MENTAL TESTS IN THE ARMY
The United States of America entered the World War under conditions of
emergency which demanded the maximum of efficiency in the work of
military preparation, with the minimum of effort. France was virtually
broken; England was tired; Russia was demoralized and disrupted, and
Italy was doing very little more than holding her own. The mere drilling
and conditioning of the nearly three millions of men which the Nation
had called to arms were not sufficient to meet the requirements of the
task assumed. America was expected to develop, almost overnight, a
fighting force capable of meeting and defeating a Teutonic military
machine which had come to be known as the most powerful and skillful in
the world.
The gravity of the situation forbade experiments with hit-or-miss
methods. It was imperative that no round pegs be placed in square holes.
Each one of those nearly three million American soldiers had to be
placed where he would be of greatest service. Some simple, quick method
of distribution was needed. It was perfectly obvious that these men
could not be equally good material for soldiers or officers. Out of so
great a number it was reasonably certain that men could be found
especially qualified to perform each one of the particular tasks which
the infinitely complex scheme of organization of a modern army requires.
It was in accordance with the law of probabilities that there would be
contained in this mass of soldier material men highly skilled in every
one of the more than seven hundred distinct and specific trades and
handicrafts in which artisans were needed for the successful maintenance
of the fighting forces in the field. The drag-net of the selective
service system was certain to gather in its meshes men who were natural
leaders and many more men who could only follow. From every city block,
every crossroads hamlet, every village street would come those who could
teach and those who could only learn. It was inevitable, moreover, that
in this huge aggregation of human beings there would be a percentage of
the wholly unteachable, the mentally stunted, fit only to be hewers of
wood and drawers of water and sure to be a detriment and handicap to any
military organization whatsoever.
In a lesser degree the same generalizations applied to the human raw
material admitted to the various officers’ training courses; even though
a fairly high minimum of educational attainment was required of all
candidates, there was bound to be a wide range of military value between
the best and the poorest of this officer material.
Psychology, the science that deals with the human mind, offered the only
possible short-cut to the ultimate goal of the placement of every
individual in the Army at the point where his efficiency would be
greatest. The processes of the selective draft had weeded out the larger
portion of the physically unfit. The draft questionnaire, as finally
revised, provided for a rough preliminary classification of men
according to their own estimates of themselves. But something more was
needed—some system for passing the entire Army, officers and men,
through a series of graduated sieves, as it were, so cunningly devised,
and operated with such scientific precision as to tag, label, and index
each and every one so exactly that as little as possible would be left
for experience to disclose as to his qualifications for his particular
part of the Army’s job.
On April 6, 1917, the United States Congress declared the existence of a
state of war with Germany. On that same date there was being held in
Boston a meeting of a group of psychologists known as the
“Experimentalists,” among whom was Dr. Robert M. Yerkes, president of
the American Psychological Association. On receipt of news that America
was at last at war, all regular business of the meeting was suspended
and those present resolved themselves into an informal committee to
consider ways and means by which the psychologists of America could best
serve their country.
On the evening of that day, as the result of many conferences, the
president of the association asked the council to authorize him to
appoint committees on various phases of applied psychology for the
purpose: first, of enlisting the coöperation of every trained
psychologist in America, including the entire membership of the American
Psychological Association; and, second, of determining precisely what
service the psychologists could best perform. The proposal met with an
immediate response and Doctor Yerkes and his committee went to work.
The Army General Staff was skeptical at first, but Doctor Yerkes and his
associates overcame this skepticism and by midsummer of 1917 the
Division of Psychology of the Medical Department of the United States
Army, with Doctor Yerkes at its head with the rank of major, was
actively functioning, and the Committee on Classification of Personnel
in the Army had been established and was demonstrating, to the surprise
of the General Staff and the War Department, the possibility of
determining by scientific means the relative military value and proper
military assignment of the officers and men of the Army. By the end of
1917 psychology, as applied to war, had so far justified itself that the
Surgeon General reported complete success in achieving the desired
results, which he stated, concisely, to be: (a) to aid in segregating
the mentally incompetent, (b) to classify men according to their mental
ability, and (c) to assist in selecting competent men for responsible
positions.
The programme of the Division of Psychology of the Medical Department
included mental tests for all recruits during a two-weeks detention
period. These intelligence ratings, as they were officially termed,
aimed to aid:
(1) In the discovery of men whose superior intelligence suggested their
consideration for advancement;
(2) In the prompt selection and assignment to development battalions of
men who were so inferior mentally that they were suited only for special
assignments;
(3) In forming organizations of uniform mental strength where such
uniformity was desired;
(4) In forming organizations of superior mental strength where such
superiority was demanded by the nature of the work to be performed;
(5) In selecting suitable men for various army duties or for special
training in colleges or technical schools;
(6) In the early formation of training groups within a company in order
that each man might receive instruction and drill according to his
ability to profit thereby;
(7) In the early recognition of slow-thinking minds which might
otherwise be mistaken for stubborn or disobedient characters;
(8) In eliminating from the army those men whose low-grade intelligence
rendered them either a burden or a menace to the service.
