ABSTRACT
Elton Mayo’s family problems affected plans for his career in the 1930s. He attempted to influence the movie industry in the United States and reorganize the National Institute of Industrial Psychology in Britain. Mayo’s activities centered on four main topics: movies and society; politics, psychology, authority, and propaganda; a general theory of industry and mental health in society; and family and clinical psychology. He opened the discussion by reminding the audience that too often international crises resemble nursery quarrels between good and naughty nations. Mayo’s contribution to the symposium and ensuing discussion were received well, and, as a result he was invited to speak on current political problems at various dinners and to the Foreign Policy Association. Personal gain and public policy were also at the root of Mayo’s criticism of the “tendency of political and social scientists to rationalize their own obsessive attitudes—and to call it political science or sociology.
