275:
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discussion and behaviour was observed. In
Leaderless Group tests, no leader was appointed to the group, who were then set a task to complete. The task was the "set" problem, but the "real" problem which psychologically trained observers were judging was the participant's ability to balance their desire to do well as an individual with the need to work with and support other members of the group. Leaderless Group tests in particular were credited as changing 'the entire character of the WOSBs' because the innovation made the Boards centres for experimentation and learning.
340:
The final component of the WOSBs was interviews. The interview method was intended particularly to help the Board to make decisions on borderline candidates who had been highlighted by the preceding tests. There were also two interviews: the Board
President and the Board Psychiatrist both interviewed
252:
The methods of the WOSBs were intended to select candidates who were capable of managing men and relating well to others, as well as being intelligent and physically and technically capable. To select such candidates, a typical Board took place over a course of 3 days, during which a battery of tests
228:
the Board
Psychologist. The first sergeant-testers were Alex Mitchell and David O'Keefe, and the first Military Testing Officer was Captain W.N. Gray. 10 batches of candidates passed through the experimental WOSB: under the new system, rather than a simple interview candidates went to a large country
79:
had been conducting research on "problem" officers who had broken down or caused disruption, and concluded that these men lacked 'ability or qualities of personality adequate to withstand the stresses of their job.' When
Wittkower and Vinden met in a pub after Vinden's visit to the final OCTU on his
156:
Though the results of the intelligence tests were not available in time to be used to assess the candidates, they were assumed to be useful and an advisory committee even suggested that officers should only be chosen from those who scored highly on intelligence tests. Historian
Nafsika Thalassis has
243:
At the peak of the WOSBs, there were 19 psychologists (5 women), 31 officers, nearly 600 non-technical officers (about 50 women) and 700 NCOs (about 200 women) working on selection. Between 1942 and 1945, more than 125,000 candidates passed through the WOSBs in the UK, of whom nearly 60,000 passed.
374:
In numbers, the WOSBs also appeared to have been successful. Between 1943 and 1945 the failure rate at OCTUs fell to only 8% despite an overall decrease in quality of army intakes. A follow-up study indicated that 76% of officers selected by WOSBs were providing completely satisfactory service.
327:
Candidates were expected to demonstrate their ability to relate to others as a leader or in a more ambiguous position via
Command Situations and Leaderless Group tests. As the names suggest, in Command Situations, a person was given command of a group whilst they completed an activity or held a
365:
The psychiatric interview was a point of particular concern. In 1943, the Expert
Committee ruled that no more than half of candidates should have psychiatric interviews, and later that no questions about sex or religion should be asked. Psychiatrists at Boards got around this by re-defining a
160:
The
Edinburgh experiment was assessed based on how well the psychiatrists' conclusions about officer candidates matched with commanding officers' assessments. Out of 48 men studied, there was essential agreement in 26 cases, substantial agreement in 12 cases, and essential disagreement in 12.
74:
observed that there was a very high failure rate at
Officer Cadet Training Units (OCTUs): he visited each board in 1941, and pinpointed failings in the Command Interview Board as making poor selections of officer candidates and thus causing the failures. Psychiatrist Eric Wittkower of the
201:
The Army psychiatrists' proposals for officer selection on psychological lines were well-received and an experimental unit, No. 1 War Office
Selection Board (WOSB) was established in Edinburgh and opened on 15 February 1942. The first WOSB was based in the Genetics Institute headed by
389:
discussing the validity of WOSBs. Ungerson questioned the validity of the WOSBs; Morris published a defence in response to Ungerson, arguing that the WOSBs could not be assessed based on officer quality, as this was affected by training which was completely separate from selection.
349:
The WOSBs seemed popular with the majority of the candidates who went through the system, with questionnaires revealing high satisfaction amongst both successful and unsuccessful candidates. Complaints from those rejected came predominantly from those with a
366:"psychiatric interview", issuing a memorandum that asserted that a "psychiatric interview" was one which dealt with particularly sensitive topics but an interview with a psychiatrist along general lines was simply an interview and therefore unproblematic.
185:
and interviewed candidates and then rated them on the same four-point scale that the OCTU used. His assessments of the candidates matched with those of commanding officers in 34 out of 36 cases and were deemed a success at picking out capable officers.
62:
and the British media expressed concerns with how the British Army was being led. There was a notable shortage of officers, with a shortfall of 25% meaning that the War Office was unable to properly staff units, and there was a high proportion of
336:
Two questionnaires were given to WOSB candidates: Questionniare I covered education, occupation and hobbies and Questionnaire II covered medical family history and so only medical members of the Board were permitted to read Questionnaire II.
