156 A. T. Welford 



once they can be persuaded to try and, especially where they 

 can see some results for their efforts, become thoroughly 

 absorbed in the tasks. 



Motivation in industry should, on the face of it, differ 

 little with age since all the men or women studied are doing 

 their daily work. There are, however, two suggestions fre- 

 quently raised which would make this view too naive. Re- 

 sponsibilities for feeding, clothing and possibly educating 

 children, which are normally high in the thirties and early 

 forties, will, for most men, decline in the fifties and might lead 

 a man to be content with lower piece-work earnings or to 

 transfer from piece-work to day work somewhere about the 

 age of fifty. A considerable number of men do in fact move 

 from very arduous jobs in their early fifties (Richardson, 1953) 

 and piece-rate earnings show some tendency to decline at 

 about the same age, but in view of striking changes of per- 

 formance in experiments which also occur at these ages it 

 seems doubtful whether such attitudinal factors are mainly 

 responsible for the industrial trends. 



The second suggestion regarding motivation in industry is 

 that tacit agreements sometimes exist in a shop or factory 

 that younger employees will work at less than maximum rate 

 in order to "give the old ones a chance " or to ensure that they 

 will themselves be able to maintain the pace when they are 

 older. Very little is known definitely about the effects of 

 either of these factors. 



(4) Problems arising from the need to compare subjects 

 of different ages or to test the same individuals more 



than once 



What is probably the most recalcitrant and all-pervading 

 methodological problem for ageing studies derives from the 

 fact that a human being carries his history with him. Each 

 new situation is dealt with in terms brought from past experi- 

 ence and in its turn modifies the experience brought to bear on 

 future situations. The organism is thus constantly changing; 



