A crisis in British officer numbers occurred during 1941. Research identifying the reasons for the failure of officer training was conducted by a psychiatrist, and perhaps unsurprisingly identified that the human sciences could provide solutions to these problems, as a result of which the Directorate of Army Psychiatry were drafted in to assist with officer selection in experimental War Office Selection Boards in 1942. Human Scientists working in the fields of psychiatry, psychology, anthropology and sociology brought their expertise to bear on this military problem. A series of techniques including tests, exercises, and interviews, were devised as a solution.

As well as navigating scientific puzzles pertaining to officer selection, though, the scientists also had to negotiate political and cultural resistances to their authority, from the military leadership, from politicians, and from the soldiers to whom they applied their gaze. Resistance to the favouring of “the cute type of brain” vied with the view that the human science approach was “a definite asset”.

This paper will consider the way in which the solutions that the human scientists devised to solve problems of officer selection were also constructed to achieve consensus and acceptance of their expertise. It will ponder how much of what occurred was through the careful and deliberate attempts by scientists to construct expertise, and how much through “sheer chance”?