Military Psychology最新文献

U.S. Air Force cyber personnel were faced with changes in their workplace, fitness routines, and personal lives during the COVID19 pandemic. Adjusting to COVID-19-related requirements likely increased the stress of already stressful jobs for military members and their families, which could have resounding impacts on emotional, social, and physical well-being. Therefore, it is important to evaluate psychological health outcomes and self-perceived impacts of the changes presented to cyber personnel because of the COVID-19 pandemic. An online occupational health assessment that included demographics, standardized measures of burnout, psychological distress, and work role strain; health behaviors; and perceived impacts of the COVID-19 pandemic was administered to 1488 cyber personnel. Thirty-two negative themes and 13 positive themes were created from qualitative coding for "How has the COVID-19 pandemic impacted you as an individual?" Of the themes created, 966 (68.5%) reported at least one negative impact and 440 (31.2%) reported at least one positive impact. Top-reported negative impacts were limited face-to-face interactions and loss of personal activities. Negative impacts were associated with negative psychological health outcomes (e.g., psychological distress, exhaustion, cynicism) and work role strain. Action-oriented recommendations are given in the event of another pandemic.

PTSD and AUD are frequently comorbid post-trauma outcomes. Much remains unknown about shared risk factors as PTSD and AUD work tends to be conducted in isolation. We examined how self-report measures of distress tolerance (DT), experiential avoidance (EA), and drinking motives (DM) differed across diagnostic groups in white, male combat-exposed veterans (n = 77). A MANOVA indicated a significant difference in constructs by group, F (5, 210) = 4.7, p = <.001. Follow-up ANOVAs indicated DM subscales (Coping: F (3,82) = 21.3; Social: F (3,82) = 13.1; Enhancement: F (3,82) = 10.4; ps = <.001) and EA (F (3,73) = 7.8, p < .001) differed by groups but not DT. Post hoc comparisons indicated that mean scores of the comorbid and AUD-only groups were significantly higher than controls for all DM subscales (all ps < .01). EA scores were significantly higher for the comorbid as compared to control (p < .001) and PTS-only (p = .007) groups. Findings support shared psychological factors in a comorbid PTSD-AUD population.

Studies on the relationships and interactions within human-dog teams in the French Army are scarce. In order to better understand this subject, a qualitative exploratory study was undertaken by conducting semi-structured interviews with dog handlers (n = 16). The interviewees work in the French Army. They are specialized in the detection and neutralization of individuals or explosives. Thematic analysis identified different themes: trust within the team, doubts, interspecific cohesion, and care provided to the dogs. The results highlight the importance of trust within the canine team. It is conceived as a dynamic, constructed process, based on experience, and involving both members of the team. It emerges that trust arises from individual, relational, technical, and experiential factors: the bonds formed, knowledge of one's dog, difficulties related to technical aspects, the reliability of the dog following training, and mission successes. Kindness, support, and mutual protection are also important criteria. A form of interspecific cohesion is envisaged by experienced handlers when affection, knowledge, reliability, mutual assistance, and support are present.

The United States military services are modernizing their training and education curricula by leveraging advances in technology to deliver instruction that is more engaging and responsive to trainees' needs and better prepares them for the future fight. Adaptive training (AT), or training tailored to the strengths and weaknesses of individual trainees, is a promising technique to meet these modernization goals. The research literature, however, is sporadic and does not clearly prescribe best practices for its employment. Therefore, we conducted a meta-analysis to examine the effectiveness of various AT instructional interventions (i.e. adapting difficulty, feedback, scaffolding, etc.) on learning outcomes. There were 30 peer-reviewed publications included in the analysis. We grouped studies by the adaptive intervention examined and reported the associated effects on learning outcomes. Overall, the results revealed that the effectiveness of AT varied considerably across the instructional interventions. Specifically, studies that implemented adaptive difficulty techniques were the most effective, followed by adaptive scaffolding and remediation/test-out techniques. Based on these findings, we identify design recommendations for future AT systems.

This study aims to identify the relationship among job challenge, learning agility, job autonomy, and job performance based on job demand-resources model. In particular, this study examined the mediating role of learning agility in the relationship between Job challenge and job performance, which has rarely been conducted. Furthermore, the moderating effect of job autonomy as job resource was explored. The data collected were from army officers and noncommissioned officers (NCO) of the Korean Army (N = 425). We hypothesized that there is a positive relationship among Job challenge and learning agility, Job challenge and job performance, the mediating role of learning agility in the relationship between Job challenge and job performance, and the moderating role of job autonomy. As predicted, we found that Job challenge was positively related to learning agility and job performance. We also found a mediating effect of learning agility on the relationship between Job challenge and job performance. Furthermore, job autonomy moderated the positive relationship between Job challenge and learning agility, although the moderating effect of job autonomy between Job challenge and job performance was not significant. Finally, the indirect relationship between Job challenge and job performance, via learning agility, was stronger for the higher job autonomy group than for the lower job autonomy group. The, theoretical and practical contributions and suggestions for future studies on learning agility and job characteristics are discussed.

