Governing the science of selection: the psychological sciences, 1921–45

The psychological sciences were deployed in Second World War Britain on an unprecedented scale in the hopes of managing the mobilised population. This chapter traces three groups of psychologists: Bartlett’s experimental psychologists from Cambridge, psychologists from the National Institute of Industrial Psychology (NIIP), and the Tavistock Clinic’s psychoanalysts. It follows their work from peacetime, in the lab, factory, and clinic, to wartime negotiations over how their work should be conducted. Each group had distinct views on the ideal relationship of scientists to military patrons, from disinterested advisors to consultants to involved collaborators. Psychologists’ diverse views on what was valuable in a person shaped (and was shaped by) their methods, revealing three very different approaches to the creation of a science of selection

Silence and Selection: the "trick cyclist" at the War Office Selection Boards

In 1939, psychiatrists wrote to the War Office of Britain to offer up their services in the likely event of war. The response? A resounding silence. This unpromising start marked the first words (and the first silence) in a discussion of psychological science that would span the war. The " trick cyclist " , or psychiatrist, was a controversial figure during World War II. At War Office Selection Boards, psychiatrists sought a voice to speak not only of the deviant populations that they conventionally studied, but also to discuss normal and even superior members of society. Winston Churchill, amongst others, was not at all sure about this, noting the 'immense amount of harm' they might do. Suspicions of 'these gentlemen' and their affiliation with taboos such as sex, resulted in a number of enquiries into, and limitations upon, their work at Selection Boards during the war (Churchill, 2010, p.815). The most contentious site of such negotiation and contention was the psychiatric interview, where psychiatrists assessed soldiers put forward for commission. This chapter analyses the the technique of the psychiatric interview at the War Office Selection Board as the point of intersection between Army authorities, soldiers, and psychiatrists: those commissioning science, those subject to the gaze of science, and those practicing science

Science, Technology, or Medicine? The Case of the Construction of Officer Selection Tests for the British Army

Military historians have debated the role of the War Office Selection Board (WOSB) in creating a “People's Army” and democratising the British military during the Second World War. The role of these boards in reconfiguring the identity of the psychiatrist and the boundaries of their expertise in mid-twentieth century Britain, however, has been largely overlooked. This paper examines the WOSB as a boundary object, which could be read as a democratising force, a treatment for a “sick” organisation, a set of scientific (and not so scientific) practices, or a technology for increasing the flow of officer candidates and the image of the army whose underlying principles were irrelevant. It examines the contexts that motivated actors to opt for these categorizations, and traces how the dominant narrative changed over time, whilst analysing the lingering aspects of categorizations and what proved particularly useful or problematic about these associations in the given context

From the Science of Selection to Psychologising Civvy Street: The Tavistock Group, 1939-1948

The work of psychiatrists affiliated with the Tavistock Clinic and Tavistock Institute has been credited with reshaping how workplaces were managed and with psychologising British society, providing British people with a new psychological language for thinking about problems. This thesis provides a history of the Second World War roots of this work. It examines two projects which emerged from a remarkable collaboration between the Tavistock group and the British Army: the War Office Selection Boards (WOSBs) and Civil Resettlement Units (CRUs). These projects, whose scale was vast and unprecedented in British human science, involved the creation and management of processes to choose leaders and to help communities disrupted by war to return to peace. As well as exploring how particular psychological programmes, theories, methods and technologies were devised, this work considers the implications of this work for those who were involved in the wartime work. It provides a history of the co-constitution of psychological expertise, military management strategies, technologies of assessment, and therapeutic intervention. This is achieved by reconstructing the complex negotiations that surrounded the WOSBs and CRUs, by tracing the macro-scale social concerns and the micro-scale personal relationships of individuals that shaped the WOSBs and the CRUs. Historiographical approaches such as actor-network theory and S.L. Star’s work on “boundary objects” are used to examine how psychological theories were balanced with military expectations and demands. The thesis highlights the importance of communication strategies, the negotiation of networks, and administrative structures in the production of science and expertise

A study of the holding power of three Lynchburg Negro elementary schools with respect to habitual drop-outs

Thesis (Ed.M.)--Boston Universit

Alien Registration- Leblanc, Alice M. (Orono, Penobscot County)

https://digitalmaine.com/alien_docs/5787/thumbnail.jp

New Christmas

Carol Miller spent Christmas Day last year in Cairo, Egypt, as part of her junior year of college abroad studying at Beruit College for Women in Beruit, Lebanon. She attended under a plan sponsored by the Presbyterian Church

The Multi-Component Nature of the Vela Pulsar Nonthermal X-ray Spectrum

We report on our analysis of a 274 ks observation of the Vela pulsar with the Rossi X-Ray Timing Explorer (RXTE). The double-peaked, pulsed emission at 2 - 30 keV, which we had previously detected during a 93 ks observation, is confirmed with much improved statistics. There is now clear evidence, both in the spectrum and the light curve, that the emission in the RXTE band is a blend of two separate non-thermal components. The spectrum of the harder component connects smoothly with the OSSE, COMPTEL and EGRET spectrum and the peaks in the light curve are in phase coincidence with those of the high-energy light curve. The spectrum of the softer component is consistent with an extrapolation to the pulsed optical flux, and the second RXTE pulse is in phase coincidence with the second optical peak. In addition, we see a peak in the 2-8 keV RXTE pulse profile at the radio phase.Comment: 12 pages, 3 figures, accepted for publication in Astrophysical Journa