PSYCHOLOGY IN INDUSTRY 



productivity can be obtained only with a vocationally 

 well-adjusted personnel. 



So it is that mental hygiene, industrial psychology, and 

 scientific management have a great deal in common. What, 

 then, are the essential differences? They lie partly in the 

 relative prominence given to particular objectives, and 

 partly in specific techniques and methods of approach, 

 resulting in three somewhat overlapping and yet not 

 identical bodies of knowledge, principles, and practices. 

 Each is valuable. 



The specialist in mental hygiene, for example, trained in 

 medical school and hospital, experienced in healing the 

 mentally ill and in preventing nervous breakdowns, has 

 keen eyes for conditions predisposing to anxieties and bad 

 emotional habits. He is on the alert to diagnose and 

 correct situations that tend to mental illness. His aim is 

 health. Increased productivity of workers whose person- 

 alities are already well balanced is distinctly a secondary 

 consideration. It is the problem case that first engages 

 his attention. His typical method is that of the intimate 

 personal interview. 



The scientific-management specialist usually comes to 

 his task with the background and training of the engineer- 

 ing school. He knows mechanics, economics, statistics. His 

 eye rests on the machinery and the layout, the sales index, 

 the production chart, and the balance sheet. He emphasizes 

 output. His familiar tools are the slide rule and the stop- 

 watch. Far from ignoring the human factor, he sees it as 

 one of several important terms in his equation. His knowl- 

 edge of human nature, frequently sound and shrewd, has 

 been gained from practical experience in dealing with 

 executives and workers in the plant. When technical or 

 obscure questions of behavior arise, he supplements his 

 common-sense psychology by calling upon the industrial 

 psychologist or psychiatrist, or by instituting controlled 



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