Research shows that high-level military and sport leaders share a high-stress and high-stakes leader role due to similar experiences of demanding conditions mainly manifested in psychological burden. This raises research questions about leaders' psychological strategies to maintain their mental health and performance under demanding conditions. Thus, the current study investigated how experienced demanding conditions were related to self-rated leader performance level and mental health indicators among high-level military and sport leaders and whether the application of psychological skills by these leaders moderated these relationships. A composite questionnaire was used to collect data longitudinally, once a week for four consecutive weeks. Fifty-two Swedish high-ranking military officers and executives in elite team sport organizations completed the questionnaire. Multilevel analysis revealed no effect of demanding conditions on leader performance, but they harmed leader vitality and were associated with higher stress symptoms. Moreover, psychological skills did not moderate the relationship between demanding conditions and leader performance. However, motivational and instructional self-talk negatively moderated the relationship between demanding conditions and vitality. In contrast, emotional regulation, comprised of mindfulness and cognitive reappraisal, positively moderated vitality. Emphasizing the nuanced application of psychological skills is crucial while avoiding one-sided beliefs about their positive effects. Interventions are suggested to focus on vitality and related psychological skills to ensure leaders feel good while performing under demanding conditions. More cross-contextual leadership research, suggestively applied research, is needed to better understand the links between high-level military and sport leaders' psychological skills, leader performance, and mental health under demanding conditions.

This study examined diverse predictors of military career intentions, specifically whether to stay in the military or leave, and differences based on duty status (i.e. active-duty versus National Guard or Reserve [NG/R] Service members). The combined perspectives of the personal choice model of military retention and family systems theory suggest that work factors (i.e. unit support, morale), family factors (i.e. work-family balance, romantic relationship quality), and mental health (i.e. depressive symptoms) simultaneously influence Service members' military career intentions. Understanding how these factors together impact different dimensions of retention, namely, intentions to stay and intentions to leave, and whether they have a similar impact based on duty status are needed next steps. With data from the Army Study to Assess Risk and Resilience (Army STARRS; N = 3,506 Soldiers), path models examined the direct and indirect paths through which these factors contributed to Soldiers' intentions to remain and intentions to leave. Then, a multigroup mediation analysis explored possible model differences based on duty status. Unit support and work-family balance directly and indirectly contributed to intentions to remain and/or leave through romantic relationship quality, depressive symptoms, and morale. Few differences emerged between active-duty and NG/R Soldiers. In sum, work factors, family factors, and depressive symptoms worked together simultaneously to explain Soldiers' military career intentions. Military leadership, at multiple levels, is encouraged to promote supportive work environments and work-family balance. Practitioners may reinforce mental health resources to promote retention.

The purpose of the current paper is to explore the influence of the perceived trustworthiness factors of ability, benevolence and integrity on general and specific trust across supervisors, subordinates and peers with the same focal referent. This study used a 360-degree approach to examine how positional power asymmetries influence the relationship between trustworthiness and trust for a general and situation-specific referent. Data were obtained from military supervisors (N = 200), peers (N = 123), and subordinates (N = 85). Measures of trustworthiness and trust of a common military officer were obtained. Supervisors and subordinates differed in their relative weighting of trustworthiness factors (i.e. ability, benevolence, and integrity) when evaluating general and specific trust. Peers evidenced no difference in the relative weighting of trustworthiness factors. The relationship between benevolence and specific trust was stronger for subordinates than for supervisors. One implication of our findings is that trust can develop differently in bottom-up versus top-down organizational relationships. This study provides evidence that supervisors and subordinates emphasize different aspects of trustworthiness when evaluating their trust of a focal officer, and this process was different for general versus specific trust referents. The study also extends previous research by replicating previous findings across raters.

Military members face emotion-regulation challenges due to the high-pressure nature of the profession as evidenced by rates of mental health issues within military populations. Identifying behaviors that are efficient and effective at promoting emotion-regulation and helping military members adopt them is essential. Recently, meditation has been shown to reduce stress, enhance attention control and emotion regulation, along with reducing military-related Post Traumatic Stress Disorder symptoms. One way to promote this behavior in a military context is to enable future officers to adopt the behavior. We aimed to examine determinants of meditation intention and behavior among cadets at the United States Military Academy using the Reasoned Action Approach, a behavior framework used to explain and change behavior. By identifying these determinants, military practitioners can tailor meditation interventions to increase the likelihood that cadets will adopt the practice and eventually help soldiers under their command use meditation as well. We conducted a pilot study and a replication study that confirmed Reasoned Action Approach constructs were predictive of behavior and behavioral intention. Of significance was the perceived norm impact on meditation intention, specifically injunctive norms. Implications include the importance of authority figures within cadets' social context providing support for meditation's utility.

Understanding the extent to which youth and families experienced COVID-related stress requires accounting for prior levels of stress and other associated factors. This is especially important for military families, which experience unique stressors and may be reluctant to seek outside help. In this prospective study, we examined the role of pre-pandemic family factors in predicting parent and youth stress during the COVID-19 pandemic. Participants were 234 families with at least one active-duty parent and a 3^rd or 5^th-grade child. Findings revealed that preexisting factors predicted youth and family COVID-related stress. Specifically, heightened pre-pandemic parental stress and youth internalizing symptoms were significant predictors of COVID-related stress. Implications for mental health professionals and other organizations supporting military parents and families during the COVID-19 pandemic as well as other times of upheaval are discussed.