Critical Incident Technique

The critical incident technique (CIT) is a qualitative procedure for studying human behavior by collecting and classifying detailed accounts of specific incidents in which behavior was especially effective or ineffective in achieving an aim. John Flanagan introduced it in his landmark 1954 Psychological Bulletin article, drawing on his work selecting and classifying aircrew in World War II, where vague trait descriptions had proved useless and concrete behavioral accounts proved decisive. Rather than asking people for opinions or generalities, CIT asks observers to recount what actually happened, what the person did, and why it mattered, then builds a framework of behavioral requirements inductively from those accounts. The technique gave applied psychology a rigorous, replicable way to derive job requirements, performance criteria, and training content from real behavior. It remains a foundational method underlying job analysis, behaviorally anchored rating scales, and competency modeling. Its hallmark is grounding abstract requirements in observable, situated action.