Military psychology

from Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

The Military Psychology deals with the psychological fitness for military activities, psychological stress through the military service as well as its longer-term consequences. It was the first discipline of applied psychology to gain wide recognition during the First World War and to be promoted by the armies. In a broader sense, it is also about the reactions ( panic ) after the use of NBC weapons in the civilian population or the continued operational capability of troops afterwards.

history

When the USA entered the First World War in 1917, an aptitude test (further development of the Stanford-Binet test ) was designed by psychologists ( Lewis M. Terman ) and used more than one and a half million times in half a year. In Germany, psychologists tested drivers, radio operators, listeners or rangefinders for the skills necessary for military use. After the war, civilian use by industry and schools began. A purely academic discipline has become a highly sought-after application in a professional field. In the Weimar Republic , after a start-up phase from 1921, the Reichswehr created the first posts for psychologists in the public service in 1925; From 1927 onwards, all officer candidates were psychologically examined, also by the Wehrmacht until 1942, when it was no longer sensible to make a selection. This z. B. arithmetic tasks were posed while moving in the gym wheel , airmen were tested for their sense of direction. The causes of air accidents were also examined. This gave rise to two sub-disciplines: expression studies and character studies , which were compulsory studies in Germany until the 1970s. The exact requirements of the psychology degree were regulated for the first time in 1941 by a diploma examination regulation. The chairman of the German Society for Psychology , Oswald Kroh , received the denomination for army psychology in Munich in 1938 . In his opinion, it was the task of the psychologists to put “every national comrade” where he could achieve his maximum performance (letter 1940). In the Navy , Grand Admiral Erich Raeder pushed through the continuation of military psychology until 1945 because he was very satisfied with its recommendations and results. The main tasks were primarily to examine applicants: officer applicants, weapons control officers, signal masters , e-knives , eavesdroppers and flak listeners. In addition, the psychologists were occasionally asked to take part in court-martial hearings as assessors and to investigate suicide cases.

Psychology experienced a similar professionalization in Great Britain and Canada during the Second World War. During the rearmament of the Bundeswehr , military psychologists from the Wehrmacht were hired again. The pilot tests developed in Germany were reused in the US Army . The Pentagon funded numerous studies in the United States in the 1950s on apparently civil issues, such as concept building in pigeons or sensory deprivation , that were actually militarily motivated.

In the GDR there was an institute for military education and military psychology at the Friedrich Engels Military Academy . There is an Army Psychological Service in Austria . Hubert Annen is a lecturer in military psychology and military education at the military academy at ETH Zurich .

Also since the First World War there has been a medical military psychiatry , which became necessary for the many nervously injured ( war tremors ).

Well-known military psychologists

Many psychologists, educators and philosophers have done their military service as military psychologists.

Germany

United States

See also

literature

  • Ulfried Geuter : The Professionalization of German Psychology in National Socialism, Suhrkamp, ​​Frankfurt / M. 1984 ISBN 978-3-518-28301-1
  • PR Hofstätter (Hrsg.): Deutsche Wehrmachtspsychologie 1914–1945, Verlag für Wehrwissenschaften, Munich 1985
  • NF Fedenko, AW Barabantschikow: Fundamentals of military psychology and military education , Dresden 1987
  • Peter Riedesser , Axel Verderber: Arming the souls. Military psychiatry and military psychology in Germany and America, Cologne 1991 ISBN 978-3921472965
  • Helmut E. Lück / Rudolf Müller (eds.): Illustrated history of psychology , Beltz, 2nd ed. Weinheim 1999, pp. 279–283 ISBN 3-621-27460-X
  • Wilfried Reuter: Military Psychology in the GDR (Historical Psychology), Centaurus 2000 ISBN 978-3825503086
  • Dave Grossman : On Killing. The Psychological Cost of Learning to Kill in War and Society . Revised edition. Little, Brown and Company, New York 2009, ISBN 978-0-316-04093-8 (American English). limited preview in Google Book search
  • Stephen Bowles, Paul T. Bartone (Eds.): Handbook of Military Psychology. Clinical and Organizational Practice , Springer, 2017 ISBN 978-3-319-66190-2

Web links

Single receipts

  1. ↑ Pascal Wallisch: Deutsche Psychologie in der Zeit des Nationalsozialismus , p. 31 online , points out that the attitude of Wehrmacht psychology was possibly also due to the fact that sons of higher NS sizes (e.g. Keitel) were not admitted as officers were.