly expect even a moderate amount of success 
 in such directions so long as specific methods have 
 not been elaborated, and so long as no way has 
 
 53
 
 THE BEST POSSIBLE MAN 
 
 been shown to make experimental measurements 
 by which such mere guesswork can be replaced 
 by scientific investigation. 
 
 The only modest effort to try a step in this 
 direction toward the psychological laboratory is 
 recorded by Taylor,^^ who tells of Mr. S. E. 
 Thompson's work in a bicycle ball factory, where 
 a hundred and twenty girls were inspecting the 
 balls. They had to place a row of small polished 
 steel balls on the back of the left hand and while 
 they were rolled over and over in the crease be- 
 tween two of the fingers placed together, they 
 were minutely examined in a strong light and the 
 defective balls were picked out with the aid of a 
 magnet held in the right hand. The work re- 
 quired the closest attention and concentration. 
 The girls were working ten and a half hours a day. 
 Mr. Thompson soon recognized that the quality 
 most needed, beside endurance and industry, was 
 a quick power of perception accompanied by 
 quick responsive action. He knew that the psy- 
 chological laboratory has developed methods for 
 a very exact measurement of the time needed to 
 react on an impression with the quickest possible 
 movement; it is called the reaction-time, and is 
 usually measured in thousandths of a second. He 
 therefore considered it advisable to measure the 
 reaction-time of the girls, and to eliminate from 
 
 54
 
 SCIENTIFIC MANAGEMENT 
 
 service all those who showed a relatively long time 
 between the stimulus and reaction. This involved 
 laying off many of the most intelligent, hardest- 
 working, and most trustworthy girls. Yet the 
 effect was the possibility of shortening the hours 
 and of reducing more and more the number of 
 workers, with the final outcome that thirty-five 
 girls did the work formerly done by a hundred 
 and twenty, and that the accuracy of the work 
 at the higher speed was two thirds greater than 
 at the former slow speed. This allowed almost a 
 doubling of the wages of the girls in spite of their 
 shorter working-day, and at the same time a con- 
 siderable reduction in the cost of the work for the 
 factory. This excursion of an efficiency engineer 
 into the psychological laboratory remained, how- 
 ever, an entirely exceptional case. Moreover, such 
 a reaction-time measurement did not demand 
 any special development of new methods or any 
 particular mental analysis, and this exception 
 thus confirms the rule that the followers of scien- 
 tific management principles have recognized the 
 need of psychological inquiries, but have not 
 done anything worth mentioning to apply the re- 
 sults of really scientific psychology. Hence the 
 situation is the same as in the field of vocational 
 guidance. In both cases a vague longing for 
 psychological analysis and psychological measure- 
 
 55
 
 THE BEST POSSIBLE MAN 
 
 ment, but in both cases so far everything has 
 remained on the level of helpless psychological 
 dilettantism. It stands in striking contrast with 
 the scientific seriousness with which the economic 
 questions are taken up in the field of vocational 
 guidance and the physical questions in the field of 
 scientific management. It is, therefore, evidently 
 the duty of the experimental psychologists them- 
 selves to examine the ground from the point of 
 view of the psychological laboratory.
 
 VII 
 
 THE METHODS OF EXPERIMENTAL 
 PSYCHOLOGY 
 
 WE now see clearly the psychotechnical 
 problem. We have to analyze definite 
 economic tasks with reference to the mental qual- 
 ities which are necessary or desirable for them, and 
 we have to find methods by which these mental 
 qualities can be tested. We must, indeed, insist 
 on it that the interests of commerce and industry 
 can be helped only when both sides, the vocational 
 demands and the personal function, are examined 
 with equal scientific thoroughness. One aspect 
 alone is unsatisfactory. It would of course be pos- 
 sible to confine the examination to the individual 
 mental traits, and then theoretically to determine 
 for which economic tasks the presence of these 
 qualities would be useful and for which tasks 
 their absence or their deficiency would be fatal. 
 Common sense may be suflBcient to lead us a few 
 steps in that direction. For instance, if we find 
 by psychological examination that an individual 
 is color-blind for red and green sensations, we may 
 at once conclude, without any real psychological 
 analysis of the vocations, that he would be unfit 
 
 57
 
 THE BEST POSSIBLE MAN 
 
 for the railroad service or the naval service, in 
 which red and green signals are of importance. 
 We may also decide at once that such a boy would 
 be useless for all artistic work in which the nu- 
 ances of colors are of consequence, or as a laborer 
 in certain departments of a dyeing establishment, 
 and that such a color-blind girl would not do at a 
 dressmaker's or in a millinery store. But if we 
 come to the question whether such a color-blind 
 individual may enter into the business of garden- 
 ing, in spite of the inability to distinguish the 
 strawberries in the bed or the red flowers among 
 the green leaves, the first necessity, after all, 
 would be to find out how far the particular de- 
 mands of this vocation make the ability to dis- 
 criminate color a prerequisite, and how far psy- 
 chical substitutions, such as a recognition of the 
 forms and of differences in the light intensity, may 
 be suflBcient for the practical task. Moreover, 
 where not merely such mental defects, but more 
 subtly shaded variations within normal limits are 
 involved, it would be superficial, if only the men- 
 tal states were examined and not at the same time 
 the mental requirements of the vocations them- 
 selves. The vocation should rather remain the 
 starting-point. We must at first find out what 
 demands on the mental system are made by it, and 
 we must grade these demands in order to recog- 
 
 58
 
 EXPERIMENTAL PSYCHOLOGY 
 
 nize the more or less important ones, and, espe- 
 cially for the important ones, we must then seek 
 exact standards with experimental methods. 
 
 Such an experimental investigation may pro- 
 ceed according to either of two different principles. 
 One way is to take the mental process which is 
 demanded by the industrial work as an undivided 
 whole. In this case we have to construct experi- 
 mental conditions under which this total activity 
 can be performed in a gradual, measurable way. 
 The psychical part of the vocational work thus 
 becomes schematized, and is simply rendered ex- 
 perimentally on a reduced scale. The other way 
 is to resolve the mental process into its compon- 
 ents and to test every single elementary function 
 in its isolated form. In this latter case the exam- 
 ination has the advantage of having at its disposal 
 all the familiar methods of experimental psycho- 
 logy, while in the first case for every special voca- 
 tional situation perfectly new experimental tests 
 must be devised. 
 
 Whether the one or the other method is to be 
 preferred must depend upon the nature of the par- 
 ticular commercial or industrial calling, and ac- 
 cordingly presupposes a careful analysis of the 
 special economical processes. It is, indeed, easy 
 to recognize that in certain industrial activities 
 a series of psychical functions is in question which 
 
 59
 
 THE BEST POSSIBLE MAN 
 
 all lie side by side and which do not fuse into one 
 united total process, however much they may 
 influence one another. But for many industrial 
 tasks just this unity is the essential condition. 
 The testing of the mental elements would be in 
 such cases as insufficient as if we were to test a 
 machine with reference to its parts only and not 
 with reference to its total united performance. 
 Even in this latter case this unified function does 
 not represent the total personality: it is always 
 merely a segment of the whole mental life. We 
 may examine with psychological methods, for 
 instance, the fitness of an employee for a technical 
 vocation and may test the particular complex 
 unified combination of attention, imagination and 
 intelligence, will and memory, which is essential 
 for that special kind of labor. We may be able to 
 reconstruct the conditions so completely that we 
 would feel justified in predicting whether the 
 individual can fulfill that technical task or not; 
 and yet we may disregard entirely the question 
 whether that man is honest or dishonest, whether 
 he is pacific or quarrelsome ; in short, whether his 
 mental disposition makes him a desirable mem- 
 ber of that industrial concern under other aspects. 
 We best recognize the significance of these vari- 
 ous methods by selecting a few concrete cases as 
 illustrations and analzying them in detail. But a 
 
 60
 
 EXPERIMENTAL PSYCHOLOGY 
 
 word of warning may be given beforehand so as 
 to avoid misunderstandings. These examples do 
 not stand here as reports of completed investiga- 
 tions, the results of which ought to be accepted 
 as conclusive parts of the new psychotechnical 
 science; they are not presented as if the results 
 were to be recommended like a well-tested ma- 
 chine for practical purposes. Such really com- 
 pleted investigations do not as yet exist in this 
 field. All that can be offered is modest pioneer 
 work, and just these inquiries into the mental 
 qualities and their relations to the industrial vo- 
 cations have attracted my attention only very re- 
 cently, and therefore certainly still demand long 
 continuations of the experiments in every direc- 
 tion. But we may hope for satisfactory results 
 the earlier, the more cooperators are entering the 
 field, and the more such researches are started 
 in other places and in other institutions. I there- 
 fore offer these early reports at the first stage of 
 my research merely as stimulations, so as to de- 
 monstrate the possibilities. 
 
 As an illustration of the method of examining 
 the mental process as a whole, I propose to discuss 
 the case of the motormen in the electric railways. 
 As an illustration of the other type, namely, of 
 analyzing the activity and testing the elementary 
 functions, I shall discuss the case of the employ- 
 
 61
 
 THE BEST POSSIBLE MAN 
 
 ees in the telephone service. I select these two 
 functions, as both play a practically important 
 role in the technique of modern economic life and 
 as in both occupations very large numbers of in- 
 dividuals are engaged in the work.
 
 VIII 
 
 EXPERIMENTS IN THE INTEREST OF ELECTRIC 
 RAILWAY SERVICE 
 
 THE problem of securing fit motonnen for 
 the electric railways was brought to my at- 
 tention from without. The accidents which oc- 
 curred through the fault, or at least not without 
 the fault, of the motormen in street railway 
 transportation have always aroused disquietude 
 and even indignation in the public, and the street 
 railway companies suffered much from the many 
 payments of indemnity imposed by the court as 
 they amounted to thirteen per cent of the gross 
 earnings of some companies. Last winter the 
 American Association for Labor Legislation 
 called a meeting of vocational specialists to dis- 
 cuss the problem of these accidents under various 
 aspects. The street railways of various cities were 
 represented, and economic, physiological, and 
 psychological specialists took part in the general 
 discussion. Much attention was given, of course, 
 to the questions of fatigue and to the statistical 
 results as to the number of accidents and their re- 
 lation to the various hours of the day and to the 
 time of labor. But there was a strong tendency 
 
 63
 
 THE BEST POSSIBLE MAN 
 
 to recognize, as still more important than the 
 mere fatigue, the whole mental constitution of the 
 motormen. The ability to keep attention con- 
 stant, to resist distraction by chance happenings 
 on the street, and especially the always needed 
 ability to foresee the possible movements of the 
 pedestrians and vehicles were acknowledged as 
 extremely different from man to man. The com- 
 panies claimed that there are motormen who prac- 
 tically never have an accident, because they feel 
 beforehand even what the confused pedestrian 
 and the unskilled chauffeur will do, while others 
 relatively often experience accidents of all kinds 
 because they do not foresee how matters will de- 
 velop. They can hardly be blamed, as they were 
 not careless, and yet the accidents did result from 
 their personal qualities; they simply lacked the 
 gift of instinctive foresight. All this turned the 
 attention more and more to the possibilities of 
 psychological analysis, and the Association sug- 
 gested that I undertake an inquiry into this inter- 
 esting problem with the means of the psycholog- 
 ical laboratory. I felt the practical importance of 
 the problem, considering that there are electric 
 railway companies in this country which have up 
 to fifty thousand accident indemnity cases a year. 
 It therefore seemed to me decidedly worth while 
 to undertake a laboratory investigation, 
 
 G4
 
 ELECTRIC RAILWAY SERVICE 
 
 It would have been quite possible to treat the 
 functions of themotormen according to the method 
 which resolves the complex achievement into its 
 various elements and tests every function inde- 
 pendently. For instance, the stopping of the car 
 as soon as the danger of an accident threatens is 
 evidently effective only if the movement control- 
 ling the lever is carried out with sufficient rapidity. 
 We should accordingly be justified in examining 
 the quickness with which the individual reacts on 
 optical stimuli. If a playing child suddenly runs 
 across the track of the electric railway, a differ- 
 ence of a tenth of a second in the reaction-time 
 may decide his fate. But I may say at once that 
 I did not find characteristic differences in the 
 rapidity of reaction of those motormen whom the 
 company had found reliable and those who have 
 frequent accidents. It seems that the slow indi- 
 viduals do not remain in the service at all. As a 
 matter of course certain other indispensable sin- 
 gle functions, like sharpness of vision, are exam- 
 ined before the entrance into the service and so 
 they cannot stand as characteristic conditions of 
 good or bad service among the actual employees. 
 For this reason, in the case of the motormen I 
 abstracted from the study of single elementary 
 functions and turned my attention to that mental 
 process which after some careful observations 
 
 65
 
 THE BEST POSSIBLE MAN 
 
 seemed to me the really central one for the pro- 
 blem of accidents. I found this to be a particular 
 complicated act of attention by which the mani- 
 foldness of objects, the pedestrians, the carriages, 
 and the automobiles, are continuously observed 
 with reference to their rapidity and direction in 
 the quickly changing panorama of the street. 
 Moving figures come from the right and from the 
 left toward and across the track, and are embed- 
 ded in a stream of men and vehicles which moves 
 parallel to the track. In the face of such mani- 
 foldness there are men whose impulses are almost 
 inhibited and who instinctively desire to wait for 
 the movement of the nearest objects; they would 
 evidently be unfit for the service, as they would 
 drive the electric car far too slowly. There are 
 others who, even with the car at high speed, can 
 adjust themselves for a time to the complex mov- 
 ing situation, but whose attention soon lapses, and 
 while they are fixating a rather distant carriage, 
 may overlook a pedestrian who carelessly crosses 
 the track immediately in front of their car. In 
 short, we have a great variety of mental types of 
 this characteristic unified activity, which may be 
 understood as a particular combination of atten- 
 tion and imagination. 
 
 My effort was to transplant this activity of the 
 motormen into laboratory processes. And here 
 
 66
 
 ELECTRIC RAILWAY SERVICE 
 
 I may include a remark on the methodology of 
 psychological industrial experiments. One might 
 naturally think that the experience of a special 
 industrial undertaking would be best reproduced 
 for the experiment by repeating the external con- 
 ditions in a kind of miniature form. That would 
 mean that we ought to test the motormen of the 
 electric railway by experiments with small toy 
 models of electric cars placed on the laboratory 
 table. But this would be decidedly inappropri- 
 ate. A reduced copy of an external apparatus may 
 arouse ideas, feelings, and volitions which have 
 little in common with the processes of actual life. 
 The presupposition would be that the man to be 
 tested for any industrial achievement would have 
 to think himself into the miniature situation, 
 and especially uneducated persons are often very 
 unsuccessful in such efforts. This can be clearly 
 seen from the experiences before naval courts, 
 where it is usual to demonstrate collisions of ships 
 by small ship models on the table in the court- 
 room. Experience has frequently shown that 
 helmsmen, who have found their course a life 
 long among real vessels in the harbor and on the 
 sea, become entirely confused when they are to 
 demonstrate by the models the relative positions 
 of the ships. Even in the naval war schools where 
 the officers play at war with small model ships, 
 
 67
 
 THE BEST POSSIBLE MAN 
 
 a certain inner readjustment is always necessary 
 for them to bring the miniature ships on the large 
 table into the tactical game. On the water, for 
 instance, the naval officer sees the far-distant 
 ships very much smaller than those near by, 
 while on the naval game table all the ships look 
 equally large. On the whole, I feel inclined to 
 say from my experience so far that experiments 
 with small models of the actual industrial mechan- 
 ism are hardly appropriate for investigations in 
 the field of economic psychology. The essential 
 point for the psychological experiment is not the 
 external similarity of the apparatus, but exclus- 
 ively the inner similarity of the mental attitude. 
 The more the external mechanism with which 
 or on which the action is carried out becomes 
 schematized, the more the action itself will ap- 
 pear in its true character. 
 
 In the method of my experiments with the 
 motormen, accordingly, I had to satisfy only two 
 demands. The method of examination promised 
 to be valuable if, first, it showed good results with 
 reliable motormen and bad results with unrelia- 
 ble ones; and, secondly, if it vividly aroused in all 
 the motormen the feeling that the mental function 
 which they were going through during the experi- 
 ment had the greatest possible similarity with 
 their experience on the front platform of the elec- 
 
 68
 
 ELECTRIC RAILWAY SERVICE 
 
 trie car. These are the true tests of a desirable ex- 
 perimental method, while it is not necessary that 
 the apparatus be similar to the electric car or 
 that the external activities in the experiment be 
 identical with their performance in the service. 
 After several unsatisfactory efforts, in which I 
 worked with too complicated instruments, I 
 finally settled on the following arrangement of 
 the experiment which seems to me to satisfy 
 those two demands. 
 
 The street is represented by a card 9 half- 
 inches broad and 26 half-inches long. Two heavy 
 lines half an inch apart go lengthwise through 
 the centre of the card, and accordingly a space of 
 4 half-inches remains on either side. The whole 
 card is divided into small half-inch squares 
 which we consider as the unit. Thus there is in 
 any cross-section 1 unit between the two central 
 lines and 4 units on either side. Lengthwise 
 there are 26 units. The 26 squares which lie be- 
 tween the two heavy central lines are marked 
 with the printed letters of the alphabet from A to 
 Z. These two heavy central lines are to repre- 
 sent an electric railway track on a street. On 
 either side the 4 rows of squares are filled in an 
 irregular way with black and red figures of the 
 three first digits. The digit 1 always represents 
 a pedestrian who moves just one step, and that 
 
 69
 
 THE BEST POSSIBLE MAN 
 
 means from one unit into the next; the digit 2 a 
 horse, which moves twice as fast, that is, which 
 moves 2 units; and the digit 3 an automobile 
 which moves three times as fast, that is, 3 units. 
 Moreover, the black digits stand for men, horses, 
 and automobiles which move parallel to the track 
 and cannot cross the track, and are therefore to 
 be disregarded in looking out for dangers. The 
 red digits, on the other hand, are the dangerous 
 ones. They move from either side toward the 
 track. The idea is that the man to be experi- 
 mented on is to find as quickly as possible those 
 points on the track which are threatened by the 
 red figures, that is, those letters in the 26 track 
 units at which the red figures would land, if they 
 make the steps which their number indicates. A 
 red digit 3 which is 4 steps from the track is to be 
 disregarded, because it would not reach the 
 track. A red digit 3 which is only 1 or 2 steps 
 from the track is also to be disregarded, because it 
 would cross beyond the track, if it took 3 steps. 
 But a red 3 which is 3 units from the track, a 
 red 2 which is 2 units from the track, and a red 
 1 which is 1 unit from the track would land on 
 the track itself; and the aim is quickly to find 
 these points. The task is difficult, as the many 
 black figures divert the attention, and as the red 
 figures too near or too far are easily confused 
 
 70
 
 ELECTRIC RAILWAY SERVICE 
 
 with those which are just at the dangerous dis- 
 tance. 
 
 As soon as this principle for the experiment was 
 recognized as satisfactory, it was necessary to 
 find a technical device by which a movement over 
 this artificial track could be produced in such a 
 way that the rapidity could be controlled by the 
 subject of the experiment and at the same time 
 measured. Again we had to try various forms of 
 apparatus. Finally we found the following form 
 most satisfactory. Twelve such cards, each pro- 
 vided with a handle, lie one above another under 
 a glass plate through which the upper card can 
 be seen. If this highest card is withdrawn, the 
 second is exposed, and from below springs press 
 the remaining cards against the glass plate. The 
 glass plate with the 12 cards below lies in a black 
 wooden box and is completely covered by a belt 
 8 inches broad made of heavy black velvet. This 
 velvet belt moves over two cylinders at the front 
 and the rear ends of the apj^aratus. In the centre 
 of the belt is a window 4| inches wide and 2^ 
 inches high. If the front cylinder is turned by a 
 metal crank, the velvet belt passes over the glass 
 plate and the little window opening moves over 
 the card with its track and figures. The whole 
 breadth of the card, with its central track and its 
 4 units on either side, is visible through it over 
 
 71
 
 THE BEST POSSIBLE MAN 
 
 an area of 5 units in the length direction. If the 
 man to be experimented on turns the crank with 
 his right hand, the window shps over the whole 
 length of the card, one part of the card after an- 
 other becomes visible, and then he simply has to 
 call the letters of those units in the track at which 
 the red figures on either side would land, if they 
 took the number of steps indicated by the digit. 
 At the moment the window has reached Z on the 
 card, the experimenter withdraws that card and 
 the next becomes visible, as a second window in 
 the belt appears at the lower end when the first 
 disappears at the upper end. In this way the sub- 
 ject can turn his crank uninterruptedly until he 
 has gone through the 12 cards. The experimenter 
 notes down the numbers of the cards and the letters 
 which the subject calls. Besides this, the number 
 of seconds required for the whole experiment, 
 from the beginning of the first card to the end of 
 the twelfth, is measured with a stopwatch. This 
 time is, of course, dependent upon the rapidity 
 with which the crank is turned. The result of the 
 experiment is accordingly expressed by three 
 figures, the number of seconds, the number of 
 omissions, that is, of places at which red figures 
 would land on the track which were not noticed 
 by the subject; and, thirdly, the number of in- 
 correct places where letters were called in spite 
 
 72
 
 ELECTRIC RAILWAY SERVICE 
 
 of the fact that no danger existed. In using the 
 results, we may disregard this third figure and 
 give our attention to the speed and the number of 
 omissions. 
 
 The necessary condition for carrying out the ex- 
 periments with this apparatus is a careful, quiet, 
 practical explanation of the device. The experi- 
 ment must not under any circumstances be started 
 until the subject completely understands what he 
 has to do and for what he has to look out. For 
 this purpose I at first always show the man one 
 card outside of the apparatus and explain to him 
 the differences between the black and the red 
 figures, and the counting of the steps, and show 
 to him in a number of cases how some red figures 
 do not reach the track, how others go beyond the 
 track, and how some just land in danger on the 
 track. As soon as he has completely understood 
 the principle, we turn to the apparatus and he 
 moves the window slowly over a test card and 
 tries to find the dangerous spots, and I turn his 
 attention to every case in which he has omitted 
 one or has given an incorrect letter. We repeat 
 this slowly until he completely masters the rules 
 of the game. Only then is he allowed to start 
 the experiment. I have never found a man with 
 whom this preparation takes more than a few 
 minutes. 
 
 73
 
 THE BEST POSSIBLE MAN 
 
 After developing this method in the psycho- 
 logical laboratory, I turned to the study of men 
 actually in the service of a great electric railway 
 company which supported my endeavors in the 
 most cordial spirit. In accordance with my re- 
 quest, the company furnished me with a number 
 of the best motormen in its service, men who for 
 twenty years and more had performed their du- 
 ties practically without accidents, and, on the 
 other hand, with a large number of motormen who 
 had only just escaped dismissal and whose record 
 was characterized by many more or less import- 
 ant collisions or other accidents. Finally, we had 
 men whose activity as motormen was neither 
 especially good nor especially bad. 
 
 The test of the method lies first in the fact that 
 the tried motormen agreed that they really pass 
 through the experiment with the feeling which 
 they have on their car. The necessity of looking 
 out in both directions, right and left, for possible 
 obstacles, of distinguishing those which move 
 toward the track from the many which move 
 along the track, the quick discrimination among 
 the various rates of rapidity, the steady forward 
 movement of the observation point, the constant 
 temptation to give attention to those which are 
 still too far away or to those which are so near 
 that they will cross the track before the approach 
 
 74
 
 ELECTRIC RAILWAY SERVICE 
 
 of the car, in short, the whole complex situation 
 with its demands on attention, imagination, and 
 quick adjustment, soon brings them into an atti- 
 tude which they themselves feel as identical with 
 that in practical life. On the other hand, the re- 
 sults show a far-reaching correspondence between 
 efficiency in the experiment and efficiency in the 
 actual service. With a relatively small number of 
 experiments this correspondence cannot be ex- 
 pected to be complete, the more as a large number 
 of secondary features must enter which interfere 
 with an exact correlation between experiment and 
 standing in the railway company. We must con- 
 sider, for instance, that those men whom the com- 
 pany naturally selects as models are men who 
 have had twenty to thirty years of service with- 
 out accidents, but consequently they are rather 
 old men, who no longer have the elasticity of 
 youth and are naturally less able to think them- 
 selves into an artificial situation like that of such 
 an experiment, and who have been for a long time 
 removed from contact with book work. It is 
 therefore not surprising, but only to be expected, 
 that such older, model men, while doing fair work 
 in the test, are yet not seldom far surpassed by 
 bright, quick, young motormen who are twenty 
 years younger, even though they are not yet 
 ideal motormen. Moreover, the standing in the 
 
 75
 
 THE BEST POSSIBLE MAN 
 
 company often depends upon features which have 
 nothing to do with the mental make-up of the 
 man, while the experiment has to be confined 
 to those mental conditions which favor accidents. 
 It is quite possible that a man may happen to 
 experience a slight collision, even though no con- 
 ditions for the accident were lying in his mental 
 make-up. But we may go still further. The ex- 
 periment refers to those sides of his mind which 
 make him able to foresee the danger points, and 
 that is decidedly the most essential factor and 
 the one from which most can be hoped for the 
 safety of the public. But this does not exclude the 
 possibility that some other mental traits may be- 
 come causes of accidents. The man may be too 
 daring and may like to run risks, or he may still 
 need discipline, or he may not be sufficiently 
 acquainted with the local conditions. Any such 
 secondary factors may cause some slight acci- 
 dents with the man w^ho shows rather fair results 
 in the experimental test of his foresight. Finally, 
 we must not forget that some men enter into such 
 tests under a certain nervous tension and there- 
 fore may not show so well at the very first test 
 as their mental equipment should allow. Hence 
 it is decidedly desirable not to rely on the first 
 test, but to repeat it. If those various interfer- 
 ences are taken into account, the correspondence 
 
 76
 
 ELECTRIC RAILWAY SERVICE 
 
 between efficiency and the results of the tests is 
 fairly satisfactory. It justified me in proposing 
 that the experiments be continued and in regard- 
 ing it as quite possible that later tests on the 
 basis of this principle may be introduced at the 
 employment of motormen. 
 
 A difficulty is presented by the valuation of the 
 numerical results. The mere number of omissions 
 alone cannot be decisive, as it is clear that no in- 
 telligent man would make any omissions if he 
 should give an unlimited amount of time to it; 
 for instance, if he were to spend fifteen minutes 
 on those 12 cards. But this is the same thing 
 as to say that a motorman would not run over 
 any one if he were to drive his car one mile in an 
 hour. The practical problem is to combine the 
 greatest possible speed with the smallest number 
 of oversights, and both factors must therefore 
 be considered. The subject who makes relatively 
 many mistakes but uses a very short time must 
 be acknowledged to be as good as the man who 
 makes fewer mistakes but takes a longer time. 
 In the results which I have gathered in experi- 
 ments with motormen, no one has gone through 
 those 12 cards in a shorter time than 140 seconds, 
 while the longest time was 427 seconds. On the 
 other hand, no one of the motormen made less 
 than 4 omissions, while the worst ones made 28 
 
 77
 
 THE BEST POSSIBLE MAN 
 
 omissions. I abstract from one extreme case with 
 36 omissions. On the whole, we may say that the 
 time fluctuates between 180 and 420, the mis- 
 takes between 4 and 28. The aim is to find a for- 
 mula which gives full value to both factors and 
 makes the material directly comparable in the form 
 of one numerical value instead of the two. If we 
 were simply to add the number of seconds and the 
 number of omissions, the omissions would count 
 far too little, inasmuch as 10 additional omissions 
 would then mean no more than 10 additional 
 seconds. On the other hand, if we were to multi- 
 ply the two figures the omissions would mean by 
 far too much, as the transition from 4 mistakes to 
 8 mistakes would then be as great a change as the 
 transition from 200 to 400 seconds, that is, from 
 the one extreme of time to the other. Evidently 
 we balance both factors if we multiply the number 
 of omissions by 10 and add them to the number 
 of seconds. The variations between 4 and 28 
 omissions are 24 steps, which multiplied by 10 
 correspond to the 240 steps which lie between 
 180 and 420 seconds. On that basis any additional 
 50 seconds would be equal to 5 additional omis- 
 sions. If of two men one takes 100 seconds less 
 than his neighbor, he is equal to him in his ability 
 to satisfy the demands of the service, if he makes 
 10 mistakes more. 
 
 78
 
 ELECTRIC RAILWAY SERVICE 
 
 On the basis of this calculation I find that the 
 old, well-trained motormen come to a result of 
 about 450, and I should consider that an average 
 standard. This would mean that a man who 
 uses 400 seconds would not be allowed to make 
 more than 5 omissions, in 350 seconds not more 
 than 10, in 300 not more than 15, in 250 not more 
 than 20, under the condition that these are the 
 results of the first set of experiments. Where 
 there are more than 20 omissions made, mere 
 quickness ought not to be allowed as a substitute. 
 The man who takes 150 seconds and makes 30 
 mistakes would come up to the same standard 
 level of 450. Yet his characteristics would prob- 
 ably not serve the interests of the service. He 
 would speed up his car and would make better 
 time than any one else, but would be liable to ac- 
 cidents. I should consider 20 mistakes with a 
 time not longer than 250 as the permissible maxi- 
 mum. Among the younger motormen whom I 
 examined, the best result was 290, in which 270 
 seconds were used and only 2 omissions made. 
 Results below 350 may be considered as very 
 good. One man, for instance, carried out the ex- 
 periment in 237 seconds with 11 mistakes, which 
 gives the result 347. From 350 to 450 may be 
 counted as fair, 450 to 550 as mediocre, and over 
 550 as very poor. In the case of old men, who may 
 
 79
 
 THE BEST POSSIBLE MAN 
 
 be expected to adjust themselves less easily to 
 artificial experiments, the limits may be shifted. 
 If the experiments are made repeatedly, the valua- 
 tion of the results must be changed accordingly. 
 The training of the men in literary and mathe- 
 matical work or in experimentation may be con- 
 sidered, as our experiments have shown that highly 
 educated young people with long training in 
 experimental observations can pass through the 
 test much more quickly than any one of the motor- 
 men could. Among the most advanced graduate 
 students who do research work in my Harvard 
 laboratory there was no one whose result was 
 more than 275, while, as I said, among all the 
 motormen there was no one whose result was less 
 than 290. The best result reached was by a stu- 
 dent who passed through the test in 223 seconds 
 with only 1 mistake, the total therefore being 233. 
 Next came a student who did it in 215 seconds 
 with 3 mistakes, total, 245; then in 228 seconds 
 with 2 omissions, total, 248, and so on. 
 
 I recapitulate: With men on the educational 
 level and at the age that comes in question for 
 their first appointment in the service of an elec- 
 tric railway company, the test proposed ought to 
 be applied according to this scheme. If they make 
 more than 20 mistakes, they ought to be excluded; 
 if they make less then 20 mistakes, the number of 
 
 80
 
 ELECTRIC RAILWAY SERVICE 
 
 omissions is to be multiplied by 10 and added to 
 the number of seconds. If the sum is less than 
 350, their mental fitness for the avoidance of ac- 
 cidents is very high, between 350 and 450 fair, 
 and more than 550 not acceptable under any 
 conditions. I submit this, however, with the em- 
 phasis on my previous statement that the investi- 
 gation is still in its first stage, and that it will need 
 a long cooperation between science and industry 
 in order to determine the desirable modifications 
 and special conditions which may become neces- 
 sary in making the employment of men partly de- 
 pendent upon such psychological tests. There 
 can be no doubt that the experiments could be 
 improved in many directions. But even in this 
 first, not adequately tested, form, an experimen- 
 tal investigation of this kind which demands from 
 each individual hardly 10 minutes would be suf- 
 ficient to exclude perhaps one fourth of those who 
 are nowadays accepted into the service as motor- 
 men. This 25 per cent of the applicants do not 
 deserve any blame. In many other occupations 
 they might render excellent service; they are 
 neither careless nor reckless, and they do not act 
 against instructions, but their psychical mechan- 
 ism makes them unfit for that particular combina- 
 tion of attention and imagination which ought to 
 be demanded for the special task of the motor- 
 
 81
 
 THE BEST POSSIBLE MAN 
 
 man. If the many thousands of injury and the 
 many hundreds of death cases could be reduced 
 by such a test at least to a half, then the condi- 
 tions of transportation would have been improved 
 more than by any alterations in the technical 
 apparatus, which usually are the only objects 
 of interest in the discussion of specialists. The 
 whole world of industry will have to learn the 
 great lesson, that of the three great factors, ma- 
 terial, machine, and man, the man is not the least, 
 but the most important.
 
 IX 
 
 EXPERIMENTS IN THE INTEREST OF 
 SHIP SERVICE 
 
 WHERE the avoidance of accidents is in 
 question, the test of a special experimental 
 method can seldom be made dependent upon a 
 comparison with practical results, as we do not 
 want to wait until the candidate has brought hu- 
 man life into danger. The ordinary way of reach- 
 ing the goal must therefore be an indirect one in 
 such cases. For the study of motormen the con- 
 ditions are exceptionally favorable, as hundreds of 
 thousands of accidents occur every year, but an- 
 other practical example may be chosen from a field 
 where it is, indeed, impossible to correlate the re- 
 sults with actual misfortunes, because the danger- 
 ous situations occur seldom; and nevertheless on 
 account of their importance they demand most 
 serious study. I refer to the ship service, where 
 the oflBcer on the bridge may bring thousands 
 into danger by one single slip of his mind. I turn 
 to this as a further concrete illustration in order 
 to characterize at once the lengths to which such 
 vocational studies may advance. 
 
 One of the largest ship companies had ap- 
 
 83
 
 THE BEST POSSIBLE MAN 
 
 proached me — long before the disaster of the 
 Titanic occurred — with the question whether it 
 would not be possible to find psychological meth- 
 ods for the elimination of such ship officers as 
 would not be able to face an unexpected suddenly 
 occurring complication. The director of the com- 
 pany wrote to me that in his experience the real 
 danger for the great ships lies in the mental dis- 
 positions of the officers. They all know exactly 
 what is to be done in every situation, but there 
 are too many who do not react in the appropriate 
 way when an unexpected combination of factors 
 suddenly confronts them, such as the quick ap- 
 proach of a ship in the fog. He claimed that two 
 different types ought to be excluded. There are 
 ship officers who know the requirements excel- 
 lently, but who are almost paralyzed when the 
 dangerous conditions suddenly threaten. Their 
 ability for action is inhibited. In one moment 
 they want to act under the stimulus of one impres- 
 sion, but before the impulse is realized, some other 
 perhaps rather indifferent impression forces itself 
 on their minds and suggests the counteraction, 
 and in this way they vacillate and remain inactive 
 until it is too late to give the right order or to 
 press the right button. The other type feels only 
 the necessity for rapid action, and under the pres- 
 sure of greatest haste, without clear thought, they 
 
 84
 
 SHIP SERVICE 
 
 jump to the first decision which rushes to their 
 minds. Without carefully considering the condi- 
 tions really given, they explode in an action which 
 they would never have chosen in a state of quiet 
 deliberation. They react on any accidental cir- 
 cumstance, just as at a fire men sometimes carry 
 out and save the most useless parts of their belong- 
 ings. Of course, beside these two types, there is 
 the third type, the desirable one, the men who in 
 the unexpected situation quickly review the total- 
 ity of the factors in their relative importance and 
 with almost instinctive certainty immediately 
 come to the same decision to which they would 
 have arrived after quiet thought. The director 
 of the company insisted that it would be of high- 
 est importance for the ship service to discriminate 
 these three types of human beings, and to make 
 sure that there stand on the bridge of the ship 
 only men who do not belong to those two danger- 
 ous classes. He turned to me with this request, 
 as he had heard of the work toward economic 
 psychology in the Harvard laboratory. 
 
 As the problem interested me, I carried on a 
 long series of experiments in order to construct 
 artificial conditions under which the mental pro- 
 cess of decision in a complicated situation, espe- 
 cially the rapidity, correctness, and constancy of 
 the decision, could be made measurable. I started 
 
 85
 
 THE BEST POSSIBLE MAN 
 
 from the conviction that this complex act of de- 
 cision must stand in definite relation to a number 
 of simpler mental functions. If, for instance, it 
 stood in a clear definite relation to the process of 
 association, or discrimination, or suggestibility, 
 or perception, or memory, and so on, it would be 
 rather easy to foresee the behavior of the individ- 
 ual in the act of decision, as every one of those 
 other simple mental functions could be tested by 
 routine methods of the psychological laboratory. 
 This consideration led me to propose ramified 
 investigations concerning the psychology of de- 
 cision in its relation to the elementary mental pro- 
 cesses. These studies by students of the labora- 
 tory are not yet completed. But I soon saw that 
 they would be unfit for the solution of my prac- 
 tical problem, as we recognized that these rela- 
 tions between the complex act of decision and the 
 elementary functions of the individual seem to 
 have different form with different types of men.^^ 
 If I was to approach the solution of the prac- 
 tical problem, accordingly, I had to reproduce 
 in an experimental form the act of decision under 
 complex conditions. 
 
 It seemed necessary to create a situation in 
 which a number of quantitatively measurable fac- 
 tors were combined without any one of them forc- 
 ing itself to consciousness as the most important. 
 
 86
 
 SHIP SERVICE 
 
 The subject to be experimented on then has to de- 
 cide as quickly as possible which of the factors is 
 the relatively strongest one. As usual, here, too, 
 I began with rather complicated material and 
 only slowly did I simplify the apparatus until it 
 finally took an entirely inconspicuous form. But 
 this is surely the most desirable outcome for test- 
 ing methods which are to be applied to large num- 
 bers of persons. Complicated instruments, for the 
 handling of which special training is needed, are 
 never so useful for practical purposes as the sim- 
 ple schemes which can be easily applied. The 
 form of which I finally made use is the following. I 
 work with 24 cards of the size of playing-cards. 
 On the upper half of every one of these cards we 
 have 4 rows of 12 capital letters, namely. A, E, 
 O, and U in irregular repetition. On 4 cards, one of 
 these vowels appears 21 times and each of the 
 three others 9 times; on 8 cards, one appears 18 
 times and every one of the three others 10 times; 
 on 8 cards, one appears 15 times and each of the 
 others 11 times; and finally, on 4 cards one vowel 
 appears 16 times, each of the three others 8 times, 
 and besides them 8 different consonants are mixed 
 in. The person to be tested has to distribute these 
 24 cards as quickly as possible in 4 piles, in such a 
 way that in the first pile are placed all cards in 
 which the letter A is most frequent, in the second 
 
 87
 
 THE BEST POSSIBLE MAN 
 
 those in which the letter E predominates, and so 
 on. As a matter of course the result must never 
 be secured by counting the letters. Any attempt 
 to act against this prescription and secretly to be- 
 gin counting would moreover delay the decision 
 so long that the final result would be an unsatis- 
 factory achievement anyhow. It would accord- 
 ingly bring no advantage to the candidate. 
 
