Review of Work and effort: The psychology of production

Abstract

Reviews the book, Work and effort: The psychology of production by Thomas A. Ryan (1947). A few universities already have in then- curricula a course entitled "Experimental Industrial Psychology." This book would make an excellent textbook for such a course and may stimulate the setting up of more courses of this nature. The content of the book is organized around the two basic problems of efficiency and motivation in work activities. The second half of the book presents separate discussions of incentives, boredom, rate setting, merit rating and job evaluation, accident control, and industrial training. In each case, however, the experimental viewpoint is maintained and the relevance of the findings to efficiency and motivation is pointed out. Of particular interest are the evaluation of time study from a psychological viewpoint and the rather devastating attack on rating methods in common use. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2025 APA, all rights reserved)