Cecil Alec Mace

Cecil Alec Mace (22 July 1894 – 7 June 1971) usually cited as C.A. Mace was a British philosopher and industrial psychologist.

Life

Mace was born on 22 July 1894 to Mary and Walter Mace in Norwich, England. He left home at 18 for Cambridge University, intending to study for holy orders. However, instead he chose to read Moral Sciences at Queen's College, Cambridge. He studied under G.E. Moore. The British psychologist C.S. Meyers, who started the first experimental psychology laboratory in Cambridge, was another mentor. At the outbreak of World War I Mace who shared Moore's pacifism, refused to fight. Instead he was sent to Dartmoor prison where he studied the psychological effects of imprisonment. Following World War I, he was appointed Lecturer in Philosophy and Psychology at the University of Nottingham. He married Marjorie Lebus and they had two sons. In 1925, he joined St Andrew's to start a experimental Psychology laboratory. In 1932 he became a Reader a Bedford College, University of London. He worked under the direction of Professor Beatrice Edgell, the first woman President of the British Psychological Association.

He discredited the notion that workers are primarily incentivized by money. He also stated that people have a "will to work." In 1935, he conducted the first empirical studies of goal setting.

Literary works

• Sibylla; or, the Revival of Prophecy. 1926
• A Manual of Psychology 1929
• The psychology of study, etc. 1932.
• The Principles of Logic. An introductory survey. 1933
• Supernormal Faculty and the Structure of the Mind. 1937
• Current Trends in British Psychology. Edited by C. A. Mace and P. E. Vernon. 1953
• The Psychological Approach to Scientific Management - can this be applied in the home? 1954
• British Philosophy in the Mid-Century. A Cambridge symposium. Edited by C. A. Mace. 1957
• Selected papers. 1973.
• Mace, Cecil Alec (1932). The psychology of study. London: Methuen & Co. Ltd. viii, 96. LCCN 33024188. OCLC 6654937. {{cite book}}: Unknown parameter |nopp= ignored (|no-pp= suggested) (help)