Study: Hardiness differentiates military trainees on behavioural persistence and physical performance

Abstract: 

Hardiness is a personality trait that drafts courage and motivation during adversity. Research showed that hardiness differentiates elite athletes from their lower rank competitors. In the domain of sport psychology, hardiness also strongly predicts physical performance. Because the military occupation requires resilience and excellence in physical performance, researchers investigated hardiness and behavioural persistence during training. However, in those studies, hardiness’ impact was weak. Besides, military researchers seldom addressed hardiness’ effect on physical performance. We investigated the influence of hardiness on behavioural persistence and physical performance during the military basic training. Participants were 233 trainees involved in a 22-week long basic training. They completed hardiness measures at the beginning of the training and then, two months later, we registered who stayed involved and who had dropped out. The remaining trainees participated in a self-defence exercise and their trainers evaluated their performance. Our analysis indicated that hardiness significantly predicted behavioural persistence: the trainees still involved in the training after two months scored significantly higher on the hardiness scale than those who dropped out (EXP(B) = 1.08; p < .05). Our results however confirm that hardiness has a weak direct effect on persistence of military trainees. During the self-defence exercise, hardiness positively predicted physical performance ( = 9.87; p < .05). We discuss the possible relation of hardiness with other major persistence predictors in the military, such as health, health practices, and social support. Our study is the first to indicate a strong relationship between hardiness and soldiers’ physical performance.

Author: Salvatore Lo Bue

Captain-Commandant (OF-3) Salvatore Lo Bue is Head of the Chair of Psychology at the Belgian Royal Military Academy (RMA). He holds a PhD degree in Psychology (Katholieke Universiteit Leuven – KUL) and in Social and Military Sciences (RMA). In 2003, he starts his professional career as researcher for the Medical Psychology Service of the University Hospital of Liège. In 2004, he joins the Belgian Defense as Mental Readiness Advisor. As such, he deploys three times in Kosovo (KFOR), two times in Afghanistan (ISAF) and one time off the coast of Somalia (EU NAVFOR) to advise commanders on the psychological aspects of a deployment (leadership, cohesion, job satisfaction, and psychosocial support). In 2011, he was appointed to the RMA where his main task is to teach psychology to military cadets and to conduct research in the domain of military psychology.

Today, as a lecturer in Psychology, his main occupation is teaching elements of psychology to the cadets of the RMA. The courses he teaches include “Military Psychology”, “Communication Psychology”, “Human Factors Engineering” and “Didactics”. His main pedagogical objective is how the future officer can use principles of psychology to improve performance and wellbeing among the member of his troop. 

Although the theme of his PhD addressed the relevance of hardiness in the military context, his research interests are broader and concern the whole domain of military psychology, in other words all topics helping to improve performance and wellbeing among military service members. At the time being, his main efforts lie on a study concerning the sense of agency and of responsibility (in collaboration with Université Libre de Bruxelles), the strategies of minority groups to cope with a identity-threatening environments (in collaboration with KUL) and a European Defense Agency project on resilience screening for selecting military solicitants.

Links:

Article: http://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/1612197X.2016.1232743?journalCode=rijs20

Author:

http://www.rma.ac.be/scgw/en/scgw(en)chairpsps.html