Enhancing Human Performance Background Papers, Stress Management (1988) / Chapter Skim
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4 Determinants and Mediators of Stress in Military Settings
4 Determinants and Mediators of Stress in Military Settings
Pages 86-105
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From page 86... ...
In the face of "humanist" criticisms about the nature of basic training, researchers and other social scholars must bear in mind that military institutions indeed have intrinsic defense functions and that training involves preparation for combat with the objective being the destruction of the enemy. Military organizations must therefore utilize methods and techniques of training which provide a realistic test of stress tolerance.
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From page 87... ...
So as to better establish this assertion, stress in military settings will be discussed in terms of determinants and mediators. This will be organized in terms of key rubrics in the stress fields, namely environmental context, cognitive factors, behavior patterns/coping, social conditions, and organizational factors.
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From page 88... ...
Explosive irritability and unwarranted rage were identified by Kardiner and Spiegel as a stage in the progressive development of incapacitating breakdowns, which begin with poor appetite and carelessness, then involve irritability and exaggerated reactions of rage, and culminate in freezing, sleep disturbances, and being terrified of one's own artillery. While observations during the first and second World Wars led to these ideas of traumatic neuroses as progressive disorders, it was learned in subsequent wars that combat stress reactions are not necessarily progressive and are more dynamic (Bourne, 1970~.
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From page 89... ...
, for example, found in studies of helicopter ambulance crews and of special forces teams of enlisted men that urinary 17hydroxycorticosteroid (OHCS) levels were relatively low, compared to recruits in basic training, to the population at large, and to the officers in the units.
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From page 90... ...
Psychiatric interview ratings and questionnaire selfratings buttressed the analyses. Specialized training, such as for the Navy Underwater Demolition Team, has been found to be highly stressful, with pronounced adrenal cortical activity (Rubin, Rahe, Arthur, and Clark, 1969)
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From page 91... ...
for psychiatric admissions among airmen in basic training are also that more than two-thirds of admissions occur during the first 10 days of training. When these authors examined prior illness history, they also found that those airmen having prior illnesses actually completed more training than those who had no illness history, thus supporting a stress reaction view.
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From page 92... ...
With regard to basic training environments, stress can be thought to reduce the capacity for critical thinking and for intellectual reflection about the recruit's experience. A third aspect of stress in training regimens is that it heightens suggestibility and thereby can increase receptivity to institutional influences.
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From page 93... ...
for the occurrence of transmarginal inhibition are prolonged anticipation of rewards under stress, confusion or inconsistency in the conditions necessary for effective response, and fatigue in the responding subject. Such conditions are indeed part of the early stages of basic training, and stress may thus be utilized to "recondition" civilian behavior (previously established response tendencies)
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From page 94... ...
They learn to reappraise their drill instructors' behavior, their pain experiences in physical training, and their role in the social unit. Importantly, they learn to develop a task-orientation and not be distracted by irrelevant stimulation and preoccupation.
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From page 95... ...
found no effects for premilitary measures. This index consisted of items covering family stability, parent relationships, school achievement, disciplinary problems, and social activity.
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From page 96... ...
Longitudinal studies conducted by me and my colleague Irwin Sarason have consistently found significant increases in Type A characteristics among Marine Corps drill instructors. We have found that those men who successfully complete Drill Instructor School are significantly lower on Type A characteristics than are those who are dropped, as well as being low on a variety of other stress risk factors.
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From page 97... ...
. Social Conditions In the stress field, the topic of social support has become a major subarea.
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From page 98... ...
, whose work on air combat units is indeed a historic milestone in the stress field -- e.g., they had a strong influence on Lazarus (1966)
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From page 99... ...
attributed differences in posttraumatic stress reactions to differences in cohesiveness of the units, although they did not control for pre-combat variables. Several studies of PTSD Vietnam Veterans have found impairments in social support for this population.
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From page 100... ...
Given that supportive relationships promote adjustment during and after wartime, it is surely a topic that merits attention by the military. Indeed, promoting social bonding, team-work, and group morale receive extensive attention by the military, beginning in basic training.
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From page 101... ...
French officers who had spent much of their time after World War II in Indochina began to resent the French people for their lack of sacrifice and support, including criticism in the French press (Hauser, 1973)
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From page 102... ...
A good example of task-generated stress can be observed in the work of basic training personnel. Drill instructors are responsible for recruits over training cycles of 9-11 weeks.
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From page 103... ...
The organizational environment of recruit training has been studied with regard to psychological variables of expectations, intentions, role attractiveness, job satisfact on. and motives related to employee turnover.
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From page 104... ...
Our conjecture was simply that some training personnel, especially drill instructors, may intensify the stressful nature of recruit training beyond the demands inherent in the training regimen and that this amplification of stress would result in higher rates of attrition, as well as impairment in performance and psychological adjustment. This general proposition involves a complex set of hypotheses about training unit social climates, drill instructor characteristics, unit performance, and recruit psychological variables.
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From page 105... ...
While empirical research on this point is grossly lacking, stress reduction theoretically and pragmatically can be achieved by optimizing environments and behavior patterns. Comprehensively, stress reduction entails remediation procedures, regulatory techniques, and preventive strategies.
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