EMPLOYMENT PSYCHOLOGY 
company’s cash? The more definite the description of the 
abilities, the more likely is the analysis to be correct. Fur- 
thermore, when the abilities are stated in terms of actual 
behavior the investigator can see his way more clearly to 
the construction of suitable tests. 
The abilities should, where possible, be paired with their 
respective job operations. Shell inspecting, the description 
of which was quoted on page 21, requires the following 
abilities (101, p. 25): 
1. Good eyesight. The defects to be detected were often so 
minute as to be indistinguishable to any but the best of eyes. It 
took the experimenter almost a minute to see one of the most 
common defects which these girls were required to notice in an 
instant. Any weakness of the eyes or marked difference between 
the two would be likely to show bad results in the inspection. 
2. Keen visual discrimination. Good eyesight is not sufficient. 
The inspector, looking at a whole handful of shells, must, with a 
few glances, be able to recognize those which are defective and 
remain oblivious to those which are not. 
3. Quick reaction; that is, the ability to extract, as quickly 
as seen, the defective shell and toss it into the appropriate box. 
4. Accuracy of movement, required in picking out the right 
shell from the closely held handful. This requires a very peculiar 
kind of deftness, and, in order to facilitate it, many of the girls 
allow their finger nails to grow to an unusually long and sharp 
point. 
5. Steadiness of attention. The least wavering of the eyes or 
letting up of the attention is likely to allow some bad shells to 
slip by or to lengthen the operation. 
One way to make the essential abilities stand out is to 
analyze the difficulties of the job. By finding out what 
errors are most frequent, what annoyances are most discon- 
certing, or what sorts of poor work are proving most ex- 
pensive, the investigator quickly brings to a focus his search 
for the really necessary abilities. 
The difficulty analysis as used by Charters (30) has as 
its main purpose the disclosure of specific needs for train- 
ing but it is serviceable also in the present connection. The 
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