Military Psychology最新文献

Linkages among psychological health problems, intimate relationship distress, and suicide risk have been widely studied, but less is known about how these factors interact, especially in military populations. With steady increases in suicide rates among active military and post-service members (SMs), it is critical to better understand the relation among known risk factors. The current study addresses this gap by testing a model hypothesizing that the association between intimate-relationship problems and suicidal ideation is mediated by individual mental health symptoms. We tested this model on a sample of 862 active-duty Air Force members in committed relationships. The sample consisted of 35.0% women and 64.8% men, with an average age of 21.9 years and a mean relationship length of 2.8 years. Findings supported the hypothesized statistical mediation model. Results indicated that relationship problems contribute to psychological health problems, which, in turn, are related to suicidal ideation. These findings may help direct suicide intervention and prevention protocols that consider intimate relationship distress as a significant risk factor. Limitations and further implications for policies regarding suicide prevention in the armed forces are discussed.

U.S. surveys demonstrate recent decreases in the prevalence of alcohol use and binge drinking among young adults. The current study aims to determine whether similar trends are evident in a similarly aged cohort of service members in the US Air Force to inform ongoing prevention efforts. Participants were 103,240 Air Force personnel in entry-level training between 2016 and 2019. Participants anonymously completed the AUDIT (Alcohol Use Disorder Identification Test) regarding their pre-service drinking. Logistic regression analyses and the Cochran-Armitage test were conducted to measure population trends over the study duration with stratification by age (<21 vs. ≥21) and evaluation of specific alcohol behaviors. Between 2016 and 2019, the proportion of young service members endorsing any alcohol use significantly decreased for both the <21 group (i.e. from 38.9% to 32.6%) and the ≥21 group (i.e. from 80.6% to 77.5%). Among those who endorsed drinking, a decrease over time in binge use was also observed from 46.6% to 37.8% for the <21 group and from 34.2% to 27.5% for the ≥21 group. Responses to other specific alcohol risk items and total AUDIT scores also demonstrated decreases. Binge use and risky drinking remained disproportionately common among those under the legal drinking age. It is encouraging to observe a shift toward abstinence and decreased binge use among this population of young military recruits. However, given the risk for many adverse health and legal consequences in this population, more work is needed to prevent problematic drinking, especially among those under the legal drinking age.

This paper assesses the impact of general intelligence, as well as specific personality traits, and aspects of motivation, on performance, potential, and advancement of senior leaders. A questionnaire survey was conducted on the full population of 381 senior officers in the Royal Navy with an 80% response rate. Performance, potential, and rate of advancement were established direct from the organization's appraisal system; intelligence, personality traits and motivation were assessed, at the time of the study, using the Verify G+ Test, Occupational Personality Questionnaire, and Motivation Questionnaire. Findings suggest differences in motivation are more important than differences in general intelligence, or personality traits, in predicting assessed performance, potential within, and actual rate of advancement to, senior leadership positions. This is a rare example of a study into very senior leaders, validated against both formal appraisal data and actual rates of advancement. As a consequence of this study the Royal Navy has started to use psychometric-based assessments as part of the selection and development of its most Senior Officers.

Military service is a demanding profession that requires high physical preparedness and mental endurance. At the same time, the demands of military duties often require early rising and shortened sleep duration. Such a reduction in sleep can reduce physical and mental performance, and these changes can be reflected in life satisfaction. For this reason, soldiers' life satisfaction is a crucial variable for their success and long-term service. This study examined the relationship between sleep quality, sleep duration, and life satisfaction in military medical students. The results on 35 military students showed that greater sleep quality corresponded to greater life satisfaction; this relationship was moderate and significant (r = -460, p = .005). Notably, participants (n = 17) who began to wake up without the use of an alarm clock reported an average of 11% higher life satisfaction than the participants who woke to an alarm clock; this difference between participants was statistically significant (p = .011, Cohen's d = .911). Pre- and post-intervention showed that sleep hygiene education could be a suitable solution to prevent sleep deprivation and positively impact life satisfaction. Our findings emphasize the importance of increased sleep hygiene education, especially in preparing future military officers and during military exercises. Prioritizing sleep hygiene in these ways can significantly increase soldiers' life satisfaction.

Although growth writing has been verified to be effective in addressing psychological maladjustment through sequential shifts in emotion-processing strategies, there have been no further findings extending these preliminary observations to applications in the military field. This study aimed to investigate whether growth writing can serve as a novel intervention in enhancing the mental health of cadets. A total of 103 cadets (Sex ratio: 68.9% male, Age: 20.60$\pm$2.16 years) participated in an 8-week writing program and were randomly assigned to either the growth writing group or the unstructured writing group. The growth writing group wrote structured narratives on the themes of exposure, devaluation, and benefit-finding for 30 minutes per week, focusing on the most stressful event in cadet lives. The unstructured writing group freely wrote about their feelings and thoughts regarding the most stressful event in cadet lives for 30 minutes every week. We found that growth writing resulted in greater benefits compared to unstructured writing, as indicated by a more significant reduction in stress, depression, anxiety, and anger, as well as a stronger increase in life satisfaction at the five-week follow-up. Moreover, significant changes were observed in stress, depression, anxiety, anger, and life satisfaction over the three assessment points among cadets in the growth writing group. Overall, the current findings highlight that the growth writing process can serve as a valuable form of self-psychotherapy for cadets who will face challenging battlefields in the future.

