4 6 
EMPLOYMENT PSYCHOLOGY 
inability would not have been hired. To be sure, taking this 
point as the standard would have resulted in selecting 
a few who were destined to fail and rejecting a few who 
were destined to succeed. On the other hand, the large 
majority would have been selected correctly, and probably 
many more who had failed and left before this experiment 
began would have been rejected at the outset, and would 
never have been given the expensive trial which they 
received. 
If we look below the points of intersection of the curves, 
we shall see that the time represented is 56 seconds for 
test number two, 140 seconds for test number six, and 
185 seconds for test number eight. These figures were 
taken as the maximum below which an applicant must 
come in order to be selected for the work of inspection. 
It is apparent that these figures are considerably higher 
than the average in the various tests, for the average is 
indicated by a point near the center of the larger curve. 
However, if the average times had been taken as the stand 
ard for selecting and rejecting, a large number of success 
ful inspectors who fell below the average in the tests would 
probably have been rejected. The standard finally se 
lected was such that the maximum number of applicants 
who were likely to succeed would be chosen and the 
maximum number of applicants who were likely to fail 
would be rejected. 
It must not be thought that this standard is absolutely 
rigid. In fact, one of the particular merits of such a 
standard and of psychological standards in general is 
flexibility. If two or more applicants fall within the stand 
ard or the maximum time set, the employer does not 
necessarily accept all of them but selects those whose 
time in the tests was farthest below the maximum. Thus,