Military Psychology - History - World War II

World War II

World War II ushered in an era of substantial growth for the psychological field, centering around four major areas: testing for individual abilities, applied social psychology, instruction and training, and clinical psychology.

During this war, The Army General Classification Test (AGCT) and the Navy General Classification Test (NGCT) were used in place of the Army Alpha and Army Beta tests, for similar purposes.

The United States Army had no unified program for the use of clinical psychologists until 1944, towards the end of World War II. Before this time, no clinical psychologists were serving in Army hospitals under the supervision of psychiatrists. This had to do with psychologists’ opposition to this type of service and also to the limited role the Army assigned to psychiatry. At this time, the only psychiatric interview that was being processed on the ever-increasing numbers of military recruits lasted only three minutes and could only manage to weed out the severely disturbed recruits. Under these conditions, it was impossible to determine which seemingly normal recruits would crack under the strain of military duties, and the need for clinical psychologists grew. Finally, by 1945 there were over 450 clinical psychologists serving in the Army.

Military psychology matured well past the areas aforementioned that concerned psychologists up until this time, branching off into sectors that included military leadership, the effects of environmental factors on human performance, military intelligence, psychological operations and warfare (such as Special Forces like PSYOPS), selection for special duties, and the influences of personal background, attitudes, and the work group on soldier motivation and morals.