3 So 
EMPLOYMENT PSYCHOLOGY 
affairs. Unemployment or a constant change of employ 
ment is the unhealthy or abnormal state of affairs. As 
such, it requires special treatment, just as physical illness 
requires special treatment. Now, whether the cases of 
unemployment or changing employment are due to the 
individual or to industry, it is the task of employment 
psychology to apply the necessary corrective treatment, 
just as it is the task of medicine to restore to health the 
individual who is ill. In so far as employment psychology 
duplicates in the field of employment what medicine does 
in the field of health, it contributes to the welfare both 
of the individual and of industry. 
In order, however, to achieve a still truer perspective 
of the place of employment psychology with reference to 
labor and industry, it is necessary to go still deeper into 
the problem of labor turnover. To begin with, employ 
ment psychology is not the only road to steady employ 
ment, any more than medicine is the only road to health. 
Just as good health is dependent upon healthful recrea 
tion, health-giving food, proper exercise, and an absorbing 
trade or profession, so steady employment is dependent 
upon other factors, more fundamental than a temporary 
correction. Steady employment is essentially dependent 
upon the conditions of industry. It is dependent upon the 
degree and quality of physical health, recreation, family 
life, social standing, and the advancement which the 
worker is able to achieve. But above all, it is dependent 
upon education. The one most universal and powerful 
factor in reducing labor turnover and in maintaining a 
healthy state of employment is education. Education 
is the most stabilizing influence known to man. This is 
true not only in so far as it affects labor turnover, but in 
its effects upon the turnover of social institutions, indus-