Psychology Applied to Intelligence Analysis
February 10, 2020
The mind is a complex instrument and humans are obsessed with understanding it. Psychology is the study of the human mind, particularly behavior in certain circumstances. Human actions change depending where they are and who they are interacting with. The Central Intelligence Agency pays strict attention to the minds of its agents and bad actors. On its Web site, the CIA hosts a library of intelligence information and among them is the book the Psychology of Intelligence Analysis by Richards J. Heuer, Jr.
Heuer is a respected expert in the field on intelligence analysis and the CIA has made his work available for free. Jack David, who worked at the CIA with the Directorate of Intelligence, the Office of Training, and the National Intelligence Council, said about Heuer:
“Dick Heuer’s ideas on how to improve analysis focus on helping analysts compensate for the human mind’s limitations in dealing with complex problems that typically involve ambiguous information, multiple players, and fluid circumstances. Such multi-faceted estimative challenges have proliferated in the turbulent post-Cold War world.
Heuer’s message to analysts can be encapsulated by quoting two sentences from Chapter 4 of this book:
‘Intelligence analysts should be self-conscious about their reasoning processes. They should think about how they make judgments and reach conclusions, not just about the judgments and conclusions themselves.’”
Intelligence analysis is the study understanding complex, ambiguous situations. Heuer’s book focuses on the psychology behind how intelligence analysts come to their conclusions. Think of it as the psychology behind the psychology of decisions and actions. It is an interesting book that delves into a rarely seen part of the CIA’s work and, even better, it is written in plain English, so it is easy to understand.
Whitney Grace, February 10, 2020
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