 We measure with a stopwatch in fifths of a 
 second the time for the whole process from the 
 subject's looking at the first card to his laying 
 down of the last card, and, secondly, we record 
 the number and the character of his mistakes, if 
 cards are put into wrong piles. I have made the 
 experiment with very many persons, and results 
 show that those various mental traits which have 
 been observed in the practical ship service come 
 clearly to light under the conditions of this experi- 
 ment. Some of the persons lose their heads en- 
 tirely, and for many of them it is a painful activ- 
 ity for which they require a long time. Even if the 
 number of mistakes is not considerable, they 
 themselves have the feeling that they are not 
 coming to a satisfactory decision, because their 
 attention is pulled hither and thither so that they 
 feel an inner mental paralysis. Some chance let- 
 ters stand out and appear to them to be predom- 
 inant, but in the next moment the attention is 
 
 88
 
 SHIP SERVICE 
 
 captured by some other letters which bring the 
 suggestion that they are in the majority and that 
 they present the most important factor. The out- 
 come is that inner state of indecision which can 
 become so fatal in practical life. Other subjects 
 distribute the cards in piles at a relatively high 
 speed, and they do it with the subjective feeling 
 that they have indeed recognized at the first 
 glance the predominant group of letters. The ex- 
 act measurement of the results, however, shows 
 that they commit many errors which would have 
 been improbable after quiet consideration. Any 
 small group of letters which catches their eye 
 makes on them, under the pressure of their haste, 
 such a strong impression that all the other letters 
 are inhibited for the moment and the wrong de- 
 cision is quickly made. Finally, we find a group 
 of persons who carry out the experiment rather 
 quickly and at the same time with few mistakes. 
 It is characteristic of them to pass through it with 
 the feeling that it is an agreeable and stimulating 
 mental activity. In all cases the subjects feel 
 themselves under the unified impression which re- 
 sults from all those 48 letters of the card together; 
 and this is the reason why the qualitative mani- 
 foldness of a practical life situation can be com- 
 pared with these intermingled, quantitatively 
 determined groups of letters. 
 
 89
 
 THE BEST POSSIBLE MAN 
 
 If I consider the general results of these experi- 
 ments only with reference to the time-measure- 
 ment, I should say that a person who completes 
 the distribution of the cards in less than 80 seconds 
 is quick in his decisions; from 80 to 150, moder- 
 ately quick; from 150 to 250, slow and deliberate 
 and rather too deliberate for situations which de- 
 mand quick action; over 250 seconds, he would be- 
 long among those wavering persons who hesitate 
 too long in a life situation which demands deci- 
 sion. The time which is needed for the mere distri- 
 bution of the cards themselves plays a very small 
 role compared with the time of the whole pro- 
 cess, and can be neglected. In order to determine 
 this, I asked all the subjects before they made 
 the real experiment to distribute 24 other cards in 
 4 piles, on each of which one of the four letters, 
 A, E, O, and U was printed only once. Hence no 
 comparison of various factors was involved in 
 this form of distribution. The average time for 
 this ordinary sorting was about 20 seconds. Only 
 rather quick individuals carried it out in less than 
 18 and only very slow ones needed more than 25 
 seconds. This maximum variation of 10 seconds 
 is evidently insignificant, as the variations in 
 the experiment amount to more than 200 seconds. 
 But it is very characteristic that the results of 
 the two experiments do not move parallel. Some 
 
 90
 
 SHIP SERVICE 
 
 persons, who are able to sort the cards on which 
 only one of the 4 letters is printed very quickly, 
 are rather slow when they sort the cards with the 
 48 letters for which the essential factor is the act 
 of comparison. In the first case the training in 
 card-playing also seems to have a certain influ- 
 ence, but in the second case, our real experiment 
 on decision, this influence does not seem to exist. 
 We have emphasized from the start that it is 
 no less important to give consideration to the 
 number of mistakes. A mere rapidity of distribu- 
 tion with many mistakes characterizes, as we saw, 
 a mental system which is just as unfit for practi- 
 cal purposes as one which acts with too great slow- 
 ness. But it would not have been sufficient simply 
 to ask how many cards were put into wrong piles. 
 The special arrangement of the cards with four 
 different types of combinations was introduced 
 for the purpose of discriminating among mistakes 
 of unequal seriousness. When one letter appeared 
 21 times and the three others only 9 times, it was 
 surely much easier to make the decision than 
 when the predominant letter appeared only 15 
 times and the other three each 11 times. The 
 easier the right decision, the graver the mistake. 
 Of course the valuation of these mistakes must be 
 rather arbitrary. We decided to value as 4 every 
 mistake in these cards on which the predominant 
 
 91
 
 THE BEST POSSIBLE MAN 
 
 letter appears 21 times; as 3, a mistake in the 
 18 letter cards; as 2, a mistake in the 16 letter 
 cards; and as 1, a mistake in the most difficult 
 ones, the 15 letter cards. If the mistakes are cal- 
 culated on this basis and are added together, a sum 
 below 5 may indicate a very safe and perfectly re- 
 liable ability for decision; 5 to 12, satisfactory; 
 12 to 20, uncertain; and over 20, very poor. In 
 order to take account of both factors, time and 
 mistakes, we multiply the sum of the calculated 
 mistakes by the number of seconds. If the pro- 
 duct of these two figures is less than 400, it may 
 be taken as a sign of perfect reliability in making 
 very quick, correct decisions, in complex life situ- 
 ations; 400 to 1000 indicates the limits between 
 which the ability for such decisions may be con- 
 sidered as normal and very satisfactory; 1000 to 
 2000, not good but still adequate; 2000 to 3000, 
 unreliable, and over 3000, practically absent. 
 It is clear that the real proof of the value of this 
 method cannot be offered. This is just the reason 
 why we selected this illustration as an example of 
 the particular difficulty. Wrong decisions, that is, 
 cases in which the man on the bridge waits too 
 long before he makes his decision and thus causes 
 a collision of ships by his delay, or in which he 
 rushes blindly to a decision which he himself would 
 have condemned after quiet deliberation, are 
 
 92
 
 SHIP SERVICE 
 
 rare. It would be impossible to group such men 
 together for the purpose of the experiment and 
 to compare their results with those of model cap- 
 tains, the more as experience has shown that an 
 officer may have a stainless record for many years 
 and yet may finally make a wrong decision which 
 shows his faulty disposition. The test of the 
 method must therefore be a somewhat indirect 
 one. My aim was to compare the results of the 
 experiments with the experiences of the various 
 individuals which they themselves reported con- 
 cerning their decisions in unexpected complicated 
 situations, and moreover with the judgments of 
 their friends whom I asked to describe what they 
 would expect from the subjects under such condi- 
 tions. The personal differences in these respects 
 are extremely great, and are also evident in the 
 midst of small groups of persons who may have 
 great similarity in their education and training 
 and in many other aspects of their lives. 
 
 Among the most advanced students of my re- 
 search laboratory, for instance, all of whom have 
 rather similar schooling and practically the same 
 training in experimental work, the product of mis- 
 takes and seconds varied between 348 and 13,335. 
 That smallest value occurred in a case in which 
 the time was 116 seconds and the sum of the mis- 
 takes only 3, inasmuch as 3 cards of the most dif- 
 
 93
 
 THE BEST POSSIBLE MAN 
 
 ficult group where the predominating letter oc- 
 curred only 15 times were put in the wrong piles. 
 The shortest time among my laboratory students 
 was 58 seconds, but with this individual the sum 
 of the mistakes, calculated on the basis of the val- 
 uation agreed upon, was 13. The largest figure 
 mentioned resulted in a case in which the student 
 needed 381 seconds and yet made mistakes the 
 sum of which amounted to 35. It is characteristic 
 that the person with the smallest product felt a 
 distinct joy in the experiment, while the one with 
 the largest passed through painful minutes which 
 put him to real organic discomfort. If we arrange 
 the men simply in the order of these products, of 
 course we cannot recognize the various groups, as 
 those who are quick but make mistakes and those 
 who make few mistakes but act slowly may be rep- 
 resented by the same products. The coincidence 
 of the results with the self-characterization is fre- 
 quently quite surprising. Every one has at some 
 time come into unexpected, suddenly arising situ- 
 ations and many have received in such moments 
 a very vivid impression of their own mental reac- 
 tion. They know quite well that they could not 
 come to a decision quickly enough, or that they 
 rushed hastily to a wrong decision, or that in just 
 such instants a feeling of repose and security 
 came over them and that with sure instinct they 
 
 94
 
 SHIP SERVICE 
 
 turned in the direction which they would have 
 chosen after mature thought. The results of the 
 experiments in sorting the cards confirmed this 
 self-observation in such frequent cases that it 
 may indeed be hoped that a more extended test 
 of this method will prove its practical usefulness. 
 It is clear that the field is a wide one, as these dif- 
 ferent types of mental dispositions must be of con- 
 sequence not only in the ship service, but also to a 
 certain degree in the railroad service and in many 
 other industrial tasks. 
 
 We have emphasized from the start that as a 
 matter of course such a tested function, while it is 
 taken in its complex unity, is nevertheless not the 
 only psychophysical disposition of significance. 
 This is as true for the ship officer as it was for the 
 motorman of the electric car. If we were to study 
 all the mental dispositions necessary or desirable 
 for the ship officer, we should find many other 
 qualities which are accessible to the psycholog- 
 ical investigation. The captain of the ship, for 
 instance, is expected to recognize the direction of 
 a vessel passing in the fog by the signals of the 
 foghorn. But so far no one has given any atten- 
 tion to the psychological conditions of localization 
 of sound, which were for a long while a much- 
 studied problem of our psychological laboratories. 
 We know how this localization is dependent upon 
 
 95
 
 THE BEST POSSIBLE MAN 
 
 the comparison of the two ears and what particu- 
 lar mistakes occur from the different sensibiHty 
 of the two ears. Yet there are to-day men on the 
 bridges of the ships who hear much better with 
 one ear than with the other, but who still naively 
 believe that, as they hear everything very dis- 
 tinctly with one ear, this normal ear is also suffi- 
 cient for recognizing the direction of the sound. 
 It is the same mistake which we frequently see 
 among laborers whose vision has become defect- 
 ive in one of their eyes, or one of whose eyes is 
 temporarily bandaged. They are convinced that 
 the one good eye is sufficient for their industrial 
 task, because they are able to recognize every- 
 thing clearly and distinctly. They do not know 
 that both the eyes together are necessary in order 
 to produce that psychological combination by 
 which the visual impression is projected into the 
 right distance, and that in the factory they are 
 always in danger of underestimating the distance 
 of a wheel or some other part of the machine and 
 of letting the hand slip between the wheels or 
 knives. The results of experimental psychology 
 will have to be introduced systematically into the 
 study of the fitness of the personality from the 
 lowest to the highest technical activity and from 
 the simplest sensory function to the most complex 
 mental achievement.
 
 X 
 
 EXPERIMENTS IN THE INTEREST OF 
 TELEPHONE SERVICE 
 
 OUR plan was to illustrate the possibility 
 of applying psychological experiments to 
 the selection of fit applicants also in cases in which 
 not one characteristic mental function stands out, 
 but in which a large number of relatively inde- 
 pendent mental activities are in play. I choose as 
 an illustration of such cases the work of the em- 
 ployees at the telephone switchboard. A study 
 of the psychological factors in this work is strongly 
 suggested by the practical interests of the tele- 
 phone companies, and may be looked on here ex- 
 clusively from this point of view. The user of the 
 telephone is little inclined to consider how many 
 actions have to be carried out in the central office 
 before the connection is made and finally broken 
 again. From the moment when the speaker takes 
 off the receiver to the cutting off of the connec- 
 tion, fourteen separate psychophysical processes 
 are necessary in the typical case, and even then 
 it is presupposed that the telephone girl under- 
 stood the exchange and number correctly. It is a 
 common experience of the companies that these 
 
 97
 
 THE BEST POSSIBLE MAN 
 
 demands cannot be satisfactorily fulfilled when a 
 telephone girl has to handle more than 225 calls 
 in an hour. The official statistics show that this 
 figure is exceeded in not infrequent cases/^ in 
 extreme cases the number may even rise beyond 
 300. Moreover, in short periods of reinforced de- 
 mands it may happen that for a few minutes even 
 the rapidity of 10 calls in a minute is reached. 
 Normally the burden is divided among the em- 
 ployees in such a way that about 150 calls fall to 
 each one in an hour, and that this figure is passed 
 considerably only in one morning and one evening 
 hour. A skillful distribution of pauses and ample 
 arrangements for rest, usually together with very 
 excellent hygienic conditions, make it possible 
 for the fit persons to be able to carry on this work 
 without over-fatigue from 8 to 9 hours a day. On 
 the other hand, it is only natural that such rapid 
 and yet subtle activity under such high tension, 
 where especially the quick localization of the cor- 
 rect hole is a difficult and yet indispensable part, 
 can be carried out only by a relatively small num- 
 ber of human nervous systems. The inability to 
 keep attention at such a high point for a long 
 while, or to perform such rapid movements, or to 
 retain the numbers correctly, does not lead to fatal 
 accidents like those in the case of the unfit mo- 
 tormen, but it does lead to fatigue and finally to 
 
 98
 
 TELEPHONE SERVICE 
 
 a nervous breakdown of the employees and to con- 
 fusion in the service. The result is that the com- 
 pany is continually obliged to dismiss a consider- 
 able proportion of those who have entered the 
 service and who have spent some months in going 
 through the training school of the company. As 
 one single company, the Bell Telephone Com- 
 pany, employs 16,000 operators, the problem is an 
 expansive one, and it has bearing on the health of 
 the employees as well as on the patience of the 
 subscribers. But above all it refers to the eco- 
 nomic interests of the company, inasmuch as 
 every girl who satisfies the entrance conditions 
 of hearing and sight, of school education and 
 general personal appearance, receives some salary 
 throughout the months of training in the tele- 
 phone school. Since during the first half-year, 
 in which the employee still works entirely under 
 supervision, more than a third of those who had 
 originally entered leave, partly on account of un- 
 fitness and inability, partly on account of over- 
 fatigue or similar reasons, the economic disadvan- 
 tage to the company is evidently a very great one. 
 The candidates are paid for months of mere train- 
 ing, and they themselves waste their energy and 
 time with practice in a kind of labor which cannot 
 be serviceable to them in any other economic 
 activity. Under these circumstances it is not sur- 
 
 99
 
 THE BEST POSSIBLE MAN 
 
 prising that one city system approached me with 
 the question whether it would not interest me 
 from a scientific point of view to examine how far 
 the mental fitness of the employees could be de- 
 termined beforehand through experimental means. 
 After carefully observing the service in the cen- 
 tral oflSce for a while, I came to the conviction 
 that it would not be appropriate here to repro- 
 duce the activity at the switchboard in the experi- 
 ment, but that it would be more desirable to re- 
 solve that whole function into its elements and to 
 undertake the experimental test of a whole series 
 of elementary mental dispositions. Every one 
 of these mental acts can then be examined accord- 
 ing to well-known laboratory methods without 
 giving to the experiments any direct relation to 
 the characteristic telephone operation as such. 
 I carried on the first series of experiments with 
 about thirty young women who a short time be- 
 fore had entered into the telephone training 
 school, where they are admitted only at the age 
 between seventeen and twenty-three years. I 
 examined them with reference to eight different 
 psychophysical functions. In saying this, I ab- 
 stract from all those measurements and tests which 
 had somewhat anthropometric character, such 
 as the measurement of the length of the fingers, 
 the rapidity of breathing, the rapidity of pulse, 
 
 100
 
 TELEPHONE SERVICE 
 
 the acuity of vision and of hearing, the distinct- 
 ness of the pronunciation, and so on. A part of 
 the psychological tests were carried on in individ- 
 ual examinations, but the greater part with the 
 whole class together. 
 
 These common tests referred to memory, at- 
 tention, intelligence, exactitude, and rapidity. I 
 may characterize the experiments in a few words. 
 The memory examination consisted of reading to 
 the whole class at first two numbers of 4 digits, 
 then two of 5 digits, then two of 6 digits, and so 
 on up to figures of 12 digits, and demanding that 
 they be written down as soon as a signal was given. 
 The experiments on attention, which in this case 
 of the telephone operators seemed to me espe- 
 cially significant, made use of a method the prin- 
 ciple of which has frequently been applied in the 
 experimental psychologj^ of individual differences 
 and which I adjusted to our special needs. The 
 requirement is to cross out a particular letter in a 
 connected text. Every one of the thirty women 
 in the classroom received the same first page of a 
 newspaper of that morning. I emphasize that it 
 was a new paper, as the newness of the content was 
 to secure the desired distraction of the attention. 
 As soon as the signal was given, each one of the 
 girls had to cross out with a pencil every **a" in 
 the text for six minutes. After a certain time, a 
 
 101
 
 THE BEST POSSIBLE MAN 
 
 bell signal was given and each then had to begin 
 a new column. In this way we could find out, 
 first, how many letters were correctly crossed out 
 in those six minutes, secondly, how many letters 
 were overlooked, and, thirdly, how the recogni- 
 tion and the oversight were distributed in the 
 various parts of the text. In every one of these 
 three directions strong individual differences 
 were indeed noticeable. Some persons crossed out 
 many, but also overlooked many, others over- 
 looked hardly any of the "a's," but proceeded 
 very slowly so that the total number of the 
 crossed-out letters was small. Moreover, it was 
 found that some at first do poor work, but soon 
 reach a point at which their attention remains on 
 a high level; others begin with a relatively high 
 achievement, but after a short time their atten- 
 tion flags, and the number of crossed-out letters 
 becomes smaller or the number of unnoticed, 
 overlooked letters increases. Fluctuations of at- 
 tention, deficiencies, and strong points can be 
 discovered in much detail. 
 
 The third test which was tried with the whole 
 class referred to the intelligence of the individuals. 
 Discussion of the question how to test intelligence 
 in general would quickly lead us into as yet unset- 
 tled controversies. It is a chapter of the psycho- 
 logy of tests which, especially in the service of 
 
 102
 
 TELEPHONE SERVICE 
 
 pedagogy but to a certain degree also in the serv- 
 ice of medicine, has been more carefully elabor- 
 ated than any other. Often it has been contested 
 whether we have any right to speak of one gen- 
 eral central intelligence factor, and whether this 
 apparently unified activity ought not to be re- 
 solved into a series of mere elementary processes. 
 The newer pedagogical investigations, however, 
 speak in favor of the view that besides all special 
 processes, or rather, above all of them, an ability 
 must be recognized which cannot be divided any 
 further, and by which the individual adjusts his 
 knowledge, his experiences, and his dispositions 
 to the changing purposes of life. The grading of 
 the pupils in a class usually expresses this differ- 
 entiation of the intelligence; and while the differ- 
 ences of industry or of mere memory and similar 
 secondary features may sometimes interfere, it 
 remains after all not difficult for an observant 
 teacher to grade the pupils of his class, whom he 
 knows well, according to their general intelligence. 
 The psychological experiments carried on in the 
 schoolroom have demonstrated that this ability 
 can be tested by the measurement of some very 
 simple mental activities. The best method would 
 be the one which would allow the experimenter, 
 on the basis of a single experiment, to grade 
 the individuals in the same order in which they 
 
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 THE BEST POSSIBLE MAN 
 
 appear in the record of the teacher. Among 
 the various proposed schemes for this purpose 
 the figures suggest that the most rehable one is the 
 following method, the results of which show the 
 highest agreement between the rank order based 
 on the experiments and the rank order of the 
 teachers. ^^ The experiment consists in reading 
 to the pupils a long series of pairs of words of 
 which the two members of the pair always logic- 
 ally belong together. Later, one word of each 
 pair will be read to them and they have to write 
 down the word which belonged with it in the pair. 
 This is not a simple experiment on memory. The 
 tests have shown that if instead of logically con- 
 nected words simply disconnected chance words 
 are offered and reproduced, no one can keep such 
 a long series of pairs in mind, while with the words 
 which have related meaning, the most intelligent 
 pupils can master the whole series. The very fav- 
 orable results which this method had yielded in 
 the classroom made me decide to try it in this case 
 too. I chose for an experiment 24 pairs of words 
 from the sphere of experience of the girls to be 
 tested. Two further class experiments belonged 
 rather to the periphery of psychology. The 
 exactitude of space-perception was measured by 
 demanding that each divide first the long and 
 then the short edge of a folio sheet into two equal 
 
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 halves by a pencil mark. And finally, to measure 
 the rapidity of movement, it was demanded that 
 every one make with a pencil on the paper zigzag 
 movements of a particular size during the ten 
 seconds from one signal to another. 
 
 After these class experiments I turned to indi- 
 vidual tests. First, every girl had to sort a pack 
 of 48 cards into 4 piles as quickly as possible. The 
 time was measured in fifths of a second. The fol- 
 lowing experiment which referred to the accuracy 
 of movement impulses demanded that every one 
 try to reach with the point of a pencil 3 different 
 points on the table in the rhythm of metronome 
 beats. On each of these three places a sheet of 
 paper was fixed with a fine cross in the middle. 
 The pencil should hit the crossing point, and the 
 marks on the paper indicated how far the move- 
 ment had fallen short of the goal. One of these 
 movements demanded the full extension of the 
 arm and the other two had to be made with half- 
 bent arm. I introduced this last test because the 
 hitting of the right holes in the switchboard of the 
 telephone office is of great importance. The last 
 individual experiment was an association test. 
 I called six words like "book," "house," "rain," 
 and had them speak the first word which came to 
 their minds. The time was measured in fifths of a 
 second only, as subtler experiments, for which 
 
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 THE BEST POSSIBLE MAN 
 
 hundredths of a second would have to be con- 
 sidered, were not needed. 
 
 In studying the results so far as the memory 
 experiments were concerned, we found that it 
 would be useless to consider the figures with more 
 than 10 digits. We took the results only of those 
 with 8, 9, and 10 digits. There were 54 possibilities 
 of mistakes. The smallest number of actual mis- 
 takes was 2, the largest, 29. In the experiment on 
 attention made with the crossing-out of letters, 
 we found that the smallest number of correctly 
 marked letters was 107, the largest number in the 
 six minutes, 272; the smallest number of over- 
 looked letters was 2, the largest, 135; but this last 
 case of abnormal carelessness stood quite isolated. 
 On the whole, the number of overlooked letters 
 fluctuated between 5 and 60. If both results, 
 those of the crossed-out and those of the over- 
 looked letters, are brought into relation, we find 
 that the best results were a case of 236 letters 
 marked, with only 2 overlooked, and one of 257 
 marked, with 4 overlooked. The very interesting 
 details as to the various types of attention which 
 we see in the distribution of mistakes over the six 
 minutes were not taken into our final table. The 
 word experiments by which we tested the intelli- 
 gence showed that no one was able to reproduce 
 more than 22 of the 24 words. The smallest num- 
 
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 ber of words remembered was 7. The mistakes 
 in the perception of distances fluctuated between 
 1 and 14 milhmeters; the time for the sorting of 
 the 48 cards, between 35 and 58 seconds ; the as- 
 sociation-time for the 6 associated words taken 
 together was between 9 and 21 seconds. The 
 pointing experiments could not be made use of in 
 this first series, as it was found that quite a num- 
 ber of participants were unable to perform the act 
 with the rapidity demanded. 
 
 Several ways were open to make mathematical 
 use of these results. I preferred the simplest way. 
 I calculated the grade of the girls for each of these 
 achievements. The same candidate who stood in 
 the 7th place in the memory experiment was in the 
 15th place with reference to the number of letters 
 marked, in the 3rd place with reference to the let- 
 ters overlooked, in the 21st place with reference to 
 the number of word pairs which she had grasped, 
 in the 11th place with reference to the exactitude 
 of space-perception, in the 16th place with refer- 
 ence to the association-time, and in the 6th place 
 with reference to the time of sorting. As soon as 
 we had all these independent grades,we calculated 
 the average and in this way ultimately gained a 
 common order of grading. It is evident that this 
 kind of calculation contains accidental factors, 
 especially as a consequence of the fact that we 
 
 107
 
 THE BEST POSSIBLE MAN 
 
 give equal value to every one of these results. It 
 might be better, for instance, to attribute a higher 
 value to the attention experiment or to the intel- 
 ligence experiment. This could be done by mul- 
 tiplying the results of some of these grades by 2 
 or by 3, which would bring the high or low grade 
 of a girl for a particular function to stronger 
 influence in the final result. But in this first trial 
 I contented myself with the simplest uniform 
 scheme in order to exclude all arbitrariness, and 
 therefore considered the mere average of all the 
 grades as the expression of the experimental 
 result. 
 
 With this average rank list, we compared the 
 practical results of the telephone company after 
 three months had passed. These three months 
 had been sufl&cient to secure at least a certain dis- 
 crimination between the best, the average, and the 
 unfit. The result of this comparison was on the 
 whole satisfactory. First, the skeptical telephone 
 company had mixed with the class a number of 
 women who had been in the service for a long 
 while and had even been selected as teachers in 
 the telephone school. I did not know, in figuring 
 out the results, which of the participants in the ex- 
 periments these particularly gifted outsiders were. 
 If the psychological experiments had brought the 
 result that these individuals who stood so high 
 
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 in the estimation of the telephone company 
 ranked low in the laboratory experiment, it would 
 have reflected strongly on the reliability of the 
 laboratory method. The results showed, on the 
 contrary, that these women who had proved most 
 able in practical service stood at the top of our 
 list. Correspondingly, those who stood the low- 
 est in our psychological rank list had in the mean 
 time been found unfit in practical service and 
 had either left the company of their own accord or 
 else had been eliminated. The agreement, to be 
 sure, was not a perfect one. One of the list of 
 women stood rather low in the psychological list, 
 while the ofiice reported that so far she had done 
 fair work in the service, and two others to whom 
 the psychological laboratory gave a good testi- 
 monial were considered by the telephone office as 
 only fair. 
 
 But it is evident that certain disagreements 
 would have occurred even with a more ideal 
 method, as on the one side no final achievement 
 in practical service can be given after only three 
 months, and because on the other side a large 
 number of secondary factors may enter which 
 entirely overshadow the mere question of psycho- 
 physical fitness. Poor health, for instance, may 
 hinder even the most fit individual from doing 
 satisfactory work, and extreme industry and ener- 
 
 109
 
 THE BEST POSSIBLE MAN 
 
 getic will may for a while lead even the unfit to 
 fair achievement, which, to be sure, is likely to 
 be coupled with a dangerous exhaustion. The 
 slight disagreements between the psychological 
 results and the practical valuation, therefore, do 
 not in the least speak against the significance of 
 such a method. On the other hand, I emphasize 
 that this first series meant only the beginning of 
 the investigation, and it can hardly be expected 
 that at such a first approach the best and most 
 suitable methods would at once be hit upon. A 
 continuation of the work will surely lead to much 
 better combinations of test experiments and to 
 better adjusted schemes. But it would be most 
 desirable that such studies be undertaken at 
 various places according to various schemes in 
 order to come nearer to the solution of a problem 
 which is economically important to the whole 
 public and to many thousands of employees. As 
 soon as methods are really perfected it would 
 seem not at all impossible that by a short ex- 
 periment of a few minutes thousands of appli- 
 cants might be saved long months of study and 
 training which are completely wasted. For us 
 here the detailed analysis of this particular case 
 did not mean a suggestion to use to-day in the tel- 
 ephone offices of the country the special scheme 
 which we applied, but it stood only as a clear, 
 
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 simple illustration of a method by which not the 
 specific work itself is tested, but by which the in- 
 dustrial work of the individual is resolved into 
 a long series of parallel functions each one of 
 which is tested independently. The experimental 
 aid which the laboratory has to supply in such 
 cases is not a newly invented device, such as we 
 needed in the case of the motormen, but simply 
 the methods well known as so-called mental 
 tests. 
 
 The experiments with such tests by which 
 single mental functions are measured approxi- 
 mately in short quick examinations, has been 
 much discussed in psychological circles. For a 
 long while the thorough scholars remained very 
 reluctant to accept such an apparently superficial 
 scheme, when these tests were proposed especially 
 for the pedagogical interests of the schoolroom. 
 It was a time in which the scientific efforts were 
 completely devoted to the general problems of the 
 human mind and in which individual differences 
 were very little considered. Moreover, the ques- 
 tions of applied psychology still seemed so far 
 distant that the true scholar instinctively took 
 his standards from the methods of purely theo- 
 retical research. Seen from such a point of view, it 
 could not be denied that the tests were not suflS- 
 cient to give us a complete scientific analysis of 
 
 111
 
 THE BEST POSSIBLE MAN 
 
 the personality in its subtler structure. The theo- 
 rists knew too well that if the reactions, or asso- 
 ciations, or memories, or tendencies of attention, 
 or emotions of a subject were measured really with 
 that scientific thoroughness which is the ideal 
 of research, long months of experiments would 
 be needed, and little could be hoped for from 
 tests to be performed in half an hour. But this 
 somewhat haughty reserve which was quite justi- 
 fied twenty years ago has become obsolete and 
 would be meaningless to-day. On the one side 
 the methods themselves have been multiplied; 
 for each mental act like memory, attention, and 
 so on, dozens of well-studied tests are at our dis- 
 posal, which are adjusted to the finest ramifica- 
 tions of the f unctions. ^^ On the other side the 
 interest in individual differences and in applied 
 psychology has steadily grown, and through it 
 an understanding for the real meaning of the tests 
 has been gained. Their value, indeed, lies exclus- 
 ively in their relation to the practical problems. 
 Where theoretical questions are to be answered 
 and scientific studies concerning the laws and 
 variations of the mind are to be undertaken, the 
 long series of laboratory experiments carried on 
 with patience and devotion are indispensable 
 and can never be replaced by the short-cut meth- 
 ods of the tests. But where practical tasks of 
 
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 pedagogy or jurisprudence or medicine, or es- 
 pecially of commerce and industry, are before us, 
 the method of tests ought to be sovereign. It can 
 be adapted to the special situations and can suc- 
 ceed perfectly, if the task is to discover the out- 
 lines of the mental individuality for particular 
 practical work. 
 
 The only real difficulty of the method lies in the 
 ease with which it can be used. A device which 
 presupposes complicated instruments deters the 
 layman and will be used only by those who are 
 well trained. Moreover, the amateur would not 
 think of constructing and adapting such appara- 
 tus himself. But when nothing is necessary but to 
 use words or numbers or syllables or pictures, or, 
 as in those experiments which we just described, 
 newspapers and so on, any one feels justified in 
 applying the scheme or in replacing it by a new 
 apparently better one according to his caprice. 
 The manif oldness of the proposed tests for special 
 functions is therefore enormous to-day. What is 
 needed now is surely much more that order be 
 brought into this chaos of propositions, and that 
 definite norms and standards be secured for cer- 
 tain chief examinations, than that the number of 
 variations simply be increased. 
 
 The chief danger, moreover, lies in the fact that 
 those who are not accustomed to psychological 
 
 113
 
 THE BEST POSSIBLE MAN 
 
 laboratory research are easily misled. They fancy 
 that such an experiment can be carried out in a 
 mere mechanical way without careful study of all 
 the conditions and accompanying circumstances. 
 Thereby a certain crudeness of procedure may 
 enter which is not at all suggested by the test 
 method itself. The psychological layman too 
 seldom recognizes how many other psychical 
 functions may play a role in the result of the ex- 
 periment beside the one which is interesting him 
 at that moment. The well-schooled laboratory 
 worker almost automatically gives consideration 
 to all such secondary circumstances. While his 
 experiments may refer to the process of memory, 
 he will yet at the same time carefully consider the 
 particular situation as to the emotional setting 
 of the subject, as to his attention, as to his pre- 
 ceding experience, as to his intelligence, as to his 
 physiological condition, and many other factors 
 which may have indirect influence even on the 
 simplest memory test. Hence the real perform- 
 ance of the experiments ought to be undertaken 
 only by those who are thoroughly familiar and 
 well trained in psychological research. And they 
 alone, moreover, can decide what particular form 
 such an experiment ought to take in a given prac- 
 tical situation. It must be left to them, for in- 
 stance, to judge in which cases the mental func- 
 
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 tion of economic importance ought to be tested 
 after being resolved into its components and in 
 which it ought to be examined in its characteris- 
 tic unity.
 
 XI 
 
 CONTRIBUTIONS FROM MEN OF AFFAIRS 
 
 WHILE the psychologists have to perform 
 the actual labor, the representatives of 
 practical life are much better able to indicate the 
 points at which the psychological levers ought 
 to be applied. In the past year I have sought 
 contact with several hundred large concerns in 
 America which belong to many different indus- 
 trial realms. My time did not allow me personal 
 observation in so many cases, but everywhere I 
 begged for information from the leading men. I 
 asked in individual letters for the particular psy- 
 chological qualities which from the standpoint 
 of the tnanagement seemed essential for the va- 
 rious kinds of labor in their establishments. I 
 always inquired to what extent consideration was 
 given to such psychological points of view at the 
 appointment of applicants, and asked for material 
 concerning the question how far individuals who 
 proved to be unfit for one kind of labor showed 
 fitness at other kinds of work. The replies which 
 I received from all sides varied from a few mean- 
 ingless lines to long documents, which in some 
 cases were composed of detailed reports from all 
 the department chiefs of a particular concern. 
 
 116
 
 CONTRIBUTIONS FROM MEN OF AFFAIRS 
 
 The common fundamental turn was decidedly 
 a feeling of strong interest in the formulation of 
 the question, which was practically new to all of 
 them. Whether the answer came from paper mills 
 or machine shops, from meat-packing houses or 
 from breweries, from electrical or chemical mills, 
 from railroad or mining companies, from depart- 
 ment stores or from publishing houses, every- 
 where it was acknowledged that they had given 
 hardly any conscious attention to the real psy- 
 chological dispositions of their employees. They 
 had of course noticed whether their men were 
 industrious or lazy, honest or dishonest, skillful 
 or clumsy, peaceful or quarrelsome people, but 
 I had emphasized from the start in all my letters 
 that such points of view were not before my mind. 
 The mental qualities for which I asked were the 
 psychological functions of attention, memory, 
 ideas, imagination, feeling, volition, suggestibil- 
 ity, ability to learn, ability to discriminate, judg- 
 ment, space-sense, time-sense, and so on. It 
 would lead too far here to discuss why these two 
 groups of characteristics indeed belong to two 
 different aspects of mental life, and why only the 
 latter is strictly psychological. The way in which 
 the management is accustomed to look on their 
 men is the practical way of ordinary life, in which 
 we try to understand our neighbor by entering 
 
 117
 
 THE BEST POSSIBLE MAN 
 
 into the meaning of his mental functions and by 
 seeking to grasp what his aim is. But such an in- 
 terpretation of the other man's mind is not a 
 psychological analysis. It gives us the purposes of 
 his inner life, but does not show us its structure 
 and its component parts. We can abstract from 
 interpreting and appreciating in order to describe 
 the elements of the mind which in themselves have 
 no meaning and no value, but which are the only 
 important factors, if we are to determine psycho- 
 logically what we may expect from the individual. 
 While the replies to my letters showed that 
 hardly any attention had so far been given to such 
 problems of objective psychology in the industrial 
 concerns, it became evident that the managers 
 felt distinctly that here a problem was touched 
 which must be of highest importance for economic 
 success. From many different sides willingness 
 was shown to study the problem of employment 
 under the psychological aspect. As my material 
 came mostly from very large establishments in 
 which labor of very many different kinds is car- 
 ried on side by side, of course I frequently re- 
 ceived the assurance that whenever an indus- 
 trious energetic man is unsuccessful in one kind 
 of work, a trial is made with him in another de- 
 partment, and that by such shifting the right 
 place can often be found for him. Young people, 
 
 118
 
 CONTRIBUTIONS FROM MEN OF AFFAIRS 
 
 to whom, in spite of long trial and the best will, 
 it seems impossible to supply certain automatic 
 machines, become excellent workers at much more 
 diflScult labor in the same establishment. Women 
 who are apparently careless and inattentive when 
 they have to distribute their attention over a 
 number of operations do high-class work when 
 they are engaged in a single activity; and in other 
 cases the opposite is reported. 
 
 I may mention a few concrete chance illustra- 
 tions. In a pencil factory the women in one de- 
 partment have to grasp with one movement a 
 dozen pencils, no more and no less. Some learn 
 this at once without effort, and they earn high 
 wages; others never can learn it in spite of re- 
 peated trials. If those who fail in this depart- 
 ment are transferred, for instance, to the depart- 
 ment where the gold-leaf is most carefully to be 
 applied to the pencils before stamping, very often 
 they show great fitness in spite of the extreme 
 exactitude needed for this work. To show how 
 often activities which appear extremely similar 
 may demand different individuals, if the work is 
 based on different psychical functions, I may re- 
 fer to a report from one of the largest establish- 
 ments in the country. In the accounting depart- 
 ment a large number of girls are occupied with 
 looking over hundreds of thousands of slips from 
 
 119
 
 THE BEST POSSIBLE MAN 
 
 which the weekly pay-Hst is compiled. Each slip 
 contains six figures and small groups of twenty 
 slips have to be looked through to see whether 
 those six figures on each correspond. With moist- 
 ened forefinger they turn up the slips one by one 
 in much the same manner that a bank clerk counts 
 money. A good sorter will turn up the slips so 
 rapidly that a bystander is unable to read a single 
 figure, and yet she will not overlook an error in 
 thousands of slips. After the slips are sorted, the 
 operation of obtaining the totals on each order 
 number is performed with the aid of an adding 
 machine. The machine operator rolls up the slips 
 of the pile with the thumb of her left hand and 
 transfers the amount to the proper keys of the 
 machine. It has been found that the most rapid 
 and accurate girls at sorting are not seldom use- 
 less on the machines. They press the wrong keys 
 and make errors in copying the total from the ma- 
 chine indicators to the file-card. On the other 
 hand, some of the best machine operators are very 
 slow and inaccurate at the sorting table. Girls 
 have been found very poor at the work at which 
 they were first set, and very successful and eflB- 
 cient as soon as they had been transferred from 
 the one to the other. 
 
