War Office Selection Boards facts for kids
War Office Selection Boards, or WOSBs (say it "Wos-bees"), were special tests created during World War II. The British Army used them to pick out the best people to become officers. Officers are leaders in the army. These tests were designed by army doctors who studied the mind, called psychiatrists.
The WOSBs took the place of an older way of choosing officers, called the Command Interview Board. They were also the early versions of today's Army Officer Selection Boards. After the war, the WOSBs' ideas were even used to help choose people for jobs like government workers and firefighters.
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Why WOSBs Were Needed
At the start of World War II, the British Army faced some big problems. After some defeats by Germany, people in the government and the news worried about how the army was being led. There weren't enough officers, and many officers were having stress-related problems.
Also, many thought the army was old-fashioned and not very good at its job. Some felt that who became an officer depended too much on their social background, not their skills.
A military leader named Colonel Frederick Hubert Vinden noticed a lot of officer trainees were failing. He visited different training places and saw that the old way of picking officers was not working well. Around the same time, an army psychiatrist, Eric Wittkower, studied officers who struggled. He found they often lacked the right skills or personality to handle the stress of their job.
Wittkower and Vinden met and talked about using new ways to pick officers, using ideas from psychology. Wittkower had seen how the German army, the Wehrmacht, picked their officers. So, they met with other experts and decided to try out new methods for the British Army. Many of these experts came from a famous group called the Tavistock Clinic, which focused on mental health.
Early Experiments in Officer Selection
In the summer of 1941, Wittkower and another expert, Thomas Ferguson Rodger, tried out some German officer selection tests in Edinburgh, Scotland. Their tests included:
- Writing about yourself.
- Talking about your life in an interview.
- A group intelligence test.
- An observation test (watching how people do things).
- A choice-reaction test (how fast you react).
- A performance-under-stress test (how you do under pressure).
They found that the observation test wasn't very helpful. The reaction and stress tests didn't show much connection to a person's personality. So, these were dropped.
The intelligence tests seemed useful, and some even thought only highly intelligent people should become officers. This showed how much people at the time believed intelligence was important for many parts of life.
The Edinburgh experiment was judged by how well the experts' opinions matched what the commanding officers thought. For 48 men, they mostly agreed on 26, largely agreed on 12, and disagreed on 12.
Research in Southern England
At the same time, another expert named John Bowlby did similar research in Wiltshire, England. He used special puzzles called Raven's Progressive Matrices and interviewed candidates. He then rated them. His ratings matched the commanding officers' opinions in 34 out of 36 cases. This was seen as a big success in finding good officers.
Because of these good results, a report was sent to the War Office, the main office for the army. The head of personnel, Sir Ronald Adam, was happy with the new methods. He encouraged the army to approve a new system for picking officers.
The WOSBs Begin
The army experts' ideas for picking officers using psychology were well-liked. So, the first experimental War Office Selection Board (No. 1 WOSB) opened in Edinburgh on February 15, 1942. It was set up at the University of Edinburgh. Colonel J.V. Delahaye was the first leader of this WOSB. Wilfred Bion was the main psychiatrist, and Eric Trist was the main psychologist.
Under this new system, candidates didn't just have a quick interview. Instead, they went to a large country house for three days of different tests.
In April 1942, the War Office was very pleased. They ordered that WOSBs should be set up "throughout Great Britain as fast as possible." These Boards were often held in large country houses because they had enough space. WOSBs were also created in other countries later on. Special Boards were even made for choosing women officers for the Auxiliary Territorial Service, with women psychiatrists and staff. However, not many records from these women's Boards have survived.
At their busiest, the WOSBs had many people working for them: 19 psychologists, 31 officers, almost 600 non-technical officers, and 700 non-commissioned officers (NCOs). Between 1942 and 1945, over 125,000 people went through WOSBs in the UK. Nearly 60,000 of them passed. In other places like the Middle East and Italy, about 12,700 people attended, and roughly 5,600 passed.
How WOSBs Worked
The WOSBs aimed to find candidates who could lead men, get along with others, and were smart and capable. A typical Board lasted three days and used many different tests. Here's how the days usually went:
- Day 1: New candidates met the staff and were given armbands (their names and ranks were hidden to avoid unfairness). They took written tests, including questionnaires and mental ability tests.
- Day 2: Groups of candidates took part in "Command Situations." These involved obstacle courses or discussions. They also did "Leaderless Group Tests."
- Day 3: Interviews were held. Finally, the staff met to decide on the candidates. Candidates could also get feedback on how they did.
Mental Ability Tests
Even though they were often called intelligence tests, one advisor, John Raven, insisted they were tests of "mental ability." These tests included puzzles with words and pictures. A special version of Raven's Progressive Matrices was made for WOSBs to better tell apart the smartest candidates.
Psychological Pointers
"Psychological pointers" were tools used to help the psychologists know what to ask about in interviews. These pointers were created by three psychologists: Jock Sutherland, Eric Trist, and Isabel Menzies Lyth. They included a self-description, word association games, and thematic apperception tests (where you tell a story about a picture).
Command Situations and Leaderless Groups
Candidates had to show they could work with others, either as a leader or in a group. In "Command Situations," one person was put in charge of a group doing an activity or having a discussion. Their behavior was watched. In "Leaderless Group Tests," no leader was chosen. The group was given a task to complete. The real goal for the observers was to see if the person could balance doing well themselves with helping the group. These Leaderless Group tests were very important and changed how WOSBs worked.
Questionnaires and Interviews
Candidates filled out two questionnaires. Questionnaire I asked about their education, job, and hobbies. Questionnaire II asked about their medical and family history. Only medical staff were allowed to read Questionnaire II.
The final part of the WOSBs was interviews. These interviews were especially helpful for deciding on candidates who were "borderline" after the other tests. There were two interviews: one with the Board President (the leader) and one with the Board Psychiatrist. Sometimes, these two interviews caused disagreements between the President and the Psychiatrist.
Did WOSBs Work?
In terms of numbers, the WOSBs seemed to be a success. From 1943 to 1945, the number of failures at Officer Cadet Training Units dropped to only 8%. This happened even though the overall quality of new army recruits was going down. A study later showed that 76% of officers chosen by WOSBs were doing a completely good job.
However, some experts, like Philip Vernon and John Parry, pointed out some technical flaws. They argued that because the Board President had the final say, how well a WOSB worked could depend on whether the President truly believed in the psychological methods.
In 1950, two experts, Ben Morris and Bernard Ungerson, debated the success of WOSBs in a journal. Ungerson questioned if WOSBs were truly valid. Morris defended them, saying that you couldn't judge WOSBs just by officer quality, because training also played a big part, and that was separate from selection.
What Happened Next
Some of the methods used at WOSBs were later used by army psychiatrists to help soldiers who had been prisoners of war.
The WOSBs were the start of today's Army Officer Selection Board. During World War II, WOSB selection methods were used by armies around the world, including in India and Canada. The WOSBs' ideas were also used for choosing people for government jobs (Civil Service Selection Boards), for companies like Unilever, and for fire and police services.
The people who created the WOSBs found they had many shared interests. They called themselves the "Invisible College." After the war, many of them went on to form the Tavistock Institute of Human Relations, which continued to study human behavior and organizations.
