The contributions of American psychologists to war have been substantial and responsive to changes in U.S. national security threats and interests for nearly 100 years. These contributions are identified and discussed for four periods of armed conflict: World Wars I and II, the Cold War, and the Global War on Terror. In contrast, about 50 years…

Intelligence analysis is a decision-making process rife with ambiguous, conflicting, irrelevant, important, and excessive information. The U.S. Intelligence Community is primed for psychology to lend its voice to the "analytic transformation" movement aimed at improving the quality of intelligence analysis. Traditional judgment and decision making…

Human factors and ergonomics research focuses on questions pertaining to the design of devices, systems, and procedures with the goal of making sure that they are well suited to human use and focuses on studies of the interaction of people with simple and complex systems and machines. Problem areas studied include the allocation of function to…

The gathering of information for intelligence purposes often comes from interviewing a variety of individuals. Some, like suspects and captured prisoners, are individuals for whom the stakes are especially high and who might not be particularly cooperative. But information is also gathered from myriad individuals who have relevant facts to…

The intelligence community (IC) is asked to predict outcomes that may often be inherently unpredictable--and is blamed for the inevitable forecasting failures, be they false positives or false negatives. To move beyond blame games of accountability ping-pong that incentivize bureaucratic symbolism over substantive reform, it is necessary to reach…

Psychologists have been an integral part of national security agencies since World War I, when psychological science helped in personnel selection. A robust infrastructure supporting wider applications of psychology to military and intelligence problems developed further during World War II and the years following, primarily in the areas of…

Psychology responded to the national needs in World War I and World War II and was itself transformed. National need calls a third time: unprecedented levels of posttraumatic stress disorder, depression, suicide, and anxiety along with a need for a resilient Army capable of meeting the persistent warfare of the foreseeable future. As a large part…