BIOLOGY IN HUMAN AFFAIRS 



competent in one's job is indispensable; but to see this job 

 in its total setting and to receive from one's fellows a 

 recognition of its worthwhileness are also essential, if 

 the will to work is to be fully released. 



Such basic hypotheses about human nature in relation to 

 both the physical and the social aspects of work, it has 

 been the duty of industrial psychology to investigate and 

 to apply. 



Measuring Mental Attitudes, Interests, and Abilities. One 

 way of bringing different components of the total work 

 situation into correct perspective has been for the industrial 

 psychologist to measure employee attitudes toward the 

 firm's personnel policies and practices. More than seventy 

 years have passed since Fechner laid the corner stone of 

 experimental psychology by demonstrating the possibility 

 of mental measurement and formulating the fundamentals 

 of method; but only within the past decade have these 

 methods been adapted and applied to the practical task of 

 measuring such industrially important quantities as group 

 morale, good will, and employee preference for various 

 features of management practice. These techniques consti- 

 tute a real contribution of psychology to industry. 



A similar accomplishment of industrial psychology has 

 been in the direction of measuring a man's interests and 

 relating these to the requirements of various kinds of work. 

 Here the psychologist must deal with the individual rather 

 than the group; and since the single measure has a lower 

 reliability, he uses it with full awareness of its limitations. 

 The same may be said of measurements of other vocational 

 aptitudes and proficiencies. The invention of standard 

 tests of skill, trade knowledge, manual dexterity, mechani- 

 cal ability, mental alertness, and capacity to learn, has 

 reduced to some degree the hazards of predicting an appli- 

 cant's probable success; but in only a relatively small 

 fraction of the occupations has the validity of such tests 



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