BIOLOGY IN HUMAN AFFAIRS 



wholly unlike that of tending spindles in a cotton mill. It 

 calls for some skill, strength, and mental alertness; but it 

 seems to require in addition a certain stolidity and poise 

 which enables the operator to keep steadily at work when 

 the paper breaks on two or three heads at about the same 

 time. If she is high-strung, she becomes nervous or excited 

 under these circumstances, so that matters go from bad to 

 worse; whereas if she is not tense or irritated, she gets 

 out of trouble more quickly. Her output is less likely to 

 suffer. She makes better wages, and is apt to be more 

 contented and to continue at the work. 



The problem of vocational selection for such a job 

 pointed toward the more precise utilization of information 

 already being gathered on the application form, in personal 

 interview and in the medical examination. A check-up of 

 items was made in order to determine which were really 

 significant in sorting the successful from the unsuccessful 

 operators. For purposes of this study an operator was 

 classed as successful if she proved to be both able and 

 willing to stay on the job for six months. An unsuccessful 

 operator was defined as one who disappeared from the pay- 

 roll within that period. The main group studied consisted 

 of all operators hired during a period of sixteen months, 

 totaling 246 young women. Of these, 43 per cent became 

 successful operators in the sense indicated. Data regarding 

 them were drawn from the tabulation cards of the employ- 

 ment department, from the application blanks, and from 

 the files of the medical examiner. For each item for which 

 information was recorded, a comparison was made between 

 the successful and unsuccessful operators. Wherever dif- 

 ferences appeared, the percentage of each group falling 

 within the preferred range was computed and the signifi- 

 cance of differences in percentages determined. 



On most of the items there was no discoverable significant 

 difference between the successful and the unsuccessful 



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