Morale in the Federal Civil Service
| DOI | 10.1177/000271625530000116 |
| Date | 01 July 1955 |
| Author | Marie Jahoda |
| Published date | 01 July 1955 |
| Subject Matter | Articles |
110
Morale
in
the
Federal
Civil
Service
By
MARIE
JAHODA
HE
nationwide
debate
on
the
se-
T curity
measures
has
over
the
last
several
years
frequently
focused
on
the
issue,
What
is
the
net
effect
of
these
programs?
Some
people
maintain
that
the
effect
is
disastrous;
others
say
that
there
is
hardly
any
harmful
effect.
Let
me
first
give
you
two
arguments
supporting
the
latter
view.
If
we
take
the
official
statements
on
the
number
of
people
dismissed
from
government
service
for
security
reasons
-and
I
realize
that
there
are
some
peculiarly
difficult
arithmetical
prob-
lems
to
solve
in
counting
such
persons-
there
is
general
consensus
that
only
a
very
small
fraction
of
federal
employees
in
government
service
has
been
directly
affected
by
security
measures.
Thus,
some
people
argue,
the
number
of
those
who
may
have
suffered
innocently
from
security
procedures
is
so
small
as
to
be
socially
insignificant.
Those
who
use
this
argument
are
also
often
inclined
to
point
to
the
absence
of
a
general
hysteria
in
the
population
at
large,
as
evidence
that
the
security
measures
have
done
no
harm
to
the
country.
In
the
light
of
a
recent
study,’
the
factual
point
of
this
argument
ap-
pears
to
be
correct.
Only
a
minute
frac-
tion
of
the
public-at
best
2
per
cent-
expresses
any
concern
with
civil
liber-
ties
or
Communism.
People
worry
about
many
things,
but
certainly
not
about
the
consequences
of
the
security
meas-
ures.
On
the
face
of
it,
such
facts
might
suggest
that
some
of
us
get
unduly
excited
about
the
social
climate
of
the
country.
However,
there
are
weightier
argu-
ments
in
favor
of
a
less
complacent
con-
clusion.
Indeed,
I
want
to
suggest
that
one
of
the
consequences
of
the
security
program
is
that
it
has
affected
not
only
the
people
who
have
lost
their
jobs-
some
innocent
individuals,
some
who
should
not
work
for
the
government
in
difficult
times-but
that
the
morale
of
the
entire
civil
service
has
probably
been
undermined,
even
though
only
a
minute
fraction
of
government
workers
has
been
directly
and
personally
affected
by
the
programs.
What
is
the
evidence
for
this
state-
ment ?
At
this
point
I
am
afraid
I
have
to
apologize
because
my
evidence
is
not
up
to
date.
More
than
three
years
ago
we
made
a
study
in
Washing-
ton,
D.
C.,
among
federal
employees
of
professional
rank
to
try
to
discover
the
impact
of
security
measures
on
their
morale.2
2
This
was
an
exploratory
study
resulting
in
ideas
and
suggestions
rather
than
in
exact
quantitative
statements.
The
only
justification
for
presenting
this
material
to
you
is
that
nobody
else
has
apparently
been
in
a
position
to
ap-
praise
the
psychological
effects
of
the
security
measures
on
the
civil
service
since
then.
The
study
concentrated
on
those
fed-
eral
employees
about
whom
no
derog-
atory
information
emerged
from
the
uni-
versal
routine
investigation
conducted
for
every
federal
employee.
We
have
distinguished
three
major
areas
in
which
1
Samuel
A.
Stouffer,
Communism,
Conform-
ity
and
Civil
Liberties:
A
Cross-Section
of
America
Speaks
Its
Mind,
Garden
City,
N.
Y.:
Doubleday
&
Company,
Inc.,
1955.
2
Marie
Jahoda
and
Stuart
W.
Cook,
"Se-
curity
Measures
and
Freedom
of
Thought,"
Yale
Law
Journal,
Vol.
61
(March
1952),
pp.
295-333.
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