 Examples of this kind might be heaped up 
 without end. But while the very large establish- 
 
 120
 
 CONTRIBUTIONS FROM MEN OF AFFAIRS 
 
 ments demonstrate by such reports only that 
 they can find somewhere a fit place for every able 
 workingman if they take enough trouble to seek 
 for it, after all the essential element of the reports 
 remains, that successful achievement depends 
 upon personal mental traits which cannot be ac- 
 quired by mere good will and training. In view 
 of this fact it is much more important that by far 
 the majority of establishments have not such a 
 great manifoldness of activities under one roof. 
 The workingman who is a failure in the work 
 which he undertook would usually have no op- 
 portunity to show his strong sides in the same 
 factory, or at least to be protected against the 
 consequences of his weak points. If his achieve- 
 ment is deficient in quality or quantity, he gen- 
 erally loses his place and makes a new trial in 
 another factory under the same accidental con- 
 ditions, without any deeper insight into his 
 particular psychical traits and their relation to 
 special industrial activities. But even in the large 
 concerns; in which many kinds of labor are needed 
 side by side, it is not the rule but a rare exception 
 when the individual is systematically shifted to 
 the psychologically correct place. A whole com- 
 bination of conditions is necessary for that. If 
 his mental unfitness makes him unsuccessful in 
 one place, the position for which he is fit must 
 
 121
 
 THE BEST POSSIBLE MAN 
 
 happen to be vacant. Moreover, he himself must 
 hke that other kind of work, and above all the 
 foreman must recognize his particular fitness. 
 In a few model factories in which the apprentice 
 system is developed in the spirit of advanced 
 sociological ideas, for instance, in the Lynn fac- 
 tory of the General Electric Company, such sys- 
 tematic efforts are being carried on and show fair 
 results. But the regulation plan seems to be a 
 haphazard lack of plan, and even the best en- 
 deavors probably fall short of what may be at- 
 tained by the introduction of scientific psycho- 
 logical methods. So far in most factories the 
 laborer who is not doing well simply loses his 
 position, and by such an unfortunate experience 
 he is not mentally enriched but impoverished, as 
 he has lost much of his self-confidence and of his 
 joy in labor. 
 
 If this limitless waste of human material, this 
 pitiable crushing of joy in the day's work, and 
 this crippling of the economic output is at last 
 to be reduced, indeed nothing is more needed 
 than a careful scrutiny of the various psychophy- 
 sical functions involved in the work. A mere 
 classification of the industrial occupations accord- 
 ing to the classes of manufactured objects would 
 be of no value for this need, as often a small in- 
 dustrial concern may embrace occupations which 
 
 122
 
 CONTRIBUTIONS FROM MEN OF AFFAIRS 
 
 are based on many different psychophysical func- 
 tions. A harvester consists of two hundred and 
 fifty different parts, and almost every one of these 
 parts demands a long series of manufacturing pro- 
 cesses. Thousands of different kinds of labor are 
 thus combined in one factory and each process 
 demands for the best work particular psycho- 
 physical traits, even though many of them can be 
 carried out by quite unskilled laborers. In a large 
 manufacturing establishment the manager as- 
 sured me only recently that more than half a mil- 
 lion different acts have to be performed in order 
 to complete the goods of that factory. On the 
 other hand, it evidently is proper to form larger 
 groups in which processes are brought together 
 which are similar with reference to the mental 
 activity needed, while they may be dissimilar 
 from the standpoint of industrial technique. 
 
 This analysis of the special processes can be 
 furthered best by the cooperation of the experi- 
 enced men of industry. Many of the replies 
 which I received contained quite elaborated con- 
 tributions to such a study of various industrial 
 processes from a psychological point of view. 
 They sometimes covered the ground from the sim- 
 plest activity to the subtlest and most difficult 
 economic tasks, and this, not only with reference 
 to the functions of the laborer, but also even with 
 
 123
 
 THE BEST POSSIBLE MAN 
 
 reference to the function of the industrial man- 
 ager. The outsider can see these psychological 
 requirements of the particular occupation only in 
 crude outlines. The subtler nuances of differences 
 between tasks can be gained only by an intimate 
 knowledge of the industry. Again I may give an 
 illustration. In the case of a well-known type- 
 setting machine, thousands of which are in daily 
 use, I had the impression that the rapidity of 
 the performance was dependent upon the quick- 
 ness of the finger reaction. The managers, on 
 the other hand, have found that the most es- 
 sential condition for speed in the whole work 
 is the ability to retain a large number of words 
 in memory before they are set. The man who 
 presses the keys rather slowly advances more 
 rapidly than another who moves his fingers 
 quickly, but must make many pauses in order to 
 find his place in the manuscript and to provide 
 himself with new words. 
 
 The factors which are to be brought into corre- 
 lation are, accordingly, first, the actual experi- 
 ences of the managers, secondly, the observations 
 of skilled psychologists in the industrial concerns, 
 thirdly, psychological and experimental investiga- 
 tions with successful and unsuccessful laborers, 
 and, fourthly, experimental studies of the normal 
 variability. If such a programme is to be realized
 
 CONTRIBUTIONS FROM MEN OF AFFAIRS 
 
 in detail, it will be necessary to discriminate care- 
 fully between those mental traits of the personal- 
 ity which must be accredited to a lasting inherited 
 disposition and such as have been developed 
 under the influences of the surroundings, by edu- 
 cation and training, by bad or good stimuli from 
 the community. While those acquired traits may 
 have become relatively lasting dispositions, their 
 transformation is, after all, possible, and the lim- 
 its in which changes may be expected will have 
 to be found out by exact studies. Individual psy- 
 chological rhythm, attention and emotion, mem- 
 ory and will energy, disposition to fatigue and to 
 restoration, imagination, suggestibility and initia- 
 tive, and many other features will have to be exam- 
 ined in their relation to the special economic aims. 
 Too much emphasis cannot be laid on another 
 function as well, the experimental testing of which 
 has only recently been started. I refer to the dif- 
 ference in the individual ability of men to profit 
 from training. If we test an individual at a certain 
 point in his life with regard to a variable ability, 
 our result must be dependent upon three factors, 
 the original disposition for the performance, the 
 original disposition for the advance by training, 
 and the training itself actually passed through up 
 to that moment. A small amount of antecedent 
 training for the particular task together with a 
 
 125
 
 THE BEST POSSIBLE MAN 
 
 high ability to profit from repetition may be a 
 better reason for the appointment of a man than 
 a long training with small ability to profit from 
 schooling, in spite of the fact that his actual 
 achievement at this time may be in the first case 
 smaller than in the second. He will do less at 
 first, but he promises to outrank the other man 
 after a period of further training. Special experi- 
 ments must be carried on and have been actually 
 started to determine this plasticity of the psycho- 
 physical apparatus as an independent inborn trait 
 of the individual. ^^ 
 
 This invasion of psychology into the field of 
 economic activities is still so little advanced that 
 the thought of a real distribution of the wage- 
 earners among the various commercial and 
 industrial positions on the basis of psychological 
 tests would lead far beyond the present possi- 
 bilities. Moreover, many factors would interfere 
 with its being carried out consistently, even if a 
 much higher stage of experimental research were 
 reached. The thousands of social and local rea- 
 sons which influence the choice of a vocation to- 
 day would to a certain degree remain in force also 
 in a period of better psychological analysis. More- 
 over, the personal inclinations and interests nat- 
 urally would and ought to remain the mainspring 
 of economic action. This inclination, which gives 
 
 136
 
 CONTRIBUTIONS FROM MEN OF AFFAIRS 
 
 so much of the joy in labor, is by no means neces- 
 sarily coincident with those psychophysical dispo- 
 sitions which insure the most successful work. 
 Political economists have found this out repeat- 
 edly from their statistical inquiries. Very careful 
 studies of the textile industry in Germany car- 
 ried out in recent years ^^ yielded the result that 
 the intelligent, highly trained textile laborer 
 often dislikes his work the more, the more he 
 shows ability for it, this ability being measured 
 by the wages the individuals earn at piecework. 
 The wage and the emotional attitude were not 
 seldom inversely related. Those who were able 
 to produce by far more than others and accord- 
 ingly earned the most were sometimes the very 
 ones who hated the work, while the less skillful 
 workers earned less but enjoyed the work more. 
 The consulting economic psychologist will, there- 
 fore, at first reasonably confine himself to warning 
 the misfits at an early time. Even within these 
 limits his service can be useful to both parties, the 
 employers and the employees. He will only slowly 
 reach the stage at which this negative warning 
 may be supplemented by positive suggestions, as 
 to the commercial industrial activities for which 
 the psychophysical dispositions promise particu- 
 lar success. 
 
 A real assumption of responsibility for success 
 
 127
 
 THE BEST POSSIBLE MAN 
 
 of course cannot be risked by the psychologist, in- 
 asmuch as the man who may be fitted for a task 
 by his mental working dispositions may neverthe- 
 less destroy his chances for success by secondary 
 personal traits. He may be dishonest, or dissi- 
 pated, or a drinker, or a fighter, or physically 
 ill. Finally, we ought not to forget that all such 
 efforts to adjust to one another the psycholog- 
 ical traits and the requirements of the work can 
 never have reference to the extreme variations 
 of human traits. The exceptionally talented man 
 knows anyhow where he belongs, and the excep- 
 tionally untalented one will be excluded anyhow. 
 The psychological aid in the selection of the fit 
 refers only to the remaining four fifths of mankind 
 for whom the chances of success can indeed be 
 increased as soon as the psychological personal 
 equation is systematically and with scientific ex- 
 actitude brought into the calculation of the life 
 development. How far a part of this effort will 
 have to be undertaken by the school is a social 
 problem which must be considered from various 
 points of view. Its discussion would lead us be- 
 yond the limits of our present inquiry, but it seems 
 probable that the real psychological laboratory 
 experiment in the service of vocational guidance 
 does not belong in the schoolroom itself, but ought 
 to be left to special municipal institutions.
 
 XII 
 
 INDIVIDUALS AND GROUPS 
 
 ONE point here must not be overlooked. The 
 effort to discover the personal structure of 
 the individual in the interest of his vocational 
 chance does not always necessarily involve a di- 
 rect analysis of his individuality, as material of 
 some value can be gained indirectly. Such indi- 
 rect knowledge of a man's mental traits may be 
 secured first of all through referring the man to 
 the groups to which he belongs and inquiring into 
 the characteristic traits of those groups. The 
 psychology of human variations gives not only an 
 account of the differences from person to person, 
 but studies no less the psychical inequalities of the 
 races, of the nations, of the ages, of the profes- 
 sions, and so on. If an economic activity demands 
 a combination of mental traits, we may take it 
 for granted that an individual will be fit for the 
 work as soon as we find out that he belongs to a 
 group in which these required mental traits hab- 
 itually occur. Such a judgment based on group 
 psychology can of course be no more than a mere 
 approach to a solution of the problem, as the psy- 
 chical qualities may vary strongly in the midst of 
 the group. The special individual may happen to 
 
 129
 
 THE BEST POSSIBLE MAN 
 
 stand at the extreme limit of the group, and the 
 traits which are usually characteristic of it may be 
 very little developed or entirely lacking in his spe- 
 cial case. We may know that the inhabitants of a 
 special country are rather alert, and yet the par- 
 ticular individual with whom we have to deal may 
 be clumsy and phlegmatic. The interests of econ- 
 omy will, therefore, be served by such considera- 
 tions of group psychology only if the employment, 
 not of a single person, but of a large number, is in 
 question, as it is most probable that the average 
 character will show itself in a sufficient degree as 
 soon as many members of the group are involved. 
 Even in this case the presupposition ought to 
 be that the average characteristics are found out 
 with scientific exactitude by statistical and ex- 
 perimental methods, and not that they are simply 
 deduced from superficial impressions. I have 
 found that just this race psychological diagnosis 
 is frequently made in factories with great super- 
 ficiality. Some of the American industrial centres 
 offer extremely favorable conditions for the com- 
 parative study of nationality. I have visited 
 many manufacturing establishments in which al- 
 most all workers are immigrants from foreign 
 countries and in which up to twenty different 
 nationalities are represented. The employment 
 oflScers there easily develop some psychological 
 
 130
 
 INDIVIDUALS AND GROUPS 
 
 theories on the basis of which they are convinced 
 that they are selecting the men with especial skill, 
 knowing for each in which department he will be 
 most successful. They consider it settled that for a 
 particular kind of activity the Italians are the 
 best, and for another, the Irish, and for a third, 
 the Hungarians, and for a fourth, the Russian 
 Jews. But as soon as these factory secrets have 
 been revealed, you may be surprised to find that 
 in the next factory a decidedly different classifica- 
 tion of the wage-earners is in force. In a gigantic 
 manufacturing concern, I received the definite 
 information that the Swedish laborers are prefer- 
 able wherever a steady eye is needed, and in an- 
 other large factory on the same street I was as- 
 sured that just the Swedes are unfit for such work. 
 Sometimes this diversity of opinion is the result 
 of different points of view. In one factory in 
 which a certain industrial operation is rather dan- 
 gerous, they told me that they took no southern 
 Europeans, especially no Italians and Greeks, be- 
 cause they are too hasty and careless in their 
 movements, while they gladly filled the places 
 with Irishmen. In a quite similar factory, on the 
 other hand, they had a prejudice against the 
 Irishmen alone for this work, because the Irish 
 laborers are too willing to run a risk and to expose 
 themselves to danger. Probably both psycho- 
 
 131
 
 THE BEST POSSIBLE MAN 
 
 logical observations are on the whole correct, but 
 in the first factory only the one and in the second 
 factory only the other was recognized. Much more 
 thorough statistical inquiries than those which as 
 yet exist, especially as to the actual differences of 
 wages and piecework for wage-earners of various 
 nationalities, would have to furnish a basis for 
 such race psychological statements, until the time 
 arrives when the psychological experiment comes 
 to its own. 
 
 In a similar way so far we have to rely on general 
 theories of group psychology when the psycholog- 
 ical differences of the sexes are to be reckoned 
 with in economic interests. So long as laboratory 
 methods for individual tests are not usual, the 
 mental analysis of the general groups of men and 
 women must form the background for indus- 
 trial decisions. To be sure, it is not difficult to 
 emphasize certain mental traits as characteristic 
 of women in general in contrast to men in general, 
 and to relate them to certain fundamental tenden- 
 cies of their psychophysical organism. As soon 
 as this is done, it is easy theoretically to deduce 
 that certain industrial functions are excellently 
 adapted to the minds of women and that certain 
 others stand in striking antagonism to them. If 
 the employment of large numbers is in question, 
 and average values alone are involved, such a de- 
 
 132
 
 INDIVIDUALS AND GROUPS 
 
 cision on the basis of group psychology may be 
 adequate. In most factories this vague sex psy- 
 chology, to be sure, usually with a strong ad- 
 mixture of wage questions, suggests for which 
 machines men and for which women ought to be 
 employed. But here again it is not at all im- 
 probable that in the case of a particular woman the 
 traditional group value may be entirely mislead- 
 ing and the personality accordingly unfit for the 
 place. Only the subtle psychological individual 
 analysis can overcome the superficial prejudices 
 of group psychology. The situation lies differently 
 when problems of economic policy are before us. 
 Such general policies as, for instance, colonial 
 politics, or immigration politics, or politics con- 
 cerned with city and rural communities, or with 
 coast and mountain population, will always have 
 to be based on group psychology as far as the eco- 
 nomic problems are involved, inasmuch as they 
 refer to the average and not to the individual 
 differences. 
 
 Finally, another indirect scheme to determine 
 the personal qualities needed for economic effi- 
 ciency may be suggested by the psychology of the 
 typical correlations of human traits. We have 
 seen that group psychology proclaims that a 
 certain individual probably has certain traits be- 
 cause he belongs to this or that nation or to this 
 
 133
 
 THE BEST POSSIBLE MAN 
 
 or that otherwise well-known group. Correlation 
 psychology proclaims that a particular individual 
 possesses or does not possess certain traits be- 
 cause he shows or does not show some other de- 
 finite qualities. A correlation, for instance, which 
 the commercial world often presupposes, may 
 exist between individual traits and the hand-writ- 
 ing. Graphologists are convinced that a certain 
 loop or flourish, or the steepness or the length 
 of the letters, or the position of the i dot, is a 
 definite indication that the writer possesses cer- 
 tain qualities of personality; and if just these 
 qualities are essential requirements for the posi- 
 tion, the impression of the handwriting in a letter 
 may be taken as a sufiicient basis for appoint- 
 ment. The scientist has reason to look upon this 
 particular case of graphological correlation with 
 distrust. Yet even he may acknowledge that cer- 
 tain correlations exist between the neatness, care- 
 fulness, uniformity, energy, and similar features 
 of the letter, and the general carefulness, steadi- 
 ness, neatness, and energy of the personality. 
 
 However, the laboratory psychologists nowa- 
 days have gone far beyond such superficial claims 
 for correlations of symptoms. With experimental 
 and statistical methods they have gathered ample 
 material which demonstrates the exact degree of 
 probability with which we have a right to expect 
 
 134
 
 INDIVIDUALS AND GROUPS 
 
 that certain qualities will occur together. Theo- 
 retically we may take it for granted that those 
 traits which are always present together or absent 
 together ultimately have a common mental root. 
 Yet practically they appear as two independent 
 traits, and therefore it remains important to know 
 that, if we can find one of them, we may be sure 
 that the other will exist there too. Inasmuch as 
 the one of the two traits may be easily detected, 
 while the other may be hidden and can be found 
 out only by long careful tests, it would be valu- 
 able, indeed, for the employment manager to 
 become acquainted with such correlations as the 
 psychologist may discover : as soon as he becomes 
 aware of the superficially noticeable symptom, 
 he can foresee that the other disposition is most 
 probably present. To give an illustration : in the 
 interest of such measurements of correlations we 
 have studied in the Harvard laboratory the vari- 
 ous characteristics of attention and their mutual 
 dependence. ^^ We found that typical connec- 
 tions exist between apparently independent feat- 
 ures of attention. Persons who have a rather 
 expansive span of attention for acoustical im- 
 pressions have also a wide span for the visual 
 objects. Persons whose attention is vivid and 
 quick have on the whole the expansive type of at- 
 tention, while those who attend slowly have a 
 
 135
 
 THE BEST POSSIBLE MAN 
 
 narrow field of attention, and so on. Hence the 
 manifestation of one feature of attention allows 
 us to presuppose without further tests that certain 
 other features may be expected in the particular 
 individual. 
 
 The problem of attention, indeed, seems to 
 stand quite in the centre of the field of indus- 
 trial efficiency. This conviction has grown upon 
 me in my observation of industrial life. The pe- 
 culiar kind of attention decides more than any 
 mental trait for which economic activity the indi- 
 vidual is adapted. The essential point is that such 
 differences of attention cannot be characterized 
 as good or bad ; it is not a question of the attentive 
 and of the inattentive mind. One type is not bet- 
 ter than another, but is simply different. Two 
 workingmen, not only equally industrious and 
 capable, but also equally attentive, may yet oc- 
 cupy two positions in which they are both com- 
 plete failures because their attention does not fit 
 the places, and both may become highly efficient 
 as soon as they exchange positions. Their par- 
 ticular types of attention have now found the 
 right places. The one may be disposed to a strong 
 concentration by which everything is inhibited 
 which lies on the mental periphery, the other may 
 have the talent for distributing his attention over 
 a large field, while he is unable to hold it for a long 
 
 136
 
 INDIVIDUALS AND GROUPS 
 
 while at one point. If the one industrial activity 
 demands the attentive observation of one little 
 lever or one wheel at one point, while the other 
 demands that half a dozen large machines be 
 simultaneously supervised, all that is necessary 
 is to find the man with the right type of atten- 
 tion for each place. It would be utterly arbitrary 
 to claim that the expansive type of attention is 
 economically more or less valuable than the con- 
 centrated type. Both in English and in German 
 we have a long popular series of pamphlets with 
 descriptions of the requirements and conditions 
 for the various occupations to which a boy or a 
 girl may turn, but I have nowhere found any re- 
 ference to the most essential mental functions 
 such as the particular kind of attention or mem- 
 ory or will. These pamphlets are always cut after 
 the same pattern. Where the detail refers at all 
 to the mental side, it points only to particular 
 knowledge which may be learned in school or 
 trade or work, or to abilities which may be devel- 
 oped by training. But the individual differences 
 which are set by the particular conditions and 
 dispositions of the mind are neglected with sur- 
 prising uniformity in the vocational literature of 
 all countries. The time seems ripe for at last filling 
 this blank in the consciousness of the nation and 
 in the institutions of the land.
 
 PART II 
 
 THE BEST POSSIBLE WORK
 
 PART II 
 
 THE BEST POSSIBLE WORK 
 XIII 
 
 LEARNING AND TRAINING 
 
 WE have placed our psychotechnical inter- 
 est at the service of economic tasks. We 
 therefore had to start from the various economic 
 purposes and had to look backward, asking what 
 ways might lead to these goals. All our studies 
 so far were in this sense subordinated to the one 
 task which ought to be the primary one in the 
 economic world, and yet which has been most 
 ignored. The purpose before us was to find for 
 every economic occupation the best-fitted per- 
 sonality, both in the interest of economic success 
 and in the interest of personal development. In- 
 dividual traits under this point of view become 
 for us the decisive psychological factors, and ex- 
 perimental psychology had to show us a method 
 to determine those personal differences and their 
 relation to the demands for industrial efficiency. 
 This first goal may be reached with all the means 
 of science, as we hope it will be in the future, or 
 
 141
 
 THE BEST POSSIBLE WORK 
 
 everything may be left to unscientific, haphazard 
 methods as in the past : in any case a second task 
 stands before the community, namely, the securing 
 of the best possible work from every man in his 
 place. Indeed, the nation cannot delay the solu- 
 tion of this second problem until the first has been 
 solved in a satisfactory way. We might even say 
 that the answer to the second question is the more 
 important, the less satisfactory the answer to the 
 first is. If every place in the economic world were 
 filled only by those who are perfectly adapted by 
 their mental traits, it would be much less difficult 
 to get efficient work from every one. The fact that 
 so many misfits are at work makes it such an 
 urgent necessity to find ways and means by which 
 the efficiency can be heightened. 
 
 It must be acknowledged, however, that the 
 problem of the best work is not quite such a clear 
 one as that of the best man. From various stand- 
 points a different answer may be given to the 
 question which kind of work is the best. A capi- 
 talistic, profit-seeking egotism may consider the 
 quickest performance, or, if differences of quality 
 are involved, the most skillful performance, the 
 only desirable end. The social reformers, on the 
 other hand, may consider the best work that which 
 combines the greatest and best possible output 
 with the highest possible saving of the organism 
 
 142
 
 LEARNING AND TRAINING 
 
 and the fullest development of the personality. 
 We have emphasized from the start that the 
 practical psychologist as such has not the right 
 to give a decision upon problems of social civiliza- 
 tion. He has to accept the economic tasks from 
 the community for which he is working and his 
 impartial service commences only when the goals 
 have been determined. It is not his share to se- 
 lect the ends, but simply to determine the means 
 after the valuable ends have been chosen. As a 
 psychological scientist he has not the right to en- 
 ter into the arena of different social party fights. 
 Yet we find after all a broad region which seems 
 rather untouched by any conflict of reasonable 
 opinions. A reckless capitalism on the one side 
 and a feeble sentimentality on the other side may 
 try to widen or to narrow the boundaries of this 
 region, but taken all together, a vigorous healthy 
 nation which is eagerly devoted to its work is on 
 the whole in agreement as to the essential econo- 
 mic demands for eflicient labor. 
 
 Experience, to be sure, shows that great changes 
 in the conditions of work can never enter into the 
 history of civilization without certain disturb- 
 ances, and that opposition must therefore neces- 
 sarily arise in certain groups even against such 
 changes as are undoubtedly improvements and 
 advances from the point of view of tlie whole na- 
 
 143
 
 THE BEST POSSIBLE WORK 
 
 tion. Such dissatisfaction arose when the factory 
 system was introduced, and it is only natural that 
 some irritation should accompany the introduc- 
 tion of psychological improvements in the methods 
 of work, inasmuch as not a few wage-earners may 
 at first have to lose their places because a small 
 number of men will under the improved conditions 
 be suflficient for the performance of tasks which 
 needed many before. But the history of econo- 
 mics has clearly shown that from the point of view 
 of the whole community such an apparent dis- 
 turbance has always been only temporary. If the 
 psychologists succeed in fundamentally improving 
 the conditions of labor, the increased eflSciency of 
 the individual will promote such an enriched and 
 vivified economic life that ultimately an increase 
 in the number of laborers needed will result. The 
 inquiry into the possible psychological contribu- 
 tions to the question of reinforced achievement 
 must not be deterred by the superficial objection 
 that in one or another industrial concern a dis- 
 missal of wage-earners might at first result. Psy- 
 chotechnics does not stand in the service of a party, 
 but exclusively in the service of civilization. 
 
 To begin at the beginning, we may start from 
 the commonplace that every form of economic 
 labor in the workshop and in the factory, in the 
 field and in the mine, in the store and in the office, 
 
 144
 
 LEARNING AND TRAINING 
 
 must first be learned. How far do the experi- 
 ments of the psychologist offer suggestions for 
 securing the most economic method of learning 
 practical activities ? Bodily actions in the service 
 of economic work are taught and learned in hun- 
 dreds of thousands of places. It is evident that 
 one method of teaching must reach the goal more 
 quickly and more reliably than another. Some 
 methods of teaching must therefore be econom- 
 ically more advantageous, and yet on the whole 
 the methods of teaching muscular work are es- 
 sentially left to chance. It is indeed not difficult 
 to observe how factory workers or artisans have 
 learned the same complex motion according to en- 
 tirely different methods. The result is that they 
 carry out the various partial movements in a dif- 
 ferent order, or with different auxiliary motions, 
 or in different positions, or in a different rhythm, 
 or with different emphasis, simply because they 
 imitate different teachers, and because no norm, 
 no certainty as to the best methods for the teach- 
 ing, has been determined. But the process of 
 learning is still more fluctuating and still more de- 
 pendent upon chance than the process of teach- 
 ing. The apprentice approaches the instruction in 
 any chance way, and the beginner usually learns 
 even the first steps with a psychophysical attitude 
 which is left to accident. An immense waste of 
 
 145
 
 THE BEST POSSIBLE WORK 
 
 energy and a quite anti-economic training in 
 unfit movements is the necessary result. 
 
 The learning of the elements of school know- 
 ledge in the classroom in earlier times proceeded 
 after exactly such chance methods. Any one who 
 knew how to read, write, and calculate felt him- 
 self prepared to pour reading, writing, and arith- 
 metic into the unprotected children. Methods 
 which are based on scientific examination of the 
 psychophysical process of reading and writing 
 were not at the disposal of the schools, and exact 
 results from comparative studies of pedagogical 
 methods had not been secured. The last few de- 
 cades have created an entirely new foundation for 
 enlightened school work. The experimental in- 
 vestigations of pedagogical psychology have de- 
 termined exactly how the consciousness of the 
 child reacts on the various methods of teaching 
 and have built up a real systematic economic 
 learning. All which was left to dilettantic ca- 
 price has been transformed into more or less 
 definite standard forms. For instance, the old 
 scheme of teaching reading b}^ the alphabet 
 method is practically eliminated from our mod- 
 ern schools. It is clear that this learning of the 
 names of the single letters as a starting-point for 
 the reading of words was not only a wasting of 
 time and energy, but an actual disturbance in the 
 
 146
 
 LEARNING AND TRAINING 
 
 development of the reading process in the older 
 generation. As those names of the letters do not 
 occur at all in the words to be read, but only their 
 sounds, what had been learned in seeing the single 
 letters had to be inhibited in pronouncing the 
 whole word. It seems not too much to say that 
 the learning of industrial activities on the whole 
 still stands on the level of such alphabet methods, 
 and this cannot be otherwise, as the real problem, 
 namely, the systematic investigation of the psy- 
 chophysical activities involved, has never been 
 brought into the psychological laboratory. 
 
 The pedagogical experiment has shown clearly 
 enough that the subjective feeling of easier or 
 quicker learning may be entirely unreliable and 
 misleading. If the task is to learn a page by heart, 
 we may proceed after many different methods. We 
 may learn very small fractions of the text, re- 
 peating only a few words, or we may read whole 
 paragraphs every time; we may repeat the whole 
 material again and again, or we may put in long 
 periods of rest after a few repetitions; we may 
 frequently recite it from memory and have some 
 one to prompt us; we may give our attention es- 
 pecially to the meaning of the words, or merely 
 to the sounds, or we may introduce any number 
 of similar variations. Now the careful experi- 
 ment shows that of two such methods one which 
 
 147
 
 THE BEST POSSIBLE WORK 
 
 appears to us the better and more appropriate in 
 learning, perhaps even as the easier and more 
 comfortable, may prove itself the less efficient one 
 in the practical result. The psychology of learn- 
 ing, which won its success by introducing mean- 
 ingless syllables as experimental material, has 
 slowly determined the most reliable methods for 
 impressing knowledge on memory. Where such 
 results have once been secured, it would surely 
 be a grave mistake simply to stick to the methods 
 of so-called common sense and to leave it to the 
 caprice of the individual teacher to decide what 
 method of learning he will suggest to his pupils. 
 The best method is always the only one which 
 should be considered. The psychology of economic 
 work must aim toward similar goals. We must 
 secure a definite knowledge as to the methods by 
 which a group of movements can best be learned. 
 We must understand what value is to be attached 
 to the repetitions and to the pauses, to the imita- 
 tions and to the special combinations of move- 
 ments, to the exercise in parts of the movements, 
 to the rhythm of the work, and to many similar 
 influences which may shape the learning process. 
 The simplest aspect, that of the mere repeti- 
 tion of the movement, has frequently been ex- 
 amined by psychophysicists. The real founder 
 of experimental psychology, Feclmer, showed the 
 
 148
 
 LEARNING AND TRAINING 
 
 way; he performed fatiguing experiments with 
 Hfted dumb-bells. Then came the time in which 
 the laboratories began to make a record of the 
 muscular activities with the help of the ergo- 
 graph, an instrument with which the movements 
 of the arm and the fingers can easily be registered 
 on the smoked surface of a revolving drum. The 
 subtlest variations of the activity, the increase 
 and decrease of the psychomotor impulse, the 
 mental fatigue, can be traced exactly in such 
 graphic records. This psychomotor side of the 
 process, and not the mere muscle activity as such, 
 is indeed the essential factor which should interest 
 us. The results of exercise are a training of the 
 central apparatus of the brain and not of the mus- 
 cular periphery. The further development of those 
 experiments soon led to complex questions, which 
 referred not only to the mere change in the motor 
 efficiency, but to the learning of particular groups 
 of movements and to the influences on the ex- 
 actitude and reliability of the movements. The 
 purely mental factors of the will-impulse, espe- 
 cially the consciousness of the task, came into the 
 foreground. These experiences of the scientists 
 concerning the influences of training, the mechan- 
 ization of repetition, and the automatization of 
 movements have been thoroughly discussed by 
 a brilliant political economist ^^ as an explana- 
 
 149
 
 THE BEST POSSIBLE WORK 
 
 tion of certain industrial facts, but they have 
 not yet practically influenced life in the factory. 
 The nearest approach from the experimental 
 side to the study of the effect of training in actual 
 industrial tasks may be found in certain labora- 
 tory investigations which refer to the learning 
 of telegraphing, typewriting, and so on. For 
 instance, we have a careful study ^° of the pro- 
 gress made in learning telegraphy, both as to the 
 transmitting of the telegrams by the key move- 
 ment and the receiving of the telegrams by the 
 ear. It was found that the rapidity of trans- 
 mitting increases more rapidly and more uni- 
 formly than the rapidity of receiving. But while 
 the curve of the latter rises more slowly and more 
 irregularly, it finally reaches the greater height. 
 The ability in transmitting, represented by a 
 graphic record, shows an ascent which corre- 
 sponds to the typical, steady curve of training. In 
 the receiving curve, on the other hand, we find 
 not far from the beginning a characteristic period 
 during which no progress whatever can be no- 
 ticed, and this is also repeated at a later stage. 
 The psychological analysis shows that the in- 
 crease of ability in the receiving of telegrams de- 
 pends upon the development of a complex system 
 of psychophysical habits. The periods in which 
 the curve does not ascend represent stages of 
 
 150
 
 LEARNING AND TRAINING 
 
 training in which the elementary habits are almost 
 completely formed, but have not become suffi- 
 ciently automatic. The attention is therefore not 
 yet ready to start habits of a higher order. The 
 lowest correlation refers to the single letters, after 
 that to the syllables and words. As soon as the ap- 
 prentice has reached this point, he stops, because 
 he must learn to master more and more new words 
 until his telegraphic vocabulary is large enough 
 to make it possible for him to turn his conscious- 
 ness to whole groups of words at once. Only when 
 this new habit has been made automatic by a 
 training of several months can he advance to a 
 level at which whole groups of words are perceived 
 as telegraphic units. A time follows in which this 
 mastery of whole phrases advances rapidly, until 
 a new period of rest comes, from which, only after 
 years and often quite suddenly, a last new ascent 
 can be noticed. Instead of concentrating the at- 
 tention with conscious strain on single phrases, 
 the operator progresses to a perfect liberty in 
 which whole sentences are understood automat- 
 ically. 
 
 We also have a model experimental research 
 into the psychological conditions of learning in 
 the case of writing on a typewriter. ^^ By electrical 
 connections between the typewriting machine 
 and a system of levers which registered their 
 
 151
 
 THE BEST POSSIBLE WORK 
 
 movements on the rotating drum of a kymo- 
 graph, each striking of a key, each completion of 
 a word, or of a line, could be recorded in exact 
 time-relations. Each glance at the copy was also 
 registered. It was found that the process of learn- 
 ing consisted first of a continuous simplification of 
 the cumbersome methods with which the beginner 
 commences. A steady elimination of unfit move- 
 ments, a selection, a reorganization, and finally, 
 a combination of psychophysical acts to impulses 
 of higher order, could be traced exactly. Here, too, 
 the curve of learning at first rises quickly and 
 then more and more slowly. Of course the usual 
 fluctuations in the growth of the ability can also 
 be found, and above all the irregular periods of 
 rest in which the learning itself does not progress, 
 for some of these so-called plateaus which lie be- 
 tween the end of one ascent and the beginning of 
 the next may cover a month and more. At 
 the beginning we have the elementary association 
 between the single letter and the position of the 
 corresponding key, but soon an immediate con- 
 nection between the visual impression of the 
 whole syllable or the whole word and the total 
 group of movements necessary to strike the keys 
 for it is developed. The more the ability grows, 
 the more these psychical impulses of higher order 
 become organized without conscious intention. 
 
 152
 
 LEARNING AND TRAINING 
 
 The study shows that this development of higher 
 habits has already begun before the lower habits 
 are fully settled. 
 
 How far the special training involves at the 
 same time a general training which could be of 
 advantage for other kinds of labor has not yet 
 been studied at all with reference to industrial tech- 
 nique. There we are still completely dependent 
 upon certain experiences in the field of experi- 
 mental pedagogy, and upon certain statistics, for 
 instance, in the textile industry. Many patient 
 investigations, with every independent group of 
 apparatus and machines, may be necessary before 
 psychotechnics will be able to supply industry 
 with reliable advice for teaching and learning. Nor 
 have we the least right hastily to carry over the 
 results from one group of movements to another. 
 Even where superficially a certain similarity 
 between the technical factors exists, the psycho- 
 physical conditions may be essentially differ- 
 ent. In the two cases mentioned, for instance, 
 telegraphing and typewriting, the chief factor 
 seems the same, as in both cases the aim is to 
 make the quickest possible finger movements for 
 purposes of signals; and yet it is not surprising 
 that the development of the ability from the be- 
 ginnings to the highest mastery is rather unlike, 
 as all the movements in telegraphing are pcr- 
 
 153
 
 THE BEST POSSIBLE WORK 
 
 formed with the same finger, while in typewriting 
 the chief trait is the organization of groups from 
 the impulses to all ten fingers. At least it is cer- 
 tain that learning always means far more than 
 a mere facilitation of the movement by mechan- 
 ical repetition, and this is true of the simplest 
 handling of the tools in the workshop, of the 
 movements at the machine in the factory, and of 
 the most complex performances at the subtlest in- 
 struments. The chief factor in the development is 
 always the organization of the impulses by which 
 the reactions which are at first complicated be- 
 come simplified, later mechanized, and finally 
 synthesized into a higher group which becomes 
 subordinated to one simple psychical impulse. 
 The most reliable and psychophysically most eco- 
 nomic means for this organization will have to be 
 studied in the economic psychological laborato- 
 ries of the future for every particular technique. 
 Then only can the enormous waste of psychical 
 energy resulting from haphazard methods be 
 brought to an end. 
 
 A problem which is still too little considered 
 in industrial life is the mutual interference of ac- 
 quired technical activities. If one connected series 
 of movements is well trained by practice, does it 
 become less firmly fixed, if another series is stud- 
 ied in which the same beginning is connected with 
 
 154
 
 LEARNING AND TRAINING 
 
 another path of discharge? I approached this psy- 
 chophysical question of learning by experiments 
 which I carried on for a long while with variations 
 of ordinary habits of daily life, asking whether a 
 habit associated with a certain sensory stimulus 
 can function automatically while dispositions for 
 a different habit, previously acquired, remain in 
 the psychophysical system. For instance, I was 
 accustomed to carry my watch in my left-hand 
 vest pocket. For a week I carried it in the right- 
 hand pocket of my trousers and recorded every 
 case in which I first automatically made the move- 
 ment to the vest. After some time the movement 
 to the right-hand pocket became entirely auto- 
 matic. When it was suflSciently fixed, I again put 
 the watch in the left-hand vest pocket and re- 
 corded how often I unconsciously grasped at the 
 right side when I wanted to see what time it was. 
 As soon as the vest pocket movement had again 
 become fixed, I went back to the right-hand trou- 
 sers pocket. And so I alternated for a long while, 
 always changing only after reaching complete 
 automatism. But the results in this case and in 
 other similar experiments which I carried on 
 showed that the new automatic connection did 
 not extinguish the after effects of the previous 
 habit. With every new change the number of 
 wrong movements became smaller and smaller, 
 
 155
 
 THE BEST POSSIBLE WORK 
 
 and finally a point was reached at which the 
 dispositions for both movements were equally 
 developed so that no wrong movements oc- 
 curred when the watch was put into the new 
 position;^^ 
 
 This problem has been followed up very re- 
 cently in a valuable investigation at Columbia 
 University, ^^ in which various habits of type- 
 writing and of card-sorting were acquired and 
 studied in their mutual interference. These very 
 careful experiments also show that when two 
 opposing associations are alternately practiced, 
 they have an interference effect on each other, 
 but that the interference grows less and less as the 
 practice effect becomes greater. The interference 
 effect is gradually overcome and both opposing 
 associations become automatic, so that either of 
 them can be called up independently without the 
 appearance of the other. Many details of the 
 research suggest that this whole group of inter- 
 ference problems deserves the most careful at- 
 tention by those who would practically profit 
 from increased industrial eflSciency. 
 
