The Tavistock Group,1939-1948 2015
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FROM THE SCIENCE OF SELECTION TO PSYCHOLOGISING CIVVY STREET: THE TAVISTOCK GROUP, 1939-1948 A thesis submitted to the University of Kent for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy in the Faculty of Humanities ABSTRACT The work of psychiatrists affiliated with the Tavistock Clinic and Tavistock Institute has been credited with reshaping how workplaces were managed and with psychologising British society, providing British people with a new psychological language for thinking about problems. This thesis provides a history of the Second World War roots of this work. It examines two projects which emerged from a remarkable collaboration between the Tavistock group and the British Army: the War Office Selection Boards (WOSBs) and Civil Resettlement Units (CRUs). These projects, whose scale was vast and unprecedented in British human science, involved the creation and management of processes to choose leaders and to help communities disrupted by war to return to peace. As well as exploring how particular psychological programmes, theories, methods and technologies were devised, this work considers the implications of this work for those who were involved in the wartime work. It provides a history of the co-constitution of psychological expertise, military management strategies, technologies of assessment, and therapeutic intervention. This is achieved by reconstructing the complex negotiations that surrounded the WOSBs and CRUs, by tracing the macro-scale social concerns and the micro-scale personal relationships of individuals that shaped the WOSBs and the CRUs. Historiographical approaches such as actor-network theory and S.L. Star’s work on “boundary objects” are used to examine how psychological theories were balanced with military expectations and demands. The thesis highlights the importance of communication strategies, the negotiation of networks, and administrative structures in the production of science and expertise. ALICE VICTORIA WHITE SCHOOL OF HISTORY 2015 258 pages This work is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License. To view a copy of this license, visit http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/. Contents List of Figures & Images V Abstract vii Acknowledgements ix Abbreviations & Acronyms xi Introduction 1 Pre-War Psychological Science 3 Literature Review 8 Methodology 15 Chapter One: The Psychological Sciences go to War 21 Introduction 21 The Tavistock Take an Interest in War Work 22 The Pre-War British Army 24 The Officer Problem 27 Blimps and Brass Hats 28 Psychology, Psychiatry, and the Image of the Army 34 Making a modern Army 37 ‘Modern’ Psychology and Psychiatry 41 Seeing the way to an efficient Army 42 ‘Efficient’ Psychology and Psychiatry 45 Conclusion 49 Chapter Two: Early Experiments 51 Introduction 51 Two Men Walk into a Bar: A Soldier and a Psychiatrist Discover a Mutual Interest in “Problem” Officers 52 Serendipity, Scotland and the Science of Selection 56 Testing the Tests: the First Trials of Officer Selection Methods 58 Selection in Southern Command: Bowlby’s Experiments 64 “A New Style of Military Unit”: The WOSBs are Established 66 Conclusion 71 Chapter Three: The Technologies of Selection 74 Introduction 74 A “Typical WOSB”, 1942-1944 78 Intelligence Tests and Mental Ability 81 Psychological “Pointers” 90 Self-Description 93 Word Association 94 Thematic Apperception 97 Command Situations & Leaderless Groups 101 Questionnaires and Interviews 110 Questionnaires 110 The Interview 117 Conclusion 123 Chapter Four: Experts & Evaluations of the WOSBs 126 Introduction 126 A Questionable Process: Who Objected to the Changing Role of Army Psychiatrists & Why? 128 iii Negotiations of Expertise at the Expert Committee 135 Control & Development versus Research & Training: The Conflict over Alternative Methods of Managing the WOSBs 141 Validation 144 Training 146 Research 149 Conclusion 151 Chapter Five: Settling down in Civvy Street 153 Introduction 153 POWs’ Psychology Becomes a Problem: The Historical Context of Changing Conceptions 154 Rip Van Winkle, The Bends, & Creaky Machinery: POW Psychology is Investigated and Found “Normal” 162 A Scheme is (Speedily) Developed 172 Communication & the CRU 175 Yes Ministers: Securing the Participation of the Ministries of Labour and Production 180 Persuading POWs and Civilians to Participate 184 Conclusion: Winning the Peace? 190 Conclusion 193 Roads Not Taken: Avenues for Future Work 199 Appendices 202 Appendix A: Tavistock Group Pictures 203 Appendix B: Who’s Who of Thesis 205 Appendix C: Timeline of Events Related to Tavistock Group & Army Work 212 Appendix D: Map of Psychiatric Services in Second World War Britain 223 Appendix E: Command Psychiatrists & Commanding Officers 224 Appendix F: General Strucure of a WOSB 225 Appendix G: Diagram of Vocational Psychology 225 Appendix H: Word Association Lists of Words 226 Appendix I: CDC List of Concerns about WOSBs 227 Appendix J: Numbered Map of CRUs 228 Bibliography 229 Archive Files 229 Tavistock Institute Archives 229 Box 205802222 229 Box 205802225 229 Box 377625502 230 The National Archives, UK: Kew Gardens, London 231 CAB (Records of the Cabinet Office) 231 LAB (Records of the Ministry of Labour) 232 WO (Records of the War Office) 232 Hansard 232 The Wellcome Library 233 Historic Newspaper & Magazine Articles 233 Books, Articles & Theses 235 iv List of Figures & Images FIGURE 1: Colonel Bingham’s letter to The Times, 15 January, 1941, © Gale Newsvault. 