SELECTION 



499 



on aptitude tests can be remedied by suitable 

 training. Sometimes this training is quite 

 simple; some people improve in motor co- 

 ordination just by becoming familiar with 

 the test apparatus (50) . Usually defects are 

 difficult to remove, but appropriate training 

 can improve them. Thus, Wyatt demon- 

 strated that pitch judgment can be trained, 

 even in adults who seem to have poor dis- 

 crimination (51) . It would be very valuable 

 to know how much training is required to 

 overcome deficiency in each important apti- 

 tude. Then, in a given situation, one could 

 decide whether it is more efficient to screen 

 deficient men and send them to other duty, 

 or to admit them and remove the deficiency 

 by special work. The Fleet Sonar School at 

 Key West, during the war, required all men 

 with deficiencies in Doppler (pitch judg- 

 ment) tests to attend special drill sessions in 

 addition to the regular program. As a re- 

 sult, men were salvaged who would otherwise 

 not have qualified. It may be more practi- 

 cal to improve mechanical comprehension, 

 or visualization of relative movement, or 

 even ability to see in dim light, than to reject 

 generally competent men. Only research on 

 the ease or difficulty of remedial training can 

 answer such a question. 



Personality Assessment 



Aptitude tests determine what a man can 

 do at his maximum ; a much greater and more 

 significant problem is to determine what he 

 is conamonly likely to do. This is the prob- 

 lem of identifying his habitual ways of re- 

 sponding, which we can call his personality. 

 Personality tests are most familiar as tools to 

 identify misfits and potential troublemakers, 

 or men who will cave in under stress. This 

 is only a small fragment of the problem 

 which must be studied. Personality tests, 

 if they were good enough, should tell which 

 men will be most alert on routine patrol 

 watches, which men will show greatest self- 

 possession in a crisis, which men are so "per- 

 fectionist" that they will keep their equip- 

 ment in perfect order, and so on. Any 



research which studies how men differ in the 

 way they do their jobs should help us make 

 use of a factor of which we are now ignorant. 



Previous research on personality in mili- 

 tary operations has been very largely con- 

 fined to two topics: the separation of emo- 

 tionally healthy men from potential 

 breakdown cases, and the identification of 

 potential leaders. While these are impor- 

 tant and difficult lines of research, both are 

 based on the too simple conception that men 

 with "good" personalities are much alike, so 

 that after such superior men are identified, 

 research on personality is finished. That 

 this is not so, and that men of the high 

 quality obtained by the submarine service 

 are extremely variable in personality, is dem- 

 onstrated dramatically by a remarkable doc- 

 ument of the past war (14). USS TANG, 

 at the end of a patrol, fired its twenty -fourth 

 and last torpedo at a target. The torpedo 

 made an erratic run, turned, and exploded 

 against the after portion of the submarine. 

 The submarine went down by the stem, 

 trapping the crew at about a 50-foot depth. 

 In the confusion of the crash, in the subse- 

 quent assembling of the men in the forward 

 compartment, and in the execution of escape 

 operations, the behavior of men under stress 

 revealed wide individual differences. The 

 survivors' accounts are a dramatic and in- 

 ternally consistent narrative of rare psycho- 

 logical value. One incident deals with two 

 men luckily trapped with their heads in an 

 air bubble beneath the superstructure. 

 They planned to make a free ascent through 

 an open hatch, the enlisted man clinging to 

 the lieutenant's legs, since only the latter 

 knew where to find the opening. Yet as the 

 officer swam out, the man loosed his grip and 

 was never seen again. What difference in 

 personality causes one man to carry out a 

 plan in an emergency, and causes another to 

 give up? 



In the forward compartment, reports are 

 more complete. In one scene, four men were 

 in the escape bell, ready to come through the 

 port and ascend to the surface on "lungs." 