 Finally, in the experimental study of the pro- 
 blem of technical learning, we cannot ignore the 
 many side influences which may hasten or delay, 
 improve or disturb, the acquisition of industrial 
 skill. In the Harvard laboratory, for instance, we 
 
 156
 
 LEARNING AND TRAINING 
 
 are at present engaged in an investigation which 
 deals with the influence of feehngs on the rapidity 
 with which new movement coordinations are 
 mastered. ^^ In order to have unhmited compar- 
 able material a very simple technical performance 
 is required, namely, the distribution of the 52 
 playing-cards into 52 boxes. Labels on the boxes 
 indicate changing combinations for the distri- 
 bution to be learned. We examine, on the one 
 side, the influence of feelings of comfort or of dis- 
 comfort on the learning of the new habit, these 
 feeling states being produced by external condi- 
 tions, such as pleasant or unpleasant sounds, 
 odors, and so on. On the other side we trace the 
 effects of those feelings which arise during the 
 learning process itself, such as feelings of satisfac- 
 tion with progress, or disappointment, or discom- 
 fort, or disgust or joy in the activity.
 
 XIV 
 
 THE ADJUSTMENT OF TECHNICAL TO 
 PSYCHICAL CONDITIONS 
 
 TEACHING and learning represent only the 
 preliminary problem. The fundamental 
 question remains, after all, how the work is to be 
 done by those who have learned it in accordance 
 with the customs of the economic surroundings and 
 who are accordingly already educated and trained 
 for it. What can be done to eliminate everything 
 which diminishes and decreases efficiency, and 
 what remains to be done to reinforce it. Such 
 influences are evidently exerted by the external 
 technical conditions, by variations of the activity 
 itself, and by the play of the psychical motives 
 and counter-motives. It must seem as if only this 
 last factor would belong in the realm of psycho- 
 logy, but the technical conditions, of which the 
 machine itself is the most important part, and the 
 bodily movements also have manifold relations 
 to the psychical life. Only as far as these relations 
 prevail has the psychologist any reason to study 
 the problem. The purely physical and economic 
 factors of technique do not interest him at all, but 
 when a technical arrangement makes a psychophy- 
 
 158
 
 THE ADJUSTMENT OF CONDITIONS 
 
 sical achievement more difficult or more easy, it 
 belongs in the sphere of the psychologist, and just 
 this aspect of the work may become of greatest im- 
 portance for the total result. In all three of these 
 directions, that is, with reference to the technical, 
 to the physiological, and to the purely psychical, 
 the scientific management movement has pre- 
 pared the way. The engineers of scientific man- 
 agement recognized, at least, that no part of the 
 industrial process is indifferent; even the appar- 
 ently most trivial activity, the slightest move- 
 ment of arm or hand or leg, became the object of 
 their exact measurement. The stopwatch which 
 measures every movement in fractions of a second 
 has become the symbol of this new economic 
 period. As long as special psychological experi- 
 ments in the service of industrial psychology are 
 still so exceptional, it may, indeed, be acknow- 
 ledged that the practical experiments in the serv- 
 ice of scientific management have come nearest 
 to the solution of these special psychotechnical 
 problems. 
 
 To proceed from without toward the centre, we 
 may begin our review with the physical technique 
 of the working conditions and its relations to 
 the mind. The history of technique shows on 
 every page this practical adjustment of external 
 labor conditions to the psychophysical necessities 
 
 159
 
 THE BEST POSSIBLE WORK 
 
 and psychophysical demands. No machine with 
 which a human being is to work can survive in the 
 struggle for technical existence, unless it is to a 
 certain degree adapted to the human nerve and 
 muscle system and to man's possibilities of per- 
 ception, of attention, of memory, of feeling, and 
 of will. Industrial technique with its restless im- 
 provements has always been subordinated to this 
 postulate. Every change which made it possible 
 for the workingman to secure equal effects with 
 smaller effort or to secure greater or better effects 
 with equal effort counted as an economic gain, 
 which was welcome to the market. For instance, 
 throughout the history of industry we find the 
 fundamental tendency to transpose all activities 
 from the great muscles to the small muscles. Any 
 activity which is performed with the robust mus- 
 cles of the shoulder when it can be done with the 
 lower arm, or labor which is demanded from the 
 muscles of the lower arm when it can just as well 
 be carried out by the fingers, certainly involves 
 a waste of psychophysical energy. A stronger 
 psychophysical excitement is necessary in order to 
 secure the innervation of the big muscles in the 
 central nervous system. This difference in the stim- 
 ulation of the various muscle groups has been of 
 significant consequence for the differentiation of 
 work throughout the development of mankind. ^^ 
 
 160
 
 THE ADJUSTMENT OF CONDITIONS 
 
 Labor with the large muscles has, for these 
 psychophysical reasons, never been easily com- 
 bined with the subtler training of the finer mus- 
 cles. Hence a social organization which obliged 
 the men to give their energy to war and the hunt, 
 both, in primitive life, functions of the strongest 
 muscles, made it necessary for the domestic activ- 
 ities, which are essentially functions of the small 
 muscles, to be carried out by women. The whole 
 history of the machine demonstrates this econo- 
 mic tendency to make activities dependent upon 
 those muscles which presuppose the smallest 
 psychophysical effort. It is not only the smaller 
 effort which gives economic advantage to the 
 stimulation of the smaller muscles, but the no less 
 important circumstance that the psychophysical 
 after-effect of their central excitement exerts less 
 inhibition than the after-effect of the brain excite- 
 ment for the big muscles. 
 
 But we must not overlook another feature in 
 the development of technique. The machines 
 have been constantly transformed in the direc- 
 tion which made it possible to secure the greatest 
 help from the natural coordination of bodily 
 movements. The physiological organization and 
 the psychophysical conditions of the nervous 
 system make it necessary that the movement im- 
 pulses flow over into motor side channels and thus 
 
 161
 
 THE BEST POSSIBLE WORK 
 
 produce accessory effects without any special 
 effort. If a machine is so constructed that these 
 natural accessory movements must be artificially 
 and intentionally suppressed, it means, on the 
 one side, a waste of available psychophysical 
 energy, and on the other side it demands a useless 
 effort in order to secure this inhibition. The indus- 
 trial development has moved toward both the 
 fructification of those side impulses and the avoid- 
 ance of these inhibitions. It has adjusted itself 
 practically to the natural psychical conditions. 
 Ultimately it is this tendency which shaped the 
 technical apparatus for the economic work until 
 the muscle movements could become rhythmical. 
 The rhythmical activity necessarily involves a 
 psychophysical saving and this saving has been 
 instinctively secured throughout the history of 
 civilization. All rhythm contains a repetition 
 of movement without making a real repetition of 
 the psychophysical impulse necessary. In the 
 rhythmical activity a large part of the first ex- 
 citement still serves for the second, and the sec- 
 ond for the third. Inhibitions fall away and the 
 mere after-effect of each stimulus secures a great 
 saving for the new impulse. The history of the 
 machine even indicates that the newer technical 
 development not only found the far-reaching 
 division of labor already in the workshops of 
 
 162
 
 THE ADJUSTMENT OF CONDITIONS 
 
 earlier centuries, but a no less far-reaching rhyth- 
 mization of the labor in fine adaptation to the needs 
 of the psychophysical organism, long before the 
 appearance of the machines. The beginnings of 
 the machine period frequently showed nothing 
 but an imitation of the rhythmical movements 
 of man. 2^ To be sure, the later improvements 
 of the machine have frequently destroyed that 
 original rhythm of man's movement, as the move- 
 ment itself, especially in the electric machines, 
 has become so quick that the subjective rhyth- 
 mical experience has been lost. Moreover, the 
 rhythmical horizontal and vertical movements 
 were for physical reasons usually replaced by 
 uniform circular movements. But even the most 
 highly developed machine demands human activ- 
 ity, for instance, for the supplying with material; 
 and this again has opened new possibilities for the 
 adjustment of technical mechanism to the eco- 
 nomic demand for rhythmical muscle activity. 
 The growth of technical devices has thus been 
 constantly under the control of psychological de- 
 mands, in spite of the absence of systematic psy- 
 chological investigations. But the decisive factor 
 was, indeed, that these psychological motives 
 always remained in the subconsciousness of civil- 
 ization. The improvements were consciously re- 
 ferred to the machine as such, however much the 
 
 163
 
 THE BEST POSSIBLE WORK 
 
 practical success was really influenced by the de- 
 gree of its adjustment to the mental conditions of 
 the workingmen. The new movements of scien- 
 tific management and of experimental psycho- 
 logy aim toward bringing this adaptation con- 
 sciously into the foreground and toward testing 
 and studying systematically what technical vari- 
 ations can best suit the psychophysical status of 
 man. 
 
 Those who are familiar with the achievements 
 of scientific management remember that by no 
 means only the complicated procedures on a high 
 level are in question. The successes are often the 
 most surprising where the technique is old, and 
 where it might have been imagined that the ex- 
 periences of many centuries would have secured 
 through mere common sense the most effective 
 performance. The best-known case is perhaps 
 that of the masons, which one of the leaders of the 
 scientific management movement has studied in 
 all its details. ^^ The movements of the build- 
 ers and the tools which they use were examined 
 with scientific exactitude and slowly reshaped 
 under the point of view of psychology and physi- 
 ology. The total result was that after the new 
 method 30 masons completed without greater 
 fatigue what after the old methods it would have 
 taken 100 masons to do, and that the total ex- 
 
 164
 
 THE ADJUSTMENT OF CONDITIONS 
 
 pense for the building was reduced to less than a 
 half in spite of the steady increase of the wages 
 of the laborers. For this purpose it was necessary 
 that exact measurements be made of the height 
 at which the bricks were lying and of the height of 
 the wall on which they must be laid, and of the 
 number of bricks which should be carried to the 
 masons at once. He studied how the trowel 
 should be shaped and how the mortar should be 
 used and how the bricks should be carried to the 
 bricklayers. In short, everything which usually 
 is left to tradition, to caprice, and to an economy 
 which looks out only for the most immediate sav- 
 ing, was on the basis of experiments of many years 
 replaced by entirely new means and tools, where 
 nothing was left to arbitrariness. Yet these 
 changes did not demand any invention or phys- 
 ically or economically new ideas, but merely a 
 more careful adaptation of the apparatus to the 
 psychological energies of the masons. The new 
 arrangement permitted a better organization of 
 the necessary bodily movements, fatigue was 
 diminished, the accessory movements were better 
 fructified, fewer inhibitions were necessary, a bet- 
 ter playing together of the psychical energies 
 was secured. 
 
 The students of scientific management stepped 
 still lower in the scale of economic activity. There 
 
 165
 
 THE BEST POSSIBLE WORK 
 
 is no more ordinary productive function than 
 shoveling. Yet in great establishments the shovel- 
 ing of coal or of dirt may represent an econom- 
 ically very important factor. It seems that up to 
 the days of scientific management, no one really 
 looked carefully into the technical conditions 
 under which the greatest possible economic ef- 
 fect might be reached. Now the act of shoveling 
 was approached with the carefulness with which a 
 scholar turns to any subtle process in his labora- 
 tory. The brilliant originator of the scientific 
 management movement, who carried out these 
 investigations ^^ in the great Bethlehem Steel 
 Works, where hundreds of laborers had to shovel 
 heavy iron ore or light ashes, found that the usual 
 chance methods involve an absurd economic 
 waste. The burden was sometimes so heavy that 
 rapid fatigue developed and the movements be- 
 came too slow, or the lifted mass was so light that 
 the larger part of the laborer's energies remained 
 unused. In either case the final result of the day's 
 work must be anti-economic. He therefore tested 
 with carefully graded experiments what weight en- 
 sured the most favorable achievement by a strong 
 healthy workingman. The aim was to find the 
 weight which would secure with well-arranged 
 pauses the maximum product in one day without 
 over-fatigue. As soon as this weight was deter- 
 
 166
 
 THE ADJUSTMENT OF CONDITIONS 
 
 mined , a special set of shovels had to be constructed 
 for every particular kind of material. The la- 
 borers were now obliged to operate with 10 dif- 
 ferent kinds of shovels, each of such a size that 
 the burden always remained an average of 21 
 pounds for any kind of material. The following 
 step was an exact determination of the most favor- 
 able rapidity and the most perfect movement of 
 shoveling, the best distribution of pauses, and so 
 on, and the final outcome was that only 140 men 
 were needed where on the basis of the old plan 
 about 500 laborers had been engaged. The aver- 
 age workingman who had previously shoveled 16 
 tons of material, now managed 59 tons without 
 greater fatigue. The wages were raised by two 
 thirds and the expenses for shoveling a ton of 
 material were decreased one half. This calculation 
 of expenses included, of course, a consideration of 
 the increased cost for tools and for the salaries 
 of the scientific managers. 
 
 Whoever visits factories in which the new sys- 
 tem has been introduced by real specialists must 
 be surprised, indeed, by the great effects which 
 often result from the better psychophysical adap- 
 tation of the simplest and apparently most in- 
 different tools and means. As far as the compli- 
 cated machines are concerned, we are accustomed 
 to a steady improvement by the efforts of the 
 
 167
 
 THE BEST POSSIBLE WORK 
 
 technicians and we notice it rather httle if the 
 changes in them are introduced for psychological 
 instead of the usual physical reasons. But the fact 
 that even the least complicated and most indif- 
 ferent devices can undergo most influential im- 
 provements, as soon as they are seriously studied 
 from a psychological point of view, remains really 
 a source for surprise. Sometimes no more is 
 needed than a change in the windows or in the 
 electric lamps, by which the light can fall on the 
 work in a psychologically satisfactory way ; some- 
 times long series of experiments have to be made 
 with a simple hammer or knife or table. Often 
 everything must be arranged against the wishes 
 of the workingmen, who feel any deviation from 
 the accustomed conditions as a disturbance which 
 is to be regarded with suspicion. In one concern 
 I heard that the scientific manager became con- 
 vinced that all the working-chairs for the women 
 were too low and that the laborers therefore had 
 to hold their arms in a psychophysically unfavor- 
 able position during the handling of the apparatus. 
 All were strongly opposed to the introduction of 
 higher chairs. The result was that the manager 
 arranged for the chairs to be raised a few milli- 
 meters every evening, without the knowledge of 
 the working-women, as soon as the factory was 
 empty. After a few weeks the chairs had reached 
 
 168
 
 THE ADJUSTMENT OF CONDITIONS 
 
 the right height without those engaged in the work 
 having noticed it at all. The outcome was a de- 
 cided increase of eflSciency. 
 
 But the most rational scheme will after all be 
 to prepare for such arrangements of tools and 
 apparatus by systematic experiments in the 
 psychological laboratory. The subtlety of such 
 investigations will lead far beyond the point 
 which is accessible to the attempts of scientific 
 management. Exact experiments on attention, 
 for instance, will have to determine how the va- 
 rious parts of the apparatus are to be distributed 
 best in space if the laborer must keep watch for 
 disturbances at various places. Only the labora- 
 tory experiment can find the most favorable 
 speed of the machine or can select the muscles to 
 which the mind can send the most effective im- 
 pulses. The construction of the machine must 
 then be adapted to such results. In the Har- 
 vard laboratory, for instance, a practical question 
 led us to examine which fingers would allow 
 the quickest alternation of key movements. ^^ 
 If any two of the ten fingers perform for ten 
 seconds the quickest possible alternation of mo- 
 tion, as in a trill, the experiment can demon- 
 strate exactly the differences between the various 
 combinations of fingers and the individual fluc- 
 tuations for these differences. With an electrical 
 
 169
 
 THE BEST POSSIBLE WORK 
 
 registration of the movements of the alternating 
 fingers we studied in hundredths of a second 
 the time for the motions of two hands and of 
 fingers of the same hand, in order to adjust the 
 keys of a certain machine to the most favorable 
 impulses. 
 
 We approach this group of problems from an- 
 other side when we test the relations of various 
 kinds of machines to various mental types. Psy- 
 chologists have studied, for example, the various 
 styles of typewriting machines. ^° From a purely 
 commercial point of view the merits of one or an- 
 other machine are praised as if they were advan- 
 tageous for every possible human being. The 
 fact is that such advantages for one may be 
 disadvantages for another on account of differ- 
 ences in the mental disposition. One man may 
 write more quickly on one, another on another 
 machine. As every one knows, the chief differ- 
 ence is that of the keyboard and that of the visible 
 or invisible writing. Machines like the Reming- 
 ton machine work with a shift key; that is, a 
 special key must be pressed when capital letters 
 are to be written. Other machines like the 
 Oliver even demand double shifting, one key for 
 the capital letters, and one for the figures, and so 
 on. On the other hand, machines like the Smith 
 Premier have no shift key, but a double keyboard. 
 
 170
 
 THE ADJUSTMENT OF CONDITIONS 
 
 It is evident that both the shift-key arrangement 
 and the double keyboard have their particular 
 psychological advantages. 
 
 The single alphabet demands much less from 
 the optical memory, and the corresponding motor 
 inner attitude of consciousness is adjusted to a 
 smaller number of possibilities. But the pressure 
 on the shift key, which goes with the single al- 
 phabet, is not only a time-wasting act; from the 
 psychological point of view it is first of all a very 
 strong interruption of the uniform chain of im- 
 pulses. If the capital and small letters are writ- 
 ten for a minute alternatingly with the greatest 
 possible speed, the experiment shows that the 
 number of letters for the machine with the 
 double alphabet is about three times greater than 
 for the machine with simple alphabet and shift 
 key. Both systems accordingly have their psy- 
 chological advantages and disadvantages. Hu- 
 man beings of distinct visual ideational type or of 
 highly developed motor type will prefer the double 
 alphabet, provided, of course, that the touch sys- 
 tem of writing is learned, and this will be espe- 
 cially true if their inner attitude is easily disturbed 
 by interruptions. But those who have a feebly 
 developed optical mental centre and who have 
 small ability for the development of complex 
 motor habits will be more eflBcient on the ma- 
 
 171
 
 THE BEST POSSIBLE WORK 
 
 chines with the single alphabet, especially if their 
 nervous system is little molested by interruptions 
 and thus undisturbed by the intrusion of the shift 
 key act. 
 
 In a similar way the visibility of the writing 
 will be for certain individuals the most valuable 
 condition for quick writing, while for others, who 
 depend less upon visual support, it may mean 
 rather a distraction and an interference with the 
 speediest work. The visible writing attracts the 
 involuntary attention, and thus forces conscious- 
 ness to stick to that which has been written in- 
 stead of being concentrated on that which is to 
 be produced by the next writing movements. The 
 operator himself is not aware of this hindrance. 
 On the contrary, the public will always be in- 
 clined to prefer the typewriters with visible writ- 
 ing, because by a natural confusion the feeling 
 arises that the production of the letter is some- 
 what facilitated, when the eye is cooperating, 
 just as in writing with a pen we follow the lines 
 of the written letter. But the situation lies differ- 
 ently in the two cases. When we are writing with 
 a pen, the letter grows under our eyes, while in 
 the machine writing we do not see any part of 
 the letter until the whole movement which pro- 
 duces the single letter is finished. By such a mis- 
 leading analogy many a man is led to prefer the 
 
 172
 
 THE ADJUSTMENT OF CONDITIONS 
 
 typewriter with visible writing, while he would 
 probably secure a greater speed with a machine 
 which does not tempt him to attend the completed 
 letters, while his entire attention ought to belong 
 to the following letters. 
 
 These last observations point to another psy- 
 chological aspect of the machine and of the whole 
 technical work, namely, their relations to the 
 impressions of the senses. The so-called dynamo- 
 genie experiments of the psychological laboratory 
 have demonstrated what a manifold influence 
 flows from the sense-impressions to the will- 
 impulses. If the muscle contraction of a man's 
 fist is measured, the experiment shows that the 
 strongest possible pressure may be very different 
 when the visual field appears in different colors, 
 or tones of different pitch or different noises are 
 stimulating the ear, and so on. As yet no sys- 
 tematic experiments exist by which such results 
 can be brought into relation to the sense-stimuK 
 which reach the laborer during his technical work. 
 The psychophysical effect of colors and noises has 
 not been fructified at all for industrial purposes. 
 The mere subjective judgment of the working- 
 man himself cannot be acknowledged as reliable 
 in such questions. The laborer, for instance, usu- 
 ally believes that a noise to which he has become 
 accustomed does not disturb him in his work, 
 
 173
 
 THE BEST POSSIBLE WORK 
 
 while experimental results point strongly to the 
 contrary. In a similar way the effect of colored 
 windows may appear indifferent to the workmen, 
 and yet may have considerable influence on his 
 efficiency. Numberless performances in the fac- 
 tory are reactions on certain optical or acoustical 
 or tactual signals. Both the engineer and the 
 workman are satisfied if such a signal is clearly 
 perceivable. The psychological laboratory experi- 
 ment, however, shows that the whole psycho- 
 physical effect depends upon the character of the 
 signal; a more intense light, a quicker change, 
 a higher tone, a larger field of light, a louder noise, 
 or a harder touch may produce a very different 
 kind of reaction. 
 
 With a careful time-measurement of the mo- 
 tions, it can often be directly traced how purely 
 technical processes in the machine itself influence 
 and control the whole psychical system of im- 
 pulses in the man. I observed, in a factory, for 
 instance, the work at a machine which performed 
 most of its functions automatically. It had to 
 hammer fine grooves into small metal plates. A 
 young laborer stood before every such machine, 
 took from a pile, alternately from the right and 
 from the left, the little plates to be serrated, 
 placed them in the machine, turned a lever to 
 bring the hammer into motion, and then removed 
 
 174
 
 THE ADJUSTMENT OF CONDITIONS 
 
 the serrated plates. The speed of the work was 
 dependent upon the operative, as he determined 
 by his lever movement the instant at which the 
 automatic serrating hammer should be released. 
 The man's activity demanded 9 independent 
 movements. I found that those who worked the 
 most quickly were able to carry out this labor for 
 hours at a uniform rapidity of 4 to 4| seconds for 
 those 9 movements. But the time-measurement 
 showed that even these fastest workers were re- 
 latively slow in the first 5 movements which they 
 made while the machine stood quiet, and that 
 they reached an astonishing quickness of move- 
 ment in the 4 last actions during which at the 
 same time the serrating hammer in bewildering 
 rapidity was beating on the plate with sharp loud 
 cracks. The hammer reinforced the energy of the 
 young laborers to an effectiveness which could 
 never have been attained by mere voluntary 
 effort. 
 
 Often the simplicity or complication of the 
 stimulus may be decisive in importance, and this 
 also holds true where the most elementary re- 
 actions are involved, for instance, the mere act 
 of counting which enters into many industrial 
 functions. Experiments carried on in my lab- 
 oratory^^ have shown that the time needed to 
 count a certain number of units becomes longer 
 
 175
 
 THE BEST POSSIBLE WORK 
 
 as soon as the units themselves become more 
 complicated. Their inner manifoldness exerts a 
 retarding influence on the eye as it moves from 
 one figure to another. A certain psychical in- 
 hibition arises ; the mind is held back by the com- 
 plexity of the impression and cannot proceed 
 quickly enough to the next. Psychologically no 
 less important is the demand that the external 
 technical conditions so far as they influence con- 
 sciousness, should remain as far as possible the 
 same, if the same psychical effect is desired, be- 
 cause then only can a perfectly firm connection 
 between stimulus and movement be formed. In 
 technical life this demand is much sinned against. 
 A typical case is that of the signals for which the 
 engineer on the locomotive has to watch. In the 
 daytime the movable arms of the semaphore in- 
 dicate by their horizontal, oblique, or vertical 
 position whether the tracks are clear. At night- 
 time, on the other hand, the same information 
 reaches him by the different colors of the signal 
 lanterns. From a psychical point of view it is 
 probable that the safety of the service would be 
 increased if an unchangeable connection between 
 signal and movement were formed. It would be 
 sufficient for that purpose if the color signals at 
 night were given up and were replaced by hori- 
 zontal, oblique, or vertical lines of white light or 
 
 176
 
 THE ADJUSTMENT OF CONDITIONS 
 
 rows of points. Successful experiments of this 
 kind have been carried on by psychologists in the 
 service of this railroad problem. ^^ 
 
 The interest in all these problems of large con- 
 cerns, in transportation and factory work and 
 complex industries, ought not to make us over- 
 look the fact that on principle the same problems 
 can be found in the simplest industrial establish- 
 ment. Even the housewife or the cook destroys 
 economic values if daily she has to spend useless 
 minutes or hours on account of arrangements in 
 the household which are badly adjusted to the 
 psychological conditions. She sacrifices her energy 
 in vain and she wastes her means where she her- 
 self is under the illusion of especial economy. 
 Scientific management would perhaps be no- 
 where so wholesome as in kitchen and pantry, in 
 laundry and cellar, just because here the saving 
 would be multiplied millionfold and the final sum 
 of energy saved and of feeling values gained would 
 be enormous, even if it could not be calculated 
 with the exactitude with which the savings of a 
 factory budget can be proven. The profusion 
 of small attractive devices which automatically 
 perform the economic household labor and dis- 
 burden the human workers must not hide the 
 fact that the chief activities are still little adjusted 
 to the psychophysical conditions. The situation 
 
 177
 
 THE BEST POSSIBLE WORK 
 
 is similar to that of the masons, whose function 
 has also been performed for thousands of years, 
 and yet which did not find a real adaptation to 
 the psychical factors until a systematic time- 
 measuring study was introduced. A manufacturer 
 who sells an improved pan or mixing-spoon or 
 broom expects success if he brings to the market 
 something the merits of which are evident and 
 make the housewife anticipate a decrease of work 
 or a simplification of work, but the development 
 of scientific management has shown clearly that 
 the most important improvements are just those 
 which are deduced from scientific researches, 
 without at first giving satisfaction to the laborers 
 themselves, until a new habit has been formed. 
 
 Perhaps the most frequent technical activity 
 of this simple kind is sewing by hand, which is 
 still entirely left to the traditions of common 
 sense, and yet which is evidently dependent upon 
 the interplay of many psychical factors which de- 
 mand a subtle adaptation to the psychical con- 
 ditions. To approach, at least, this field of human 
 labor a careful investigation of the psychophysics 
 of sewing has been started in my laboratory.^' 
 The sewing work is done, with the left hand sup- 
 ported, and the right hand connected with a sys- 
 tem of levers which make a graphic record of 
 every movement on the smoked surface of a re- 
 
 178
 
 THE ADJUSTMENT OF CONDITIONS 
 
 volving drum. For instance, we begin with simple 
 over and over stitches, measuring the time and 
 the character of the right hand movements for 50 
 stitches mider a variety of technical conditions. 
 The first variation refers to the length of the 
 thread. The thread itself, fixed at the needle's 
 eye, varied between 3 feet and 6 inches in length. 
 Other changes refer to the voluntary speed, to 
 the number of stitches, to fatigue, to external 
 stimuli, to attention, to methods of training, and 
 so on, but the chief interest remains centred on 
 the psychical factors. We are still too much at 
 the beginning already to foresee whether it will 
 be possible to draw from these psychophysical 
 experiments helpful conclusions. The four young 
 women engaged in this laboratory research will 
 later extend it to the psychological conditions of 
 work with the various types of sewing-machines.
 
 XV 
 
 THE ECONOMY OF MOVEMENT 
 
 THE study of the technical aspect of labor 
 can nowhere be separated by a sharp de- 
 marcation line from the study of the labor itself 
 as a function of the individual organism. Many 
 problems, indeed, extend in both directions. The 
 student of industrial eflBciency is, for instance, 
 constantly led to the question of fatigue. He may 
 consider this fatigue as a function of brain and 
 muscle activity and discuss it with reference to 
 the psychophysical effort, but he is equally inter- 
 ested in the question of how far the apparatus 
 or the machine or the accessory conditions of the 
 work might be changed in order to avoid fatigue. 
 The accidents of the electric street railways were 
 regarded as partly related to fatigue. The prob- 
 lem was accordingly how to shorten the working 
 time of the motormen in the interest of the pub- 
 lic, but it was soon recognized that the difficulty 
 might also be approached from the mere technical 
 side. Some companies introduced seats which the 
 motormen can use whenever they feel fatigue 
 coming and excellent results have followed this 
 innovation. In our last discussions the technical 
 
 180
 
 THE ECONOMY OF MOVEMENT 
 
 apparatus stood in the foreground. We may now 
 consider as our real topic the psychophysical ac- 
 tivity. 
 
 Here, too, the leaders of scientific management 
 have secured some signal successes. Their chief 
 effort in this field was directed toward the greatest 
 possible achievement by eliminating all superflu- 
 ous movements and by training in those move- 
 ment combinations which were recognized as the 
 most serviceable ones. We may return to the case 
 of the masons in order to clear up the principle. 
 When Gilbreth began to reform the labor of the 
 mason after scientific principles, he gave his chief 
 interest to the men's motions. Every muscle 
 contraction which was needed to move the brick 
 from the pile in the yard to the final position in 
 the wall was measured with reference to space- 
 and time-relations and the necessary effort. From 
 here he turned to the application of well-known 
 psychophysical principles. A movement is less 
 fatiguing and therefore economically most profit- 
 able if it occurs in a direction in which the greatest 
 possible use of gravitation can be made. If both 
 hands have to act at the same time, the labor can 
 be carried out most quickly and with the small- 
 est effort if corresponding muscle groups are at 
 work and this means if symmetrical movements 
 are performed. If unequal movements have to 
 
 181
 
 THE BEST POSSIBLE WORK 
 
 be made simultaneously, the effort will become 
 smaller if they are psychically bound together by 
 a common unified impulse. The distance which 
 has to be overcome by hands, arms, or feet must 
 be brought to a minimum for each partial move- 
 ment. Most important, however, is this rule. If 
 a definite combination of movements has been 
 determined as economically most suitable, this 
 method must be applied without any exception 
 from the beginning of the learning. The point is 
 to train from the start those impulse combina- 
 tions which can slowly lead to the quickest and 
 best work. The usual method is the opposite. 
 Generally the beginner learns to produce from 
 the beginning work which is as good and correct 
 as possible. In order to produce such qualitat- 
 ively good results at an early stage, it is left to 
 him to choose any groups of movements which 
 happen to be convenient to him. Then these be- 
 come habitual, and as soon as he tries to go on 
 to quicker work, these chance habits hinder him 
 in his progress. The movements which may be 
 best suited for fair production by a beginner may 
 be entirely unsuited for really quick work, such 
 as would be expected from an experienced man. 
 The laborer must replace the first habits which he 
 has learned by a new set, instead of starting in the 
 first place with motions which can be continued 
 
 182
 
 THE ECONOMY OF MOVEMENT 
 
 until the highest point of efficiency has been 
 reached, even if this involves rather a poor show- 
 ing at the beginning. A final maximum rapidity 
 must be secured from the start by the choice of 
 those motions which have been standardized by 
 careful experiments. 
 
 It is also psychophysically important to de- 
 mand that the movements shall not be suddenly 
 stopped, if that can be avoided. Any interruption 
 of a movement presupposes a special effort of the 
 will which absorbs energy, and after the interrup- 
 tion a new start must be made of which the same 
 is true. On the other hand, if chains of movements 
 become habitual, the psj^chophysical effort will 
 be reduced to the minimum, inasmuch as each 
 movement finds its natural end and is not artifi- 
 cially interrupted by will, and at the same time 
 each movement itself becomes a stimulus for the 
 next movement by its accompanying sensations. 
 The traditional method, for instance, demands 
 that a brick be lifted with one hand and a trowel 
 with mortar by the other hand. After that the 
 lifting movement is interrupted, the brick comes 
 to rest in the hand of the mason until the mortar 
 has been spread on and the place prepared for 
 the new brick. Then only begins a new action 
 with the brick. This method was fundamentally 
 changed. The laborers learned to swing the brick 
 
 183
 
 THE BEST POSSIBLE WORK 
 
 with one hand from the pack to the wall and at 
 the same time to distribute the mortar over the 
 next brick with the other hand. This whole com- 
 plex movement is of course more difficult and de- 
 mands a somewhat longer period of learning, but 
 as soon as it is learned an extreme saving of psy- 
 chophysical energy and a correspondingly great 
 economic gain is secured. The newly trained ma- 
 sons are not even allowed to gather up with the 
 trowel any mortar which falls to the floor, be- 
 cause it was found that the loss of mortar is eco- 
 nomically less important than the waste of psy- 
 chophysical energy in bending down. 
 
 Whoever has once schooled his eye to observe 
 the limitless waste of human motions and psycho- 
 physical efforts in social life has really no difficulty 
 in perceiving all this at every step. This ability 
 to recognize possible savings of impulse may be 
 brought to a certain virtuosity. Gilbreth, one of 
 the leaders of the new movement, seems to be 
 such a virtuoso. When he was in London, there 
 was pointed out to him in the Japanese British 
 Exhibition a young girl who worked so quickly 
 that there at least he would find a rhythm of 
 finger movement which could not any further be 
 improved. In an exhibition booth the woman at- 
 tached advertisement labels to boxes with phenom- 
 enal rapidity. Gilbreth watched her for a little 
 
 184
 
 THE ECONOMY OF MOVEMENT 
 
 while and found that she was able to manage 24 
 boxes in 40 seconds. Then he told the young girl 
 that she was doing it wrongly, and that she ought 
 to try a new way which he showed her. At the 
 first attempt, she disposed of 24 boxes in 26 sec- 
 onds and at the second trial in 20 seconds. She 
 did not have to make more effort for it, but simply 
 had fewer movements to make. If such economic 
 gain can be secured with little exertion in the 
 simplest processes, it cannot be surprising that 
 in the case of more complex and more advanced 
 technical work which involves highly skilled la- 
 bor, a careful psychophysical study of motions 
 must bring far-reaching economic improvements. 
 Yet the more important steps will have to be 
 guided by special experimental investigations, and 
 here the psychological laboratory must undertake 
 the elaboration of the details. Only the system- 
 atic experiment can determine what impulses can 
 be released at the least expense of energy and 
 with the greatest exactitude of the motor effect. 
 Investigations on the psychophysics of move- 
 ment and the influences which lead toward making 
 the movement too large or too small have played 
 an important role in the psychological laboratories 
 for several decades. It was recognized early that 
 the mistakes which are made in reproducing a 
 movement may spring from two different sources. 
 
 185
 
 THE BEST POSSIBLE WORK 
 
 They result partly from an erroneous perception 
 or memory of the movement carried out, and 
 partly from the inability to realize the movement 
 intention. One series of investigations was ac- 
 cordingly devoted to the studies of those sensa- 
 tions and perceptions by which we become aware 
 of the actual movement. Everything which ac- 
 centuates these sensations must lead to an over- 
 estimation of the motion, and the outcome is that 
 the movement is made too small. The concentra- 
 tion of attention, therefore, has the effect of re- 
 ducing the actual motion, and the same influence 
 must result from any resistance which is not re- 
 cognized as such and hence is not subtracted in 
 the judgment of the perceiver. Another series of 
 researches was concerned with the inner attitude 
 which causes a certain external movement effect 
 and which may lead to an unintended amount of 
 movement as soon as the weight to be lifted is 
 erroneously judged upon. Closely related studies, 
 finally, deal with a mistake which enters when 
 the movement is reproduced from memory after 
 a certain time. The exactitude of a simple arm 
 movement seems to increase in the first ten se- 
 conds, then rapidly to decrease. The emotional 
 attitude, too, is of importance for the reproduc- 
 tion of a movement. I trained myself in making 
 definite extensor and flexor movements of the 
 
 186
 
 THE ECONOMY OF MOVEMENT 
 
 arm until I was able to reproduce them under nor- 
 mal conditions with great exactitude. In experi- 
 ments extending over many months, which were 
 carried on through the changing emotional atti- 
 tudes of daily life, the exact measurement showed 
 that both groups of movements became too large 
 in states of excitement and too small in states of 
 fatigue. But in a state of satisfaction and joy the 
 extensor movement became too large, the flexor 
 movement too small, and vice versa, in unpleasant 
 emotional states the flexor movement was too 
 strong and the extensor movement too weak.^'* 
 
 We have a very careful investigation into the 
 relations between rapidity of movement and 
 exactitude. ^^ The subjects had to perform a 
 hand movement simultaneously with the beat of 
 a metronome, the beats of which varied between 
 20 and 200 in the minute. In general the accuracy 
 of the movement decreases as the rapidity in- 
 creases, but the descent is not uniform. Motions 
 in the rhythm of 40 to the minute were on the 
 whole just as exact as those in the rhythm of 20, 
 and, on the other hand movements in the rhythm 
 of 200 almost as accurate as those of 140 to the 
 minute. Thus we have a lower limit below which 
 decrease of rapidity does not increase the accur- 
 acy any further, and an upper limit beyond which 
 a further increase of rapidity brings no addi- 
 
 187
 
 THE BEST POSSIBLE WORK 
 
 tional deterioration. The mistakes of the unskilled 
 left hand increase still more rapidly than the num- 
 ber of movements. If the eyes are closed, the 
 rapid movements are usually too long and the slow 
 ones too short. 
 
