My thanks to Marty Moleski and Jeff Hayden for encouraging, and creating, the Behavioral Science subject within the General Discussion of the Amelia Earhart phenomenon. As Jeff wrote, "
There is lots of debate regarding the hardware, navigation, plane endurance, search, artifacts but, hardly any on the mental aspects of the two people behind all of this, AE and FN." And with that clearance from the TIGHAR tower, let's advance the throttles and see just how high this bird will fly.
Please do not over-interpret "Behavioral Science." It is simply my way of getting the attention of folks who can, more or less, hang their hat on that peg. By behavioral, I mean perspectives on humankind that focus more on mental/social processes than physical ones; and by science I mean perspectives associated with bodies of evidence created by the scientific method (broadly defined). As the posting process grows, I believe that it
itself will reveal the perspectives and disciplines that make constructive and heuristic contributions to the Earhart phenomenon.
Let me suggest a couple of start-up guidelines. Firstly, we need to become as familiar with Amelia Earhart and Fred Noonan as people, as are aeronautical folks with the Lockheed Electra 10E Special (the third player in the mystery). Unless you already have a stocked Earhart shelf at eye level, that means a literature search, acquisition, and reading. (I'll provide some autobiographical and biographical titles, and I hope that other TIGHAR members will also contribute to the BehSci resource list.) Secondly, we post at the grace and good will of The International Group for Historic Aircraft Recovery. Therefore, I believe we should be thoroughly familiar with TIGHAR's working hypothesis regarding Earhart's disappearance and the current state of that hypothesis. And that means more homework--I am a year into the massive TIGHAR archives and am still learning. Thirdly, you must register to post. And while I do not know if TIGHAR membership is a prereq to registering, I certainly encourage a donation (501(c)3) to defray the group’s myriad expenses, which I suppose includes the webmaster for this Forum.
To whet your appetite a bit, I pass on this video
AE: the Price of Courage that Jeff passed to me. Are the Amelia descriptions biographically reliable, or are the speakers rationalizing the failure of America’s Darling of the Air to complete her world flight? (Gore Vidal met Amelia when he was a youth.)
I exit sharing the wisdom of Dr. Sidney Freedman, adjunct psychiatrist, 4077th MASH. “Ladies and Gentlemen, take my advice, pull down your pants and slide on the ice.”