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CHICAGO NATURAL HISTORY MUSEUM BULLETIN 



January-February, 19i5 



we can work out rules which will hold for 

 primitive peoples and for our society as well. 

 In this way anthropology is of practical use 

 and gives us effective methods of under- 

 standing and dealing with people. 



HUMAN RELATIONS ARCHAIC 



Everyone will recognize our remarkable 

 technological achievements in the past one 

 hundred years in manufacturing, weaving, 

 metallurgy, agriculture, transportation. But 

 there has been no corresponding progress in 

 our methods of understanding and handling 

 people and of controlling our destinies. Our 

 methods of dealing with them are archaic. 



We now come to the question: "What 

 good is anthropology?" 



Much of the information obtained from 

 archaeology, ethnology, linguistics and 

 physical anthropology is strained and fun- 

 neled off for use in Applied Anthropology. 



And how is it used in a practical way? 



One field in which anthropology has 

 played a practical part is "colonial adminis- 

 tration" — governing communities made up 

 largely of peoples of different cultures, or 

 of "primitive" people, as we sometimes say. 

 Anthropology is thus used in governing the 

 American Indians of our own country. 



AN INDUSTRIAL APPLICATION 



But an even wider application has been 

 made in the field of industrial relations. 

 One notable example is the research program 

 carried out by the Western Electric Com- 

 pany of Chicago*. 



Western Electric was interested in deter- 

 mining the factors affecting employee 

 efficiency, and improving management- 

 employee relations. A study was made in 

 which a distinctly anthropological point of 

 view was injected by Professor W. Lloyd 

 Warner of the University of Chicago. He 

 was convinced that anthropological field 

 methods could be used for studying an 

 industrial community as well as a primitive 

 one. The Western Electric study is a suc- 

 cessful attempt to modernize knowledge 

 concerning human relations, in line with 

 technical advances of the last 200 years. 



This study began with a series of experi- 

 ments on two groups of workers — o test 

 group (for whom a given condition was 

 changed) and a control group (for whom 

 conditions were kept constant). 



Illumination was the first condition to be 

 tested. Lighting was strengthened for both 

 groups, whereupon production increased for 

 both. Then intensity was gradually de- 

 creased and production for both groups still 

 continued to rise! Then workers of the test 

 group were allowed to believe that lighting 

 was being increased, although it remained 

 constant. Production remained the same. 

 Then the test group was permitted to 

 believe that illumination was being de- 



* "Management and the Worker" by F. J. Roeth- 

 lisberger and William J. Dickson. Harvard University 

 Press, 1939. 



creased, although actually it remained the 

 same. Output remained the same. 



OUTPUT UNAFFECTED BY CONDITIONS 



Various other experiments were tried for 

 more than two years but it became clear 

 that there was no relation between condi- 

 tions of work and output. Instead, the 

 researchers found that output varied as a 

 function of the relations of the workers to 

 each other and to the management. That 

 is, the fact that the management was inter- 

 ested in making changes was more important 

 than the changes themselves. 



The experiments had unintentionally 

 altered the social situation and had im- 

 proved production because of the added 

 prestige which the test-room girls gained 

 through the attention of the management. 

 The supervision of the groups had been 

 altered, the workers were allowed to talk, 

 to make suggestions, to complain — and 

 these social changes increased output. 

 Rest periods, better lighting and other 

 changes were important primarily as social, 

 not as physical changes. Consulting with 

 and explaining changes to the employees 

 facilitated the accepting of the changes and 

 boosted the worker's morale. Better pay 

 was relatively unimportant as a motivating 

 force in improving output unless the social 

 situation was improved. As a result of 

 these findings, an extensive program of 

 interviewing was inaugurated which gauged 

 the sentiments of the worker, gave him a 

 feeling of participation, and permitted him 

 to "blow off" about his personal problems. 



SOCIAL STRUCTURE IN INDUSTRY 



These systematic studies at Western 

 Electric and elsewhere have emphasized 

 that industries have social as well as eco- 

 nomic structures. In every industrial 

 organization there is on the one hand a 

 formal organization (expressed in the organi- 

 zation chart) which defines groups of person- 

 nel according to their technical and economic 

 purposes; and on the other hand an informal 

 social organization of small working groups, 

 each with its own code of behavior and 

 system of sentiments (i.e. beliefs or opinions 

 not based on logic but on emotions). 



It has been found that the effective work- 

 ing together of people in a business organi- 

 zation is dependent upon these informal 

 routines and codes of behavior. If the 

 formal structure comes into conflict with 

 this informal social organization, there 

 results a social disequilibrium; that is, 

 there is consequent friction, lack of morale 

 and inefficiency. 



In other words, workers, like all human 

 beings, are social animals; and collaboration 

 between them and other workers and the 

 management depends on sentiment, not on 

 logic. If the management desires to improve 

 pay, working conditions, and output, it is 

 necessary to ascertain the established senti- 

 ments of the workers; otherwise a new 



program will fail and may cause friction and 

 even strikes. 



TWO CONTRIBUTIONS 



Anthropology has contributed to the 

 study and solution of problems of industrial 

 relations in two ways: 



The first way is a general viewpoint, 

 which might be called the "functional" 

 viewpoint, that has been gained from the 

 study of the social organization of diverse 

 cultural groups in many parts of the world. 

 In essence, this is the view that social insti- 

 tutions cannot be understood apart from 

 the people who participate in them. Nor 

 can the behavior of an individual be under- 

 stood without reference to the systems of 

 sentiments possessed by the social groups 

 of which he is a member. 



The second way has to do with methods 

 of studying and analyzing the problems of 

 human relations within an industrial organi- 

 zation. These methods were developed 

 during or grew out of innumerable studies 

 of peoples with cultures different from our 

 own; but, because all social groups have 

 important characteristics in common, the 

 methods can be fruitfully applied to our 

 own human problems. 



Since the Western Electric study was 

 completed. Applied Anthropology has been 

 used more and more for solving problems 

 of society. By using this science, we can 

 help people to adjust to the conditions of 

 their daily life, both as individuals and 

 groups. We can do something about the 

 major problem of our civilization — that is, 

 we can increase our adjustments to our 

 technological efficiency. Without such a 

 harmonious relationship within groups and 

 between nations, our civilization is doomed. 



MUSEUM PROGRAM 



We hope to carry on research in Applied 

 Anthropology in this Museum, and to 

 present exhibits which will deal with this 

 subject. Our visitors are familiar with 

 factories, stores, family troubles, political 

 organizations. But, because of the differ- 

 ences between the tools and manufacturing 

 methods of "primitive" peoples, our visitors 

 are unable to understand that there are 

 many similarities between our civilization 

 and that of "primitive" peoples. 



Such similarities would be brought out by 

 means of exhibitions. For example, primi- 

 tive people buy and sell, have political 

 activities and family troubles, depressions 

 and "boom" times and even assembly lines. 

 We would attempt to make clear these 

 similarities between other civilizations and 

 our own. By means of these gnd other 

 exhibits, we would also like to emphasize 

 that efficient production and distribution 

 of goods are not enough to meet the demands 

 of human nature. The harmonious co- 

 operation of individuals and the social 

 satisfactions derived from that co-operation 

 are also necessary. 