 An investigation in the Harvard laboratory 
 varied this problem in a direction which brings it 
 still nearer to technical conditions of industry. 
 Our central question was whether the greatest 
 exactitude of rhythmical movement is secured at 
 the same rapidity for different muscle groups.^* 
 We studied especially rhythmical movements of 
 hand, foot, arm, and head, and studied them, 
 moreover, under various conditions of resistance. 
 The result from 340,000 measured movements 
 was the demonstration that every muscle group 
 has its own optimum of rapidity for the greatest 
 possible accuracy and that the complexity of the 
 movement and the resistance which it finds has 
 most significant influence on the exactitude of the 
 rhythmical achievement. If we abstract at first 
 from the fluctuations around the average value 
 of a particular group of movements and con- 
 sider only this average itself in its relation to the 
 starting movement which it is meant to imitate, 
 we find characteristic tendencies toward enlarge- 
 ment or reduction dependent upon the rapidity. 
 The right foot, for instance, remained nearest 
 
 188
 
 THE ECONOMY OF MOVEMENT 
 
 to the original movement at a rapidity of 80 
 motions in the minute, while the head did the 
 same at about 20. For a hand movement of 14 
 centimeters, the most favorable rapidity was 120 
 repetitions in the minute, while for a hand move- 
 ment of 1 centimeter the average remained near- 
 est to the standard at about 40 repetitions. The 
 mean variation from the average is the smallest 
 for the left foot at 20 to 30 movements, for the 
 right at 160 to 180, for the head at 40, for the 
 larger hand movement at 180, and so on. Investi- 
 gations of this kind have so far not affected in- 
 dustrial life in the least, but it seems hardly 
 doubtful that a systematic study of the move- 
 ments necessary for economic work will have to 
 pass through such strictly experimental phases. 
 The essential point, however, will be for the man- 
 agers of the industrial concerns and the psycho- 
 logical laboratory workers really to come nearer 
 to each other from the start and undertake the 
 work in common, not in the sense that the labora- 
 tory is to emigrate to the factory, but in the bet- 
 ter sense that definite questions which grow out 
 of the industrial life be submitted to the scientific 
 investigation of the psychologists.
 
 XVI 
 
 EXPERIMENTS ON THE PROBLEM OF MONOTONY 
 
 THE systematic organization of movements 
 with most careful regard to the psycho- 
 physical conditions appeared to us the most mo- 
 mentous aid toward the heightening of efficiency. 
 But even if the superfluous, unfit, and interfering 
 movement impulses were eliminated and the con- 
 ditions of work completely adjusted to the de- 
 mands of psychology, there would still remain 
 a large number of possibilities through which pro- 
 ductiveness might be greatly decreased, or at least 
 kept far below the possible maximum of efficiency. 
 For instance, even the best adapted labor might 
 be repeated to the point of exhaustion, at which 
 the workman and the work would be ruined. 
 Fatigue and restoration accordingly demand es- 
 pecial consideration. In a similar way emotions 
 may be conditions of stimulation or interference, 
 and no one ought to underestimate the import- 
 ance of higher motives, intellectual, aesthetic, and 
 moral motives, in their bearing on the psycho- 
 physical impulses of the laborer. If these higher 
 demands are satisfied, the whole system gains a 
 new tonus, and if they are disappointed, the irri- 
 
 190
 
 THE PROBLEM OF MONOTONY 
 
 tation of the mental machinery may do more 
 harm than any break in the physical machine at 
 which the man is working. In short, we must still 
 look in various directions to become aware of all 
 the relations between the psychological factors 
 and the economic output. We may begin with 
 one question which plays a large, perhaps too 
 large, role in the economic and especially in the 
 popular economic literature. I refer to the pro- 
 blem of monotony of labor. 
 
 In the discourses of our time on the lights and 
 shades of our modern industrial life, all seem to 
 agree that the monotony of industrial labor ought 
 to be entered on the debit side of the ledger of 
 civilization. Since the days when factories began 
 to spring up, the accusation that through the 
 process of division of labor the industrial working- 
 man no longer has any chance to see a whole 
 product, but that he has to devote himself to the 
 minutest part of a part, has remained one of the 
 matter-of-course arguments. The part of a part 
 which he has to cut or polish or shape in endless 
 repetition without alteration cannot awake any 
 real interest. This complete division of labor has 
 to-day certainly gone far beyond anything which 
 Adam Smith described, and therefore it now ap- 
 pears undeniable that the method must create 
 a mental starvation which presses down the whole 
 
 191
 
 THE BEST POSSIBLE WORK 
 
 life of the laborer, deprives it of all joy in work, 
 and makes the factory scheme a necessary but 
 from the standpoint of psychology decidedly re- 
 grettable evil. I have become more and more 
 convinced that the scientific psychologist is not 
 obliged to endorse this judgment of popular 
 psychology. 
 
 To be sure the problem of division of labor, as 
 it appears in the subdivision of manufacture, is 
 intimately connected with many other related 
 questions. It quickly leads to the much larger 
 question of division of labor in our general social 
 structure, which is necessary for our social life 
 with its vocational and professional demands, 
 and which undoubtedly narrows to a certain de- 
 gree every individual in the completeness of his 
 human desires. No man in modern society can 
 devote himself to everything for which his mind 
 may long. But as a matter of course these large 
 general problems of civilization lie outside of the 
 realm of our present inquiry. In another direc- 
 tion the problem of monotony comes very near 
 to the question of fatigue. But we must see 
 clearly that these two questions are not identical 
 and that we may discuss monotony here without 
 arguing the problem of fatigue. The frequent 
 repetition of the same movement or of the same 
 mental activity certainly may condition an object- 
 
 192
 
 THE PROBLEM OF MONOTONY 
 
 ive fatigue, which may interfere with the eco- 
 nomic output, but this is not the real meaning 
 of the problem of monotony. About fatigue we 
 shall speak later. Here we are concerned exclus- 
 ively with that particular psychological attitude 
 which we know as subjective dislike of uniformity 
 and lack of change in the work. Within these 
 limits the question of monotony is, indeed, fre- 
 quently misunderstood in its economic signifi- 
 cance. 
 
 Let us not forget that the outsider can hardly 
 ever judge when work offers or does not offer inner 
 manifoldness. If we do not know and really un- 
 derstand the subject, we are entirely unable to 
 discriminate the subtler inner differences. The 
 shepherd knows every sheep, 'though the passer- 
 by has the impression that they all look alike. 
 This inability to recognize the differences which 
 the man at work feels distinctly shows itself even 
 in the most complicated activities. The natural- 
 ist is inclined to fancy that the study of a phi- 
 lologist must be endlessly monotonous, and the 
 philologist is convinced that it must be utterly 
 tiresome to devote one's self a life long to some 
 minute questions of natural science. Only when 
 one stands in the midst of the work is he aware of 
 its unlimited manifoldness, and feels how every 
 single case is somehow different from every other. 
 
 193
 
 THE BEST POSSIBLE WORK 
 
 In the situation of the industrial workman, the 
 attention may be directed toward some small dif- 
 ferences which can only be recognized after long 
 familiarity with the particular field. Certainly 
 this field is small, as every workman must spe- 
 cialize, but whether he manufactures a whole 
 machine, or only a little wheel, makes no essential 
 difference in the attitude. The attraction of new- 
 ness is quickly lost also in the case of the most 
 complicated machine. On the other hand, the fact 
 that such a machine has an independent function 
 does not give an independent attraction to the 
 work. Or we might rather say, as far as the work 
 on a whole machine is of independent value, the 
 work of perfecting the little wheel is an independ- 
 ent task also and offers equal value by its own 
 possibilities. Whoever has recognized the finest 
 variations among the single little wheels and has 
 become aware of how they are produced some- 
 times better, sometimes worse, sometimes more 
 quickly, sometimes more slowly, becomes as much 
 interested in the perfecting of the minute part as 
 another man in the manufacture of the complex 
 machine. It is true that the laborer does not feel 
 interest in the little wheel itself, but in the pro- 
 duction of the wheel. Every new movement 
 necessary for it has a perfectly new chance and 
 stands in new relations, which have nothing to do 
 
 194
 
 THE PROBLEM OF MONOTONY 
 
 with the repetition. As a matter of course this 
 interest in the always new best possible method 
 of production is still strongly increased where 
 piece- wages are introduced. The laborer knows 
 that the amount of his earning depends upon the 
 rapidity with which he finishes faultless pro- 
 ducts. Under this stimulus he is in a continuous 
 race with himself, and thus has every reason to 
 prefer the externally uniform and therefore per- 
 fectly familiar work to another kind which may 
 bring alternation, but which also brings ever new 
 demands. 
 
 For a long while I have tried to discover in 
 every large factory which I have visited the par- 
 ticular job which from the standpoint of the out- 
 sider presents itself as the most tiresome possible. 
 As soon as I found it, I had a full frank talk with 
 the man or woman who performed it and earnestly 
 tried to get self-observational comment. My 
 chief aim was to bring out how far the mere repe- 
 tition, especially when it is continued through 
 years, is felt as a source of discomfort. I may 
 again point to a few chance illustrations. In an 
 electrical factory with many thousands of em- 
 ployees I gained the impression that the prize for 
 monotonous work belonged to a woman who packs 
 incandescent lamps in tissue paper. She wraps 
 them from morning until night, from the first 
 
 195
 
 THE BEST POSSIBLE WORK 
 
 day of the year to the last, and has been doing 
 that for the last 12 years. She performs this pack- 
 ing process at an average rate of 13,000 lamps a 
 day. The woman has reached about 50,000,000 
 times for the next lamp with one hand and with 
 the other to the little pile of tissue sheets and 
 then performed the packing. Each lamp demands 
 about 20 finger movements. As long as I watched 
 her, she was able to pack 25 lamps in 42 seconds, 
 and only a few times did she need as many as 44 
 seconds. Every 25 lamps filled a box, and the 
 closing of the box required a short time for itself. 
 She evidently took pleasure in expressing herself 
 fully about her occupation. She assured me that 
 she found the work really interesting, and that 
 she constantly felt an inner tension, thinking how 
 many boxes she would be able to fill before the 
 next pause. Above all, she told me that there is 
 continuous variation. Sometimes she grasps the 
 lamp or paper in a different way, sometimes the 
 packing itself does not run smoothly, sometimes 
 she feels fresher, sometimes less in the mood for 
 the work, and there is always something to ob- 
 serve and something to think about. 
 
 This was the trend which I usually found. In 
 some large machine works I sought for a long 
 time before I found the type of labor which 
 seemed to me the most monotonous. I finally 
 
 196
 
 THE PROBLEM OF MONOTONY 
 
 settled on a man who was feeding an automatic 
 machine which was cutting holes in metal strips 
 and who simply had to push the strips slowly for- 
 ward; only when the strip did not reach exactly 
 the right place, he could stop the automatic ma- 
 chine by a lever. He made about 34,000 uniform 
 movements daily and had been doing that for 
 the past 14 years. But he gave me the same ac- 
 count, that the work was interesting and stimu- 
 lating, while he himself made the impression of 
 an intelligent workingman. At the beginning, he 
 reported, the work had sometimes been quite 
 fatiguing, but later he began to like it more and 
 more. I imagined that this meant that at first he 
 had to do the work with full attention and that 
 the complex movement had slowly become auto- 
 matic, allowing him to perform it like a reflex 
 movement and to turn his thoughts to other 
 things. But he explained to me in full detail that 
 this was not the case, that he still feels obliged to 
 devote his thoughts entirely to the work at hand, 
 and that he is able only under these conditions to 
 bring in the daily wage which he needs for his 
 family, as he is paid for every thousand holes. 
 But he added especially that it is not only the 
 wage which satisfies him, but that he takes de- 
 cided pleasure in the activity itself. 
 
 On the other hand, I not seldom found wage- 
 
 197
 
 THE BEST POSSIBLE WORK 
 
 earners, both men and women, who seemed to 
 have really interesting and varied activities and 
 who nevertheless complained bitterly over the 
 monotonous, tiresome factory labor. I became 
 more and more convinced that the feeling of 
 monotony depends much less upon the particular 
 kind of work than upon the special disposition of 
 the individual. It cannot be denied that the 
 same contrast exists in the higher classes of work. 
 We find school-teachers who constantly complain 
 that it is intolerably monotonous to go on teach- 
 ing immature children the rudiments of know- 
 ledge, while other teachers with exactly the same 
 task before them are daily inspired anew by the 
 manifoldness of life in the classroom. We find 
 physicians who complain that one case in their 
 practice is like another, and judges who despair 
 because they always have to deal with the same 
 petty cases, while other judges and physicians 
 feel clearly that every case offers something new 
 and that the repetition as such is neither con- 
 spicuous nor disagreeable. We find actors who feel 
 it a torture to play the same role every evening 
 for several weeks, and there are actors who, as 
 one of the most famous actresses assured me after 
 the four hundredth performance of her star role, 
 repeat their parts many hundred times with 
 undiminished interest, because they feel that 
 
 198
 
 THE PROBLEM OF MONOTONY 
 
 they are always speaking to new audiences. It 
 seems not impossible that this individual differ- 
 ence might be connected with deeper-lying psy- 
 chophysical conditions. I approached the ques- 
 tion, to be sure, with a preconceived theory. I 
 fancied that certain persons had a finer, subtler 
 sense for differences than others and that they 
 would recognize a manifoldness of variations 
 where the others would see only uniformity. In 
 that I silently presupposed that the perception 
 of the uniformity must be something disturbing 
 and disagreeable and the recognition of variations 
 something which stimulates the mind pleasantly. 
 But when I came to examine the question experi- 
 mentally, I became convinced that such a hypo- 
 thesis is erroneous, and if I interpret the results 
 correctly, I should say that practically the oppo- 
 site relation exists. Those who recognize the uni- 
 formities readily are not the ones who are dis- 
 turbed by them. 
 
 I proceeded in the following way. To make use 
 of a large number of subjects accustomed to 
 intelligent self -observation, I made the first series 
 of experiments with the regular students in my 
 psychology lecture course in Harvard University. 
 Last winter I had more than four hundred men 
 students in psychology who all took part in that 
 introductory series. The task which I put before 
 
 199
 
 THE BEST POSSIBLE WORK 
 
 them in a number of variations was this: I used 
 lists of words of which half, or one more or less 
 than half, belonged to one single conceptional 
 group. There were names of flowers, or cities, 
 or poets, or parts of the body, or wild animals, 
 and so on. The remaining words of the list, on 
 the other hand, were without inner connection and 
 without similarity. The similar and the dissimilar 
 words were mixed. The subjects listened to such 
 a list of words and then had to decide without 
 counting from the mere impression whether the 
 similar words were more or equally or less numer- 
 ous than the dissimilar words. In other experi- 
 ments the arrangement was that two different 
 lists were read and that in the two lists a larger 
 or smaller number of words were repeated from 
 the first list. Here, too, the subjects had to decide 
 from the mere impression whether the repeated 
 words were in the majority or not. In every exper- 
 iment the judgment referred to those words which 
 belonged to the same group and which were in this 
 sense uniform, or to the repeated words, and it 
 had to be stated with reference to them whether 
 their number was larger, equal to, or smaller than 
 the different words. If all replies had been correct, 
 the judgment would have been 40 per cent equal, 
 30 per cent smaller, and 30 per cent larger, as 
 they were arranged in perfect symmetry. As soon 
 
 200
 
 THE PROBLEM OF MONOTONY 
 
 as I had the results from the students, we figured 
 out for every one what number he judged equal, 
 smaller, or greater. Then we divided the equal 
 judgments by 2 and added half of them to the 
 larger and half to the smaller judgments. In this 
 way we were enabled by one figure to character- 
 ize the whole tendency of the individual. We 
 found that in the whole student body there was 
 a tendency to underestimate the number of the 
 similar or of the repeated words. The majority 
 of my students had a stronger impression from 
 the varying objects than from those which were 
 in a certain sense equal. Yet this tendency ap- 
 peared in very different degrees and for about 
 a fourth of the participants the opposite tend- 
 ency prevailed. They received a stronger im- 
 pression from the uniform ideas. 
 
 I had coupled with these experimental tests a 
 series of questions, and had asked every subject 
 to express with fullest possible self-analysis his 
 practical attitude to monotony in life. Every 
 one had to give an account whether in the small 
 habits of life he liked variety or uniform repeti- 
 tion. He was asked especially as to his prefer- 
 ences for or against uniformity in the daily meals, 
 daily walks, and so on. Furthermore he had to 
 report how far he is inclined to stick to one kind 
 of work or to alternate his work, how far he wel- 
 
 201
 
 THE BEST POSSIBLE WORK 
 
 comes the idea that vocational work may bring 
 repetition, and so on. And finally I tried to bring 
 the results of these self-observations into relation 
 with the results of those experiments. It was 
 here that the opposite of the hypothesis which I 
 had presupposed suggested itself to me with sur- 
 prising force. I found that just the ones who 
 perceive the repetition least hate it most, and 
 that those who have a strong perception of the 
 uniform impressions and who overestimate their 
 number are the ones who on the whole welcome 
 repetition in life. 
 
 As soon as I had reached this first experimental 
 result, I began to see how it might harmonize 
 with known psychological facts. Some years ago 
 a Hungarian psychologist^^ showed by interest- 
 ing experiments that if a series of figures is ex- 
 posed to the eye for a short fraction of a second, 
 equal digits are seen only once, and he came to the 
 conclusion that equal impressions in such a series 
 inhibit each other. In the Harvard laboratory 
 we varied these experiments by eliminating the 
 spatial separation of those numbers. In our 
 experiments the digits did not stand side by 
 side, but followed one another very quickly in 
 the same place. ^^ Similar experiments we made 
 with colors and so on. Here, too, we found that 
 quickly succeeding equal or very similar impres- 
 
 202
 
 THE PROBLEM OF MONOTONY 
 
 sions have a tendency to inhibit each other or to 
 fuse with each other. Where such an inhibition 
 occurs, we probably ought to suppose that the 
 perception of the first impression exhausts the 
 psychical disposition for this particular mental 
 experience. The psychophysical apparatus be- 
 comes for a moment unable to arouse the same 
 impression once more. 
 
 The above described new experiments suggest 
 to me that this inhibition of equal or similar im- 
 pressions is found unequally developed in different 
 individuals. They possess a different tendency 
 to temporary exhaustion of psychophysical dis- 
 positions. There are evidently persons who after 
 they have received an impression are unable im- 
 mediately to seize the same impression again. 
 Their attention and their whole inner attitude 
 fails. But there are evidently other persons for 
 whom, on the contrary, the experience of an im- 
 pression is a kind of inner preparation for arousing 
 the same or a similar impression. In their case 
 the psychophysical dispositions become stimu- 
 lated and excited, and therefore favor the repeti- 
 tion. If, as in our experiments, the task is simply 
 to judge the existence of equal or similar impres- 
 sions without any strain of attention, the one 
 group of persons must underestimate the number 
 of the equal impressions because many words are 
 
 203
 
 THE BEST POSSIBLE WORK 
 
 simply inhibited in their minds and remain neg- 
 lected, the other groups of persons must from 
 their mental dispositions overestimate the num- 
 ber of similar words. From here we have to take 
 one step more. If these two groups of persons have 
 to perform a task in which it is necessary that not 
 a single member of a series of repetitions be over- 
 looked, it is clear that the two groups must react 
 in a very different way. Now a perfect percep- 
 tion of every single member is forced on them. 
 Those who grasp equal impressions easily, and 
 who are prepared beforehand for every new re- 
 petition by their inner dispositions, will follow 
 the series without strain and will experience the 
 repetition itself with true satisfaction. On the 
 other hand, those in whom every impression in- 
 hibits the readiness to receive a repetition, and 
 whose inner energy for the same exj>erience is ex- 
 hausted, must feel it as a painful and fatiguing 
 effort if they are obliged to turn their attention 
 to one member after another in a uniform series. 
 This mental torture is evidently the displeasure 
 which such individuals call the dislike of mono- 
 tony in their work. Whether this theoretical view 
 is correct, we have to determine by future studies. 
 In our Harvard laboratory we have now^ pro- 
 ceeded from such preparatory mass experiments 
 to subtle investigations on a small number of 
 
 204
 
 THE PROBLEM OF MONOTONY 
 
 persons well trained in psychological self-obser- 
 vation with whom the conditions of the experi- 
 ment can be varied in many directions, ^^ 
 
 It would seem probable that such experiments 
 might also win psychotechnical significance. A 
 short series of tests which would have to be 
 adapted to the special situations, and which for 
 the simple wage-earner would have to be much 
 easier than those sketched above, would allow it 
 to be determined beforehand whether an indi- 
 vidual will suffer from repetition in work. Even 
 if we abstract from arguments of social reform and 
 consider exclusively the economic significance, it 
 must seem important that labor which involves 
 much repetition be performed by men and women 
 whose mental dispositions favor an easy grasp of 
 successive uniform impressions. Experimentation 
 could secure the selection of the fit workmen and 
 the complaint of monotony would disappear. The 
 same selection could be useful in the opposite 
 direction, as many economic occupations, espe- 
 cially in our time of automatic machines, de- 
 mand a quick and often rhythmical transition 
 from one activity to another. It is evident that 
 those whose natural dispositions make every men- 
 tal excitement a preparation not for the identical 
 but for the contrasting stimulation will be nat- 
 urally equipped for this kind of economic tasks.
 
 XVII 
 
 ATTENTION AND FATIGUE 
 
 THE problem of monotony may lead us on 
 to other conditions through which atten- 
 tion is hindered and the product of labor thereby 
 decreased. The psychologist naturally first thinks 
 of external distractions of attention. If he turns 
 to practical studies of the actual economic life, 
 he is often decidedly surprised to find how little 
 regard is given to this psychophysical factor. In 
 industrial establishments in which the smallest 
 disturbance in the machine is at once remedied 
 by a mechanic in order that the greatest possible 
 economic effect may be secured, frequently no- 
 body takes any interest in the most destructive 
 disturbances which unnecessarily occur in the 
 subtlest part of the factory mechanism, namely, 
 the attention apparatus of the laborers. Such an 
 interference with attention must, for instance, 
 be recognized when the workingman, instead of 
 devoting himself to one complex function, has to 
 carry out secondary movements which appear 
 to be quite easily performed and not to hinder 
 him in his chief task. Often his own feeling may 
 endorse this impression. Of course the individual 
 
 206
 
 ATTENTION AND FATIGUE 
 
 differences in this direction are very great. The 
 faculty of carrying on at the same time various 
 independent functions is unequally distributed 
 and the experiment can show this clearly. It is 
 also well known from practical life that some men 
 can easily go on dictating to a stenographer while 
 they are affixing their signature to several hun- 
 dred circular letters, or can continue their fluent 
 lecture while they are performing experimental 
 demonstrations. With others such a side activity 
 continually interrupts the chief function. Then 
 some succeed better than others in securing a 
 certain automatism of the accessory function to 
 such a point that its special acts do not come to 
 consciousness at all. For example, I watched a 
 laborer who was constantly engaged in a com- 
 plicated technical performance, and he seemed 
 to give to it his full attention. Nevertheless he 
 succeeded in moving a lever on an automatic 
 machine which stood near by whenever a certain 
 wheel had made fifty revolutions. During all his 
 work he kept counting the revolutions without 
 being conscious of any idea of number. A system 
 of motor reactions had become organized which 
 remained below the threshold of consciousness 
 and which produced only at the fiftieth recur- 
 rence the conscious psychical impulse to perform 
 the lever movement. Yet whether the talent 
 
 207
 
 THE BEST POSSIBLE WORK 
 
 for such simultaneous mastery of independent 
 functions be greater or smaller and the demand 
 more or less complex, in every case the principal 
 action must be hampered by the side issue. To 
 be sure, it may sometimes be economically more 
 profitable to allow the hindrance to the chief 
 work in order to save the expense of an extra man 
 to do the side work. In most cases, however, such 
 a consideration is not involved; it is simply an 
 ignoring of the psychological situation. As the 
 accessory work seems easy, its hindering influence 
 on other functions is practically overlooked. 
 Psychological laboratory experiments have shown 
 in many different directions that simultaneous 
 independent activities always disturb and in- 
 hibit one another. 
 
 We must not forget that even the conversations 
 of the laborers belong in this psychophysical 
 class. Where a continuous strain of attention has 
 produced a state of fatigue, a short conversation 
 will bring a certain relief and relaxation, and the 
 words which the speaker hears in reply will pro- 
 duce a general stimulation of psychical energy for 
 the moment. Moreover, the mere existence of the 
 social conversational intercourse will raise the 
 general emotional mood, and this feeling of social 
 pleasure may be the source from which may spring 
 new psychophysical powers. Nevertheless the 
 
 208
 
 ATTENTION AND FATIGUE 
 
 fundamental fact, after all, is that any talking 
 during the labor, so far as it is not necessary for 
 the work itself, surely involves a distraction of 
 attention. Here, too, the individual is not con- 
 scious of the effect. He feels certain that he can 
 perform his task just as well, and even the piece- 
 worker, who is anxious to earn as much as possible, 
 is convinced that he does not retard himself by 
 conversation. But the experiments which have 
 been carried on in establishments with scientific 
 management speak decidedly against such a sup- 
 position. A tyrannical demand for silence would, 
 of course, be felt as cruelty, and no suggestion 
 of a jail-like discipline would be wise in the case 
 of industrial labor, for evident psychological 
 reasons. But various factories in rearranging 
 their establishments according to the principles 
 of scientific management have changed the posi- 
 tions of the workmen so that conversations be- 
 come more difficult or impossible. The result re- 
 ported seems to be everywhere a significant 
 increase of production. The individual concen- 
 trates his mind on the task with an intensity 
 which seems beyond his reach as long as the inner 
 attitude is adjusted to social contact. The help 
 which is rendered by the feeling of social coopera- 
 tion, on the other hand, is not removed by the 
 mere abstaining from speaking. Interesting psy- 
 
 209
 
 THE BEST POSSIBLE WORK 
 
 chopedagogical experiments have, indeed, demon- 
 strated that working in a common room produces 
 better results than isolated activity. This is 
 not true of the most brilliant, somewhat nervous 
 school children, who achieve in their own room 
 at home more than in the classroom. But for the 
 average, which almost alone is in question for 
 life in the factory, the consciousness of common 
 efiFort is a source of psychophysical reinforcement. 
 This evidently remains effective when the work- 
 ingmen can see one another, even if the arrange- 
 ment of the seats precludes the possibility of 
 chatting during the work. 
 
 However, by far the more important cause of 
 distraction of attention lies in those disturbances 
 which come from without. Here again the chief 
 interest ought to be attached to those interfer- 
 ences which the workman himself no longer feels 
 as such. In a great printing-shop a woman who 
 was occupied with work which demanded her 
 fullest attention was seated at her task in an 
 aisle where trucking was done. Removing this 
 operator to a quiet corner caused an increase of 
 25 per cent in her vv^ork.^*' To be sure there are 
 many such disturbances in factory life which can 
 hardly be eliminated with the technical means 
 of to-day. For instance, the noise of the machines, 
 which in many factories makes it impossible to 
 
 210
 
 ATTENTION AND FATIGUE 
 
 communicate except by shouting, must be classed 
 among the real psychological interferences in 
 spite of the fact that the laborers themselves 
 usually feel convinced that they no longer notice 
 it at all. Still more disturbing are strong rhyth- 
 mical sounds, such as heavy hammer blows 
 which dominate the continuous noises, as they 
 force on every individual consciousness a psycho- 
 physical rhythm of reaction which may stand 
 in strong contrast to that of a man's own work. 
 From the incessant inner struggle of the two 
 rhythms, the one suggested by the labor, the 
 other by the external intrusion, quick exhaustion 
 becomes unavoidable. 
 
 If it were our purpose to elaborate a real sys- 
 tem of psychological economics, we should have 
 to proceed here to a careful study of the influ- 
 ences of fatigue on the industrial achievement. 
 We should have to discuss the various kinds of 
 fatigue and exhaustion, the conditions of restora- 
 tion, and the whole group of related problems of 
 psychophysics. But this is the one field which 
 has been thoroughly ploughed over by science 
 and by practical life in the course of the last dec- 
 ades. No new suggestion and no new hint of the 
 importance of the problem is needed here. Our 
 short discussion was planned to be confined to 
 those regions which have not been worked up in 
 
 211
 
 THE BEST POSSIBLE WORK 
 
 systematic investigations and for which new de- 
 vices seemed desirable. Hence we do not repro- 
 duce here the rich material of facts which the 
 physiologists and psychophysicists have brought 
 together in the last half -century, the importance 
 of which for industrial labor is perfectly evident. 
 Moreover, the practical applications and the in- 
 sight into the social needs have transformed the 
 factories themselves into one big laboratory in 
 which the problem of fatigue has been studied 
 by practical experiments. The problem of the 
 dependence of fatigue and output upon the length 
 of the working day has been tested in numberless 
 places with the methods of really exact research, 
 as it was easy to find out how the achievement 
 of the laborers became quantitatively and qual- 
 itatively changed by the shortening of the work- 
 ing hours. 
 
 When in one civilized country after another 
 the exhaustingly long working days of the indus- 
 trial wage-earner were shortened more and more, 
 the theoretical discussions of the legislators and 
 of the social reformers were soon supplemented 
 by careful statistical inquiries in the factories. 
 It was found that everywhere, even abstracting 
 from all other cultural and social interests, a mod- 
 erate shortening of the working day did not in- 
 volve loss, but brought a direct gain. The Ger- 
 
 212
 
 ATTENTION AND FATIGUE 
 
 man pioneer in the movement for the shortening 
 of the workingman's day, Ernst Abbe, the head 
 of one of the greatest German factories, wrote 
 many years ago that the shortening from nine 
 to eight hours, that is, a cutting-down of more 
 than 10 per cent, did not involve a reduction of 
 the day's product, but an increase, and that this 
 increase did not result from any supplementary 
 efforts by which the intensity of the work would 
 be reinforced in an unhygienic way.^^ This con- 
 viction of Abbe still seems to hold true after mil- 
 lions of experiments over the whole globe. But 
 the problem of fatigue has forced itself on the con- 
 sideration of the men of affairs from still another 
 side. It has been well known for a long while how 
 intimate the relations are between fatigue and in- 
 dustrial accidents. The statistics of the various 
 countries and of the various industries do not har- 
 monize exactly, but a close connection between 
 the number of accidents and the hours of the day 
 can be recognized everywhere. Usually the great- 
 est number of injuries occurs between ten and 
 eleven o'clock in the forenoon and between three 
 and four o'clock in the afternoon. The different 
 distribution of the working hours, and of the 
 pauses for the meals, make the various statistical 
 tables somewhat incomparable. But it can be 
 traced everywhere that in the first working hours 
 
 213
 
 THE BEST POSSIBLE WORK 
 
 in which fatigue does not play any considerable 
 role, the number of accidents is small, and that 
 this number sinks again after the long pauses. 
 It is true that the number also becomes somewhat 
 smaller at the end of the forenoon and of the after- 
 noon period, but this seems to have its cause in 
 the fact that with growing fatigue and with the 
 feeling that the end of the working period is near, 
 the rhythm of the activity becomes much slower, 
 and with such slower movements the danger of 
 accidents is greatly reduced. In a similar way the 
 factories have had to give the fullest attention to 
 the fatigue problem in its relation to the distribu- 
 tion of pauses, and above all in its relation to the 
 advisable speed of the machines, the limits of 
 which are set by the fatigue of the workingmen, 
 and still more of the working- women. 
 
 The legislatures, the labor unions, and the 
 manufacturers have then had this problem of fa- 
 tigue constantly before their eyes.^^ On the other 
 hand, the psychologists and physiologists have 
 continuously studied the fatigue and restoration 
 of the muscle system and of the central nervous 
 system, and have analyzed the facts with the 
 subtlest methods. Yet, in spite of this, it cannot 
 be denied that a real mutual enrichment has so 
 far hardly been in question. On the contrary, the 
 whole situation has again demonstrated the old 
 
 214
 
 ATTENTION AND FATIGUE 
 
 experience. The mere trying and trying again in 
 practical life can never reach the maximum effects 
 which may be secured by systematic, scientifically 
 conducted efforts. On the other side the studies 
 of the theoretical scholars can never yield the 
 highest values for civilization if the problems 
 which offer themselves in practical life are ignored. 
 The theorists have to prepare the ground, and 
 in this preparatory work they must, indeed, re- 
 main utterly regardless of any practical situations. 
 But after that a second stage must be reached 
 at which on the foundation of this neutral re- 
 search special theoretical investigations are un- 
 dertaken which originate from practical condi- 
 tions. As long as industrial managers have no 
 contact with the experiments of the laboratory 
 and the experimentalists are shy of any contact 
 with the industrial reality, humanity will pass 
 through social suffering. The hope of mankind 
 will be realized by the mutual fertilization of 
 knowing and doing. 
 
 The practical efforts of the factories have, in- 
 deed, not yet reached the point at which the great- 
 est possible achievement which can be reached 
 without over-fatigue may be secured. We called 
 the abbreviation of the working day an experi- 
 mental scheme. The question of reducing the 
 working hours is so simple that no further special 
 
 215
 
 THE BEST POSSIBLE WORK 
 
 experiments are needed. But when we come to 
 the questions of the pauses at work, the speed of 
 work and similar factors related to fatigue, the sit- 
 uation is by far more complicated, and the often 
 capricious changes in the plant have very little 
 in common with a systematic experiment. Some 
 well-known studies of the efficiency engineers 
 clearly demonstrate the possibility of such sys- 
 tematic efforts. The best-known case is probably 
 Taylor's study of the pig-iron handlers of the 
 Bethlehem Steel Company. He found that the 
 gang of 75 men was loading on the average about 
 12^ tons per man per day. When he discussed 
 with various managers the question of what out- 
 put would be the possible maximum, they agreed 
 that under premium work, piecework, or any of 
 the ordinary plans for stimulating the men, an 
 output of 18 to 25 tons would be the extreme pos- 
 sibility. Then he proceeded to a systematic study 
 of the fatigue in its relation to the burden and of 
 the best possible relation between working time 
 and resting time. His first efforts to find formulas 
 were unsuccessful, because he calculated only 
 the actual mechanical energy exerted and found 
 that some men were tired after exerting energy 
 of i hp., while others seemed to be able to pro- 
 duce the energy of § hp. without greater fatigue. 
 But soon he discovered the mistake in his figures. 
 
 216
 
 ATTENTION AND FATIGUE 
 
 He had considered only the actual movements, 
 and had neglected the period in which the laborer 
 was not moving and was not exerting energy, but 
 in which a weight was pulling his arms and de- 
 manding a corresponding muscular effort. As 
 soon as this muscular achievement was taken into 
 account, too, he found that for each particular 
 weight a definite relation exists between the time 
 that a man is under a heavy load and the time of 
 rest. For the usual loads of 90 pounds, he found 
 that a first-class laborer must not work more than 
 43 per cent of the working day and must be entirely 
 without load 57 per cent. If the load becomes 
 lighter, the relation is changed. If the workman 
 is handling a half pig weighing 46 pounds, he can 
 be under load 58 per cent of the day and only has 
 to rest during 42 per cent.^^ 
 
 As soon as these figures were experimentally se- 
 cured, Taylor selected fit men, and did not allow 
 them to lift and to carry the loads as they pleased, 
 but every movement was exactly prescribed by 
 foremen who timed exactly the periods of work 
 and rest. If he had simply promised his men a 
 high premium in case they should carry more 
 than the usual 12 tons a day, they would have 
 burdened themselves as heavily as possible and 
 would have carried the load as quickly as possible, 
 thus completely exhausting themselves after three 
 
 217
 
 THE BEST POSSIBLE WORK 
 
 or four hours of labor. In spite of such senseless 
 exaggeration of effort in the first hours, the total 
 output for the day would have been relatively 
 small. Now the foremen determined exactly when 
 every individual should lift and move the load 
 and when he should sit quietly. The result was 
 that the men, without greater fatigue, were able 
 to carry 47| tons a day instead of the 12| tons. 
 Their wages were increased 60 per cent. Such a 
 trivial illustration demonstrates very clearly the 
 extreme difference between an increase of the eco- 
 nomic achievement by scientific, experimental in- 
 vestigation and a mere enforcing of more work by 
 artificially whipping-up the mind with promises 
 of extraordinary wages. Yet even such rules as the 
 scientific management engineers have formed, 
 may be elaborated to more lasting prescriptions 
 as soon as the purely psychological factors are 
 brought more into the foreground and are ap- 
 proached with the careful analysis of the experi- 
 mental psychologist. 
 
 Such a systematic psychological inquiry is the 
 more important for questions of fatigue, as we 
 know that the subjective feeling of displeasure 
 in fatigue is no reliable measure for the objective 
 fatigue, that is, for the real reduction of the abil- 
 ity for work. Daily experience teaches us how 
 easily some people overstep the limits of normal 
 
 218
 
 ATTENTION AND FATIGUE 
 
 fatigue, and in extreme cases even come to a ner- 
 vous breakdown because nature did not protect 
 them by the timely appearance of strong fatigue 
 feelings. On the other hand, we find many men 
 and still more women who feel tired even after 
 a small exertion, because they did not leam early 
 to inhibit the superficial feelings of fatigue, or be- 
 cause the sensations of fatigue have in fact a cer- 
 tain abnormal intensity in their case. The ques- 
 tion how far the psychophysical apparatus has 
 really been exhausted by a certain effort must be 
 answered with the help of objective research and 
 not on the basis of mere subjective feelings. But 
 such objective measurements demand systematic 
 experiments in the laboratory. 
 
 The experiments which really have been car- 
 ried on in the laboratory as yet, as far as they 
 were not merely physiological, have on the whole 
 been confined to so-called mental labor, and were 
 essentially devoted to problems of school instruc- 
 tion or medical diagnosis. We have no doubt ex- 
 cellent experiments which are devoted to the 
 study of the individual differences of exhaustion, 
 fatigue, exhaustibility, ability to recover the lost 
 energy, ability to learn from practice, and so on, 
 but they are still exclusively adjusted to the needs 
 of the school-teacher and of the nerve specialist 
 and would hardly be immediately useful to the 
 
 219
 
 THE BEST POSSIBLE WORK 
 
 manager of a factory. We shall need a long care- 
 ful series of investigations in order to determine 
 how far those manifold results from experiments 
 with memory work, thought work, writing work, 
 and so on can be applied to the work which the 
 industrial laborer is expected to perform.
 
