The combined influence of hardiness and cohesion on mental health in a military peacekeeping mission: A prospective study

Abstract

A large number of studies have shown that hardiness and cohesion are associated with mental health in a military context. However, most of them are presented without controlling for baseline mental health symptoms, which is their most significant source of error. The present study investigates the combined effect of hardiness and cohesion in a prospective design, controlling for baseline levels of symptoms among Norwegian personnel serving in a peacekeeping operation in Kosovo. Multivariate regression analyses were performed in which self‐reported mental health complaints were regressed on our explanatory variables. Our findings suggest that both cohesion and hardiness contributed to increased stress resiliency, as measured by a lower level of reported mental health complaints. Our baseline measure of mental health accounted for a larger proportion of the variance than our other predictors. A significant interaction between cohesion and hardiness suggested a combined effect, over and above the individual contributions of the predictors. For individuals who scored high on hardiness, cohesion levels did not influence levels of mental health complaints. Individuals who scored low on hardiness, on the other hand, reported lower levels of mental health complaints when cohesion levels were high.

Military Leaders' Leadership Styles and Subordinates Hardiness Level: Can Transformational and Transactional Leadership Influence Soldier’s Hardiness?

“…Meanwhile, researches involving multi-forces from a different military background in the International Security and Assistance Force (ISAF) acknowledged that the hardiness level of the soldiers is related to dedication and vigor [29]. Studies within the western military recognized hardiness as factors among cadet performance in the US and Norway [11], [30], and authentic leadership correlates with hardiness [31]. Similarly, few studies also supported the idea of how hardiness contributed to trained soldiers been a better military leader [14], [19], [32].…”

“…Nazri & Sharmila / International Journal ofBusiness and Management,3(3) 2019, Pages:[26][27][28][29][30][31][32][33][34][35][36] …”

Predicting Basic Military Performance for Conscripts in the Norwegian Armed Forces

“…In general, test batteries such as the Armed Services Vocational Aptitude Battery (ASVAB) or the Canadian Forces Aptitude Test (CFAT) are considered to be good measures of GMA, where some incremental validity from adding more specific abilities to GMA has been documented (Campbell & Catano, 2004;Carretta, et al, 2014;Earles & Ree, 1992;Rumsey Predictors measuring personality traits, motivation, stress tolerance, or other types of non-cognitive skills have resulted in more mixed findings (Barrick & Mount, 1991;Guion & Gottier, 1965;Rumsey & Arabian, 2014). There is evidence that personality traits , hardiness (Bartone, Roland, Picano, & Williams, 2008;Thomassen, Hystad, Johnsen, Johnsen, Laberg, & Eid, 2015), and motivation (Gubata, Oetting, Weber, Feng, Cowan, & Niebuhr, 2012) all have predictive validity for military performance. Other validation studies have made an argument for using types of criteria other than training and work performance, such as psychological fitness and service completion, and that predictors other than GMA may be needed for predicting these (Bäccman, Berggren, & Norlander, 2012).…”

To Approach or to Avoid? Motivation Differentially Mediates the Effect of Hardiness on Depressive Symptoms in Chinese Military Personnel

“…Control improved mental health by the use of problem-focused and support-seeking strategies [12]. Persons low in hardiness are more likely to use avoidant coping such as substance/alcohol abuse [13, 14] on the one hand and benefit from social cohesion and report less mental health problems on the other hand [15].…”