With the widespread use of labor-saving devices and automatic machinery, however, the problem of industrial fatigue has become less serious than that of boredom. The nature of monotony, its consequences, and ways of combating it, have been studied both here and abroad, notably by Wyatt, May Smith, and Farmer, of the British Industrial Health Research Board. Repetitive work, as such, is not necessarily productive of ennui, for monotony is inherent not in the work itself but in the task in relation to the personality of the worker. Fortunately many ways have been discovered to adjust employees to such tasks and to help them to find therein those elements of interest which add zest and satisfaction to what a casual observer might consider stultifying monotony.

Conclusion. A swiftly evolving industrial civilization such as ours needs a well-laid scientific foundation for its social engineering. Toward such a basis of knowledge about the influences determining our conduct and our feelings while at work, it has been the purpose of industrial psychology to contribute.

In this hasty glance over the field, we have noted outposts of research in factories, offices, and stores as well as in universities and government bureaus. The weapons of attack are the familiar ones of observation, measurement, statistical analysis, and controlled experiment. Among the trophies already captured, five which it has not here been possible to treat at length must, in conclusion, at least be mentioned:

1.  Adult learning of specific knowledges and new skills can be profitably continued far beyond the ages at which common sense has usually called a halt.

2.  While it is obviously advisable to choose an occupation most closely corresponding to natural interests and talents, nevertheless interests can be developed and many grave handicaps of native endowment compensated for, through special training.

3.   Effects of temperature, ventilation, lighting, and other physical conditions under which work is done, have been measured and found to be real determiners of output and of morale, but far less potent than the personal factor of supervision. Extra financial incentives, too, have less effect than the presence of an intelligent, competent, interested, friendly supervisor.

4.   Of all the motives which lead American workers voluntarily to restrict their output, the two which operate most extensively are fear of rate cutting, and fear of layoff.

5.  Scientifically sound and feasible methods of investigation in industrial psychology have been developed and validated, so that many pressing problems of vocational adjustment may now be entrusted to it with confidence.

Investigations such as those which have already been made in this field, devoted to the understanding and improvement of human adjustments in the working situation, are of benefit to both employer and employee, as two of my European colleagues quite unwittingly showed. After attending the Fourth International Conference for Technopsychology in Paris in 1927, it was my privilege to visit one of the leading industrial psychologists of Switzerland and to observe his work in the Suchard chocolate factory in Neuchatel. I asked him how he defined the field of industrial psychology. "What do you, as psychologist, undertake to do in this factory?"

'The aim of the industrial psychologist," he said, "is to see that the workers leave the plant at night without being fatigued, irritated, or nervous."

"Good," I replied;"but just what do you do in order to bring this about?"

"First, I study the workers at their work to see in what ways it is possible to rearrange the layout, simplify the movements required, and so make it possible for them to do more work with less expenditure of energy. Secondly, I look to the training of the workers in order that they may all be taught how to do their work in the best and easiest ways. Third, in cooperation with the employment department, I have used tests of various abilities, to help in placing employees in work most closely in line with their natural aptitudes."

"Are you not concerned also with questions of wages and profits?"

"Not at all," he said, emphatically; "those matters are for the economist, not the psychologist." Even when I urged that these economic considerations had a profound effect on workers' feelings and efforts, he still maintained that they were quite beyond his province.

Two days later I was visiting the laboratory of a distinguished German exponent of industrial psychology, with whom, many years before, I had been a fellow student in Berlin. In those days there was only one book of importance in the library of industrial psychology, namely, Munsterberg's pioneer work, Grundzuge der Psychotechnik. I asked my German friend the same questions I had put to the Swiss psychologist. "What do you, as an industrial psychologist, actually do? Are you at all interested in the economic aspects of industrial work?"

"I never touch anything," he said, "which does not mean profit to the employer."

"That sounds like shrewd business practice," I replied. "But tell me, just what do you do in order to increase profits?"

"You see these precise recording mechanisms," he said,"which I take into the rolling mills and factories to use in studying the workers at their work, in order to find out how they can accomplish more with less output of energy. I find it necessary then to instruct the foremen, to improve their training methods so that all the workers may be taught the better ways of doing their work. And finally, you see all these psychological tests which I have perfected. They are invaluable as aids to placement of employees in those lines of work which most closely fit their abilities and natural aptitudes."

Approaching the industrial worker from opposite angles, these two scientists had nevertheless arrived at the same definition of their duties and were using similar methods. What more striking illustration can there be of the fact that in large measure the interests of employer and employee are one. Both benefit from elimination of fatigue, simplification of work, improvement of training, and correct placement of the worker. Indeed, when I asked the president of the chocolate works why he employed a psychologist whose sole concern was the interest of the employees, he instantly replied, "I find that it pays.''

Such are in brief some representative accomplishments of this young science of industrial psychology. They hint at what may be expected in future years, as the ideals of scientific method and the techniques of experimental investigation come to be used more and more widely, by industrial psychologists, psychiatrists, physiologists, and management engineers, working together on problems intimately related to a large and significant sector of life.