WHAT INDUSTRY WANTS

Greymouth Evening Star, 9 September 1936, Page 4

WHAT INDUSTRY WANTS

“DAY OF BRAWN IS OVER.”

LONDON, July 27

“Tho day of brawn and muscle is over; tho present demand is for alert, smart, active men; more adaptable to tho needs of modern industry, more aggressive; quicker to make trouble and to demand their rights and —more liable to forget their duties.”

In these words the scientists and psychologists of the Industrial Research Board, in their sixteenth annual report, sum up industrial demand today.

Tho Board sponsors a number of research experiments. Prof. F. C. Bartlett, director of the Cambridge University Psychological Laboratory, described to mo yesterday tho results of experiments on incentive to effort with a colony of rats.

Before the rats can reach their food they have to pass through an area where they are subjected to an electric shock. /

"We have-discovered,” said Prof. Bartlett, “that the animals, knowing that they have to face the deterrent, become all tho keener on their food, it acts as a stimulus. Results would seem to be the same with small childrim —some degree of punishment or fear of punishment is stimulating. “From the knowledge which we are gaining we may be able to ascertain what are the best forms of incentive for the ordinary worker and what lies behind human motives of effort.”