Note 15 — INTRODUCTION TO PART II

A very notable though trivial instance of mental “rigidity” was brought to me by a pupil while writing these pages. A fireman on duty at a theatre had neglected to unbolt the escape doors. When severely reprimanded he pleaded that he had been instructed by an assistant manager to do duty in another part of the theatre at the time he usually opened the escapes. The following night the assistant manager instructed him to make the same change in his routine on which the man pleaded, “Don’t ask me to do that, sir. I forgot the escapes last night and I am sure to forget ’em again if you make me go that way round. You see, sir, I’ve gone round the other way so long that if I make a change I seem to lose my memory.”