ABSTRACT
This chapter presents a conference of the International Ergonomics Association entitled "Satisfactions in work design" in 1977. It was partly a response to an attack on the "softer" social sciences and their use of value judgement. Context is the problem surrounding the validity of findings in the social sciences. Maslow's hierarchy of needs concept and Frederick Herzberg's two-factor theory of motivation are examples of ideas that, in parts of the social science community, are regarded as inadequately verified. However, there is another consideration, which is more intrinsic to the subject matter: the distinction between an idea and a valid finding is, in principle, less fundamental in the social sciences than in the natural sciences because of the greater influence of differences in context. Differences in context and time probably constitute the greatest problem in establishing any fundamental parallels between the social and the natural sciences.
