Military Psychology最新文献

Numerous traditional assessments have been developed to determine suitability of US military recruits for cyber careers. Cyber career field managers expressed a concern there may be well-qualified candidates that lack cyber knowledge, and therefore are not identified with knowledge-based tests. Technological advances such as serious gaming may provide opportunities to assess constructs traditional methods do not effectively measure. The purpose of this effort was to identify potential gains in validity that could be achieved beyond traditional methods through the use of serious games for several cyber jobs (both for enlisted and officer positions). Throughout this phase of research, an extensive literature review of military and civilian assessments targeted cyber occupations. Then, military subject matter experts in these career fields provided input and guidance (e.g., focus on aptitudes and traits as knowledge and skill are rapidly outdated). A gap analysis between all measures of such constructs identified a short list of candidates for measurement in a serious game. A survey of 800 airmen in the 1N4X1A, 3D1X2 and 17DEX/SX career fields was conducted; 290 respondents identified six constructs to be the focus for serious game assessment. The game was developed, and constructs validated on a sample chosen to model Air Force enlisted recruits. Additional psychometric data from enlistees and cyber trainees will be gathered once COVID-19 restrictions are lifted.

Given the demanding nature of its mission, the collective units of the Army, not just individual Soldiers, need to be able to withstand and adapt to a wide range of challenges. Therefore, it is important to be able to effectively assess resilience at the team-level and to understand the factors that can enable or diminish it. This article describes the development of a construct valid and psychometrically-sound measure of team resilience - the Team Resilience Scale (TRS). A theoretical framework of team resilience and related constructs is introduced. We then summarize the procedures for developing the TRS and related constructs, providing evidence of the content validity of the TRS. Finally, we assess the psychometric soundness and construct validity of the TRS in two Army field studies. Our analyses support the convergent validity of items and indicate that the measure can be used to examine three first-order dimensions of resilience (i.e., physical, affective, and cognitive) or as a single overall resilience composite. Results show the TRS was positively related to team performance in both samples and it co-varied with stressors and team actions. Practical recommendations for use of the measure and suggestions for future research are offered.

Each year significant tax dollars are spent on the development of new technologies to increase efficiency and/or reduce costs of military training. However, there are currently no validated methods or measures to quantify the return on investment for adopting these new technologies for military training. Estimating the return on investment (ROI) for training technology adoption involves 1) developing a methodology or framework, 2) validating measures and methods, and 3) assessing predictive validity. The current paper describes a projective methodology using the Kirkpatrick framework to compare projected tangible and intangible benefits against tangible and intangible costs to estimate future ROI. The use-case involved an advanced technology demonstration in which sixty aircrew participated in a series of live, virtual, and constructive (LVC) exercises over a five-week period. Participants evaluated the technology's potential costs and benefits according to the Kirkpatrick framework of training program evaluation, and analyses resulted in a nominal projection of $488 million dollars saved, significant enhancements in large-force proficiency, and 1.4 lives saved over ten years at an implementation rate of 0.5% of budgeted flight hours. A discussion of theoretical implications, data-based limitations, and recommendations for future research are provided.

Military personnel needs to be resilient to be able to remain effective, motivated, and in good mental and physical health. Military organizations select on resilience to determine whether candidates are psychologically fit for their job. The INSPIRE Resilience Scale (IRS) is such a selection instrument that aims to assess the psychological resilience potential of candidates in high-risk professions. A longitudinal predictive validity study was conducted in five European Defense organizations and in the Dutch National Police. The IRS was submitted in selection (N = 11,404), and criterion data about performance and health were collected in the second half of the first training year (N = 726). The results based on correlational and regression analyses showed that the IRS scores significantly predicted the criterion measures. Emotional stability, part of the IRS, turned out to be the best predictor. Results also showed that candidates who dropped out of training had significantly lower means on the IRS in selection than candidates who were still in training in the second half of the first training year. Overall, the IRS proved to be a valid instrument to assess resilience potential in candidates for high-risk professions. Selecting on resilience may therefore contribute to training success and reduction of health problems.

