Knowledge that Transforms

I HAVE been struggling with the cheater problem for years and for that reason I would like to begin by clearing away any misunderstanding that might arise. Now and then some cheating is, and has been, done by part-time interviewers, and I expect there will always be a few who cheat occasionally. It frequently happens, when I am discussing our field force with prospective customers, that I am asked this question, Are your field workers honest? Invariably, my answer is about as follows: A thousand of my workers are just as honest as a thousand lawyers, a thousand bankers, a thousand merchants, or a thousand advertising men. One reason this question comes up so often is that some rather responsible individuals have stated, either from the platform or in print, that a considerable percentage of part-time research interviewers are cheaters. As a result, many businessmen have tongue in cheek as to the dependability of marketing research, which is unfortunate. I am very much concerned about this. Some phases of it even baffle me. The American businessman, almost without exception, accepts census figures, directory figures, and Dun and Bradstreet reports. Data for each of these are gathered by interviewers who ask questions, record the answers, and sign their names to the report. There

Editor's Note: This is the third committee report to be presented under the recently adopted policy of printing reports as submitted without editorial revision, after approval by the Board of Directors of the American Marketing Association.

IN ANY developing field of human endeavor, progress to a professional level is earmarked in large measure by the extent to which critical thought has shifted from a descriptive basis to one which is primarily analytical. In medicine, for example, the broad general descriptions of the human body and proper labelling of the various parts of the anatomy were important developments. No one would belittle for a moment the significance of Harvey's discovery of the circulation of the blood. But certainly medicine was far from an established profession until, once the descriptive groundwork had been laid, the emphasis in time and money was placed on analysis and experimentation. I should like to devote considerable time to the expansion of the analogy from the field of medicine, to demonstrate how its progress as a profession has developed largely in pace with the stress placed on the analytical, as opposed to the descriptive aspects of the human body. However, to do so, within the confines of this paper, would preclude calling attention to the more important evidence of the universality of the general principle, by brief allusion to a wide variety of professions. In the field of law, mere description of the processes of government and legal relations between the state and individuals would never have provided a full basis for the rise of a learned and re-