SECTIONAL TRANSACTIONS.-J. 401 



tinctive ways of life and habits of mind, as a state manage their joint affairs and so 

 reinforce their common characteristics. No one of these things is essential. The 

 Poles, until lately, were divided between three states, and to-day Poland is without 

 geographical frontiers. The Swiss have at least two races and three languages. A 

 few years in the United .States and a common purpose to put ' America first ' often 

 suffices to make Finns or Slavs or Latins into patriotic Americana with a nationality 

 resembling Anglo-Scotch. 



It is good for the human race that its most important divisions should be 

 psychological — into nations with their different patriotisms — rather than racial, or 

 political ; provided that the variety is within, and subordinate to a unit}', a spiritual 

 commonwealth of nations. Then patriotism will never override justice ; and 

 ' allegiance to one's country, even to its crimes,' will not rank before allegiance to 

 truth and to fair play. This result is helped by cross-groupings among the nations : 

 common religion, or language, or occupations, or intellectual pursuits, or even 

 political ties. 



10. Presidential Address by Dr. J. Drever on Psychological Aspects 



of our Penal System. (See p. 219.) 



1 1 . Mr. R. J. Bartlett. — The Judgme7it of Value of Individual Advertise- 



ments. 



In an inquiry undertaken for the National Institute of Industrial Psychology an 

 attempt was made to grade advertisements in order of ' attracting holding ' power. 

 To achieve this a ' scale ' was prepared. Advertisements when judged for a particular 

 feature tend to show a normal scatter ; 417 advertisements, separated into seven 

 grade groups by comparison with the scale, gave a close approximation to the binomial 

 point curve (l + l)'^x *;IjT. In preparing the scales it was found that, although in 

 many cases there is extreme variability of judgment from subject to subject, there 

 is close agreement with reference to others up to a division into seven grades. These 

 ' Firm ' advertisements were used in the formation of the ' scales.' The method of 

 paired comparison becomes too tedious and for this reason unreliable, when the items 

 to be graded exceed twenty. The following method was therefore evolved and used : 

 The advertisements were sorted into three groups — good, medium, poor. Each group 

 was then sorted into three sub-groups. The lower sub-group of ' good ' and the upper 

 sub-group of ' medium ' were amalgamated, as were also the lower ' medium ' and 

 upper ' poor.' The result is seven groups, the sizes of which approximate to normal 

 distribution. The process can be continued giving fifteen groups, then thirty-one and 

 so on, where, if n=number of sortings and N= number of groups, 



N=2"+'-l. 



With advertisements none but well-practised subjects are able to carry the pro- 

 cedure beyond the second stage of seven groups with reasonable consistency. The 

 scales are shown and some analysis of the basis on which judgments are formed is 

 given. 



12. Mr. A. Stephenson. — Some Observations on Accidents in Industry. 



1 3. Mr. A. Angles. — Restriction of Output. 



Restriction of output is a phenomenon in industry which has attracted wide- 

 spread attention since the post-war depression in trade. There can be no doubt as 

 to its existence, but there is a considerable doubt as to its extent and importance. In 

 factories wiiere it is practised it appears to be a defensive action by a group of workers 

 against conditions which they believe to be unfair. In no case within the experience 

 of the National Institute of Industrial Psychology has restriction of output been 

 attributable to the particular trade union, as such. It is usually brought about by 

 a strong feeling of class loyalty which in known cases has even overcome individual 

 self-interest. If restriction is being practised it is usually indicated by the persistence 

 of a remarkable uniformity in output. The workers advance many reasons for this 

 policy, but two of them are sufficiently frequent to be outstanding : 



1926 D D 



