Following many indications that the structure of intelligence changes with age, these investigators use factor analysis as an appropriate tool for a more careful study of the question. The paper argues both for change and for specificity of traits, which places it in the tradition of Columbia investigators.
I much has been contributed to define and standardize ideas of diagnosis and treatment, the meaning of success and failure remains relatively unstandardized. As long as such a .condition exists, and the concept of success or failure is not definitively clarified, certainly the hopes for validation of any relationship between diagnosis, treatment and outcome would be doubtful.I t is because of the need for such standardization of the idea of success and failure in the treatment of personality maladjustment primarily in children that the writers have surveyed the literature on the subject and attempted to formulate a set of principles to act as guides in setting u p more specific criteria of the success or failure of adjustment. Early Co~tribiition~T h e origin of adjustment ratings of this type seems to be intimately tied up with the attempt a t self-evaluation on the part of institutions and social case work agencies. Blackman (8) mentioned a statistical card devised in 1915 by the American Association for Organizing Social \York, to be used as a guide in evaluating cases a t closing. Fernald (36) in 1 9 1 9 published an after-care study of mental defectives discharged over a 25 year period from the \\'averly institution. He evaluated especially economic status and conflict with the law. Clark (19) (zo), in follow-up studies of \Yhittier State School boys, used a three-fold classification of success devised by Merrill (SZ) in 1915. Baylor and Monachesi (3) felt that the Children's Aid Society of Boston, in 1923, made the first attempt by a social case work agency to evaluate its work systematically in a self-critical way. Following the report of a Committee on Evaluation of the American Association of Social \Yorkers appearing in THE COMPASS in 1923 (94), considerable further interest in the problem became apparent, as well as some doubt as to the possibility of handling it practically. In the SURVEY ~~I D M O K T H L Y , 1926, Emerson (31), Ihlder (63), Kelso, Goldsmith, Hexter, Sanderson, Burnitt and Bedinger (64) discussed the need for measurement and statistics in social work. Craghorn (24) felt that the problem of evaluation was the most important job facing the profession of social work a t the time. Cabot (13) doubted the possibility of measuring or evaluating, feeling that some of the best work will never show in the balance sheet. Swift (106) and Holbrook (61) emphasized their hearty respect for the difficulties facing the evaluator, while Robinson (95) frankly characterized such an inquiry as doomed to being fruitless in the 1930 stage of the case work field. Notwithstanding this point of view, evaluation studies had been made and continued to be made (107) (30) (114) (84) (57) ( 1 1 s ) . Conant's (22) influence 642This document is copyrighted by the American Psychological Association or one of its allied publishers. This article is intended solely for the personal use of the individual user and is not to be disseminated broadly.
Although theories of humor and the comic are legion, (1, 2) most of them are based on no experimental work whatsoever. The writer here attempts a survey of the experimental work available in this field in the hope of forming a background for future experiments and a basis for theorizing.Since most of the experiments touch upon small and entirely unrelated aspects of the topic, it will perhaps be best not to attempt to group them, but to present them in chronological order.The first research to be reported in the field of humor is one by G. Stanley Hall and Arthur Allin (3) which was published in 1897. They received about 3,000 responses to a questionnaire sent out requesting a description of all situations which individuals considered humorous, and including questions on tickling and its effects at various ages, causes of laughter in children, laughter in animals, fun in the theater, spontaneous laughter, laughter at calamities, and the best joke in each class, including puns, repartee, practical jokes, etc.Then they classified laughs, gave a resume of theories of laughter, and concluded that all the current theories were inadequate and speculative, but that there are few more promising fields for psychological research than that of humor.There were no further experiments on our topic reported until 1905 when L. J. Martin (4), studying the psychology of aesthetics, published an article, " Experimental Prospecting in the Field of the Comic." Her material was largely composed of pictures. She used 3 methods.The first of these was undirected introspection. From this she concluded that a smiling face or an animal in a picture suggests funniness even if the picture in other respects is not humorous. She found a carry-over of humor from one picture to the next. A person's judgment of humor is greatly influenced by his physical condition. She also noted that on repeated seeing, pictures get stale, trite, and even cause a feeling of unpleasantness.She next conducted an experiment applying psycho-physical
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