ISO REPORT OF THE PSYCHOLOGY COMMITTEE 



lowing membership: E. G. Boring, H. L. HoUingworth, and 

 R. S. Woodworth, chairman. Important assistance was ren- 

 dered the committee by Captain A. T. Poffenberger, Major 

 J. W. Hayes, and Dr. Josephine Curtis Foster. 



This committee set itself the peculiarly difficult task of 

 devising means which should aid in the prompt discovery and 

 segregation of recruits whose emotional characteristics indi- 

 cated unfitness for military service. A Personal Data Ques- 

 tionary was devised. Subjects, examined in large groups, 

 were required to answer by "yes" or "no" a series of per- 

 sonal questions intended to disclose psychopathic or neuro- 

 pathic tendencies and such emotional instability as might re- 

 sult in breakdown under the strain of warfare. Men answer- 

 ing a considerable number of these questions in the atypical 

 way were to be referred for intensive neuro-psychiatric ex- 

 amination. No single unusual answer to the questionary 

 was to be interpreted as indicative of psychoneurosis or neu- 

 rosis, since each manifestation inquired about is reported by an 

 appreciable proportion of presumably normal individuals. 

 But the larger the number of such manifestations the more 

 probable would it be that the individual has serious neurotic 

 tendencies. 



The correctness of this initial assumption was established 

 by careful trial of the preliminary form of the questionary. 

 One hundred and sixteen questions of the original list sur- 

 vived a thoroughgoing inquiry by a joint conference of psy- 

 chiatrists and psychologists who passed on the statistical 

 validity and genuine practicability and value of each question 

 as shown in the preliminary trial on one thousand men at 

 Camp Upton and on various groups of psychoneurotic and 

 psychotic subjects. For example, any question was elimi- 

 nated on the ground of doubtful significance which failed to 

 separate individuals into a large majority, presumably of 

 normals, and a small minority of atypicals, insofar as the char- 

 acteristic under consideration was concerned. Judged by 

 this criterion the following questions were among those found 

 significant: Do you feel sad or low-spirited most of the time? 

 Are you ever bothered with the feeling that people are read- 



