We emphasize the necessary and justified
character of these steps, as it is evident that psychological methods
may be made use of also by those who aim toward mental effects which
are unjustified and which are not necessary for the real satisfaction
of valuable demands. Psychological laws can also be helpful in
fraudulent undertakings or in advertisements for unfair competition.
The psychotechnical scientist cannot be blamed if the results of his
experiments are misused for immoral purposes, just as the chemist is
not responsible if chemical knowledge is applied to the construction
of anarchistic bombs. But while psychology, as we have emphasized
before, cannot from its own point of view determine the value of the
end, the psychologist as a human being is certainly willing to
cooeperate only where the soundness and correctness of the ends are
evident from the point of view of social welfare.
In order to demonstrate the principle of this kind of psychotechnical
help with fuller detail, at least by one illustration, I may discuss
the case of the advertisements, the more as this problem has already
been taken up in a somewhat systematic way by the psychological
laboratories. We have a number of careful experimental investigations
referring to the memory-value, the attention-value, the
suggestion-value, and other mental effects of the printed business
advertisements. Of course this group of experimental investigations at
once suggests an objection which we cannot ignore.
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