470 



MORALE AND LEADERSHIP 



marrisd couples (90) is suggestive, but more 

 data are needed. 



Some interesting evidence relative to op- 

 timal group composition comes from socio- 

 metric studies in which individuals select 

 one another as members of a group. For 

 example, at the New York State Training 

 School for Girls, Jennings (55) compared the 

 adjustment of new girls assigned at random 

 to living cottages with that of newcomers 

 assigned on the basis of mutual selection by 

 the girl herself and by leaders in the cot- 

 tages. The results showed better adjust- 

 ment for cases of mutual selection. Similar 

 findings have been reported by other in- 

 vestigators (76, 58). Zeleny (99) has re- 

 ported preliminary studies involving socio- 

 metric assignment of pairs of Army cadet 

 pilot-observers, but without evidence of the 

 relative effectiveness of this procedure. The 

 role of personality factors in interpersonal 

 affinities of this sort is not well understood. 

 Considerable attention has been devoted to 

 possible personality differences between 

 highly selected and unselected individuals, 

 but none, as far as the writer knows, to the 

 personality patterns which characterize a 

 self -selected group. A further question of 

 potential practical import concerns the ef- 

 fects of the choice process itself. Would 

 equally good results be achieved if persons 

 who would choose each other if given the 

 opportunity were assigned arbitrarily to the 

 same group? 



Job Assignment 



Related to the problem of patterning of 

 character sties is that of the adequacy of 

 assignment of individuals to technical roles 

 within the group. This is presumably im- 

 portant not only in terms of filling each job 

 with the best qualified man, but also in terms 

 of the frustration which may arise if men 

 cannot employ their best and most interest- 

 ing skills. The Research Branch of the 

 Army Information and Education Division 

 accumulated considerable evidence to sug- 

 gest that "satisfaction with job assignment 



is perhaps the single most important factor 

 of morale" (45). Thus in a survey made 

 at the end of the war, 67% of soldiers j 

 did not feel that in most ways they had \ 

 gotten a square deal from the Army, and 

 among these men, job assignment was the 

 most frequent source of spontaneous com- 

 plaint (49). An earlier study (47) showed 

 that 74% of men who had gotten the job 

 assignment they had asked for expressed a 

 high degree of job satisfaction, whereas 

 among men who had not gotten the assign- 

 ment asked for, or who had had no chance 

 to ask, 19% expressed high satisfaction. 

 Since these studies depend upon statements 

 by the men after assignment, there is 

 no possibility of determining the extent 

 to which other personal factors related 

 to morale may have accounted for failure to 

 be offered a choice or to be given a chosen 

 assigimient. The actual effects could be de- 

 cided definitely only by an experimental 

 procedure. It is probably true, also, that 

 other factors may compensate for failure 

 to obtain preferred assignments, and con- 

 versely, that job assignment may serve as 

 a prominent hook on which to hang dis- 

 satisfaction arising primarily from other 

 sources. Despite these qualifications, it is 

 highly probable that this is one aspect of 

 personnel policy of considerable importance 

 for morale. 



Training 



Since individuals rarely exhibit at the out- 

 set all of the characteristics necessary for 

 effective contribution to military groups, it 

 is necessary to modify their characteristics 

 through formal training procedures. Tech- 

 nical training represents one aspect of this 

 problem. This is discussed elsewhere in this 

 book. 



It is also desirable, however, that members 

 of military groups have in common many 

 general habits, beliefs and attitudes relative 

 to the organization, its objectives, its cus- 

 toms, and so on. Recruit training, orienta- 

 tion training and the like are presumably 



