Holmes Marcia E
University of Chicago, Committee on Conceptual and Historical Studies of Science, 1126 East 59th Street, Room 205, Chicago, IL 60637, United States.
Endeavour. 2014 Mar;38(1):43-54. doi: 10.1016/j.endeavour.2013.11.002. Epub 2013 Dec 19.
During World War II, psychologists in the Army Air Forces were given an unprecedented opportunity to showcase their discipline by developing examinations to test the aptitude of aviation cadets as pilots, navigators, or bombardiers. These psychologists enjoyed success in classifying pilots and navigators, but became quickly frustrated by their results for bombardiers. The trouble lay not in their choice of tests but in their performance measures for bombardiering, a difficulty that came to be known as 'the problem of the criterion.' This episode in the history of military mental testing exemplifies the challenges faced by psychologists at the moment they were poised to gain the support of the armed services, and highlights how these new hazards shaped postwar military psychology.
第二次世界大战期间，陆军航空队的心理学家获得了前所未有的机会，通过开发测试来展示他们的学科，这些测试用于检验航空学员作为飞行员、导航员或轰炸员的能力倾向。这些心理学家在对飞行员和导航员进行分类方面取得了成功，但很快就对他们在轰炸员测试中的结果感到沮丧。问题不在于他们选择的测试，而在于他们对轰炸任务的绩效衡量标准，这个难题后来被称为“标准问题”。军事心理测试历史上的这一事件体现了心理学家在即将获得武装部队支持时所面临的挑战，并突出了这些新问题对战后军事心理学的影响。
