Sociological
and criminological statistics concerning the fluctuations in the
behavior of the masses, common-sense experience of practical life, and
finally, economic statistics concerning the quantity and quality of
industrial output in various parts of the day and of the year, have
supplemented one another. The systematic assistance of the
psychological laboratory, however, has been confined to the
educational aspect of the problem. Psychological experiments have
determined how the achievement of the youth in the schoolroom changes
with the months of the year and the hours of the day. It seems as if
it could not be difficult to secure here, too, a connection between
exact experiment and economic work. Much will have to be reduced to
individual variations. The laboratory has already confirmed the
experience of daily life that there are morning workers whose
strongest psychophysical efficiency comes immediately after the
night's rest, while the day's work fatigues them more and more; and
that there are evening workers who in the morning still remain under
the after effects of the night's sleep, and who slowly become fresher
and fresher from the stimuli of the day. It would seem not impossible
to undertake a systematic selection of various individuals under this
point of view, as different industrial tasks demand a different
distribution of efficiency between morning and night.
Such a selection and adjustment may be economically still more
important with reference to the fluctuations during the course of the
year.
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