 XVIII 
 
 PHYSICAL AND SOCIAL INFLUENCES ON THE 
 WORKING POWER 
 
 THE increase and decrease of the ability to 
 do good work depends of course not only 
 upon the direct fatigue from labor and the pauses 
 for rest; a large variety of other factors may lead 
 to fluctuations which are economically important. 
 The various hours of the day, the seasons of the 
 year, the atmospheric conditions of weather and 
 climate, may have such influence. Some elements 
 of this interplay have been cleared up in recent 
 years. Just as the experiments of pedagogical 
 psychology have determined the exact curve of 
 efficiency during the period of an hour in school, 
 so other investigations have traced the typical 
 curve of psychical efficiency throughout the day 
 and the year. Sociological and criminological 
 statistics concerning the fluctuations in the be- 
 havior of the masses, common-sense experience of 
 practical life, and finally, economic statistics con- 
 cerning the quantity and quality of industrial 
 output in various parts of the day and of the year, 
 have supplemented one another. The systematic 
 
 221
 
 THE BEST POSSIBLE WORK 
 
 assistance of the psychological laboratory, how- 
 ever, has been confined to the educational aspect 
 of the problem. Psychological experiments have 
 determined how the achievement of the youth in 
 the schoolroom changes with the months of the 
 year and the hours of the day. It seems as if it 
 could not be difficult to secure here, too, a connec- 
 tion between exact experiment and economic 
 work. Much will have to be reduced to individual 
 variations. The laboratory has already confirmed 
 the experience of daily life that there are morn- 
 ing workers whose strongest psychophysical eflB- 
 ciency comes immediately after the night's rest, 
 while the day's work fatigues them more and 
 more; and that there are evening workers who in 
 the morning still remain under the after effects 
 of the night's sleep, and who slowly become 
 fresher and fresher from the stimuli of the day. 
 It would seem not impossible to undertake a sys- 
 tematic selection of various individuals under 
 this point of view, as different industrial tasks 
 demand a different distribution of efiiciency be- 
 tween morning and night. 
 
 Such a selection and adjustment may be eco- 
 nomically still more important with reference to 
 the fluctuations during the course of the year. 
 Economic inquiries, for instance, have suggested 
 that younger and older workingmen who ordin- 
 
 222
 
 PHYSICAL AND SOCIAL INFLUENCES 
 
 arily show the same efficiency become unequal 
 in their ability to do good work in the spring 
 months, and the economists have connected this 
 inequality with sexual conditions. But other 
 factors as well, especially the blood circulation of 
 the organism and the resulting reactions to ex- 
 ternal temperature, different gland activities, and 
 so on, cause great personal differences in efficiency 
 during the various seasons of the year. Inasmuch 
 as we know many economic occupations in which 
 the chief demand is made in one or another period 
 of the year, a systematic study of these individual 
 variations might be of high economic value, where 
 large numbers are involved, and might contribute 
 much to the individual comfort of the workers. 
 But a constant relation to day and year also seems 
 to exist independent of all personal variations. 
 When the sun stands at its meridian, a minimum 
 of efficiency is to be expected and a similar mini- 
 mum is to be found at the height of summer. 
 Correspondingly we have an increase of the total 
 psychical efficiency in winter-time. During the 
 spring-time the behavior seems, as far as the in- 
 vestigations go, to be different in the intellectual 
 and in the psychomotor activities. It is claimed 
 that the efficiency of the intellectual functions de- 
 creases as the winter recedes, but that the effi- 
 ciency of psychomotor impulses increases.'''* 
 
 223
 
 THE BEST POSSIBLE WORK 
 
 The influences of the daily temperature, of the 
 weather and of the seasons may be classed among 
 the physical conditions of efficiency. We may 
 group with them the effects of nourishment, of 
 stimulants, of sleep, and so on. As far as the re- 
 lations between these external factors and purely 
 bodily muscle work are involved, the interests 
 of the psychologists are not engaged. But it is 
 evident that every one of these relations also has 
 its psychological aspect, and that a really scien- 
 tific psychotechnical treatment of these problems 
 can become possible only through the agency of 
 psychological experiments. We have excellent ex- 
 perimental investigations concerning the influ- 
 ence of the loss of sleep on intellectual labor and 
 on simple psychomotor activities. But it would 
 be rather arbitrary to deduce from the results of 
 those researches anything as to the effect of re- 
 duction of sleep on special economic occupations. 
 Yet such knowledge would be of high importance. 
 We have in the literature concerned with accidents 
 in transportation numerous popular discussions 
 about the destructive influence of loss of sleep on 
 the attention of the locomotive engineer or of 
 the helmsman or of the chauffeur, but an analysis 
 of the particular psychophysical processes does 
 not as yet exist and can be expected only from 
 systematic experiments. Nor has the influence 
 
 224
 
 PHYSICAL AND SOCIAL INFLUENCES 
 
 of hunger on psychotechnical activities been 
 studied in a satisfactory way. 
 
 A number of psychological investigations have 
 been devoted to the study of the influence of 
 alcohol on various psychical functions and in 
 this field at least the strictly economic problem of 
 industrial labor has sometimes been touched. We 
 have the much quoted and much misinterpreted 
 experiments ^^ which were carried on in Germany 
 with typesetters. The workmen received def- 
 inite quantities of heavy wine at a particular 
 point in the work and the number of letters which 
 they were able to set during the following quarter- 
 hours were measured and compared with their nor- 
 mal achievement in fifteen minutes. The reduction 
 of efficiency amounted on the average to 15 per 
 cent of the output. It may be mentioned that 
 the loss referred only to the quantity of the work 
 and not at all to the quality. The well-known 
 subjective illusory feeling of the subjects was not 
 lacking; they themselves believed that the wine 
 had reinforced their working power. As soon as 
 such experiments are put into the service of 
 economic life, they will have to be carried on 
 with much more accurate adjustment to the 
 special conditions, with subtler gradation of the 
 stimuli, and especially with careful study of in- 
 dividual factors. But at first it seems more in the 
 
 225
 
 THE BEST POSSIBLE WORK 
 
 interest of the practical task that the extremely 
 compHcated problem of the influence of alcohol 
 be followed up by purely theoretical research in 
 the laboratory in order that the effect may be re- 
 solved into its various components. We must first 
 find the exact facts concerning the influence of 
 alcohol on elementary processes of mental life, 
 such as perception, attention, memory, and so on, 
 and this will slowly prepare the way for the com- 
 plete economic experiment. 
 
 At present the greatest significance for the eco- 
 nomic field may be attached to those alcohol ex- 
 periments which dealt with the apprehension of 
 the outer world. They proved a reduction in the 
 ability to grasp the impressions and a narrowing 
 of the span of consciousness. The indubitable 
 decrease of certain memory powers, of the acuity 
 in measuring distance, of the time estimation, and 
 similar psychical disturbances after alcohol, must 
 evidently be of high importance for industry and 
 transportation, while the well-known increase of 
 the purely sensory sensibility, especially of the 
 visual acuity after small doses of alcohol, hardly 
 plays an important role in practical life. The 
 best-known and experimentally most studied 
 effect of alcohol, the increase of motor excitability, 
 also evidently has its importance for industrial 
 achievements. It cannot be denied that this facil- 
 
 226
 
 PHYSICAL AND SOCIAL INFLUENCES 
 
 ity of the motor impulses after small doses of 
 alcohol is not a real gain, which might be utilized 
 economically, but is ultimately an injury to the 
 apparatus, even if we abstract from the retarda- 
 tion of the reaction which comes as an after-effect. 
 The alcoholic facilitation, after all, reduces the 
 certainty and the perfection of the reaction and 
 creates conditions under which wrong, and this in 
 economic life means often dangerous, motor re- 
 sponses arise. The energy of the motor discharge 
 suffers throughout from the alcohol. 
 
 Some experiments which were recently carried 
 on with reference to the influence of alcohol on 
 the power of will seem to have especial signifi- 
 cance for the field of economic activity. The me- 
 thod applied in the experiment was the artificial 
 creation of an exactly measurable resistance to 
 the will-impulse directed toward a purpose. The 
 experiment had to determine what power of re- 
 sistance could be overcome by the will and how 
 far this energy changes under the influence of 
 alcohol. For this end combinations of meaning- 
 less syllables were learned and repeated until tlicy 
 formed a close connection in memory. If one 
 syllable was given, the mechanical tendency of 
 the mind was to reproduce the next syllable in the 
 memorized series. The will-intention was then 
 directed toward breaking this memory type. For 
 
 227
 
 THE BEST POSSIBLE WORK 
 
 instance, it was demanded, when a syllable was 
 called, that the subject should not answer with 
 the next following syllable, but with a rhyming 
 syllable. This will-impulse easily succeeded when 
 the syllables to be learned had been repeated only 
 a few times, while after a very frequent repeti- 
 tion the memory connection offered a resistance 
 which the simple will-intention could not break. 
 The syllable which followed in the series rushed 
 to the mind before the intention to seek a rhyming 
 syllable could be realized. The number of repeti- 
 tions thus became a measure for the power of the 
 will. After carrying out these experiments at first 
 under normal conditions, they were repeated while 
 the subjects were under the influence of exactly 
 graded doses of alcohol. ^^ From such simple tasks 
 the experiment was turned to more and more com- 
 plex ones of similar structure. All together they 
 showed clearly that the alcohol did not influence 
 the ability to make the will effective and that the 
 actual decrease of achievement results from a 
 decrease in the ability to grasp the material. As 
 long as the alcohol doses are small, this feeling of 
 decreased ability stirs up a reinforcement in the 
 tension of the will-impulse. This may go to such 
 an extent that the increased will-effort not only 
 compensates for the reduced understanding, but 
 even over-compensates for it, producing an im- 
 
 228
 
 PHYSICAL AND SOCIAL INFLUENCES 
 
 provement in the mental work. But as soon as 
 the alcohol doses amount to about 100 cubic 
 centimeters, the increased tension of the will is 
 no longer sufficient to balance the paralyzing effect 
 in the understanding. Yet it must not be over- 
 looked that in all these experiments only isolated 
 will acts were in question which were separated 
 from one another by pauses of rest. Evidently, 
 however, the technical laborer is more often in a 
 situation in which not isolated impulses, but a con- 
 tinuous tension of the will is demanded. How far 
 such an uninterrupted will-function is affected 
 by alcohol has not as yet been studied with the 
 exact means of the experiment. 
 
 To be sure an obvious suggestion would be that 
 the whole problem, as far as economics, and es- 
 pecially industry, are concerned, might be solved 
 in a simpler way than by the performance of 
 special psychological experiments, namely, by 
 the complete elimination of alcohol itself from the 
 life of the wage-earner. The laboratory experi- 
 ment which seems to demonstrate a reduction of 
 objective achievement in the case of every im- 
 portant mental function merely supplements in 
 exact language the appalling results indicated by 
 criminal statistics, disease statistics, and inher- 
 itance statistics. It seems as if the time had 
 come when scientists could not with a good 
 
 229
 
 THE BEST POSSIBLE WORK 
 
 conscience suggest any other remedy than the 
 merciless suppression of alcohol. Indeed, there 
 can be no doubt that alcohol is one of the worst 
 enemies of civilized life, and it is therefore almost 
 with regret that the scientist must acknowledge 
 that all the psychological investigations, which 
 have so often been misused in the partisan writ- 
 ings of prohibitionists, are not a sufficient basis 
 to justify the demand for complete abstinence. 
 
 First, newer experiments make it very clear 
 that many of the so-called effects of alcohol which 
 the experiment has demonstrated are produced 
 or at least heightened by influences of suggestion. 
 Experiments which have been carried on in 
 England for the study of that point show clearly 
 that certain psychical disturbances which seem 
 to result from small doses of alcohol fail to appear 
 as soon as the subject does not know that he has 
 taken alcohol. For that purpose it was necessary 
 to eliminate the odor, and this was accomplished 
 by introducing the beverages into the organism 
 by a stomach pump. When by this method some- 
 times water and sometimes diluted alcohol was 
 given without the knowledge of the subject, the 
 usual effects of small doses of alcohol did not arise. 
 But another point is far more important. We may 
 take it for granted that alcohol reduces the abil- 
 ity for achievement as soon as such very small 
 
 230
 
 PHYSICAL AND SOCIAL INFLUENCES 
 
 doses are exceeded. But from the standpoint of 
 economic life we have no right to consider a re- 
 duction of the psychical ability to produce work 
 as identical with a decrease in the economic value 
 of the personality. Such a view would be right 
 if the influence necessarily set in at the beginning 
 of the working period. But if, for instance, a 
 moderate quantity of beer is introduced into the 
 organism after the closing of the working day, 
 it would certainly produce an artificial reduction 
 of the psychical ability, and yet this decrease of 
 psychophysical activity might be advantageous to 
 the total economic achievement of the workingman 
 in the course of the week or the year. To be sure 
 the glass of beer in the evening paralyzes certain 
 inhibitory centres of the brain and therefore puts 
 the mind out of gear, but such a way of expressing 
 it may easily be misleading, as it suggests too 
 much that a real injury is done. From the point 
 of view of scientific psychology, we must acknow- 
 ledge that such a paralyzing effect in certain parts 
 of the psychophysical system sets in with every 
 act of attention and reaches its climax in sleep, 
 which surely does no harm to the mind. It may 
 be thoroughly advantageous for the total work 
 of the normal, healthy, average workingman if 
 the after effects of the motor excitement of the 
 day are eliminated by a mild, short alcoholic poi- 
 
 231
 
 THE BEST POSSIBLE WORK 
 
 soning in the evening. It may produce that nar- 
 rowing and dulhng of consciousness which extin- 
 guishes the cares and sorrows of the day and 
 secures the night's sleep, and through it increased 
 efficiency the next morning. Systematic experi- 
 ments with exact relation to the various technical 
 demands must slowly bring real insight into this 
 complex situation. The usual hasty generalization 
 from a few experiments with alcohol for partisan 
 interests is surely not justified in the present un- 
 satisfactory state of knowledge.''^ 
 
 Perhaps we know still less of the influences 
 which coffee, tea, tobacco, sweets, and so on exert 
 on the life of the industrial worker. It will be wise 
 to resolve these stimuli in daily use into their 
 elements and to study the effects of each element 
 in isolated form. To know, for instance, the ef- 
 fects of caflein on the psychophysical activities 
 does not mean to know the effects of tea or coffee, 
 which contain a variety of other substances be- 
 sides the caffein, substances which may be sup- 
 posed to modify the effect of the caffein. Yet the 
 first step must in this case be the study of the 
 effects of the isolated caffein, before the total in- 
 fluences of the familiar beverages can be followed 
 up. An excellent investigation of this caffein 
 effect on various psychological and ps,ychomotor 
 functions has recently been completed. ^^ When 
 
 232
 
 PHYSICAL AND SOCIAL INFLUENCES 
 
 the caffein effect on tapping movements was 
 studied, it was found that it works as a stimu- 
 lation, sometimes preceded by a slight initial re- 
 tardation. It persists from one to two hours after 
 doses of from one to three grains and as long as 
 four hours after doses of six grains. The steadi- 
 ness test showed a slight nervousness after several 
 hours after doses of from one to four grains. After 
 six grains there is pronounced unsteadiness. A 
 complex test in coordination indicated that the 
 effect of small amounts of caffein is a stimulation 
 and that of large amounts a retardation. Cor- 
 respondingly the speed of performance in type- 
 writing is heightened by small doses of caffein 
 and retarded by larger doses. In both cases the 
 quality of the performance as measured by the 
 number of errors is superior to the normal result. 
 The influences of the physiological stimulants 
 have many points of contact with the effects of 
 social entertainment, the significance of which for 
 the economic life is still rather unknown in any 
 exact detail. Many factories in which the labor 
 is noiseless, as in the making of cigars, have intro- 
 duced gramophone music or reading aloud, and 
 it is easy to understand theoretically that a cer- 
 tain animating effect results, which stimulates the 
 whole psychophysical activity. But only the ex- 
 periment would be able to decide how this stimu- 
 
 233
 
 THE BEST POSSIBLE WORK 
 
 lation is related, for instance, to the distraction 
 of attention, which is necessarily involved, or 
 how it influences various periods of the work and 
 various types of work, how far it is true that the 
 musical key exerts an exciting or relaxing influ- 
 ence, what intensity and what local position, 
 what rhythm and what duration of such aesthetic 
 stimuli, would bring the best possible economic 
 results. We all have read of the favorable effects 
 which were secured in a factory when a cat was 
 brought into every working-room in which wo- 
 men laborers were engaged in especially fatigu- 
 ing work. The cat became a living toy for the 
 employees, which stimulated their social con- 
 sciousness. In not a few plants the reinforced 
 achievement is explained by the social means of 
 entertainment which have been introduced under 
 the pressure of modern philanthropic ideas. The 
 lounging-rooms with the newspapers and peri- 
 odicals, the clubrooms with libraries, the excur- 
 sions and dances and patriotic festivities, fill up 
 the reservoir of psychophysical energies. As a 
 matter of course all the social movements which 
 enhance the consciousness of solidarity among the 
 laborers and the feeling of security as to their 
 future development in their career have a similar 
 effect of reinforcing the normal psychical achieve- 
 ment. 
 
 234
 
 PHYSICAL AND SOCIAL INFLUENCES 
 
 As the strongest factor, finally, the direct 
 material interest must be added to these condi- 
 tions. The literature of political economy is full 
 of discussions of the effect of increase of wages, 
 of the payment of bonuses and premiums, of 
 piece- wages, of promised pensions, and, as far as 
 Europe is concerned, of state insurance. In short, 
 the whole individual financial situation in its re- 
 lation to the psychophysical achievement of the 
 wage-earner is a favorite topic of economic in- 
 quiry. We cannot participate here in these in- 
 exhaustible discussions, because all these ques- 
 tions are to-day still so endlessly far from the 
 field of psychological experiments. Nevertheless 
 we ought not to forget the experience through 
 which general experimental psychology has gone 
 in the last few decades. When the first experi- 
 ments were undertaken in order to deal systemat- 
 ically with the mental life, the friends of this new 
 science and its opponents agreed, on the whole, 
 in the belief that certainly only the most element- 
 ary phenomena of consciousness, the sensations 
 and the reactions of impulses, would be accessible 
 to the new method. The opponents naturally 
 compared this modest field with the great pro- 
 blems of the mental totality, and therefore ridi- 
 culed the new narrow task as unimportant. The 
 friends, on the other hand, were eager to follow the 
 
 235
 
 THE BEST POSSIBLE WORK 
 
 fresh path, because they were content to gain real 
 exactitude by the experiment at least in these 
 simplest questions. Yet as soon as the new in- 
 dependent workshops were established for the 
 young science, it was discovered that the method 
 was able to open fields in which no one had antic- 
 ipated its usefulness. The experiments turned to 
 the problems of attention, of memory, of imag- 
 ination, of feeling, of judgment, of character, of 
 aesthetic experience and so on. It is not improb- 
 able that the method of the economic psycholog- 
 ical experiment may also quickly lead beyond the 
 more elementary problems, as soon as it is syste- 
 matically applied, and then it, too, may conquer 
 regions of inquiry in which to-day no exact calcu- 
 lation of the psychological factors seems possible. 
 If such an advance is to be a steady one, the 
 economic psychologist will emancipate himself 
 from the chance question of what problems are 
 at this moment important for commerce and in- 
 dustry and will proceed systematically step by 
 step from those results which the psychological 
 laboratory has yielded under the non-economic 
 points of view. Many previous psychological or 
 psychophysical inquiries almost touch the pro- 
 blems of industrial achievement. For instance, 
 the experiments on imitation, which psycho- 
 physicists have carried on in purely theoretical 
 
 236
 
 PHYSICAL AND SOCIAL INFLUENCES 
 
 or pedagogical interests, move parallel to in- 
 dustrial experiences. It is well known that the 
 pacemaker plays his role not only in the field 
 of sport but also in the factory. The rhythm of 
 one laborer gains controlling importance for 
 the others, who instinctively imitate him. Some 
 plants even have automatically working ma- 
 chines with the special intention that the sharp 
 rhythm of these lifeless forerunners shall produce 
 an involuntary imitation in the psychophysical 
 system. In a similar way many laboratory in- 
 vestigations on suggestion and suggestibility 
 point to such economic processes, and it seems 
 to me that especially the studies on the influence 
 of the ideas of purpose which are being under- 
 taken nowadays in many psychological labora- 
 tories may easily be connected with the problems 
 of economic life. We know how the consciousness 
 of the task to be performed has an organizing 
 influence on the system of those psychophysical 
 acts which lead to the goal. The experiment has 
 shown under which conditions this effect can 
 be reinforced and under which reduced. Peda- 
 gogical experiments have also shown exactly 
 what influence belongs to the consciousness of the 
 approach to the end of work; the feeling of the 
 nearness of the close heightens the achievement, 
 even of the fatigued subject. It would not be 
 
 237
 
 THE BEST POSSIBLE WORK 
 
 difficult to connect psychophysical experiments 
 of this kind with the problems of the task and 
 bonus system, which is nowadays so much dis- 
 cussed in industrial life. The practical successes 
 seem to prove that the individual can do more 
 with equal effort if he does not stand before an un- 
 limited mass of work of which he has to do as much 
 as possible in the course of the day, but if he is 
 before a definitely determined, limited task with 
 the demand that he complete it in an exactly 
 calculated time. Scientific management has made 
 far-reaching use of this principle, but whether 
 constant results for the various industries can be 
 hoped for from such methods must again be as- 
 certained by the psj^chological experiment. 
 
 These hopes surely will not weaken the interest 
 of the psychologist for those many psychological 
 methods which lie outside of the experimental 
 research. A sociologist, who himself had been a 
 laborer in his earlier life, undertook in Germany 
 last year an inquiry into the psychological status 
 of the laborers' achievement by the questionnaire 
 method. ^^ He sent to 8000 workingmen in the 
 mining industries, textile industries, and metal 
 industries, blanks containing 26 questions, and 
 received more than 5000 replies. Tlie questions 
 referred to the pleasure and interest in the work, 
 to preferences, to fatigue, to the thoughts during 
 
 238
 
 PHYSICAL AND SOCIAL INFLUENCES 
 
 the work, to the means of recreation, to the atti- 
 tude toward the wages, to the emotional situa- 
 tion, and so on. The 5000 answers allowed mani- 
 fold classifications. The various mental types of 
 men could be examined, the influence of the ma- 
 chine, the attitude toward monotony, the changes 
 of pleasure and interest in the work with the age 
 of the laborer, the time at which fatigue becomes 
 noticeable, and so on. Many psychological ele- 
 ments of industrial life thus come to a sharp focus 
 and the strong individual differences could not be 
 brought out in a more characteristic way. Yet, 
 all taken together, even such a careful investiga- 
 tion on a psychostatistical basis strongly sug- 
 gests that a few careful experimental investiga- 
 tions could lead further than such a heaping-up 
 of material gathered from men who are untrained 
 in self -observation and in accurate reports, and 
 above all who are accessible to any kind of sug- 
 gestion and preconceived idea. The experimental 
 method is certainly not the only one which can 
 contribute to reforms in industrial life and the 
 reinforcement of industrial efficiency, but all 
 signs indicate that the future will find it the most 
 productive and most reliable.
 
 PART III 
 THE BEST POSSIBLE EFFECT
 
 PART III 
 
 THE BEST POSSIBLE EFFECT 
 
 XIX 
 
 THE SATISFACTION OF ECONOMIC DEMANDS 
 
 EVERY economic function comes in contact 
 with the mental Hfe of man, first from the 
 fact that the work is produced by the psyche of 
 personalities. This gave us the material for the 
 first two parts of our discussion. We asked what 
 mind is best fitted for the particular kind of work, 
 and how the mind can be led to the best output 
 of work. But it is evident that the real meaning 
 of the economic process expresses itself in an en- 
 tirely different contact between work and mind. 
 The economic activity is separated from all other 
 processes in the world, not by the fact that it 
 involves labor and achievement by personalities, 
 but by the fact that this labor satisfies a certain 
 group of human desires which we acknowledge 
 as economic. The mere performance of labor, with 
 all the psychical traits of attention and fatigue 
 and will-impulses and personal qualities, does not 
 in itself constitute anything of economic value. 
 
 243
 
 THE BEST POSSIBLE EFFECT 
 
 For instance, the sportsman who climbs a glacier 
 also performs such a fatiguing activity which de- 
 mands the greatest effort of attention and will; 
 and yet the psychotechnics of sport do not belong 
 in economic psychology, because this mountain 
 climbing does not satisfy economic desires. The 
 ultimate characteristic which designates an ac- 
 tivity as economic is accordingly a certain effect 
 on human souls. The whole whirl of the economic 
 world is ultimately controlled by the purpose of 
 satisfying certain psychical desires. Hence this 
 psychical effect is still more fundamental for the 
 economic process than its psychical origin in the 
 mental conditions of the worker. The task of 
 psychotechnics is accordingly to determine by 
 exact psychological experiments how this mental 
 effect, the satisfaction of economic desires, can 
 be secured in the quickest, in the easiest, in the 
 safest, in the most enduring, and in the most satis- 
 factory way. 
 
 But we must not deceive ourselves as to the 
 humiliating truth that so far not the slightest ef- 
 fort has been made toward the answering of this 
 central scientific question. If the inquiry into the 
 psychical effects were really to be confined to this 
 problem of the ultimate satisfaction of economic 
 desires, scientific psychology could not contribute 
 any results and could not offer anything but hopes 
 
 244
 
 SATISFACTION OF ECONOMIC DEMANDS 
 
 and wishes for the future. At the first glance it 
 might appear as if just here a large amount of lite- 
 rature exists ; moreover, a literature rich in excel- 
 lent investigations and ample empirical material. 
 On the one side the political economists, with their 
 theories of economic value and their investigations 
 concerning the conditions of prices and the de- 
 velopment of luxury, the calculation of economic 
 values from pleasure and displeasure and many 
 similar studies, have connected the economic pro- 
 cesses with mental life; on the other side the 
 philosophers, with their theories of value, have 
 not confined themselves to the ethical and 
 aesthetic motives, but have gone deeply into the 
 economic life too. While such studies of the econ- 
 omists and of the philosophers are chiefly meant 
 to serve theoretical understanding, it might seem 
 easy to deduce from them technical practical 
 prescriptions as well. If we know that under 
 particular conditions certain demands will be 
 satisfied, we draw the conclusion that we must 
 realize those conditions whenever such demands 
 are to be satisfied. The theoretical views of the 
 economists and of the philosophers of value might 
 thus be directly translated into psychotechnical 
 advice. 
 
 As soon as we look deeper into the situation, 
 we must recognize that this surface impression 
 
 245
 
 THE BEST POSSIBLE EFFECT 
 
 is entirely misleading. Certainly whenever the 
 philosophers or political economists discuss the 
 problems of value and of the satisfaction of human 
 demands, they are using psychological terms, but 
 the whole meaning which they attach to these 
 terms, feeling, emotion, will, desire, pleasure, dis- 
 pleasure, joy, and pain, is essentially different 
 from that which controls the causal explanations 
 of scientific psychology. We cannot enter into the 
 real fundamental questions here, which are too 
 often carelessly ignored even in scientific quarters. 
 Too often psychology is treated, even by psycho- 
 logists, as if it covered every possible systematic 
 treatment of inner experience, and correspond- 
 ingly outsiders like the economists fancy that 
 they are on psychological ground and are handling 
 psychological conceptions as soon as they make 
 any statements concerning the inner life. But if 
 we examine the real purposes and presuppositions 
 of the various sciences, we must recognize that 
 the human experience can be looked on from two 
 entirely different points of view. Only from one 
 of the two does it present itself as psychological 
 material and as a fit object for psychological 
 study. From the other point of view, which is 
 no less valuable and no less important for the 
 understanding of our inner life, human experi- 
 ence offers itself as a reality with which psychology 
 
 246
 
 SATISFACTION OF ECONOMIC DEMANDS 
 
 as such has nothing to do, even though it may 
 be difficult to eHminate the usual psychological 
 words. 
 
 The psychologist considers human experience 
 as a series of objects for consciousness. All the 
 perceptions and memory ideas and imaginative 
 ideas and feelings and emotions, are taken by 
 him as mental objects of which consciousness 
 becomes aware, and his task is to describe and to 
 explain them and to find the laws for their suc- 
 cession. He studies them as a naturalist studies 
 the chemical elements or the stars. It makes no 
 difference whether his explanation leads him to 
 connect these mental contents with brain pro- 
 cesses as one theory proposes, or with subcon- 
 scious processes as another theory suggests. The 
 entirely different aspect of inner life is the one 
 which is most natural in our ordinary intercourse. 
 Whenever we give an account of our inner life or 
 are interested in the experience of our friends, we 
 do not consider how their mental experiences as 
 such objective contents of consciousness are to 
 be described and explained, but we take them as 
 inner actions and attitudes toward the world, and 
 our aim is not to describe and to explain them but 
 to interpret and to understand them. We do not 
 seek their elements but their meaning, we do not 
 seek their causes and efl'ects but their inner rela- 
 
 247
 
 THE BEST POSSIBLE EFFECT 
 
 tions and their inner purposes. In short, we do 
 not take them at all as objects but as functions of 
 the subject, and our dealing with them has no 
 similarity to the method of the naturalist. 
 
 This method of practical life in which we seek to 
 express and to understand a meaning, and relate 
 every will-act to its aim, is not confined to the 
 mere popular aspect; it can lead to very systema- 
 tic scholarly treatment. It is exactly the treat- 
 ment which is fundamental in the case of all his- 
 tory, for example, or of law, or of logic. That is, 
 the historian makes us understand the meaning of 
 a personality of the past and is really interested in 
 past events only as far as human needs are to be 
 interpreted. It would be pseudo-psychology, if we 
 called such an account in the truly historical 
 spirit a psychological description and explanation. 
 The student of law interprets the meaning of the 
 will of the legislator; he does not deal with the 
 idea of the law as a psychological content. And 
 the logician has nothing to do with the idea as a 
 conscious object in the mind; he asks as to the 
 inner relations of it and as to the conclusions from 
 the premises. In short, wherever historical inter- 
 pretations or logical deductions are needed, we 
 move on in the sphere of human life as it presents 
 itself from the standpoint of immediate true ex- 
 perience without artificially moulding it into the 
 
 248
 
 SATISFACTION OF ECONOMIC DEMANDS 
 
 conceptions of psychology. On the other hand, 
 as soon as the psychological method is applied, 
 this immediate life meaning of human experience 
 is abandoned, and instead of it is gained the pos- 
 sibility of considering the whole experience as a 
 system of causes and effects. Mental life is then 
 no longer what it is to us in our daily intercourse, 
 because it is reconstructed for the purposes of this 
 special treatment, just as the water which we 
 drink is no longer our beverage if we consider it 
 under the point of view of chemistry as a com- 
 bination of hydrogen and oxygen. Hence we have 
 not two statements one of which is true and the 
 other ultimately untrue; on the contrary, both 
 are true. We have a perfect right to give the value 
 of truth to our experience with water as a refresh- 
 ing drink, and also to the formula of the chemist. 
 With a still better right we may claim that both 
 kinds of mental experience are equally true. 
 Hence not a word of objection is raised against 
 the discussions of the historians and the philoso- 
 phers, if we insist that their so-called psychology 
 stands outside of the really descriptive and ex- 
 planatory account of mental life, and is therefore 
 not psychology in the technical sense of the 
 word. 
 
 It is this historical attitude which controls all 
 the studies of the political economists. They 
 
 240
 
 THE BEST POSSIBLE EFFECT 
 
 speak of the will-acts of the individuals and of 
 their demands and desires and satisfactions, but 
 they do not describe and explain them ; they want 
 to interpret and understand them. They may 
 analyze the motives of the laborer or of the manu- 
 facturer, but those motives and impulses interest 
 them not as contents of consciousness, but only 
 as acts which are directed toward a goal. The aim 
 toward which these point by their meaning, and 
 not the elements from which they are made up 
 or their causes and effects, is the substance of 
 such economic studies. For such a subjective 
 account of the meaning of actions the only pro- 
 blem is, indeed, the correct understanding and in- 
 terpretation, and the consistent psychologist who 
 knows that it is not his task to interpret but to 
 explain has no right to raise any questions here. 
 It is, therefore, only a confusing disturbance, if 
 a really psychological, causal explanation is mixed 
 into the interpretation of such a system of will- 
 acts and purposes. It is true we find this confusion 
 in many modern works on economics. Econo- 
 mists know that a scientific explanatory study of 
 the human mind exists, and they have a vague 
 feeling that they have no right to ignore this real 
 psychology, instead of recognizing that the psy- 
 chology really has nothing to do with their par- 
 ticular problem. The result is that they constantly 
 
 250
 
 SATISFACTION OF ECONOMIC DEMANDS 
 
 try to discuss the impulses and instincts, the 
 hunger and thirst and sexual desire, and the 
 higher demands for fighting and playing and ac- 
 quiring, for seeking power and social influence, 
 as a psychologist would discuss them, referring 
 them to biological and physiological conditions 
 and explaining them causally. Yet as soon as they 
 come to their real problems and enter into the 
 interpretation and meaning of these economic 
 energies, they naturally slide back into the his- 
 torical, economic point of view and discuss the 
 economic relations of men without any reference 
 to their psychologizing preambles. The applica- 
 tion of the psychological, scientific method to the 
 true economic experience is therefore not secured 
 at all in this way. The demands and volitions 
 which they disentangle are not the ones which the 
 psychophysiologist studies, because they are left 
 in their immediate form of life reality. They are 
 accordingly inaccessible to the point of view of 
 experimental psychology, and nothing can be ex- 
 pected from such interpretative discussions of the 
 economists for the psychotechnics at which the 
 psychologist is aiming. Even where the political 
 economists deal with the problems of value in 
 exact language, nothing is gained for the kind of 
 insight for which the psychologist hopes, and the 
 psychologists must therefore go on with their 
 
 251
 
 THE BEST POSSIBLE EFFECT 
 
 own methods, if they are ever to reach a causal 
 understanding of the means by which a satisfac- 
 tion of the economic demands may be effected. 
 
 So far the psychologists have not even started 
 to examine these economic feelings, demands, and 
 satisfactions with the means of laboratory psy- 
 chology. Hence no one can say beforehand how 
 it ought to be done and how to gain access to the 
 important problems, inasmuch as the right formu- 
 lation of the problem and the selection of the right 
 method would here as everywhere be more than 
 half of the solution. It must be left to the develop- 
 ment of science for the right starting-point and the 
 right methods to be discovered. Sometimes, to 
 be sure, the experiment has at least approached 
 this group of economic questions. For instance, 
 the investigations of the so-called psychophysical 
 law have often been brought into contact with 
 the experiences of ownership and acquirement. 
 The law, well known to every student of psycho- 
 logy, is that the differences of intensity in two 
 pairs of sensations are felt as equal, when the 
 two pairs of stimuli are standing in the same re- 
 lation. The difference between the intensities of 
 the light sensations from 10 candles and 11 candles 
 is equal to that from 50 candles and 55 candles, 
 from 100 candles and 110, from 500 candles and 
 550 : that is, the difference of one additional can- 
 
 252
 
 SATISFACTION OF ECONOMIC DEMANDS 
 
 die between 10 and 11 appears just as great as the 
 difference of 50 candles between 500 and 550. The 
 psychologists have claimed that in a corresponding 
 way the same feeling of difference arises when the 
 amounts of possessions stand in the same relation. 
 That is, the man who owns $100 feels the gain or 
 loss of $1 as much as one who owns $100,000 feels 
 the gain or loss of $1000. Not the absolute amount 
 of the difference, but the relative value of the 
 increase or decrease is the decisive influence on 
 the psychological effect. Some experimental in- 
 vestigations concerning feelings have also come 
 near to the economic boundaries. The study of 
 the contrast feelings and of the relativity of feel- 
 ings, for instance, has points of contact with the 
 economic problem of how far economic progress, 
 with its stirring up and satisfying of continually 
 new demands, really adds to the quantity of hu- 
 man enjoyment. In other words, how far are 
 those sociologists right who are convinced that 
 by the technical complexity of modern life, with 
 all its comforts and mechanizations, the level of 
 individual life is raised, but that the oscillations 
 about this average level remain the same and pro- 
 duce the same amount of pleasure and pain? The 
 technical advance would therefore bring no in- 
 crease of human pleasure. 
 
 We might also put into this class the meagre 
 
 253
 
 THE BEST POSSIBLE EFFECT 
 
 experimental investigations concerning the mu- 
 tual influence of feelings. When sound, light, and 
 touch impressions, each of which, isolated, pro- 
 duces a feeling of a certain degree, are combined 
 with one another, the experiment can show very 
 characteristic changes in the intensity of pleasure 
 and displeasure. From such routine experiments 
 of the laboratory it might not be difl&cult to come 
 to more complex experiments on the mutual re- 
 lations of feeling values and especially of the 
 combinations of pleasure with displeasure. This 
 would lead to an insight into the processes which 
 are involved in the fixing of prices, as they are 
 always dependent upon the pleasure in the ac- 
 quisition and the displeasure in the outlay. The 
 exact psychology of the future may thus very 
 well determine the conditions under which the 
 best effects for the satisfaction of economic de- 
 mands maybe secured, but our present-day science 
 is still far from such an achievement : and it seems 
 hardly justifiable to propose methods to-day, as it 
 would be like drawing a map with detailed paths 
 for a primeval forest which is still inaccessible.
 
 XX 
 
 EXPERIMENTS ON THE EFFECTS OP 
 ADVERTISEMENTS 
 
 WE have said that the time has not yet 
 come for discussing from the standpoint 
 of experimental psychology the means to secure 
 the ultimate effects of economic life, namely, the 
 satisfaction of economic demands. If this were 
 the only effect which had economic significance, 
 this whole last part of our little book would have 
 to remain a blank, as we wanted to deal here with 
 the securing of the best effects after having studied 
 the securing of the best man and of the best work. 
 Yet these ultimate ends are certainly not the only 
 mental effects which become important in the 
 course of economic processes. In order to reach 
 that final end of the economic movement, often 
 an unlimited number of part processes distributed 
 over space and time must cooperate. The satis- 
 faction of our thirst in a tea-room may be a trivial 
 illustration of such a final effect, but it is clear 
 that in order to produce this ultimate mental 
 effect of satisfying the thirst, thousands of eco- 
 nomic processes must have preceded. To bring 
 the tea and the sugar and the lemon to the table, 
 
 255
 
 THE BEST POSSIBLE EFFECT 
 
 the porcelain cup and the silver spoon, wage- 
 earners, manufacturers and laborers, exporters, 
 importers, storekeepers, salesmen, and customers 
 had to cooperate. Among such part processes 
 which serve the economic achievement are always 
 many which succeed only if they produce charac- 
 teristic effects in human minds. The propaganda 
 which the storekeeper makes, for instance, his dis- 
 play and his posters, serve the economic interplay 
 by psychical effects without themselves satisfying 
 any ultimate economic demand. They must at- 
 tract the passer-by or impress the reader or stimu- 
 late his impulse to buy, and through all this they 
 reach an end which is in itself not final, as no hu- 
 man desire to read advertisements exists. When 
 the salesman influences the customer to buy 
 something which may later help to satisfy a real 
 economic demand, the art of his suggestive words 
 secures a mental effect which again is in itself not 
 ultimate. If the manufacturer influences his em- 
 ployees to work with more attention or with 
 greater industry, or if the community stirs up the 
 desire for luxury or the tendency to saving, we 
 have mental effects which are of economic im- 
 portance without being really ultimate economic 
 effects. 
 