152:
The observation test was ruled out as not useful, and the choice-reaction test and performance-under-stress tests gave only low positive correlation with the psychiatrists' assessments of candidates' personalities and so were dismissed.
382:) criticised the WOSBs scheme for technical deficiencies. They argued that as the Board President had the final say, there was variation across WOSBs depending on how far the President accepted psychological methods and guidance.
298:
Various "psychological pointers" were used to help highlight areas that the psychological members of the WOSBs may like to follow-up on in later interviews or observations. The pointers were determined by three psychologists:
257:
New candidates introduced to the Board staff and given arm bands (names and ranks were concealed in an effort to limit bias). They were given written tests including questionnaires, psychological pointers, and tests of mental
362:. Churchill actually appointed an Expert Committee to investigate the work of psychologists and psychiatrists in the services, with the particular intention that they focus upon uses (or misuses) of psychoanalysis.
108:
in Berlin in the 1930s and seen the German methods being used. The group made plans to experiment with and adapt these methods for use by the British Army. Army psychiatry was dominated by psychiatrists from the
409:, WOSBs selection methods were adapted for use by armed forces all over the world, including in India and Canada. WOSBs were also adapted for use as Civil Service Selection Boards (CSSBs), for use by the
264:
Interviews were conducted and the final conference was held at which Board staff made decisions on candidates. Opportunities were provided for candidates to receive feedback whether or not they had been
286:, advisor John Raven was emphatic that several of the tests used at WOSBs were not intelligence tests but tests of mental ability. Tests included verbal and non-verbal reasoning tests and a version of
232:
In April 1942, the War Office expressed its satisfaction with the scheme and commanded that WOSBs should be created 'throughout Great Britain as fast as possible.' Boards were hosted in
928:
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tour, the result was a discussion about how to improve officer selection by utilising psychological methods. Wittkower had been passed a copy of the selection methods used by the
398:
Some of the methods used at WOSBs (and No. 21 WOSB itself) were used by the Army psychiatrists in early investigations of problems with repatriated prisoners of war.
913:
236:, which had the space to accommodate candidates and the tests. WOSBs were later also created overseas. Boards were also created for choosing women officers for the
640:
Vinden, Frederick Hubert (1977). "The Introduction of War Office Selection Boards in the British Army: A Personal Recollection". In Bond, Brian; Roy, Ian (eds.).
802:
White, Alice (13 September 2016). "Silence and selection: The "trick cyclist" at the War Office Selection Boards". In Mellor, Felicity; Webster, Stephen (eds.).
193:, who was responsible for personnel issues in the Army. Adam expressed satisfaction with the methods and encouraged the War Office to approve a new system.
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candidates. At some boards, the two interviews led to conflict and jostling for power between the President and the Psychiatrist (see Reception, below).
110:
189:
A memorandum was drawn up in late 1941 to report the results of the psychological experiments to the War Office, and specifically to Adjutant-General
34:
to select potential officers for the British Army. They replaced an earlier method, the Command Interview Board, and were the precursors to today's
943:
918:
658:
White, Alice (2016). "Governing the science of selection: the psychological sciences, 1921-45". In Leggett, Don; Sleigh, Charlotte (eds.).
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The staff who created the WOSBs found that they had many shared interests. Calling themselves the "Invisible College" (in reference to the
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argued that this reflected the widespread view of the time that intelligence was a national problem that touched upon many areas of life.
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Groups of candidates took part in Command Situations which involved obstacle courses and/or discussions and Leaderless Group Tests.
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182:
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In 1950, psychiatrist Ben Morris and Chief Psychologist to the War Office Bernard Ungerson, exchanged articles in the journal
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Psychologists Philip Vernon and John Parry (members of the National Institute of Industrial Psychology who worked with the
240:, staffed by women including women psychiatrists. Very little documentation on the women's Boards seems to have survived.
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that was specially created for WOSBs to better distinguish between those at the highest end of the mental ability scale.
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conducted experiments with the German officer selection tests at the Company Commander's School in Edinburgh headed by
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In the Middle East, Italy, and North Africa, around 12,700 candidates attended WOSBs and roughly 5,600 passed.
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113:, and so many figures from that organisation were involved in officer selection from the earliest experiments.
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67:. In addition, the Army was perceived as old-fashioned and inefficient, as well as tainted by social bias.
233:
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Trist, Eric (2000). "Working with Bion in the 1940s: The Group Decade". In Pines, Malcolm (ed.).
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Behavior, Technology, and Organizational Development: Eric Trist and the Tavistock Institute
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From the Science of Selection to Psychologising Civvy Street: The Tavistock Group, 1939-1948
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background. However, there was hostility to the WOSBs from some senior Army figures such as
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97:
64:
122:
89:
85:
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Treating and preventing trauma: British military psychiatry during the Second World War
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The Social Engagement of Social Science Volume I, The Socio-Psychological Perspective
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Raising Churchill's Army: The British Army and the War against Germany 1919-1945
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696:"The Transformation of Selection Procedures: The War Office Selection Boards"
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and other commercial enterprises, and for fire services, police forces, etc.
