Psychology and industrial efficiency / by Hugo Münsterberg.

  • Hugo Münsterberg
Date:
1913
Catalogue details

Licence: In copyright

Credit: Psychology and industrial efficiency / by Hugo Münsterberg. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by The University of Glasgow Library. The original may be consulted at The University of Glasgow Library.

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    nize the more or less important ones, and, espe- cially for the important ones, we must then seek exact standards with experimental methods. Such an experimental investigation may pro- ceed according to either of two different principles. One way is to take the mental process which is demanded by the industrial work as an undivided whole. In this case we have to construct experi- mental conditions under which this total activity can be performed in a gradual, measurable way. The psychical part of the vocational work thus becomes schematized, and is simply rendered ex- perimentally on a reduced scale. The other way is to resolve the mental process into its compon- ents and to test every single elementary function in its isolated form. In this latter case the exam- ination has the advantage of having at its disposal all the familiar methods of experimental psycho- logy, while in the first case for every special voca- tional situation perfectly new experimental tests must be devised. Whether the one or the other method is to be preferred must depend upon the nature of the par- ticular commercial or industrial calling, and ac- cordingly presupposes a careful analysis of the special economical processes. It is, indeed, easy to recognize that in certain industrial activities a series of psychical functions is in question which
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