Viewed from the standpoint of social science, society is composed of individuals organized in occupational groups, each group fulfilling some functio… - Elton Mayo

The statements of academic psychology often seem to imply that logical thinking is a continuous function of the mature person — that the sufficiently normal infant develops from syncretism and non-logic to logic and skilled performance. Such a description seems to be supported by much of the work of Piaget, of Claparede, and, with respect to the primitive, by Levy-Bruhl. If one examines the facts with care, either in industry or in clinic, one finds immediately that this implication, so flattering to the civilized adult, possesses only a modicum of truth. Indeed, one may go further and say that it is positively misleading.

Acting in collaboration with the National Research Council, the Western Electric Company had for three years been engaged upon an attempt to assess the effect of illumination upon the worker and his work.

Management, in any continuously successful plant, is not related to single workers but always to working groups. In every department that continues to operate, the workers have whether aware of it or not formed themselves into a group with appropriate customs, duties, routines, even rituals ; and management succeeds (or fails) in proportion as it is accepted without reservation by the group as authority and leader.