This study aims to assess the effectiveness of the TSL (Thank you, Sorry, and Love) program in enhancing the adaptability of military children in the Republic of Korea. A total of 30 military children were selected as participants and assigned to three groups: an experimental group receiving the TSL program, a comparison group receiving a resilience program, and a control group. Measures of adaptability (including resilience, perceived stress, depression, family function, and school adaptation) were administered to the military children at pre, post, and follow-up stages. The results reveal significant differences in adaptability between the TSL program participants and the other groups' participants at the post-intervention and follow-up assessments. These findings suggest that the TSL program has the potential to effectively enhance the adaptability of military children and maintain their adaptive capacities across various domains in the long term.

A simulation was conducted to examine the decision making of 102 high-ranking police and military commanders (male/female = 88/12, mean years of employment = 22.15) engaged in a simulated hybrid attack on Norway. Four 2 × 3 repeated-measures ANOVA tests were performed, with two groups (police, military) and three phases (peace, war, and post-conflict) as independent variables. The decision tasks of force posture and mission urgency, along with Subject Matter Expert (SME) ratings of decision-making performance, served as dependent variables. By using social cognitive theory as the theoretical framework, the analysis demonstrated within-group effects indicating how the transition from peace to war caused more offensive postures, higher urgency levels, and increased performance in wartime. Between-group differences were also found, illustrating that police commanders had higher levels of urgency than military commanders in general. Regarding force posture, within-group differences were only found in the post-conflict phase, when police commanders returned to pre-war levels, while military commanders showed less offensive postures than in peacetime. No significant between-group differences were found in decision-making performance. The analysis demonstrated new empirical findings about how crisis management is impacted by change and the backgrounds of those in charge. The findings have implications for designing interagency frameworks that improve police-military interoperability in collaborative efforts.

Defense and Security Personnel (DSP) often have to operate in the presence of stressful demands. Prior research has identified factors and processes associated with DSP being able to perform resiliently in demanding situations and settings. The aim of the present study was to develop a resilient performance training programme for UK defense and security operators. An intervention mapping (IM) method was used to guide the development of the programme. Typically, IM follows six sequential phases. In the present work, these phases were shaped by insights from prior research (e.g. systematic review and end user interviews), the input of a dedicated working group (N = 13) and from practitioner focus groups. During the IM process, the importance of programme flexibility was emphasized by practitioners. As such, the enAbling REsilieNt performAnce (ARENA) training programme was designed to be agile and include both face-to-face training and online learning modules. Theoretical behavior change principles, closely aligned to findings of earlier work on resilient defense and security performance, were used to underpin programme content and delivery. Future research should seek to gather data on the impact of the ARENA programme, in the targeted biological, psychological and social factors that previously been associated with resilient performances.

The commitment of soldiers to the military is essential because it could lead to increased morale, motivation and retention. Despite the accumulation of knowledge about predictors of organizational commitment (OC), efforts to investigate environmental factors influencing OC are in their infancy. We note that individuals shape their attitudes toward the environment based on information obtained from their surroundings, and we investigate peer effects on OC using data from a natural experiment of randomly-assigned military academy roommates. A total of 400 cadets (Sex ratio: 93.5% male, Age: 21.13 $\pm$ 1.43 years) from 136 living quarters participated in this quantitative study. In both self- and roommate-reports, we found that the average affective commitment (AC), continuance commitment (CC), and normative commitment (NC) of roommates in a living quarter can still predict AC, CC, and NC of the remaining individual in that same living quarter, respectively, even after controlling for the personal predictors of that remaining individual. Additionally, in self-report, we discovered that when there is a high heterogeneity in AC among roommates within a living quarter, the AC of the remaining individual in that living quarter tends to be higher, even after controlling for the personal predictors of that remaining individual. These findings provide initial evidence that attempting to assign soldiers with low OC to the same living quarters as those with high OC may be worthwhile.