GENTLY, while making a review of the literature of psychology since World War II, as presented in Psychological Abstracts, the writer thought he discerned a general increase in multiple authorship in the last few years compared with the first postwar years. This impression appeared to deserve careful investigation; such an increase might signify a decrease in productivity per member of the profession, or it might simply mean that a shift of attention had occurred to research problems which can more successfully be investigated by groups than by individuals.The data selected for study were taken from the annual program announcements of the APA as published in the American Psychologist from its beginning to date. Excluded from analysis were presidential addresses, papers invited or requested from individuals, symposia, and film presentations. A total of 4,189 papers were included, ranging from 177 in 1946 to 550 in 19S7.The first analysis of the data was made by year for all papers announced, in order to discover whether there had been an increase in multiple authorship. This analysis revealed a general decline in the proportion of one-author papers, from 75% to 52%, and a general increase in the proportion of papers by two authors and by three authors (Fig. 1). No significant trend was discovered for papers with four or more authors. As would be expected, mean authors per paper increased as the percentage of one-author papers declined and as two-author and three-author papers increased (Fig. 2). From 1.3 in 1946 the rate increased to 1.7 in 19S7.When the annual figures are "smoothed" by grouping into three four-year groups, the trend is more clearly shown.

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Holt to explain it in complex mechanistic terms by use of the concept of sustained reflexes. Cf. E. B. Holt, Animal drive and the learning process, New York: Henry Holt, 1931. • Cf. Mapheus Smith, The greatest common component in science, PhiL Set-, 1942, 9, 30-36, for discussion of the most desirable element in scientific explanations. * Of course, equilibrium and disequilibrium are always found in reflex action, as well as are sensation, neural transmission and muscular contraction.

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