In three systems of tests in use between May 1 and October 1, 1918, in
the United States Army, approximately one million three hundred thousand
men were tested.
The test first applied to all, men and officers, who could read English,
was known as the “Alpha.” This was a group test. It required only fifty
minutes and could be given to groups as large as 500. The test material
was so arranged that each of its 212 questions might be answered without
writing, merely by underlining, crossing out or checking. The papers
later were scored by means of stencils, so that nothing was left to the
personal judgment of those who did the scoring. The mental rating which
resulted therefore was wholly objective.
The “Beta” test was used for foreigners and illiterates. It could be
given to groups of from 75 to 200 and required approximately fifty
minutes. Success in the Beta test did not depend upon knowledge of
English, as the instructions were given entirely by pantomime and
demonstration. It measured general intelligence through the use of
concrete or picture material instead of the printed language. It also
was scored by stencils and yielded an objective rating.
Both the Alpha and the Beta tests were known as Group tests because of
the large number of men to whom they could be given simultaneously.
Those men who failed in the Group tests were given Individual tests in
which the instructions were given by a trained psychologist working with
one soldier at a time in a quiet private office. These Individual tests
were of two sorts: one for men who understood English, and the other for
men without education and frequently without knowledge of the English
language. The Individual tests served as a check upon the Group tests
which had preceded them. No man was recommended for discharge or for
labour battalions until after he had been individually examined by a
psychologist who spent from a half hour to an hour and a half with him,
attempting to determine whether or not the results of the Group tests
could be relied upon.
To determine the relative intelligence of five hundred men in fifty
minutes by a method so completely objective that no part of the
resulting classification is based on the individual judgment or opinion
of either the examiner or any of the men themselves is certainly a
practical application of psychological science. Simple as the Alpha test
was, its practical working out and reduction to an exact scientific
formula was the work of hundreds of highly trained minds for many
months. In its concrete application it looks like a children’s game, but
the results are so reliable as to be almost uncanny in the precision
with which they tally with the conclusions reached in the same cases as
a result of long and intimate observation.
(For full details of the Alpha test the reader is referred to Appendix B
to this volume.)
The highest score a man could make in the Alpha test was 212. This is an
absolutely perfect score, a correct answer or response to every one of
the 212 questions or examples; but any man who made a score above 135
was given the highest possible rating, Grade A, in the mental schedule.
There were seven ratings in all: A, above 135; B, which included those
making 104 to 135; C, _plus_, which took in those down to a score of 75;
C, for those scoring from 45 to 74; C, _minus_, for those with scores of
25 to 44; D, for the ones who gave from 15 to 24 correct answers; and D,
_minus_, for those who were unable to answer correctly more than 14 out
of the 212 questions.
Now for the proof! Here is an official report of one of many comparisons
made between the results of the psychological tests and the actual
observations and personal knowledge of men by their officers.
The commanding officers of ten different organizations, representing
various arms of service in one camp, were asked to designate (a) the
most efficient men in their organizations, (b) the men of average value
and (c) the men so inferior that they were barely able to perform their
duties. The officers had been with these men from six to twelve months
and knew them exceptionally well. The total number of men rated was 965,
about equally divided between the three classifications.
After the officers’ ratings had been made, the men were given the Alpha
test, and the comparison of results showed that the average score
recorded in this test by those men the officers had graded as “best” was
approximately twice as high as those the officers termed their poorest
men. Of men scoring C, _minus_, in the Alpha test, 70 per cent. were
those classed by the officers as their poorest men and only 4.4 per
cent. of those ranked with the ones whom the officers regarded as best.
Of all the men whose scores were above C, _plus_, 55.5 per cent. had
been graded by their officers as their best men and only 15 per cent. as
among their poorest soldiers.
In another camp 765 men of a regular infantry regiment, who had been
with their officers for several months, were graded by their officers in
five classes, according to their practical military value. Seventy-six
of these men were rated either A or B by the Alpha test; all but nine of
these had been graded “one” and “two” by their officers, and none of
them had been placed in the lowest grade.
