Muscular Strength

Advantageous results from suggestion are not limited to the relationship between buyer and seller.

The pleased and satisfied employee is open to the suggestions of foreman and manager and responds with an enthusiasm impossible of generation in one dissatisfied from any cause.

Methods of insuring this pleasure in work for employees are yet in the formative stage. Until recently the want of such methods, indeed, was not felt. The slave driver with the most profane vocabulary and the greatest recklessness in the use of fist and foot was supposed to be the most effective type of boss. The task system set an irreducible minimum for the day's work; the employer exacted the task and assumed that no better way of handling men could be devised. Piecework rates provided a better and more reasonable basis for securing something like a maximum day's work; bonus and premium systems have carried the incentive of the wage in increasing efficiency to the last point short of coperative organization. But all of these systems fall short in assuming that men are machines; that their powers and capacities are fixed quantities; that the efficiency of a well-disposed and industrious employee ought to be proof against varying conditions or environment; that a man can achieve the desired standard, if only he has the will to achieve it.

Discipline has become less brutal if not less strict. The laborer works, not alone to avoid poverty and hunger, but to secure the means of pleasure.

It is not so long since harsh discipline was common both in homes and in business. The boy worked hard because he was afraid not to. The man labored because poverty threatened him if idle. We were in what might be called a ``pain economy''; we worked to escape pain. To-day this has largely been changed.

Employers, too, are experimenting boldly with the idea of creating pleasure in work. The first step has been taken in the very general elimination of the old wasteful, neglectful elements of factory and office environment. Comfort, the first neutral element of pleasure, is provided for employees just as solid foundations are provided for the factory buildings. There is light, heat, and ventilation where a generation ago there were tiny windows, shadows, lonely stoves, and foul air. Cleanliness is provided and preserved; not a few of the larger industries employ a regular corps of janitors to keep floors, walls, and windows clean. The walls are tinted; the lights are arranged so as to provide the right illumination without straining the workers' eyes. The departments are symmetrically arranged; the aisles are wide; the working space is ample; there is no fear to haunt machine tenders that a mis-step or a moment of forgetfulness will entangle them in a neighboring machine. The factory buildings themselves, without being pretentious, have pleasing, simple lines and unobtrusive ornamentation. They look like, and are, when the human equation does not interfere, *pleasant places to work in.

This is the typical modern factory; thousands can be found in America. On this foundation of good working conditions and pleasant environment, many companies have built more or less elaborate systems of welfare work, whose effectiveness in creating pleasure and efficiency seem to depend on the purpose and spirit of the men behind them. These systems frequently begin with beautification of the factory premises and workrooms --window boxes, factory lawns, ivied walls, trees, and shrubs--and advance by various stages to lunch rooms for workers, factory libraries, rest rooms for women workers, factory nurses and physicians, and sometimes the development of a social life among employees through picnics, lectures, dances, night schools, and like activities. The methods employed are too diverse and too recent to permit an accurate estimate of their work or a true analysis of the elements of their success. It is incumbent on the employer to find or work out for himself the method best suited to his individual needs.

To understand how pleasure heightens the suggestibility of the individual it is but necessary to consider the well-known effects which pleasure has on the various bodily and mental processes.

The action of pleasure and displeasure upon the muscles of the body is most apparent. With displeasure the muscles of the forehead contract; folds and wrinkles appear. The corners of the mouth are drawn down; the head bowed; the shoulders stoop and draw together over the breast; the chest is contracted; the fingers of the hand close, and there is also a tendency to bend the arms so as to protect the fore part of the body. In displeasure the body is thus seen to contract and to put itself on the defensive. It closes itself to outside influences and attempts to ``withdraw within its shell.''

With pleasure the forehead is smoothed out; the corners of the mouth are lifted; the head is held erect; the shoulders are thrown back; the chest is expanded; the fingers of the hand are opened, and the arm is ready to go out to grasp any object. The whole body is thrown into a receptive attitude. It is prepared to be affected by outside stimulations and is ready to profit by them.

That these characteristic bodily attitudes of pleasure and displeasure have an effect on the mind is evident. Bodily and mental attitudes have developed together in the history of the race. The conditions which cause a receptive attitude of body cause also a suggestible state of mind. The conditions which call for bodily protection also demand a suspicious and non-responsive attitude of mind. The bodily and the mental attitudes have become so intimately associated that the presence of one assures the presence of the other.

Pleasure and a particular attitude of body are indissolubly united, and when these two are present, a suggestible condition of mind seems of necessity to follow.

Thus by the subtle working of pleasant impressions the customer is disarmed of his suspicion and made ready to respond to the suggestions of the merchant.

The effect of the suggestible attitude of the body, as produced by pleasure, is increased by certain other effects which pleasure produces on the body.

Muscular strength is frequently measured by finding the maximum grip on a recording instrument. The amount of the grip varies from time to time and is affected by various conditions. One of the phenomena which has been thoroughly investigated is the effect of pleasure and of pain on the intensity of the grip. It is well established that pleasure increases the grip or the available amount of energy. Displeasure reduces the strength.

The total volume of the body would seem to be constant for any particular short interval of time. Such, however, is not the case.

With pleasure the lungs are filled with air from deepened breathing; the volume of the limbs is increased by the increased flow of blood. Pleasure thus actually makes us larger and displeasure smaller.

This increase in muscular strength and bodily volume due to pleasure has a very decided effect upon the mind. The increase of muscular strength gives us a feeling of power and assurance, the increase in volume gives us a feeling of expansion and importance. These conditions produced by increase of muscular strength and bodily volume contribute to the general suggestible condition described above.

If I am in a suggestible condition and if I also feel an unusual degree of assurance in my own powers and importance, I shall have such confidence in the wisdom of my intended acts that there will seem to be no ground for delay. Furthermore the increased action of the heart, due to the effect of pleasure, gives me a feeling of buoyancy and invigoration which adds appreciably to the tendency to action.

We thus see why pleasure renders us more suggestible and hence makes us more apt to purchase proffered merchandise or to respond to the suggestions of our foreman or our executive. We also see why it is that a man may increase his efficiency by pleasing those with whom he has to work, whether they be customers or employees.