Originally Posted by
reader8
Is anybody aware of any good research on correlation factors that may affect early aptitude assessment?
In his 1981 book 'On the Psychology of Military Incompetence' Normal Dixon mentioned the Defence Mechanism Test used by the Swedish Air Force, supposedly as a test for castration anxiety. The psychoanalytic argument seems to be that fast-jet pilots are compensating for this by wishing to fly fast, powerful and agile aircraft.
Further research by the University of Stockholm in 2002 reported that "...rather than capturing psychodynamic defence mechanisms, our results suggest that the DMT taps perceptual or information-processing difficulties in correct identification of brief stimulus exposures regardless of their emotional contents".
I don't know whether any subsequent work along these lines has been done. From a Jungian perspective, presumably military pilots as a breed are selected as stable extraverts.