Out of 238 of these soldiers who scored D or D, _minus_, in the
psychological test, all but eight had been placed in the three lowest
grades by their officers. The psychological ratings and the ratings of
the company commanders were identical in 49.5 per cent. of all cases. In
88.4 per cent. of the cases the agreement was within one step, and in
only seven tenths of 1 per cent. was there a disagreement between the
psychological test results and the officers’ ratings of more than two
steps.
Here is another comparison. Sixty company commanders each named his ten
best and ten poorest privates. Without any knowledge on the part of the
psychological examiners in this or in any other of the comparative tests
as to the ratings the officers had given the men, the Alpha gave the
grade of D or D, _minus_, to 57.5 per cent. of those picked as the
poorest and placed all but a fractional percentage of 1,118 men in the
same classes in which they had been placed by their officers on the
basis of observation and experience.
Those who failed in the Group tests were given individual attention by
the clinical psychologist. The examination here was frequently by the
Stanford Revision of the Binet test or by the Yerkes-Bridges Point
Scale. For men who could not understand the instructions and the
language necessary for taking these two tests a series of specially
devised performance tests, consisting chiefly of picture puzzles, cubes,
squares, crescents, and other forms cut from wood, were provided. The
assumption was that a man who has not intelligence enough to place a
triangular block in a perfectly obvious triangular hole, or to piece
together the six or seven parts which, when properly assembled, make up
the figure of a man or a ship is so hopelessly deficient mentally as to
be not only of no value, but a positive detriment to the Army. In many
instances fully grown men with the mentality of children seven or eight
years old were thus weeded out from among the recruits who had
successfully passed the physical tests and been inducted into the
service. Men making the D, _minus_, or E score in either the Alpha or
the Beta tests were graded as of very inferior intelligence; D, _minus_,
men were held to be fit for regular service but the E men were
recommended for service in the development battalions or for discharge.
About 15 per cent. of all the soldiers examined were scored in the D
class. They were ranked as of inferior intelligence, likely to be fairly
good soldiers but slow in learning, short on initiative, requiring more
than the usual amount of supervision, and unable to rise above the grade
of private. Most D, _minus_, and E men were below the mental age of ten
years; few men making a psychological score of D had the intelligence of
the average normal fourteen-year-old boy. About 20 per cent. of the
1,500,000 soldiers examined by the psychological method made the score
of C, _minus_, which indicated low average intelligence. These men were
good soldiers, however, and did satisfactory work in routine matters.
The C men, those of average intelligence, included about 25 per cent. of
the drafted men and furnished a fair proportion of non-commissioned
material.
Those in the C, _plus_, rating, which indicated high average
intelligence, included from about 15 to 18 per cent. of all the soldiers
examined. This group provided not only a large amount of
non-commissioned officer material, but an occasional soldier whose
qualities of leadership and power to command fitted him for a
commission.
A man who made a score of B in the Alpha test was graded as of superior
intelligence. Between 8 and 10 per cent. of all soldiers examined made
the B score. This group included a large proportion of men of the
commissioned officer type and a very large proportion of men fit for the
higher non-commissioned officers’ details.
Only 4 to 5 per cent. of the men in the Army made the score of A in the
Alpha test, which means that they were able to answer in the given time,
correctly, more than 135 of the 212 questions in the test. These were
men of very superior intelligence—indeed, of marked intellectuality. Men
of this mental type who had any leadership ability whatsoever made the
various grades of commissioned officers.
The practical application of the psychological tests covered a very wide
range. The highest intelligence among enlisted men was required in the
Field Artillery, Machine-Gun Battalions, and Signal Corps. Men of the
lowest grade of intelligence served as labourers, teamsters, and in
other non-combatant service, while men only slightly below the average
performed the duties of an infantryman satisfactorily.
By the application of the mental tests it was found possible to bring up
the average of particular companies, regiments, and detachments, by
exchanging men of high mentality from one regiment for an equal number
of men of the lower mental grade from another regiment in which the
average of ability was low. A great saving of time and energy was made
possible by being able to determine that a particular soldier, on the
strength of his psychological score, was qualified to become a good
artilleryman, machine gunner, or signal-corps man, or what not. If only
in preventing the loading up of combatant divisions with men qualified
only for the service of supply, the work of the psychologists made
possible the elimination of incalculable delay in getting our overseas
contingent ready to fight.
The intelligence tests used in the Army were admittedly imperfect at
many points. They were especially designed for and adapted to the
testing of a very much larger group than is ever likely again to be
subjected to any single test or series of tests, and so, for most
civilian purposes, these Alpha and Beta tests cannot be taken as a fair
or complete system of ascertaining all the facts which mental tests
ought to disclose. But at the time and for their particular purpose they
functioned admirably, as all persons familiar with the result obtained
will concede.