The applicant faking literature suggests that faking warnings - brief messages that dissuade applicants from faking - can reduce faking on personality tests by up to 50%. However, the efficacy of warnings may be limited by their atheoretical construction. Further, these threatening messages can cause applicants to feel negatively about the personality test, potentially reducing their validity during the selection process. We tried to improve the efficacy of faking warnings, while minimizing negative applicant reactions, by leveraging theory from the accountability and morality literatures. We tested three new faking warnings that emphasized short-term accountability, long-term accountability, and morality. To do so, we tested 466 military trainees undergoing basic training at the Canadian Armed Forces and asked them to engage in a selection simulation. We assigned groups of trainees to the different faking warning conditions and guided them through the simulation. We found that a faking warning emphasizing short-term accountability, which threatened to detect fakers by contacting references and using "internal integrity checks," reduced applicant faking. None of the other messages had any effect when compared to a no-warning control group.

In this study, we investigated the effect of tactical breathing (breath-based stress management) on marksmanship performance in a randomized between-subjects design. The total of n = 100 participants (18% female) were all student soldiers and randomly assigned to the intervention group (tactical breathing) or the control group. In the German Armed Forces shooting simulator, participants shot ten rounds at ten meters with the P8 (Heckler and Koch). In addition, the effect of neuroticism, fear of failure, and resilience on shooting performance and the interaction of those traits with the experimental condition were examined. Overall, the total hit score showed a strong ceiling effect, so the more difficult initial hit was primarily used as a performance criterion. None of the personality traits significantly affected the initial hit, and there were no interactions between the experimental condition and the personality traits. However, there was a significant difference in initial hit between the control and experimental group, as the tactical breathing group shot an average of 1.9 points better, t(98) = 8.489, p < .001, d = 1.698. Considering the initial shot, which was more difficult due to the uncocked trigger, tactical breathing proved to be an effective method for increasing marksmanship performance.

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.

Understanding the individual differences that can buffer the impact of combat and other adverse exposures on deleterious behavioral health outcomes could lead to more targeted prevention and intervention efforts. Cognitive reappraisal, an antecedent-focused emotion regulation strategy, is linked to positive health outcomes such as lower levels of post-traumatic stress disorder, anxiety, and depression. This study examined the moderating effect of individual differences in cognitive reappraisal use on the association between combat exposure and behavioral health outcomes in active-duty U.S. Soldiers (N = 2,290). This study utilized survey data collected approximately 18 months following a combat deployment to Afghanistan in 2014. Results showed that individual differences in cognitive reappraisal use significantly moderated the effect of combat exposure on anxiety and post-traumatic stress symptoms but not depressive symptoms. Specifically, increasing combat exposures predicted a steeper increase in negative behavioral health symptoms for Soldiers reporting lesser (versus greater) cognitive reappraisal use. These findings highlight a role for cognitive reappraisal as a targetable factor that can mitigate the behavioral health consequences of exposure to combat stressors.

It is well documented that leadership behavior influences employees' motivation. In particular are autonomy-supportive leadership styles associated with desirable outcomes through basic psychological needs satisfaction and subsequent autonomous motivation. Mission Command, a leadership philosophy endorsed by the armed forces of many nations, can be considered autonomy-supportive and should therefore foster motivational outcomes beyond effective mission execution. Despite this, research on the relationship between mission command and soldiers' motivation is currently lacking. In the current study, an instrument was developed to measure the perceived degree of mission command behavior. Using structural equation modeling, the instrument was then used to examine the relationship between perceived degree of mission command, basic psychological needs satisfaction and autonomous motivation, as well as soldiers' job satisfaction and turnover intention. The empirical sample comprised 286 respondents from three different rapid-reaction forces in the Norwegian Home Guard. The results indicate that mission command was not directly related to autonomous motivation. However, there was a direct relationship between mission command and the satisfaction of the need for autonomy, and a significant indirect effect of mission command on autonomous motivation through satisfaction of the need for autonomy. Moreover, there was a positive relationship between autonomous motivation and job satisfaction and a negative relationship between autonomous motivation and turnover intention. Taken together, this study suggests that mission command leadership behaviors can contribute to basic needs satisfaction, promote soldiers' autonomous motivation and job satisfaction, and reduce turnover intention. Practical and theoretical implications are discussed.