Cheiron’s Young Scholar Award Committee is pleased to announce that two young scholars have been chosen to receive the 2024 award: Cassidy Kuhar, for her “Qualities of a « bon pilote »: Exploring U.S.-French Collaborations to Select and Classify Aircrew in WWII” and Caitlin Mace, for her “Controversy at the Boundaries: The Instinct Controversy c. 1890–1930.”

Cassidy Kuhar is an Honors Psychology major with a French minor and a certificate in Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion at The University of Akron who will be graduating in May 2025. For the past three years, Cassidy has worked as a student assistant at the Cummings Center for the History of Psychology, where she has gained valuable experience in archival research. Her academic interests are shaped by her dual identity as a musician and psychology student, currently focusing on the history of music psychology and the factors influencing expertise development. Cassidy aspires to continue her education through graduate training in social and cognitive psychology.

According to Kuhar:

The roles of psychologists in the war effort expanded exponentially in the Second World War, with over 1,000 psychologists in the United States working directly with the Army, Air Force, or Navy, and another 500 contributing as civilians (Faye, 2011; see Capshew, 1999). The vast majority of these numbers were involved with the Army Air Forces (AAF). They conducted research, designed apparatus and equipment, and trained administrators and instructors. The earliest – and most–focused – area of research involved the development of testing batteries for the selection of aircrew personnel and their classification into the positions of pilot, bombardier, navigator, mechanic, and gunner. The evolution of this program has been well-studied, but international collaborations that emerged from it have been largely left unexplored.

Drawing on English and French archival and published sources, this paper presents a case example of these collaborations, focusing on the co-creation of a psychophysical selection and classification program by the French Air Force and U.S. psychologists. Sources include declassified U.S. military reports, photographs, archival training and orientation films from the AAF and War Training Service, bilingual versions of written psychological tests, and psychomotor tests, including artifacts from the AAF School of Aviation Medicine held by the Archives of the History of American Psychology. World War II-era published sources prepared by French and U.S. psychologists, physicians, and military personnel have also been consulted.