During NASA’s astronaut selection process, psychologists deliberately interrupt candidates, criticise correct answers, impose impossible time limits, and tell candidates they solved problems wrong when in fact they solved them correctly, in a specific set of interview tactics designed to identify the one psychological trait that determines who becomes an astronaut and who does not

The tactic sounds cruel. It is not. It is, on the accumulated evidence from more than six decades of astronaut selection at NASA, the single most reliable way that the agency has found to identify the specific quality it needs its future astronauts to possess. The quality is not intelligence, although astronauts are, on the [...] The post During NASA’s astronaut selection process, psychologists deliberately interrupt candidates, criticise correct answers, impose impossible time limits, and tell