Soldier Beliefs About Peacekeeping Operations as Predictors of Depression, Morale, and Responsibility,
Abstract
Military personnel are seeing a sudden increase in peacekeeping and humanitarian relief missions. These missions have the potential for producing psychological ambiguities surrounding the relevance of the mission to the individual's identity as a soldier, the guidelines for how to behave during the mission, and the degree of control individuals feel they have over their job on the mission. In the present research we examined the beliefs of US Army Europe (USAREUR) soldiers (N=1420) about the Bosnia peace-enforcement mission prior to their deployment. Questions assessing beliefs included how much control soldiers thought they would have on their job, how well-trained they were for their job, how comfortable they felt in the role of peacekeeper, and the importance of peacekeeping operations. We assessed the impact of these beliefs on soldiers' feelings of responsibility, morale, depression, and excitement and worry about the deployment. The results from the soldiers participating in the Bosnia mission were also compared to the predeployment results of USAREUR soldiers (N = 35) participating in a medical humanitarian assistance mission to Kazakstan. The Triangle Model of responsibility (Britt, 1995; Schlenker, Britt, Pennington, Murphy & Doherty, 1994) served as the theoretical framework for understanding the impact of soldier beliefs on the psychological outcome variables.
Document Details
- Document Type
- Technical Report
- Publication Date
- Feb 22, 1996
- Accession Number
- ADA313510
Entities
People
- Amy B Adler
- Margaret A. Moore
- Paul Bartone
- Thomas W. Britt
Organizations
- Walter Reed Army Institute of Research