 As far as these effects are necessary and justi- 
 fied stages leading to the ultimate satisfaction of 
 
 250
 
 THE EFFECTS OF ADVERTISEMENTS 
 
 economic demands, it certainly is the duty of 
 applied psychology to bring psychological experi- 
 ence and exact methods into their service. We 
 emphasize the necessary and justified character 
 of these steps, as it is evident that psychological 
 methods may be made use of also by those who 
 aim toward mental effects which are unjustified 
 and which are not necessary for the real satisfac- 
 tion of valuable demands. Psychological laws can 
 also be helpful in fraudulent undertakings or in 
 advertisements for unfair competition. The psy- 
 chotechnical scientist cannot be blamed if the re- 
 sults of his experiments are misused for immoral 
 purposes, just as the chemist is not responsible 
 if chemical knowledge is aplied to the construc- 
 tion of anarchistic bombs. But while psychology, 
 as we have emphasized before, cannot from its 
 own point of view determine the value of the end, 
 the psychologist as a human being is certainly 
 willing to cooperate only where the soundness and 
 correctness of the ends are evident from the point 
 of view of social welfare. 
 
 In order to demonstrate the principle of this 
 kind of psychotechnical help with fuller detail, at 
 least by one illustration, I may discuss the case 
 of the advertisements, the more as this problem 
 has already been taken up in a somewhat system- 
 atic way by the psychological laboratories. We 
 
 257
 
 THE BEST POSSIBLE EFFECT 
 
 have a number of careful experimental investiga- 
 tions referring to the memory-value, the atten- 
 tion-value, the suggestion-value, and other men- 
 tal effects of the printed business advertisements. 
 Of course this group of experimental investiga- 
 tions at once suggests an objection which we can- 
 not ignore. A business advertisement, as it ap- 
 pears in the newspapers, is such an extremely 
 trivial thing and so completely devoted to the 
 egotistical desire for profit that it seems undigni- 
 fied for the scientist to spend his time on such 
 nothings and to shoot sparrows with his laboratory 
 cannon-balls. But on the one side nothing can 
 be unworthy of thorough study from a strictly 
 theoretical point of view. The dirtiest chemical 
 substance may become of greatest importance for 
 chemistry, and the ugliest insect for zoology. On 
 the other side, if the practical point of view of the 
 applied sciences is taken, the importance of the 
 inquiry may stand in direct relation to the intens- 
 ity of the human demand which is to be satisfied 
 by the new knowledge. Present-day society is so 
 organized that the economic advertisement surely 
 serves a need, and its intensity is expressed by the 
 well-known fact that in every year billions are 
 paid for advertising. Measured by the amount 
 of expenditure, advertising has become one of the 
 largest and economically most important human 
 
 258
 
 THE EFFECTS OF ADVERTISEMENTS 
 
 industries. It is, then, not astonishing that scien- 
 tists consider it worth while to examine the exact 
 foundations of this industry, but it is surprising 
 that this industry could reach such an enormous 
 development without being guided by the spirit 
 of scientific exactitude which appears a matter 
 of course in every other large business. As it is a 
 function of science to study the physics of incan- 
 descent lamps or gas motors so as to bring the 
 economically most satisfactory devices into the 
 service of the community, it cannot be less im- 
 portant from the standpoint of national economics 
 to study scientifically the eflficiency of the adver- 
 tisements in order that the national means may 
 in this industry, too, secure the greatest possible 
 effects. It is only a secondary point that experi- 
 ments of this kind are of high interest to the theo- 
 retical scientist as well. For us the advertisement 
 is simply an instrument constructed to satisfy 
 certain human demands by its effects on the mind. 
 It is a question for psychology to determine the 
 conditions under which this instrument may be 
 best adapted to its purpose. 
 
 The mental effect of a well-adapted advertise- 
 ment is manifold. It appeals to the memory. 
 Whatever we read at the street corner, or in the 
 pages of the newspaper or magazine, is not printed 
 with the idea that we shall immediately turn to 
 
 259
 
 THE BEST POSSIBLE EFFECT 
 
 the store, but first of all with the expectation that 
 we keep the content of the advertisement in our 
 memory for a later purchase. It will therefore be 
 the more valuable the more vividly it forces itself 
 on the memory. But if practical books about the 
 art of advertising usually presuppose that this 
 influence on the memory will be proportionate to 
 the effect on the attention, the psychologist can- 
 not fully agree. The advertisement may attract 
 the attention of the reader strongly and yet by its 
 whole structure may be unfit to force on the mem- 
 ory its characteristic content, especially the name 
 of the firm and of the article. The pure memory- 
 value is especially important, as according to a 
 well-known psychological law the pleasure in 
 mere recognition readily attaches itself to the rec- 
 ognized object. The customer who has the choice 
 among various makes and brands in the store 
 may not have any idea how far one is superior to 
 another, but the mere fact that one among them 
 bears a name which has repeatedly approached 
 his consciousness before through advertisements 
 is sufficient to arouse a certain warm feeling of ac- 
 quaintance, and by a transposition of feeling this 
 pleasurable tone accentuates the attractiveness 
 of that make and leads to its selection. This in- 
 direct help through the memory- value is econom- 
 ically no less important than the direct service. 
 
 260
 
 THE EFFECTS OF ADVERTISEMENTS 
 
 In order to produce a strong effect on memory 
 the advertisement must be easily apprehensible. 
 Psychological laboratory experiments with exact 
 time-measurement of the grasping of various ad- 
 vertisements of the same size for the same arti- 
 cle, but in different formulations, demonstrated 
 clearly how much easier or harder the apprehen- 
 sion became through relatively small changes. 
 No mistake in the construction of the advertise- 
 ment causes so much waste as a grouping which 
 makes the quick apperception difficult. The color, 
 the type, the choice of words, every element, 
 allows an experimental analysis, especially by 
 means of time-measurement. If we determine 
 in thousandths of a second the time needed to 
 recognize the characteristic content of an adver- 
 tisement, we may discriminate differences which 
 would escape the naive judgment, and yet which 
 in practi(;al life are of considerable consequence, as 
 the effect of a deficiency is multiplied by the 
 number of readers. 
 
 We must insist on the further demand that the 
 advertisement make a vivid impression, so that it 
 may influence the memory through its vividness. 
 Size is naturally the most frequent condition for 
 the increase of vividness, but only the relative size 
 is decisive. The experiment shows that the full- 
 page advertisement in a folio magazine does not 
 
 261
 
 THE BEST POSSIBLE EFFECT 
 
 influence the memory more than the full page in 
 a quarto magazine, if the reader is for the time 
 adjusted to the particular size. No less important 
 than the size is the originality and the unusual 
 form, the vivid color, the skillful use of empty 
 spaces, the associative elements, the appeal to 
 humor or to curiosity, to sympathy or to anti- 
 pathy. Every emotion can help to impress the 
 content of the advertisement on the involuntary 
 memory. Unusual announcements concerning 
 the prices or similar factors move in the same 
 direction. 
 
 Together with the question of the apprehension 
 and the vividness of the impression, we must 
 acknowledge the frequency of repetition as an 
 equally important factor. We know from daily 
 life how an indifferent advertisement can force 
 itself on our mind, if it appears daily in the same 
 place in the newspaper or is visible on every 
 street corner. But the psychologically decisive 
 factor here is not the fact of the mere repetition 
 of the impression, but rather the stimulation of 
 the attention which results from the repetition. 
 If we remained simply passive and received the 
 impression the second and third and fourth time 
 with the same indifference with which we noticed 
 it the first time, the mere summation would not 
 be suflBcient for a strong effect. But the second 
 
 262
 
 THE EFFECTS OF ADVERTISEMENTS 
 
 impression awakes the consciousness of recogni- 
 tion, thus exciting the attention, and through it 
 we now turn actively to the repeated impression 
 which forces itself on our memory with increased 
 vividness on account of this active personal 
 reaction. 
 
 We may consider how such factors can be 
 tested by the psychotechnical experiment. Scott, 
 for instance, studied the direct influence of the 
 relative size of the advertisements. ^° He con- 
 structed a book of a hundred pages from ad- 
 vertisements which had been cut from various 
 magazines and which referred to many different 
 articles. Fifty persons who did not know any- 
 thing about the purpose of the experiment had to 
 glance over the pages of the book as they would 
 look though the advertising parts of a monthly. 
 The time which they used for it was about ten 
 minutes. As soon as they had gone through the 
 hundred pages, they were asked to write down 
 what they remembered. The result from this 
 method was that the 50 persons mentioned on an 
 average every full-page advertisement 6| times, 
 every half-page less than 3 times, every fourth- 
 page a little more than 1 time, and the still smaller 
 advertisements only about ^ time. This series of 
 experiments suggested accordingly that the mem- 
 ory value of a fourth-page advertisement is much 
 
 263
 
 THE BEST POSSIBLE EFFECT 
 
 smaller than one fourth of the memory-value of a 
 full-page advertisement, and that of an eighth- 
 page again much smaller than one half of the 
 psychical value of a fourth-page. The customer 
 who pays for one eighth of a page receives not the 
 eighth part, but hardly the twentieth part of the 
 psychical influence which is produced by a full 
 page. 
 
 These experiments, which were carried on in 
 various forms, demanded as a natural supplement 
 a study of the effects of repetition in relation to 
 size. This was the object of a series of tests which 
 I carried on recently in the Harvard laboratory. 
 I constructed the following material: 60 sheets 
 of Bristol board in folio size were covered with 
 advertisements which were cut from magazines 
 the size of the "Saturday Evening Post" and 
 the "Ladies' Home Journal." We used advertise- 
 ments ranging from full -page to twelfth-page in 
 size. Every one of the 6 full-page advertisements 
 which we used occurred only once, each of the 12 
 half-page advertisements was given 2 times, each 
 of the fourth-page size, 4 times, each of the eighth- 
 page size, 8 times, and each of the twelfth-page 
 size, 12 times. The repetitions were cut from 12 
 copies of the magazine number. The same adver- 
 tisement never occurred on the same page; every 
 page, unless it was covered by a full-page adver- 
 
 264
 
 THE EFFECTS OF ADVERTISEMENTS 
 
 tisement, offered a combination of various an- 
 nouncements. It is evident that by this arrange- 
 ment every single advertisement occupied the 
 same space, as the 8 times repeated eighth-page 
 advertisement filled a full page too. Thus no one 
 of the 60 announcements which we used was spa- 
 tially favored above another. 
 
 Thirty persons took part in the experiment. 
 Each one had to devote himself to the 60 pages 
 in such a way that every page was looked at for 
 exactly 20 seconds. Between each two pages was 
 a pause of 3 seconds, sufficient to allow one sheet 
 to be laid aside and the next to be grasped. In 23 
 minutes the whole series had been gone through, 
 and immediately after that every one had to write 
 down what he remembered, both the names of the 
 firms and the article announced. In the cases 
 where only the name or only the article was cor- 
 rectly remembered, the result counted |. We 
 found great individual differences, probably not 
 only because the memory of the different persons 
 was different, but also because they varied in the 
 degree of interest with which they looked at such 
 material. The smallest number of reproductions 
 was 18, of which 14 were only half remembered, 
 that is, only the name or only the article, and as 
 we counted these half reproductions I , the mem- 
 ory-value for this person was counted 11. The 
 
 265
 
 THE BEST POSSIBLE EFFECT 
 
 maximum reproduction was 46, of which 6 were 
 half remembered. 
 
 If these calculated values are added and the 
 sum divided by the number of participants, that 
 is, 30, and this finally by the number of the adver- 
 tisements shown, that is, 60, we obtain the aver- 
 age memory-value of a single advertisement. The 
 results showed that this was 0.44. But our real 
 interest referred to the distribution for the ad- 
 vertisements of different size. If we make the 
 same calculation, not for the totality of the ad- 
 vertisements but for those of a particular size, we 
 find that the memory-value for the full-page ad- 
 vertisement was 0.33, for the 2 times repeated 
 half-page advertisement, 0.30, for the 4 times re- 
 peated fourth-page advertisement 0.49, for the 8 
 times repeated eighth-page advertisement, 0.44, 
 and for the 12 times repeated twelfth-page adver- 
 tisement, 0.47. Hence we come to the result that 
 the 4 times repeated fourth -page advertisement as 
 1§ times stronger memory-value than one offer- 
 ing of a full-page, or the 2 times repeated half- 
 page, but that this relation does not grow with a 
 further reduction of the size. Two thirds of the 
 subjects were men and one third women. On the 
 whole, the same relation exists for both groups, 
 but the climax of psychical efficiency was reached 
 in the case of the men by the 4 times repeated 
 
 266
 
 THE EFFECTS OF ADVERTISEMENTS 
 
 fourth-page, in the case of the women by the 8 
 times repeated eighth-page. The 4 times repeated 
 fourth-page in the case of the women was 0.45, 
 in the case of the men, 0.51, the 8 times repeated 
 eighth-page, women, 0.53, men, 0.37. 
 
 I am incHned to beHeve that the ascent of the 
 curve of the memory-value from the full-page to 
 the fourth-page or eighth-page would have been 
 still more continuous, if the whole-page adver- 
 tisements had not naturally been such as are best 
 known to the American reader. The whole-page 
 announcement, therefore, had a certain natural 
 advantage. But when we come to another calcu- 
 lation, even the effect of this advantage is lost. 
 We examined the relations for the first 10 names 
 and articles, which every one of the 30 persons 
 wrote down. These first 10 were mostly dashed 
 down quickly without special thought. They also 
 included only a few half reproductions. When we 
 study these 300 answers which the 30 persons 
 wrote as their first 10 reproductions, and calcu- 
 late from them the chances which every one of 
 the 60 advertisements had for being remembered, 
 we obtain the following values: The probability 
 of being remembered among the first 10 was for 
 the full-page advertisement, 0.5, for the half-page 
 2 times repeated, 1.2, for the fourth -page 4 times 
 repeated, 2.9, for the eighth-page 8 times repeated, 
 
 267
 
 THE BEST POSSIBLE EFFECT 
 
 2.3, and for the twelfth-page 12 times repeated, 
 
 2.4, The superiority of repetition over mere size 
 appears most impressively in this form, but we 
 see again in this series that the effect decreases 
 even with increased number of repetitions as 
 soon as the single advertisement sinks below a 
 certain relative size, so that the 12 times repeated 
 twelfth-page advertisement does not possess the 
 memory-value of the 4 times repeated fourth-page 
 advertisement. If Scott's experiments concern- 
 ing the size and these experiments of mine con- 
 cerning the repetition are right, the memory- value 
 of the advertisements for economic purposes is 
 dependent upon complicated conditions. A busi- 
 ness man who brings out a full -page advertise- 
 ment once in a paper which has 100,000 readers 
 would leave the desired memory-impression on 
 a larger number of individuals than if he were to 
 print a fourth-page advertisement in four differ- 
 ent cities in four local papers, each of which has 
 100,000 readers. But if he uses the same paper in 
 one town, he would produce a much greater effect 
 by printing a fourth of a page four times than by 
 using a full-page advertisement once only. 
 
 As a matter of course this would hold true only 
 as far as size and repetition are concerned. Many 
 other factors have to be considered besides. Some 
 of these could even be studied with our material. 
 
 268
 
 THE EFFECTS OF ADVERTISEMENTS 
 
 We could study from our results what memory- 
 value is attached to the various forms of type or 
 suggestive words, what influence to illustrations, 
 how far they reinforce the impressiveness and 
 how far they draw away the attention from the 
 name and the object, how these various factors 
 influence men and women differently, and so on. 
 Other questions, however, demand entirely differ- 
 ent forms of experiment. We may examine the 
 effects of special contrast phenomena, of unusual 
 background, of irregular borders and original 
 headings. The particular position of the adver- 
 tisement also deserves our psychological interest. 
 The magazines receive higher prices for the cover 
 pages and the newspapers for advertisements 
 which are surrounded by reading matter. In 
 both cases obvious practical motives are decisive. 
 The cover page comes into the field of vision more 
 frequently. What is surrounded by reading mat- 
 ter is less easily overlooked. 
 
 But the newspaper world hardly realizes how 
 much other variations of position influence the 
 psychological effect. Starch ^^ made experiments 
 in which he did not use real advertisements, but 
 meaningless syllables so as to exclude the in- 
 fluence of familiarity with any announcement. 
 He arranged little booklets, each of 12 pages, on 
 which a syllable such as lod, zan, mep, dut, yiby 
 
 269
 
 THE BEST POSSIBLE EFFECT 
 
 and so on was printed in the middle of each page. 
 Each of his 50 subjects glanced over the book and 
 then wrote down what syllables remain'cd in mem- 
 ory. He found that the syllables which stood on 
 the first and last page were remembered by 34 per- 
 sons, those on the second and eleventh by about 26, 
 and those on the eight other pages by an average 
 of 17 persons. In the next experiment he printed 
 one syllable in the middle of the upper and one 
 in the middle of the lower half of each page. The 
 results now showed that of those syllables which 
 were remembered 54 per cent stood on the upper 
 half and 46 per cent on the lower half of the page. 
 Finally, he divided every page into four parts and 
 printed one syllable on the middle of each fourth 
 of a page. The results showed that of the remem- 
 bered syllables 28 per cent stood on the left-hand 
 upper fourth, 33 per cent on the right-hand upper 
 fourth, 16 per cent left-hand lower, and 23 per 
 cent right-hand lower. A fourth-page advertise- 
 ment which is printed on the outer side of the 
 upper half of the page thus probably has more 
 than twice the psychological value of one which is 
 printed on the inner side of the lower half. The 
 economic world spends millions every year for 
 advertisements on the upper right-hand side and 
 millions for advertisements on the lower left-hand 
 side, and is not aware that one represents twice 
 
 270
 
 THE EFFECTS OF ADVERTISEMENTS 
 
 the value of the other. These little illustrations of 
 advertisement experiments may suflSce to indi- 
 cate how much haphazard methods are still pre- 
 valent in the whole field of economic psychotech- 
 nics, methods which would not be tolerated in the 
 sphere of physical and chemical technology.
 
 XXI 
 
 THE EFFECT OF DISPLAY 
 
 IF we turn from the simple newspaper adver- 
 tisement to the means of propaganda in gen- 
 eral, we at once stand before a question which is 
 often wrongly answered. The practical handbooks 
 of advertisements and means of display treat 
 it as a self-evident fact that every presentation 
 should be as beautiful as possible. In the first 
 place, we cannot deny that the ugly and even the 
 disgusting possess a strong power for attracting 
 attention. Yet it is true that by a transposition of 
 feelings the displeasure in the advertisement may 
 easily become a displeasure in the advertised ob- 
 ject. But, on the other hand, it is surely a mis- 
 take to believe that pure beauty best fulfills the 
 function of the advertisement. Even the drafts- 
 man who draws a poster ought to give up the am- 
 bition to create a perfect picture. It might have 
 the power to attract attention, but it would 
 hardly serve its true purpose of fixing the atten- 
 tion on the article which is advertised by the 
 picture. The very meaning of beauty lies in its 
 self-completeness. The beautiful picture rests 
 in itself and does not point beyond itself. A really 
 
 272
 
 THE EFFECT OF DISPLAY 
 
 beautiful landscape painting is an end in itself, 
 and must not stir up the practical wish to visit 
 the landscape which has stimulated the eye of the 
 painter. If the display is to serve economic inter- 
 ests, every line and every curve, every form and 
 every color, must be subordinated to the task of 
 leading to a practical resolution, and to an action, 
 and yet this is exactly the opposite of the meaning 
 of art. Art must inhibit action, if it is perfect. 
 The artist is not to make us believe that we deal 
 with a real object which suggests a practical atti- 
 tude. The aesthetic forms are adjusted to the main 
 aesthetic aim, the inhibition of practical desires. 
 The display must be pleasant, tasteful, harmoni- 
 ous, and suggestive, but should not be beautiful, 
 if it is to fulfill its purpose in the fullest sense. It 
 loses its economic value, if by its artistic quality 
 it oversteps the boundaries of that middle region 
 of arts and crafts. This of course stands in no 
 contradiction to the requirement that the adver- 
 tised article should be made to appear as beauti- 
 ful as possible. The presentation of something 
 beautiful is not necessarily a beautiful presenta- 
 tion, just as a perfectly beautiful picture need 
 not have something beautiful as its content. A 
 perfect painting may be the picture of a most 
 ugly person. 
 
 We have not yet spoken of the suggestive 
 
 273
 
 THE BEST POSSIBLE EFFECT 
 
 power of the means of propaganda. Every one 
 knows how the influence on taste and smell, on 
 social vanity, on local pride, on the gambling in- 
 stinct, on the instinctive fear of diseases, and 
 above all on the sexual instinct, can gain sug- 
 gestive power. Everywhere among the uncritical 
 masses such appeals reach individuals whose psy- 
 chophysical attitudes make such influences vivid 
 and overpowering. Every one knows, too, those 
 often clever linguistic forms which are to aid 
 the suggestion. They are to inhibit the opposing 
 impulses. The mere use of the imperative, to be 
 sure, has gradually become an ineffective, used- 
 up pattern. It is a question for special economic 
 psychotechnics to investigate how the suggestive 
 strength of a form can be reinforced or weakened 
 by various secondary influences. What influence, 
 for example, belongs to the electric sign advertise- 
 ments in which the sudden change from light to 
 darkness produces strong psychophysical effects, 
 and what value belongs to moving parts in the 
 picture? 
 
 The psychologist takes the same interest in 
 the examples of window displays, sample dis- 
 tributions, and similar vehicles of commerce by 
 which the offered articles themselves and not 
 their mere picture or description are to influence 
 the consciousness of the prospective customer. 
 
 274
 
 THE EFFECT OF DISPLAY 
 
 Here, too, every element may be isolated and may 
 be brought under psychotechnical rules. The most 
 external question would refer to the mere quan- 
 tity of the presented material. The psychologist 
 would ask how the mere mass of the offering in- 
 fluences the attention, how far the feeling of 
 pleasure in the fullness, how far the aesthetic im- 
 pression of repetition, how far the associative 
 thought of a manifold selection, how far the mere 
 spatial expansion, affects the impression. In any 
 case, as soon as it is acknowledged as desirable to 
 produce with certain objects the impression of 
 the greatest possible number, the experimental 
 psychologist stands before the concrete problem 
 of how a manifoldness of things is to be distrib- 
 uted so that it will not be underestimated, per- 
 haps even overestimated as to quantity. Again, 
 the laboratory experiment would not proceed 
 with real window displays or real exliibitions, but 
 would work out the principle with the simplified 
 experimental means. 
 
 An investigation in the Harvard laboratory, 
 for instance, tested the influence which various 
 factors have upon the estimation of a number 
 of objects seen.^- The question was how far 
 the form or the size or the distribution makes a 
 group of objects appear larger or smaller. The 
 experiment was started by showing 20 small cards 
 
 275
 
 THE BEST POSSIBLE EFFECT 
 
 on a black background in comparison with another 
 group of cards the number of which varied be- 
 tween 17 and 23. At first the form of these Httle 
 cards was changed: triangles, squares, and circles 
 were tried. Or the color was changed: light and 
 dark, saturated and unsaturated colors were 
 used. Or the order was varied: sometimes the 
 little cards lay in regular rows, sometimes in 
 close clusters, sometimes widely distributed, 
 sometimes in quite irregular fashion. Or the 
 background was changed, or the surrounding 
 frame, or the time of exposure, and so on. Each 
 time the subjects had to estimate whether the 
 second group was the larger or equal or the smaller. 
 These experiments indicated that such compara- 
 tive estimation was indeed influenced by every 
 one of the factors mentioned. If the experiments 
 show that an irregular distribution makes the 
 number appear larger or a close clustering re- 
 duces the apparent number, and so on, the busi- 
 ness man would be quite able to profit from such 
 knowledge. The jeweler who shows his rings and 
 watches in his window wishes to produce with his 
 small stock the impression of an ample supply. 
 He lacks the psychology which might teach him 
 whether he would act more wisely in having the 
 rings and the watches separated, or whether he 
 should mix the two, whether he ought to choose 
 
 276
 
 THE EFFECT OF DISPLAY 
 
 a background which is similar in color or one 
 which contrasts with the pieces exhibited, 
 whether he ought to present the single object in 
 a special background as in a case, or to show it 
 without one. He is not aware that by simple psy- 
 chological illusions, it is not difficult to change 
 the apparent size of an isolated object by special 
 treatment, making his show-piece appear larger 
 by a fitting background or intentionally making 
 a dainty object appear smaller by contrasting 
 surroundings. These, to be sure, are very trivial 
 illustrations, but the same fundamental psycho- 
 logical laws which are true for the show-window 
 of the next corner store are true for the world- 
 display of the nation. The point is to present 
 clearly the idea, which can be most simply ex- 
 pressed in such trivial material. But it may be 
 added that even in the case of the most indiffer- 
 ent example a few hasty experiments with one or 
 two subjects cannot yield any results of value. 
 
 All parts of physiological psychological optics 
 can contribute similar material. The questions 
 of color harmony and color contrast, light inten- 
 sity and mutual support of uniformly colored 
 objects, of irradiation, depth and perspective, are 
 significant for an effective display in the show- 
 window, and the laboratory results can easily 
 be translated into psychotechnical prescriptions. 
 
 277
 
 THE BEST POSSIBLE EFFECT 
 
 But here it is still more necessary to separate 
 carefully the merely optical aspect of the impres- 
 sion from its aesthetic side. All that we claimed 
 as to the poster is still more justified for the pre- 
 sentation of the saleable objects themselves. As 
 soon as the display of the articles forms a real work 
 of art, it must produce inhibitions in the soul of 
 the spectator by which the practical economic 
 desire is turned aside. Beauty here too has strong 
 power of attraction, and moreover the suggestive 
 power, by which it withdraws our senses from the 
 chance surroundings, forces us to lose ourselves 
 in the offered presentation. But just through this 
 process the content of the display becomes iso- 
 lated and separated from the world of our prac- 
 tical interests. Our desires are brought to silence, 
 we do not seek a personal relation to the things 
 which we face as admiring spectators, and the 
 intended economic effect is therefore eliminated. 
 Whoever is to examine the psychotechnics of 
 displays and exhibitions must therefore study 
 the psychology of aesthetic stimulation, of sug- 
 gestion, of the effects of light, color, form and 
 movement, of apperception and attention, and 
 ought not to forget the psychology of humor and 
 curiosity, of instincts and emotions. For us the 
 essential point is that here too the experimental 
 psychological method alone is able to lead from 
 
 278
 
 THE EFFECT OF DISPLAY 
 
 mere chance arrangements founded on personal 
 taste to the systematic construction which secures 
 with the greatest possible certainty the greatest 
 possible mental effect in the service of the econ- 
 omic purpose. 
 
 The problems of the storekeeper who arranges 
 his windows, however, overlap the problems of 
 the manufacturer who prepares his goods for the 
 world-market, and who must from the start take 
 care that the outer appearance of his goods stimu- 
 late the readiness to buy. In factories in which 
 these questions have been carefully considered, the 
 psychological elements have always been found 
 to be the most influential, but often the most 
 puzzling. I received material from a number 
 of industrial plants which sold the same article 
 in a variety of packings. The material which 
 was sent to me included all kinds of soaps and 
 candies, writing-papers and breakfast foods, and 
 other articles which are handled by the retailer, 
 the sale of which depends upon the inclination 
 and caprice of the customer in the store. For every 
 one of these objects a number of external covers 
 and labels were sent and with them a confidential 
 report with details about their relative success. 
 For instance, a certain kind of chocolate was sold 
 under 12 different labels. One of them was 
 highly successful in the whole country, and one 
 
 279
 
 THE BEST POSSIBLE EFFECT 
 
 other had made the same article entirely unsale- 
 able. The other 10 could be graded between these 
 extremes. In all 12 cases the covers were deco- 
 rated with pictures of women with a scenic back- 
 ground. As long as only aesthetic values were 
 considered, all were on nearly the same level, 
 and aesthetically skilled observers repeatedly ex- 
 pressed their preference for some of the unsuccess- 
 ful pictures over some of the successful ones. But 
 as soon as an internal relation was formed between 
 the pictures and the chocolate, in the one case a 
 mental harmony resulted which had strong sug- 
 gestive power, in the other case a certain unrest 
 and inner disturbance which necessarily had an 
 inhibiting influence. The picture which was un- 
 successful with the sweets would perhaps have 
 been eminently successful for tobacco. From 
 such elementary starting-points, the laboratory 
 experiment might proceed systematically into 
 spheres of economic life hitherto untouched by 
 scientific methods. The psychology of the influ- 
 ence of external forms on the conscious reactions 
 of the masses is so far usually considered only 
 when, as often happens, the most fundamental 
 demands are violated; for instance, when objects 
 which are to give the impression of ease are 
 painted in colors which give a heavy, clumsy ap- 
 pearance, or vice versa, when book-bindings are 
 
 280
 
 THE EFFECT OF DISPLAY 
 
 lettered in archaic type which makes the reading 
 of the title impossible for a passer-by, and many 
 similar antipsychological absurdities which any 
 stroll through the streets of a modern city forces 
 on us.
 
 XXII 
 
 EXPERIMENTS WITH REFERENCE TO 
 ILLEGAL IMITATION 
 
 IT is perhaps not without interest to turn into 
 a by-path at this point of our road. All the 
 illustrations which we have picked out so far 
 have referred to strictly economic conditions. But 
 we ought not to forget that these economic pro- 
 blems of commerce and industry are everywhere 
 in contact with legal interests as well. In order 
 to indicate the manifoldness of problems acces- 
 sible to the experimental method, we may discuss 
 our last question, the question of packing and 
 of labels, in this legal relation too. All the pack- 
 ings, covers, labels, trademarks, and names by 
 which the manufacturer tries to stimulate the 
 attention, the imagination, and the suggestibility 
 of the customer may easily draw a large part of 
 their psychological effectiveness from without, 
 as soon as they imitate the appearance of articles 
 which are well introduced and favored in the 
 market. If the public is familiar with and favor- 
 ably inclined toward an article on account of its 
 inner values or on account of its being much ad- 
 
 282
 
 ILLEGAL IMITATION 
 
 vertised, a similar name or a similar packing may 
 offer efficient help to a rival article. The law of 
 course protects the label and the deceiving imi- 
 tation can be prosecuted. But no law can deter- 
 mine by general conceptions the exact point at 
 which the similarity becomes legally unallowable. 
 This creates a situation which has given rise to 
 endless difficulties in practical life. 
 
 If everything were forbidden which by its 
 similarity to an accredited article might lead to a 
 possible confusion in the mind of the quite care- 
 less and inattentive customer, any article once in 
 the market would have a monopoly in its line. 
 As soon as a typewriter or an automobile or a 
 pencil or a mineral water existed, no second kind 
 could have access to the market, as with a high 
 degree of carelessness one economic rival may be 
 taken for another, even if the new typewriter 
 or the new pencil has a new form and color and 
 name. On the other side, the purchaser could 
 never have a feeling of security if imitations were 
 considered as still legally justifiable when the 
 difference is so small that it needs an intense 
 mental effort and careful examination of details 
 to notice it. 
 
 The result is that the jurisdiction fluctuates be- 
 tween these two extremes in a most alarming way, 
 and this seems to hold true in all countries. In 
 
 283
 
 THE BEST POSSIBLE EFFECT 
 
 theory: "There is substantial agreement that in- 
 fringement occurs when the marks, names, la- 
 bels, or packings of one trader resemble those of 
 another sujQSciently to make it probable that or- 
 dinary purchasers, exercising no more care than 
 such persons usually do in purchasing the article 
 in question, will be deceived." But it depends 
 upon the trade experts and the judges to give 
 meaning to such a statement in the particular 
 case, as the amount of care which purchasers 
 usually exercise can be understood very differ- 
 ently. Sometimes the customer is expected to 
 proceed with an attention which is most subtly 
 adjusted to the finest differences, and sometimes 
 it is taken for granted that he is unable to notice 
 even strong variations. It is clear that this un- 
 certainty which disturbs the whole trade cannot 
 be eliminated as long as the psychological back- 
 ground has not been systematically studied. 
 Mere talking about the attention of the customer, 
 and his ability to decide and select, and of his ob- 
 servations and his habits in the spirit of popular 
 common-sense psychology, can never secure exact 
 standards and definite demarcation lines. The 
 question is important not only where imitations 
 of morally doubtful character are in the market. 
 Even the most honest manufacturer is in a cer- 
 tain sense obliged to imitate his predecessors, 
 
 284
 
 ILLEGAL IMITATION 
 
 as they have directed the taste and habits of 
 the pubHc in particular directions, and as the 
 product of his company would suffer unneces- 
 sarily if he were to disregard this psychical at- 
 titude of the prospective customers. The econo- 
 mic legal situation accordingly suggests the 
 question whether it would not be possible to de- 
 vise methods for an exact measurement of the 
 permissible similarity, and this demand for 
 exactitude naturally points to the methods of 
 the psychological experiment. E. S. Rogers, 
 Esq., of Chicago, who has thoroughly discussed 
 the legal aspect of the problem, ^^ first turned 
 my attention to the psychological difficulty in- 
 volved. 
 
 When I approached the question in the Har- 
 vard psychological laboratory, it was clear to 
 me that the degree of attention and carefulness 
 which the court may presuppose on the part of 
 the customer can never be determined by the 
 psychologist and his experimental methods. It 
 would be meaningless, if we tried to discover 
 by experiments a particular degree of similarity 
 which every one ought to recognize or a particular 
 degree of attention which would be sufficient for 
 protection against fraud. Such degrees must al- 
 ways remain dependent upon arbitrary decision. 
 They are not settled by natural conditions, but 
 
 285
 
 THE BEST POSSIBLE EFFECT 
 
 are entirely dependent upon social agreement. A 
 decision outside of the realm of psychology must 
 fix upon a particular degree in the scale of various 
 similarity values as the limit which is not to be 
 passed. The aim of the psychologist can be only 
 to construct such a scale by which decisions may 
 be made comparable and by which standards 
 may become possible. The experiment cannot 
 deduce from the study of mental phenomena 
 what degrees of similarity ought to be still ad- 
 missible, but it may be able to develop methods 
 by which different degrees of similarity can be 
 discriminated and by which a certain similarity 
 value once selected can always be found again 
 with objective certainty. After many fruitless 
 efiforts I settled on the following form of experi- 
 ments, which I hope may bring us nearer to the 
 attainment of the purpose. 
 
 A group of objects is observed for a definite 
 time and after a definite interval another group 
 of objects is offered for comparison. This second 
 group is identical with the first in all but one of 
 the objects, and this is replaced by a similar one. 
 The question is how often this substitution will 
 be noticed by the observers. I may give in detail 
 a characterization of the set of experiments in 
 which we are at present engaged. We are work- 
 ing with picture postal cards, using many hun- 
 
 286
 
 ILLEGAL IMITATION 
 
 dred cards of different kinds, but for each one we 
 have one or several simihir cards. As postal cards 
 are generally manufactured in sets, it is not diffi- 
 cult to purchase pairs of pictures with any degree 
 of similarity. Two cards with Christmas trees, 
 or two with Easter eggs, or two with football 
 players, or two with forest landscapes, and so on, 
 may differ all the way from a slight variation of 
 color or a hardly noticeable change in the position 
 of details to variations which keep the same mo- 
 tive or the same general arrangement, but after all 
 make the card strikingly different. The first step 
 is to determine for each pair the degree of simi- 
 larity, on a percentage basis. To overcome mere 
 arbitrariness, we ask thirty to forty educated per- 
 sons to express the similarity value, calling iden- 
 tical postal cards 100 per cent and two postal 
 cards as different as a colored flower piece and a 
 black picture of a street scene 0. The average 
 value of these judgments is then considered as 
 expressing the objective degree of similarity be- 
 tween the two pictures of a pair. After securing 
 such standard values, we carry on the experiments 
 in the following form. Six different postal cards, 
 for instance, are seen on a black background 
 through the opening of a shutter which is closed 
 after 5 seconds. The six may be made up of a 
 landscape, a building, a head, a genre scene, and 
 
 287
 
 THE BEST POSSIBLE EFFECT 
 
 so forth. After 20 seconds the same group of pos- 
 tal cards is shown once more, except that one is 
 replaced by a similar one, instead of one church 
 another church building, or instead of a vase with 
 roses a vase with pinks. If the substituted picture 
 has the average similarity value of 80 per cent and 
 we make the experiment with 10 persons, the sub- 
 stitution may be discovered by 7 persons and re- 
 main unnoticed by 3. We can now easily vary 
 every one of the factors involved. If instead of 6 
 cards, we take 10, it may be that only 4 out of 10 
 persons, instead of 7, will discover the substitution, 
 while if we take 4 cards instead of 6, perhaps 9 per- 
 sons out of 10 will recognize the difference under 
 these otherwise equal conditions. Only an espe- 
 cially careless observer will overlook it. But in- 
 stead of changing the number of objects, we may 
 change the periods of exposure. If we show the 
 6 cards only for 2 seconds instead of 5 seconds, 
 the number of those who recognize the difference 
 may sink from 7 to 5 or 4, and if we make the time 
 considerably longer, we shall of course reach a 
 point where all 10 will recognize the substitu- 
 tion. The same holds true of the shortening or 
 lengthening of the time-interval between the two 
 presentations. The third variable factor is the 
 similarity itself. If instead of one church, not an- 
 other church, but a theatre or a skyscraper is 
 
 288
 
 ILLEGAL IMITATION 
 
 shown, that is, if the similarity value of 80 per 
 cent sinks down to a similarity of 60 per cent or 
 50 per cent, the number of those who recognize 
 the substitution will again become larger; if, on 
 the other hand, the substituted card shows the 
 same church, only from a slightly different angle, 
 bringing the similarity value up to 90 per cent or 
 95 per cent, the number of observers who recog- 
 nize the substitution may sink to 2 or 3. To make 
 the experiments reliable, it is also necessary fre- 
 quently to mix in cases in which no substitution 
 at all is introduced. 
 
