EMPLOYMENT  PSYCHOLOGY

The  cooperation  of  the  foremen  was  first  secured.  Due
to  these  precautions,  not  a  single  hitch  or  unpleasant  incident ­
  occurred  during  the  entire  experiment.  On  the
contrary,  the  men  took  a  very  lively  interest  in  the  matter
and  discussed  it  freely  not  only  among  themselves  but
with  the  experimenter  as  well.  The  intelligent  grasp  of
the  problem  which  some  of  the  men  displayed  was  so
surprising  that  it  was  thought  worth  while  to  jot  down
snatches  of  their  conversation.
“What’s  the  good  of  them  ‘physicological’  tests  anyway?” ­
  asked  one  man.  It  was  explained  to  him  that  the
experiment  was  being  conducted  to  discover  whether
there  was  any  agreement  between  certain  of  the  tests  and
the  efficiency  of  the  men  as  assemblers.
“What  if  they  don’t  show  up  that  way?”  asked  the  man.
“Then  we  throw  them  aside,”  was  the  reply.
“And  if  they  do  show  up?”
“Then  we’ll  turn  them  over  to  the  employment  office
to  give  to  new  men  whose  ability  we  know  nothing
about.”
“That’s  not  physicology,  that’s  common  sense,”  said
this  man.  And  another  of  the  group  looked  wise  and  remarked ­
  :
“Sounds  good  to  me.”
At  another  time  one  of  a  group  of  men  who  were  discussing ­
  the  tests  with  the  experimenter  asked:
“What  do  you  think  of  this  for  a  test?  You  know  that
the  men  on  this  job  have  to  know  something  about  filing-Well,
  suppose  you  have  a  man  applying  for  this  work  who
claims  experience  as  a  filer.  Suppose  you  lay  four  files  in
front  of  him  and  ask  him  to  do  a  piece  of  fine  filing  and
he  picks  up  a  bastard  file  to  do  it  with.  Or  you  ask  him
to  do  a  piece  of  rough  filing  and  he  picks  up  a  fine  file*