We all have
read of the favorable effects which were secured in a factory when a
cat was brought into every working-room in which women laborers were
engaged in especially fatiguing work. The cat became a living toy for
the employees, which stimulated their social consciousness. In not a
few plants the reinforced achievement is explained by the social means
of entertainment, which have been introduced under the pressure of
modern philanthropic ideas. The lounging-rooms with the newspapers and
periodicals the clubrooms with libraries, the excursions and dances
and patriotic festivities, fill up the reservoir of psychophysical
energies. As a matter of course all the social movements which enhance
the consciousness of solidarity among the laborers and the feeling of
security as to their future development in their career have a similar
effect of reinforcing the normal psychical achievement.
As the strongest factor, finally, the direct material interest must
be added to these conditions. The literature of political economy is
full of discussions of the effect of increase of wages, of the payment
of bonuses and premiums, of piece-wages, of promised pensions, and, as
far as Europe is concerned, of state insurance. In short, the whole
individual financial situation in its relation to the psychophysical
achievement of the wage-earner is a favorite topic of economic
inquiry. We cannot participate here in these inexhaustible
discussions, because all these questions are to-day still so endlessly
far from the field of psychological experiments.
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