178:
81:
38:. The WOSBs were also later adapted to civilian purposes such as selecting
414:
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house and underwent three days of testing incorporating various methods.
846:
Morris, B.S. (1949). "Officer Selection in the British Army 1942-1945".
805:
The Silences of Science: Gaps and Pauses in the Communication of Science
753:
Raven, John C. (1947). "Letters and NotesL Raven's Intelligence Test".
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The British Army, Manpower, and Society into the Twenty-first Century
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were used. The usual format of the days at Boards was as follows:
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On a more local level, Assistant Adjutant-General Colonel
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conducted research with officer candidates at an OCTU in
865:
Ungerson, B. (1950). "Mr Morris on Officer Selection".
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Vernon, Philip Ewart; Parry, John B. (1 January 1949).
591:
Psychiatry in the British Army in the Second World War
84:, and so Vinden and Wittkower met with psychiatrists
16:
WW2-era officer selection process in the British Army
884:
Morris, B.S. (1950). "A Reply to Colonel Ungerson".
50:
Following British defeats and German successes with
464:The British Army and the People's War, 1939-1945
26:, (pronounced Wosbees) were a scheme devised by
929:History of mental health in the United Kingdom
311:. The "pointers" included a self-description,
278:A recruit takes a test as part of his boards.
8:
169:Concurrently with the Edinburgh experiment,
323:Command Situations & Leaderless Groups
133:Written self-description by the candidate.
832:Personnel Selection in the British Forces
661:Scientific Governance in Britain, 1914-79
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914:Selection of British military officers
430:Tavistock Institute of Human Relations
461:Crang, Jeremy A. (18 November 2000).
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705:. University of Pennsylvania Press.
136:Life-history obtained by interview.
644:. Vol. 2. London: Croom Helm.
401:The WOSBs were a precursor to the
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726:Strachan, Hew (1 January 2000).
561:Trahair, Richard (1 June 2015).
224:was the Board Psychiatrist, and
781:. Jessica Kingsley Publishers.
621:(Thesis). University of Salford
467:. Manchester University Press.
424:who were the precursors of the
405:that is in place today. During
332:Questionnaires & Interviews
944:Psychological tests and scales
642:A Yearbook of Military History
588:Ahrenfeldt, Robert H. (1958).
282:Though they were often called
220:was the first WOSB President.
148:Performance-under-stress test.
121:In summer 1941, Wittkower and
1:
835:. University of London Press.
594:. Columbia University Press.
547:(Thesis). University of Kent.
493:French, David (5 July 2001).
238:Auxiliary Territorial Service
165:Bowlby & Southern Command
36:Army Officer Selection Boards
919:British Army in World War II
778:Bion and Group Psychotherapy
428:), they went on to form the
411:Office of Strategic Services
403:Army Officer Selection Board
288:Raven's Progressive Matrices
183:Raven's Progressive Matrices
664:. Oxford University Press.
615:Thalassis, Nafsika (2004).
317:thematic apperception tests
129:. The procedure involved:
20:War Office Selection Boards
960:
567:. Transaction Publishers.
732:. Taylor & Francis.
214:. Colonel J.V. Delahaye
204:Francis Albert Eley Crew
139:Group intelligence test.
886:Occupational Psychology
867:Occupational Psychology
848:Occupational Psychology
755:British Medical Journal
387:Occupational Psychology
212:University of Edinburgh
72:Frederick Hubert Vinden
54:in the early months of
294:Psychological Pointers
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86:Thomas Ferguson Rodger
939:History of psychology
934:History of psychiatry
909:British Army officers
694:Murray, Hugh (1990).
541:White, Alice (2016).
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145:Choice-reaction test.
60:Members of Parliament
30:psychiatrists during
127:Alick Buchanan-Smith
117:Edinburgh experiment
924:Military psychiatry
358:and Prime Minister
309:Isabel Menzies Lyth
284:intelligence tests
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96:, and the head of
422:Invisible College
360:Winston Churchill
142:Observation test.
102:Sir Andrew Thorne
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171:John Bowlby
903:Categories
712:0812281926
436:References
380:Royal Navy
370:Validation
305:Eric Trist
226:Eric Trist
181:. He used
65:breakdowns
52:Blitzkrieg
46:Background
345:Reception
179:Wiltshire
82:Wehrmacht
625:22 March
415:Unilever
258:ability.
248:Methods
210:of the
206:in the
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315:, and
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