BIOLOGY IN HUMAN AFFAIRS 



Each aspect of significant industrial behavior listed in 

 column A, such as proportion of spoiled work, rate of 

 advancement in salary or in responsibility, or degree of 

 satisfaction in the job, has actually been measured or 

 quite conceivably can be measured. The factors condition- 

 ing behavior, of w^hich many are listed in column B, must 

 also be measured, and their relationship ascertained to the 

 behavior items in column A. 



This is not the w^hole picture. Even w^hen each of the 

 humanly and industrially significant effects mentioned in 

 the first column of the table is thoroughly understood in 

 its relation to each of the causes listed in the second column, 

 it still will be necessary to determine interrelationships. 

 Quantity and quality of goods produced, for example, are 

 determined in part, not only by the ability of the workers, 

 their training, supervision, incentives, feelings of security, 

 and other conditions listed in the second column; they are 

 affected also by regularity of attendance, health, number 

 and severity of accidents, and other variables appearing in 

 column A. The task, then, is neither easy nor simple. 



It does not follow, however, that the problem that faces 

 the industrial psychologist is utterly baffling, and that the 

 methods of science must, therefore, be put aside in favor 

 of shrewd, unaided common sense, or that intuitive, 

 impressionistic executive judgments based on conference 

 and pooled "experience" are superior to precise records, 

 measurement, and controlled experiment. True, the answer 

 in its entirety is not going to be found in this generation, 

 or the next. But already we know that, taking the problem 

 bit by bit, exploring minutely the relations of one of its 

 variables to a few of the others, the findings are often of 

 immediate practical value. They are also steps in advance 

 for the science of industrial psychology. 



Unexpected By-products of Industrial Research. Current 

 industrial investigations of the Western Electric Company 



[128] 