 If these experiments are varied sufficiently and 
 a large mass of material brought together, we 
 must be able to secure definite formulae. We may 
 find that if the critical card appears among 6 
 cards, is shown for 5 seconds, and the group is 
 again exposed after 20 seconds, 80 per cent of the 
 subjects will recognize the substitution of a similar 
 card, if the degree of similarity is 30 per cent, but 
 only 60 per cent will recognize it if the degree of 
 similarity is 70 per cent, and only 30 per cent will 
 recognize it if the degree of similarity is 90 per cent. 
 These are entirely fictitious figures and are only to 
 indicate the principle. If such an exact formula 
 were definitely discovered, we should still be un- 
 able to say from mere psychological reasoning 
 whi^t similarity value is legally permissible. If 
 
 289
 
 THE BEST POSSIBLE EFFECT 
 
 the rules against infringement are interpreted in 
 a very rigorous spirit, it may seem desirable to 
 prohibit imitations which are as little similar as 
 those postal cards which were graded as 40 per 
 cent in our similarity scale, and if the interpreta- 
 tion is a loose one, it may appear permissible 
 to have imitations on the market which are as 
 strongly similar as our postal cards graded at 80 
 per cent in our similarity scale. All this would have 
 to be left to the lawmakers and to the judges. 
 But what we would have gained is this. We could 
 say: if our object exposed for 5 seconds in a group 
 of 6 other objects is replaced after an interval of 
 20 seconds by an imitation and this change is 
 recognized by 8 persons among 10, the degree of 
 similarity is 30 per cent and if it is recognized 
 by 3 out of 10 subjects, the degree of similarity 
 is 90 per cent. In short, from any percentage 
 of subjects who under these conditions discovered 
 the substitution, we could determine the degree 
 of similarity, independent of any individual arbi- 
 trariness. If such methods were accepted by the 
 trade and the courts, it would only be necessary 
 to agree on the percentage of similarity which 
 ought to be permitted, and all uncertainty would 
 disappear. There would be no wrangling of op- 
 posing interests; it would be possible to find out 
 whether the permitted limit were overstepped or 
 
 290
 
 ILLEGAL IMITATION 
 
 not with an exactitude similar to that with which 
 the weight or the chemical constitution of a trade 
 commodity is examined. Certainly the experi- 
 ment establishes here conditions which are very 
 different from those of practical life. The cus- 
 tomer who wants to buy a particular picture postal 
 card which he saw once before and to whom the 
 salesman offers a similar one, suggesting that it is 
 the same, is facing only one card and not a group 
 of six. But in practical life the card which he has 
 seen was not observed with the definite intention 
 of keeping the memory picture in mind, and 
 months may have passed since it was seen. The 
 memory ^picture which the customer has in his 
 consciousness when he seeks the particular card 
 is much weakened by this circumstance too. We 
 secure this weakening artificially by the arrange- 
 ment of the experiment in placing the card in a 
 group of six or ten and exposing them for a few 
 seconds only. The force of attention and the cor- 
 responding memory-value are by this distribu- 
 tion diminished in a definite degree in the case of 
 every single card. 
 
 The investigation must include a careful study 
 of the size of the groups, of the time-relations, of 
 the percentage of correct answers, all under the 
 point of view of greatest fitness for practical appli- 
 cation. In the Harvard laboratory the research 
 
 291
 
 THE BEST POSSIBLE EFFECT 
 
 has been carried on partly with such picture 
 material, partly with word material, and partly 
 with concrete objects.^^ Whatever the details of 
 the outcome may be, we hope that the work will 
 lead to results which may, indeed, make such a 
 psychotechnical use possible. Its principles and 
 formulae might easily be adjusted to any market- 
 able material. As a matter of course, if in future 
 the courts were ever to accept such psychological, 
 experimental methods, it would be intolerable 
 dilettantism if such experiments were carried on 
 by lawyers and district attorneys. It is as true 
 of this economic legal question as of many other 
 legal psychological problems that its introduction 
 into the courtroom can become desirable only 
 when psychological experts are engaged and 
 called in the same way as chemical or medical ex- 
 perts are invited to the court. On the other hand, 
 there is surely not the slightest desire on the part 
 of psychologists to be dragged into humiliating 
 performances like those which not only hand- 
 writing experts, but even psychiatric specialists 
 have had to undergo repeatedly in sensational 
 court trials. The day for the expert activity in the 
 courtroom will come for the psychologist only 
 when the country has attached the expert to the 
 court and has eliminated the expert retained by 
 the plaintiff or the defendant. But this general 
 
 292
 
 ILLEGAL IMITATION 
 
 practical question as to the position of the psycho- 
 logist in the courtroom and as to the need of a 
 psychological laboratory in connection with the 
 courts would lead us too far aside.
 
 XXIII 
 
 BUYING AND SELLING 
 
 THE efifects which we have studied so far were 
 produced by inanimate objects, posters or 
 displays, advertisements or labels and packings. 
 The economic psychotechnics of the future will 
 surely study with similar methods the effects of 
 the living commercial agencies. Experiments will 
 trace the exact effects which the salesman or cus- 
 tomer may produce. But here not even a modest 
 beginning can be discovered, and it would be diffi- 
 cult to mention a single example of experimental 
 research. The desired psychological influences of 
 the salesman are not quite dissimilar to those of 
 the printed means of propaganda. Here, too, it is 
 essential to turn the attention of the customer 
 to different points, to awaken a vivid favorable 
 impression, to emphasize the advantages of the 
 goods, to throw full light on them, and finally to 
 influence the will-decision either by convincing 
 arguments or by persuasion and suggestion. In 
 either case the point is to enhance the impulse to 
 buy and to suppress the opposing ideas. Yet 
 every one of these factors, when it starts from a 
 man and not from a thing or paper, changes its 
 
 294
 
 BUYING AND SELLING 
 
 form. The influence becomes narrower, it is di- 
 rected toward a smaller number of persons; but, 
 on the other hand, it gains just by the new possi- 
 bility of individualization. The salesman in the 
 store or the commercial traveler adjusts himself 
 to the wishes, reactions, and replies of the buyer. 
 Above all, when it becomes necessary to direct 
 the attention to the decisive points, the personal 
 agent has the possibility of developing the whole 
 process through a series of stages so that the at- 
 tention slowly becomes focused on one definite 
 point. The salesman observes at first only the 
 general limits of the interest of the customer as 
 far as it is indicated by his reactions, but slowly 
 he can find out in this whole field the region of 
 strongest desires. As soon as he has discovered 
 this narrower region in which the prospects of 
 success seem to be greatest, he can systematically 
 eliminate everything which distracts and scatters 
 the attention. He can discover whether the psyche 
 of the individual with whom he is dealing can be 
 influenced more strongly by logical arguments or 
 by suggestion, and how far he may calculate on 
 the pleasure instincts, on the excitement of emo- 
 tions, on the impulse to imitate, on the natural 
 vanity, on the desire for saving, and on the long- 
 ing for luxury. In every one of these directions the 
 whole play of human suggestion may be helpful. 
 
 295
 
 THE BEST POSSIBLE EFFECT 
 
 The voice may win or destroy confidence, the 
 statement may by its firmness overcome counter- 
 motives or by its uncertainty reinforce them. Even 
 hand or arm movements by their motor sugges- 
 tion may focus the desires of the customers, while 
 unskillful, erratic movements may scatter the 
 attention and lead to an inner oscillation of the 
 will to buy. 
 
 At every one of these points the psychological 
 experiment may find a foothold, and only through 
 such methodological study can the haphazard 
 proceedings of the commercial world be trans- 
 formed into really economic schemes. Indeed, it 
 seems nothing but chance that just this field is 
 controlled by chance alone. The enormous social 
 interplay of energies which are discharged in the 
 selling and buying of the millions becomes utterly 
 planless as soon as salesman and customer come 
 into contact, and this tremendous waste of en- 
 ergy cannot appear desirable for any possible 
 interest of civilization. The time alone which is 
 wasted by useless psychophysical operations in 
 front of and behind the counter represents a 
 gigantic part of the national budget. Even the 
 complaints about the long working day of the 
 salesgirls might be eliminated from the debit 
 account of the national ledger, if the commercial 
 companies could study the psychical processes in 
 
 296
 
 BUYING AND SELLING 
 
 selling and buying with the same carefulness with 
 which they analyze all details in preparing the 
 stock and fixing the prices. In the army or in the 
 fire department, in the railroad service, and even 
 in the factory, all necessary activities are so ar- 
 ranged that as far as possible the greatest achieve- 
 ment is secured by the smallest amount of energy. 
 But when the hundreds of millions of customers 
 in the civilized world want to satisfy their econo- 
 mic demands in the stores, the whole dissolves 
 into a flood of talk, because no one has taken the 
 trouble to examine scientifically the psychotech- 
 nics of selling and to put it on a firm psychological 
 foundation. 
 
 The idea of scientific management must be 
 extended from the industrial concerns to the 
 commercial establishments. The questioning and 
 answering, the showing and replacing of the goods, 
 the demonstrating and suggesting by the sales- 
 men, must be brought into an economic system 
 which saves time and energy, as has been tried 
 with the laborer in the factory. Wherever eco- 
 nomic processes are carried out with superfluous, 
 haphazard movements, the national resources 
 have to suffer a loss. The single individual can 
 never find the ideal form of motion and the ideal 
 process by mere instinct. A systematic investiga- 
 tion is needed to determine the way to the great- 
 
 297
 
 THE BEST POSSIBLE EFFECT 
 
 est saving of energy, and the result ought to be 
 made a binding rule for every apprentice. How 
 the smallest influences grow by summation may 
 be illustrated by the experience of a large depart- 
 ment store, in which the expense for delivery of 
 the articles sold was felt as too large an item in 
 the budget. The hundreds of saleswomen there- 
 fore received the order after every sale of mod- 
 erate-sized articles not to ask, as before, "May 
 we send it to you?" but instead, "Will you take 
 it with you?" Probably none of the many thou- 
 sand daily customers observed the difference, the 
 more as it was indifferent to most of them whether 
 they took the little package home themselves or 
 not. In cases in which it was inconvenient, they 
 would anyhow oppose the suggestion and insist 
 that the purchase be sent to them. Yet it is claimed 
 that this hardly noticeable suggestion led to a 
 considerable saving in the following year, dis- 
 tinctly felt in the budget of the whole establish- 
 ment. 
 
 We must not forget, however, that the process 
 of buying deserves the same psychological inter- 
 est as that of selling. If psychotechnics is to be 
 put into the service of a valuable economic task, 
 the goal cannot possibly be to devise schemes by 
 which the customer may easily be trapped. The 
 purpose of science cannot be to help any one to 
 
 298
 
 BUYING AND SELLING 
 
 sell articles to a man who does not need them and 
 who would regret the purchase after quiet thought. 
 The applied psychologist should help the prospect- 
 ive buyer no less, and must protect him so that 
 his true intention may become realized in the 
 economic process. Otherwise through his sug- 
 gestibility, the determining idea of his goal might 
 fade in his consciousness and the appeal to his 
 vanity or to his instincts might awaken an anti- 
 economic desire which he would be too weak to 
 inhibit. The salesman must know how to use 
 arguments and suggestions and how to make 
 them effective,^^ but the customer too must 
 know how to see through a misleading argument 
 and how to resist mere suggestion. 
 
 The postulate that the psychical factors in 
 commercial life are to be carefully regarded is 
 repeated in more complex form in the wholesale 
 business and in the stock exchange. It is a per- 
 fectly justified and consistent thought which re- 
 cently led a large credit bureau to an effort to base 
 its information on psychological analysis. It is 
 well known that there are bureaus in which the 
 ledger experiences of a large circle of companies 
 in the same commercial line are collected, tabu- 
 lated, and recorded, thus affording an automatic 
 review of the occurrences, focusing early attention 
 on doubtful accounts and pointing out weaknesses 
 
 299
 
 THE BEST POSSIBLE EFFECT 
 
 in the customers' conditions, as they develop, as 
 well as evidences of prosperity. The ledger experi- 
 ence which a single company has with all its cus- 
 tomers is tabulated without revealing its identity 
 to the associates, who get reports containing it, 
 and the many combined ledgers become a valu- 
 able guide. Yet all such methods can show only 
 actual movements in the market, and cannot al- 
 low the prospects of future development to be de- 
 termined, simply because they cannot take into 
 account the personal equations. Only an acquaint- 
 ance with the character and the temperament, 
 the intelligence and the habits, the energy and 
 the weakness, of the head of a firm can tell us 
 whether the company, even with satisfactory 
 resources, may go down, or whether, even though 
 embarrassed, it may hold out. The psychological 
 pioneer, therefore, aims not only toward an ex- 
 change of ledger accounts, but toward a real psy- 
 chological diagnosis and prognosis. If a member 
 of a firm is personally known to some scores of 
 business men who have had commercial dealings 
 with him, and each one of them, without disclos- 
 ing his identity to any one but the central bureau, 
 sends to it a statement of personal impressions, a 
 composite picture of the mental physiognomy 
 can be worked out. Of course all this has been 
 often done in the terms of popular psychology 
 
 300
 
 BUYING AND SELLING 
 
 and in a haphazard, amateurish way. The new 
 plan is to arrange the questions systematically 
 under the point of view of scientific descriptive 
 psychology. Regular psychograms, in which the 
 probability of a particular kind of behavior is to 
 be determined in an exact percentage calculation, 
 are to replace the traditional vagueness, as soon 
 as a sufficient number of reliable answers have 
 been tabulated. 
 
 Commercial life as a whole finds its contact with 
 psychology, of course, not only in the problem of 
 how to secure the best mental effect. Those other 
 questions which we have discussed essentially 
 with reference to factory life and industrial con- 
 cerns, namely, how the best man and the best 
 work are to be secured, recur in the circle of com- 
 mercial endeavors. It seems, indeed, most desir- 
 able to devise psychological tests by which the 
 ability to be a successful salesman or saleswoman 
 may be determined at an early stage. The la- 
 mentable shifting of the employees in all com- 
 mercial spheres, with its injurious social conse- 
 quences, would then be unnecessary, and both 
 employers and employees would profit. More- 
 over, like the selection of the men, the means of 
 securing the most satisfactory work from them, 
 has also so far been left entirely to common sense. 
 Commercial work stands under an abundance 
 
 301
 
 THE BEST POSSIBLE EFFECT 
 
 of varying conditions, and each may have in- 
 fluences the isolated effects of which are not 
 known, because they have not been studied in that 
 systematic form which only the experiment can 
 establish. The popular literature on this whole 
 group of subjects is extensive, and in its expan- 
 sion corresponds to the widespread demand for 
 real information and advice to the salesman. 
 But hardly any part of the literature in the bor- 
 derland regions of economics is so disappointing 
 in its vagueness, emptiness, and helplessness. 
 Experimental psychology has nothing with which 
 to replace it to-day, but it can at least show the 
 direction from which decisive help may be ex- 
 pected in future.
 
 XXIV 
 
 THE FUTURE DEVELOPMENT OF ECONOMIC 
 PSYCHOLOGY 
 
 HERE we may stop. From those element- 
 ary questions concerning the mental ef- 
 fects, the path would quickly lead to questions 
 of gravest importance. What is the mental ef- 
 fect which the economic labor produces in the 
 laborer himself? How do economic movements 
 influence the mind of the community? How far 
 do non-economic factors produce effects on the 
 psychical mechanism of the economic agents? 
 But it would be idle to claim to-day for exact 
 psychology, with its methods of causal thought, 
 regions in which so far popular psychology, with 
 its methods of purposive thought, is still sovereign. 
 Our aim certainly was not to review the totality 
 of possible problems related to economic eflSciency, 
 but merely to demonstrate the principles and the 
 methods of experimental economic psychology 
 by a few characteristic illustrations. As all the 
 examples which we selected were chosen only in 
 order to make clear the characteristic point of 
 view of psychotechnics, it is unimportant whether 
 the particular results will stand the test of further 
 
 303
 
 THE BEST POSSIBLE EFFECT 
 
 experimental investigations, or will have to be 
 modified by new researches. What is needed to- 
 day is not to distribute the results so far reached 
 as if they were parts of a definite knowledge, but 
 only to emphasize that the little which has been 
 accomplished should encourage continuous effort. 
 To stimulate such further work is the only pur- 
 pose of this sketch. 
 
 This further work will have to be a work of co- 
 operation. The nature of this problem demands 
 a relatively large number of persons for the ex- 
 perimental treatment. With most experimental 
 researches in our psychological laboratories, the 
 number of the subjects experimented on is not 
 so important as the number of experiments made 
 with a few well-trained participants. But with 
 the questions of applied psychology the number of 
 persons plays a much more significant role, as the 
 individual differences become of greatest import- 
 ance. The same problems ought therefore to be 
 studied in various places, so that the results 
 may be exchanged and compared. Moreover, these 
 psychological economic investigations naturally 
 lead beyond the possibilities of the university 
 laboratories. To a certain degree this was true 
 of other parts of applied psychology as well. Edu- 
 cational and medical experimental psychology 
 could not reach their fullest productivity until 
 
 304
 
 FUTURE OF ECONOMIC PSYCHOLOGY 
 
 the experiment was systematically carried into 
 the schoolroom and the psychiatric clinic. But 
 the classroom and the hospital are relatively ac- 
 cessible places for the scientific worker, as both 
 are anyhow conducted under a scientific point of 
 view. The teacher and the physician can easily 
 learn to perform valuable experiments with 
 school children or with patients. This favorable 
 condition is lacking in the workshop and the fac- 
 tory, in the banks and the markets. The acade- 
 mic psychologist will be able to undertake work 
 there only with a very disturbing expenditure of 
 time and only under exceptional conditions. If 
 such experiments, for instance, with laborers in 
 a factory or employees of a railway are to ad- 
 vance beyond the faint first efforts of to-day and 
 are really to become serviceable to the cultural 
 progress of our time with effective completeness, 
 they ought not to remain an accidental appendix 
 to the theoretical laboratories. Either the uni- 
 versities must create special laboratories for 
 applied psychology or independent research in- 
 stitutes must be founded which attack the new 
 concrete problems under the point of view of 
 national political economy. Experimental work- 
 shops could be created which are really adjusted 
 to the special practical needs and to which a 
 sufficiently large number of persons could be 
 
 305
 
 THE BEST POSSIBLE EFFECT 
 
 drawn for the systematic researches. The ideal 
 solution for the United States would be a gov- 
 ernmental bureau for applied psychology, with 
 special reference to the psychology of commerce 
 and industry, similar to the model agricultural 
 stations all over the land under the Department 
 of Agriculture. 
 
 Only when such a broad foundation has been 
 secured will the time be ripe to carry the method 
 systematically into the daily work. The aim 
 will never be for real experimental researches to 
 be performed by the foreman in the workshop or 
 by the superintendent in the factory. But slowly 
 a certain acknowledged system of rules and pre- 
 scriptions may be worked out which may be 
 used as patterns, and which will not presuppose 
 any scientific knowledge, any more than an under- 
 standing of the principles of electricity is neces- 
 sary for one who uses the telephone. But besides 
 the rigid rules which any one may apply, par- 
 ticular prescriptions will be needed fitting the 
 special situation. This leads to the demand for 
 the large establishments to appoint profession- 
 ally trained psychologists who will devote their 
 services to the psychological problems of the 
 special industrial plant. There are many fac- 
 tories that have scores of scientifically trained 
 chemists or physicists at work, but who would 
 
 306
 
 FUTURE OF ECONOMIC PSYCHOLOGY 
 
 consider it an unproductive luxury to appoint 
 a scientifically schooled experimental psychologist 
 to their staff. And yet his observations and re- 
 searches might become economically the most 
 important factor. Similar expectations might be 
 justified for the large department stores and es- 
 pecially for the big transportation companies. In 
 smaller dimensions the same real needs exist in 
 the ordinary workshop and store. It is obvious 
 that the professional consulting psychologist 
 would satisfy these needs most directly, and if 
 such a new group of engineers were to enter into 
 industrial life, very soon a further specialization 
 might be expected. Some of these psychological 
 engineers would devote themselves to the pro- 
 blems of vocational selection and appointment; 
 others would specialize on questions of advertise- 
 ment and display and propaganda; a third group 
 on problems of fatigue, eflBciency, and recrea- 
 tion; a fourth on the psychological demands for 
 the arrangement of the machines; and every day 
 would give rise to new divisions. Such a well- 
 schooled specialist, if he spent a few hours in a 
 workshop or a few days in a factory, could submit 
 propositions which might refer exclusively to the 
 psychological factors and yet which might be 
 more important for the earning and the profit of 
 the establishment than the mere buying of new 
 
 307
 
 THE BEST POSSIBLE EFFECT 
 
 machines or the mere increase in the number of 
 laborers. 
 
 No one can deny that such a transition must 
 be burdened with diflBcult compHcations and even 
 with dangers; and still less will any one doubt that 
 it may be caricatured. One who demands that 
 a chaujffeur or a motorman of an electric railway 
 be examined as to his psychical abilities by sys- 
 tematic psychological methods, so that accidents 
 may be avoided, does not necessarily demand that 
 a congressman or a cabinet minister or a candi- 
 date for marriage be tested too by psychological 
 laboratory experiments, as the witty ones have 
 proposed. And one who believes that the work 
 in the factory ought to be studied with reference 
 to the smallest possible expenditure of psychical 
 impulses is not convinced that the same experi- 
 mental methods will be necessary for the func- 
 tions of eating and drinking and love-making, as 
 has been suggested. 
 
 And if it is true that difficulties and discomforts 
 are to be feared during the transition period, they 
 should be more than outweighed by the splendid 
 betterments to be hoped for. We must not forget 
 that the increase of industrial efficiency by future 
 psychological adaptation and by improvement 
 of the psychophysical conditions is not only in 
 the interest of the employers, but still more of the 
 
 308
 
 FUTURE OF ECONOMIC PSYCHOLOGY 
 
 employees; their working time can be reduced, 
 their wages increased, their level of life raised. 
 And above all, still more important than the 
 naked commercial profit on both sides, is the cul- 
 tural gain which will come to the total economic 
 life of the nation, as soon as every one can be 
 brought to the place where his best energies may 
 be unfolded and his greatest personal satisfac- 
 tion secured. The economic experimental psy- 
 chology offers no more inspiring idea than this 
 adjustment of work and psyche by which mental 
 dissatisfaction in the work, mental depression 
 and discouragement, may be replaced in our 
 social community by overflowing joy and perfect 
 inner harmony. 
 
 THE END
 
 NOTES
 
 NOTES 
 
 * (p. 10). The fullest account of the modern studies on in- 
 dividual differences is to be found in: WilHam Stern: Die 
 differentielle Psychologic in ihren methodischen Grundlagen. 
 (Leipzig, 1911.) 
 
 * (p. 15). The practical applications of psychology in edu- 
 cation, law, and medicine, I have discussed in detail in the 
 books: Munsterberg: Psychology and the Teacher. (New 
 York, 1910.) Munsterberg: On the Witness Stand. (New 
 York, 1908.) (English edition under the title: Psychology 
 and Crime.) Munsterberg: Psychotherapy. (New York, 
 1909.) 
 
 ' (p. 41). Frank Parsons: Choosing a Vocation. (Boston, 
 1909.) 
 
 * (p. 42). M. Bloomfield: The Vocational Guidance of 
 Youth. (Boston, 1911.) 
 
 ^ (p. 47). Vocations for Boys. (Issued by the Vocation 
 Bureau of Boston. 1912.) Vocations for Boston Girls. (Issued 
 by the Girls' Trade Education League. 1911.) Bulletins of 
 Vocation Series. Issued by the Women's Educational and 
 Industrial Union. 1911.) 
 
 « (p. 49). F.W.Taylor: The Principles of Scientific Man- 
 agement. (New York, 1911.) H. L. Gantt: Work, Wages, 
 and Profits. (New York, 1912.) And the books of Emerson, 
 Gilbreth, Goldmark, etc., to be mentioned later. 
 
 ^ (p. 52). H. Emerson: Efficiency as a Basis for Operation 
 and Wages. (New York, 1912, p. 107.) 
 
 ^ (p. 52). H. Emerson: The Twelve Principles of Effi- 
 ciency. (New York, 1912, p. 176.) 
 
 9 (p. 53). H. Emerson: The Twelve Principles, p. 156. 
 
 " (p. 53). H. Emerson: The Twelve Principles, p. 177. 
 
 " (p. 54) . F. W. Taylor : The Principles of Scientific Man- 
 agement, pp. 86-97. 
 
 ^^ (p. 86). The experiments are being conducted and will 
 be published by Mr. J. W. Bridges. 
 
 313
 
 NOTES 
 
 " (p. 98). Investigation of Telephone Companies: Bu- 
 reau of Labor. (Washington, Government Printing Office, 
 1910.) 
 
 ^■* (p. 104). Ries: Beitrage zur Methodik der IntelHgenz- 
 priifung. (Zeitschrift fiir Psychologic, 1910, vol. 56.) 
 
 ^^ (p. 112). For a survey of a large number of such tests 
 and bibliography, compare: G. M. Whipple: Manual of 
 Mental and Physical Tests. (Baltimore, 1911.) 
 
 i« (p. 126). F. L. Wells: The Relation of Practice to In- 
 dividual Differences. (American Journal of Psychologj% 
 1912, vol. 23, pp. 75-88.) 
 
 ^^ (p. 127). M. Bernays: Auslese und Anpassung der 
 Arbeiterschaft der geschlossenen Grossindustrie, dargestellt 
 an den Verhaltnissen der Gladbacher Spinnerei und Weberei. 
 (Leipzig, 1910, p. 337.) 
 
 18 (p. 135). H. C. McComas: Some Types of Attention. 
 (Psychological Review Monographs, vol. 13, 3, 1911.) 
 
 1^ (p. 149). Max Weber: Zur Psychophysik der industri- 
 ellen Arbeit. (Archiv fiir Sozialwissenschaft und Sozialpo- 
 litik, 1908 and 1909, vols. 27 and 28.) 
 
 2° (p. 150). Bryan and Harter : Studies in the Telegraphic 
 Language. (Psychological Review, vol. 4.) 
 
 21 (p. 151). W. F. Book: The Psychology of Skill. (Uni- 
 versity of Montana, Publications in Psychology, 1910.) 
 
 2- (p. 156). H. Miinsterberg : Beitrage zur experimentellen 
 Psychologic. (Book iv, 1892.) 
 
 2^ (p. 156). A. J. Culler: Interference and Adaptability. 
 (Archives of Psychology, 1912.) 
 
 2^ (p. 157). The experiments are being conducted and will 
 be published by Mr. L. W. Kline. 
 
 2^ (p. 160). Adolf Gerson: Die physiologischen Grund- 
 lagen der Arbeitsteilung. (Zeitschrift fiir Sozialwissenschaft, 
 1907.) 
 
 26 (p. 163). Karl Bucher: Arbeit und Rhythmus. (Fourth 
 Edition, Leipzig, 1909, p. 438.) 
 
 2^ (p. 104). Frank G. Gilbreth: Motion Study. (New 
 York, 1911.) 
 
 28 (p. 166). Taylor: The Principles of Scientific Manage- 
 ment. (New York, 1911, p. 71.) 
 
 314
 
 NOTES 
 
 ^ (p. 169). The experiments are being conducted and will 
 be published by Mr, E. R. Riesen. 
 
 ^° (p. 170). R. Herbertz: Zur Psychologic desMaschinen- 
 schreibens. (Zeitschrift fur angcwandte Psychologic, 1908, 
 vol. 2, p. 551.) 
 
 " (p. 175). C. L. Vaughan: The Moter Power of Com- 
 plexity. (Harvard Psychological Studies, vol. 2, 190G, p. 527.) 
 
 22 (p. 177). G. M. Stratton: Some Experiments in the 
 Perception of the Movement, Color, and Direction of Lights. 
 (Psychological Review Monographs, vol. 10, 1908.) 
 
 22 (p. 178) . The experiments are being conducted and will 
 be published by Miss L. M. Seeley. 
 
 2^ (p. 187). H. MUnsterberg: Beitnige zur experimen- 
 tellen Psychologic. (Book iv, 1892.) 
 
 2^ (p. 187). R. S. Woodworth: Accuracy of Voluntary 
 Movement. (Psychological Review Monographs, vol. 3, 
 1899.) 
 
 '^ (p. 188). B. A. Lenfest: The Accuracy of Linear Move- 
 ment. (Harvard Psychological Studies, vol. 2, 1906.) 
 
 2^ (p. 202). Ranschburg: Ueber die Bedeutung der Ahn- 
 lichkeit beim Erlemen, Behalten und bei der Reproduktion. 
 (Journal flir Psychologic und Neurologic, vol. 5.) Ransch- 
 burg: Zeitschrift flir Psychologic und Physiologic der Sinne- 
 sorgane. (Vol. 30, 1902.) 
 
 '^ (p. 202). H. Kleinknecht: The Interference of Optical 
 Stimuli. (Harvard Psychological Studies, vol. 2, 1906.) 
 
 2' (p. 205). The exjjeriments are being conducted and will 
 be published by Miss O. E. Martin. 
 
 ^0 (p. 210). Henry P. Kendall: Unsystematized, Systema- 
 tized, and Scientific Management. (In Addresses and Dis- 
 cussions at the Conference on Scientific Management held 
 at Dartmouth College, 1912.) 
 
 " (p. 213). Ernst Abbe: Gesammelte Abhandlungen. 
 (Jena, 1908, vol. 3, p. 20G.) 
 
 *^ (p. 214). A full survey of the problem and its literature 
 is containc*! in: Josephine Goldmark: Fatigue and Efficiency. 
 (New York, 1912.) 
 
 *2 (p. 217). F. W. Taylor: The Principles of Scientific 
 Management. (New York, 1911, p. 58.) 
 
 315
 
 NOTES 
 
 ** (p. 223). W. Hellpach : Die geopsychischen Erschein- 
 ungen. Wetter, Klima und Landschaft uud ihr Einfluss auf 
 das Seelenleben. (Leipzig, 1911, p. 176-212.) 
 
 *^ (p. 225). Aschaffenburg: Praktische Arbeit unterAlko- 
 holwirkung. (Psychologische Arbeiten — Kraepelin, vol. 1, 
 1906.) 
 
 ^® (p. 228). Hildebrand: Die Beeinflussung der Willens- 
 kraft dureh den Alkobol. (Konigsberg, 1910.) 
 
 *'' (p. 232). For the scientific facts concerning alcohol and 
 bibliography compare: Hugo Hoppe: Die Tatsachen iiber 
 den Alkohol. (Munich, 1912.) 
 
 48 (p. 232). H.L.HoUingworth: The Influence of Caffein 
 on Mental and Motor EflBciency. (New York, 1912.) 
 
 4^ (p. 238). Levenstein: Die Arbeiterfrage. (Munich, 
 1912.) 
 
 6" (p. 263). W. D. Scott: The Psychology of Advertismg. 
 (Boston, 1908, p. 166.) 
 
 ^^ (p. 269). D. Starch: Psychology of Preferred Positions. 
 (Judicious Advertising, New York, November, 1909.) 
 
 62 (p. 275). C. T. Burnett: The Estimation of Number. 
 (Harvard Psychological Studies, vol. 2, p. 349.) 
 
 " (p. 285). E. S.Rogers: The Unwary Purchaser: A Study 
 in the Psychology of Trade Mark Infringement. (Michigan 
 Law Review, vol. 8, 1910.) 
 
 64 (p. 292). The experiments are being conducted and will 
 be published by Mr. G. A. Feingold. 
 
 " (p. 299). W. D. Scott: Influencing Men in Business. 
 (New York, 1911.)
 
 INDEX
 
 INDEX 
 
 Abstinence, 230. 
 
 Accidents, 63, 66, 76. 213, 224. 
 
 Adjustment, 35, 158. 
 
 Advertisement, 255. 
 
 Alcohol, 225, 227. 
 
 Analysis, 47, 123. 
 
 Apperception, 206. 
 
 Applied psychology, 5, 10, 15, 
 
 304. 
 Appointment, 116. 
 Apprentice, 145. 
 Arguments, 295. 
 Art, 273. 
 
 Artificial track, 71. 
 Association, 105, 156. 
 Attention, 21, 66, 101, 106, 135, 
 
 197, 206, 284. 
 Attitude, 68, 75. 
 
 Beauty, 272, 278. 
 Beginner, 182. 
 Buying, 294. 
 
 CafFein, 232. 
 Capitalism, 143. 
 Card test, 87. 
 Choice of vocation, 32, 34. 
 Color blindness, 30, 57. 
 Complication, 84. 
 Concentration, 136. 
 Confession, 18. 
 Consciousness, 247. 
 Conservation, 38. 
 Consulting p.sychologist, 307. 
 Conversation, 208. 
 Counting, 175. 
 Correlation, 134. 
 Court, 292. 
 
 Credit bureau, 299. 
 Criminal, 14. 
 Customer, 298. 
 
 Decision, 85, 94. 
 Discrimination, 74. 
 Display, 272. 
 
 Dispositions, 27, 125, 170. 
 Distraction, 206. 
 Distribution, 276. 
 Disturbances, 210. 
 Division of labor, 28, 51, 191, 
 Dynamogenic, 173. 
 
 Economics, 19, 243, 250. 
 Educational psychology, 11. 
 Efficiency, 50, 144, 158, 180, 190, 
 
 223, 225. 
 Effort, 101. 
 
 Electric railway, 63, 69, 180, 
 Energy, 175. 
 Entertainment, 238. 
 Ergograph, 149. 
 Exactitude, 186. 
 Examinations, 29. 
 Excitability, 226. 
 Ex j)eri mental psychology, 4, 57, 
 
 251. 
 Expert, 292. 
 
 Factory, 122, 191, 212, 233, 279, 
 
 306. 
 Failure, 35. 
 Fatigue, 63, 180, 192, 206, 211, 
 
 218. 
 Feeling, 147, 157, 253. 
 Fitness. 53, 00, 116. 
 Foresight, 64. 
 
 319
 
 INDEX 
 
 Grading, 103, 107. 
 Groups, 129. 
 
 Habits, 150, 182. 
 Handwriting, 134. 
 History. 248. 
 Household, 177. 
 
 Illusions, 377. 
 
 Imagination, 66. 
 
 Imitation, 236, 282. 
 
 Inclination, 126. 
 
 Individual differences, 8, 10, 28, 
 
 32, 125, 129, 199, 222. 
 Industrial experiments, 67. 
 Industry, 59, 160, 191. 
 Inhibition, 84, 162, 176, 203. 
 Injuries, 213. 
 Intelligence, 102. 
 Interest, 194. 
 Interference, 154. 
 Interruption, 183. 
 Intuition, 53. 
 
 Jurisdiction, 283. 
 
 Labels, 279, 282. 
 Labor legislation, 63. 
 Learning, 141, 147. 
 Legal psychology, 14, 282. 
 Localization of sound, 95. 
 Locomotives, 176. 
 Logic, 248. 
 
 Machine, 160, 162. 
 Mason, 164. 
 Meaning, 247. 
 Medical psychology, 12. 
 Memory, 101, 147, 171, 226. 227, 
 
 259. 
 Methods, 148. 
 Mills, 117. 
 
 Miniature models, 67. 
 Monotony, 190. 198. 
 Motormen, 63, 74. 
 
 Movement, 145, 161, 169, 180, 
 
 185. 
 Muscles, 160. 
 
 Nationality, 130. 
 Nervous disease, 13. 
 Newspaper. 259. 
 Noise, 173. 
 Number, 275. 
 Numerical results, 77. 
 
 Optics, 277. 
 Organization, 154. 
 
 Packing, 282. 
 
 Pauses, 214. 
 
 Pedagogy, 11, 146. 
 
 Personality, 112. 
 
 Position, 269. 
 
 Postal cards, 286. 
 
 Prejudices, 133. 
 
 Psychiatry. 12. 
 
 Psychological laboratories, 5, 45, 
 
 257, 304. 
 Psychophysical law, 252. 
 Psychotechnics, 17. 
 
 Qualities, 27. 
 Questionaires, 4S. 
 
 Race, 130. 
 
 Rapidity, 187. 
 
 Reaction-time, 54, 65. 
 
 Recognition, 263. 
 
 Repetition, 148, 162, 192, 262. 
 
 Rest, 217. 
 
 Rhythm, 162, 187. 
 
 Salesman, 294. 
 
 Satisfaction. 243. 
 
 Saving, 165, 184. 
 
 School. 128. 146, 219. 
 
 Scientific management, 49, 159, 
 
 164, 168. 297. 
 Selection, 51. 
 
 320
 
 INDEX 
 
 Self-knowledge, 30. 44. 
 Self-observation, 45. 
 Selling, 294. 
 Sewing, 178. 
 Sex, 132. 
 Shifting, 118. 
 Ship models, 67. 
 Ship service, 83. 
 Shoveling, 166. 
 Signals, 176. 
 Similarity, 283, 286. 
 Size. 261. 
 Sleep, 224. 
 
 Social influences, 221. 
 Speed, 169, 233. 
 Subdivision, 22. 
 Suggestion. 274, 295. 
 
 Task, 237. 
 
 Technical sciences, 17. 
 Technique, 158, 161. 
 Telegraphy, 150. 
 Telephone Service, 97. 
 Temperature, 223. 
 
 Tests, 76, 80, 105, 111. 
 Trade Unions, 50. 
 Training, 125, 141, 150. 
 Type-setting, 124. 
 Typewriting, 151, 170. 
 
 Uncertainty, 284. 
 Unfitness, 31. 
 Uniformity, 193. 199. 
 
 Values, 245. 
 Visibility, 172. 
 Vividness, 261. 
 Vocation, 32, 40, 58. 
 Vocational counselor, 41. 
 Vocational guidance, 37, 48. 
 
 Wages. 127, 165. 195, 235. 
 Waste, 38, 145, 160. 
 Will-impulse, 149, 227. 
 Witness, 14. 
 Women, 132, 161. 
 Working-day. 212, 296.
 
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