31 FIGURE 2: Colonel Blimp forcing square pegs into round holes, and misallo- cating an economist bearing the Beveridge Report on Manpower. © Associ- ated Newspapers, British Cartoon Archive, David Low, Evening Standard, 19 February, 1942 33 FIGURE 3: A cartoon mocking the quality of Army intake: “Well, Well - so you were always regarded as a ‘problem child’ eh.” © Associated Newspapers, British Cartoon Archive, Ronald Niebour, Daily Mail, 15 April, 1941. 43 FIGURE 4: Example of one question on Raven’s Progressive Matrix test. 86 FIGURE 5: The Word Association Test being given at a WOSB. ‘A New Way to Choose Our Army Officers,’ Picture Post, 19 September, 1942 96 FIGURES 6 & 7: Examples of images from the Thematic Apperception Test. 99 FIGURE 8: One form of the Leaderless Group Test, ‘Miller’s Box Test’ from No. 11 WOSB. Tavistock Archives, Box 377625502, ‘CTC/RTC Memoranda.’ 104 FIGURE 9: The ‘Real’ and ‘Set’ Problems of the Leaderless Group Tests. Tav- istock Archives, Box 377625502, RTC Technical Memorandum No. 5 - The Work of the MTO at a WOSB Part 2 107 FIGURE 10: Graph of frequency of mentions of “prisoners of war” or “pris- oner of war” in British Newspapers, 1935-1947. Artemis Primary Sources - Term Frequency’ <gdc.galegroup.com/gdc/artemis/nGramViewer> [ac- cessed 4 June 2015]. 159 FIGURE 11: Settling Down in Civvy Street Pamphlets on CRUs, Mark I & Mark II. Tavistock Archives, Box 377625502. 185 Figure 12: Poster for Civil Resettlement Units, 1945. © Crown Copyright, National Army Museum, NAM. 2013-07-2-43 187 v vi Acknowledgements During the researching and writing of this thesis, I have depended on many people, far - more than can be named here. Firstly, I would like to acknowledge the support and pa tience of Charlotte Sleigh. She was an inspiration long before I ever considered graduate privilegedstudy, and into supervisinghave had her this guidance thesis, inshe how ensured to produce that I scholarlytook the time writing; to do Charlotte justice to helped my ideas and research, and helped me to bring the project to life. I have been particularly myto make work the into incomprehensible perspective, for which comprehensible; I thank him Iearnestly. will always Over be thegrateful past tofour her. years My second(plus some!),supervisor, the Omarpeople Nasim’s at CHOTS ability and tothe see School the wood of History for the at trees Kent hashave really provided helped me me a stimu- to put lating and supportive scholarly home. Thanks are owed particularly to Don Leggett, Becky Higgitt, and my Kent PhD ‘siblings,’ Neil Calver, Oliver Carpenter, Cristiano Turbil, and especially Justine Cook, who have all been wonderful in too many ways to list. Throughout this thesis I have also been lucky enough to have found support from the discussions,scholarly community laughter andbeyond much my love. home* I feelinstitution. honoured I have that been the people privileged of the to BSHS have havehad a scholarly home-away-from-home in CHSTM, where I have found a warm welcome, lively asked thoughtful questions and made perceptive suggestions that were important for my demonstrated such faith in me as a scholar, and that members of Chieron and ESHHS drafts,research. are The a testament encouragement to their and patience good andadvice kindness. given by Thank my proof-reader you all. and rampart, Russell Moul, and ‘thesis midwife,’ Sam Robinson, even in the response to terrible early - This project would not have been possible without the generosity of the staff of the Tavis tock Institute. They were willing to provide me with access to their archives, but they did - so much more: they invited me to discuss my ideas and findings with them, and took the time to offer thoughtful observations, for which I am so thankful. I am particularly indebt understanded to Juliet Scott, archives, whose and insight deserves and thanks. encouragement I would also have like been to thank invaluable, the staff and of whose the other creativity is inspirational. Janet Foster kindly helped me to find materials and to better - libraries and archives that I have used, including the National Archives, Kew; the Modern Records Centre, Warwick; the British Psychoanalytical Society, London; and the Temple man Library, Canterbury. The AHRC provided the financial support to conduct this work, - and also supported programmes which inspired me to think about my research in new ways. For the way they helped me to put everything into perspective, and for the endless sup lovelyply of laughter,people at I Notleythank: HighJia Ou School, Song, Louiseand, of Tyrrell, course, NeilClaire Povey, Halstead.