Intelligence and National Security

Psychology and Intelligence

Intelligence and National Security invites submissions for a special issue on Psychology and Intelligence. From psychological analyses of world leaders to deception and disinformation through the activation of cognitive processes and biases, psychology has played a strong role within the field of intelligence. This issue seeks to highlight how psychology has informed intelligence practices and their wider impacts on the field.

This special issue offers an opportunity to explore the ways in which foundations in psychology have had and continue to offer additional applications to the study of intelligence. Leadership assessment at-a-distance techniques have been carried out on world leaders to better understand their decision-making and offer opportunities for strategic engagement. Likewise, these techniques may offer insight into the decision-making of intelligence leaders, which remains largely unexplored. Heuristic and cognitive processing play a critical role in how people interpret information. As a result, these can also have widespread impacts on intelligence gathering and analysis while also playing a fundamental role in deception and disinformation. They also have serious considerations regarding how intelligence customers consume intelligence products.

The goal of the special issue is to highlight the often-overlooked aspect of the role that psychology has and will continue to play within the intelligence studies field. We invite research paper submissions that address, but are not limited to, the following themes:

• Leadership analysis and decision-making
• Bias and intelligence processes
• Psychology and counterintelligence
• Psychology and intelligence communication
• Personality effects on intelligence work