Warrior to peacemaker: exploring the changed military mind
Can't see any media?
The document(s) for this resource are unavailable or have restricted access. You can log in if you have a user account.
- Title
- Warrior to peacemaker: exploring the changed military mind
- Creator
- Nicole George
- Supervisor
- Dr Marina Rachitskiy.
- Date
- 2015
- Abstract
- Background: With reports of mental health problems and suicide rates for ex-military service personnel continuing to rise, understanding the psychological factors that influence enlistment and separation from the military is becoming increasingly important. This study explores the main reasons for enlisting and leaving the military and how these might inform the psychological profile of a veteran: an area that, to date, remains unexamined. Method: The aim was therefore to measure the psychological profile of veterans, against previous findings from previous literature regarding the psychological characteristics of a typical enlistee. The current study examined the enlistment and separation reasons for male (n = 106) and female (n = 10) military veterans (n = 117:11 veterans chose not to indicate their gender) whose ages ranged from 24 88. Permission was obtained from the organization, Veterans for Peace, to contact their members via their website by email. Veterans voluntarily agreed to take part and accessed the study using Survey Monkey. They were asked to give their ethnicity, disability and employment status and then asked to choose one main reason for joining the military and one main reason for leaving. The veterans then completed a questionnaire comprised of three psychological measurement scales: personality traits, right-wing authoritarian attitudes and general mental health. Results: In line with the literature, findings showed that the veterans personality traits were consistent with those of a typical enlistee displaying low neuroticism and high extraversion. Reliability for the NEO-FFI for this study was acceptable for two items: neuroticism (N) = .81and conscientiousness (C) = .72. Alphas for extraversion (E) = .45, openness (O) = .36 and agreeableness (A) = .29 support the assertion of Egan, Deary and Austin (2000) that the measure lacks the robustness necessary for it to be considered unilateral. However, contrary to published findings, the veterans who participated in this study had higher levels of agreeableness (p = .005). In terms of right-wing authoritarian attitudes, as predicted, veterans reported lower scores to typical enlistees and those seriously considering a military career in the literature. However, those expected to score most highly, veterans who enlisted for Personal Growth reasons, did not. Most striking however, were the findings for general mental health: the topic that has seen the greatest number of studies to date for this subject. The current study shows conclusively that reasons given by military veterans for enlistment and separation, that include demographic factors, directly affect the psychological consequences of military service.
- Subject
- Soldiers--Psychology|Soldiers--Mental health|Veterans--Mental health|
- Counselling Psychology
- Extent
- 72 pages
- Format
- Publisher
- Regent's University London
- degree
- MSc Psychology
- Language
- English
- Date Issued
- 2015
- Type
- Thesis & Dissertation
- Rights Holder
- Regent's University London & Nicole George
- Item sets
- Theses or Dissertation