Mood as a predictor of discharge from Air Force basic training
✍ Scribed by Bernard Lubin; Edna R. Fiedler; Rodney Van Whitlock
- Publisher
- John Wiley and Sons
- Year
- 1996
- Tongue
- English
- Weight
- 426 KB
- Volume
- 52
- Category
- Article
- ISSN
- 0021-9762
No coin nor oath required. For personal study only.
✦ Synopsis
In order to determine the predictive validity of the Total Mood score, the Negative Mood Scale, and the Positive Mood Scale of the ST-Depression Adjective Check Lists (ST-DACL), the state version of lists C and D of the ST-DACL was administered on the second day of the Air Force basic training program to 229 newly enlisted Air Force recruits (men = 113; women = 116). Findings were that DACL total score yielded the best overall classification rate, the Positive Mood Scale was most related to predicting eventual discharge, and the Negative Mood Scale was best at predicting graduation.
Maintaining adequate job performance and one's mental health is especially challenging for persons in high stress jobs, such as a military career. The civilian sector depends on a strong and moral military and expects military applicants to be capable of becoming effective personnel.
Although cognitive functioning long has been recognized as important in job selection, personality attributes have begun to receive renewed attention. Crowley (1987) found that depression and apathy were associated with flight weapons simulator sickness, while Hogan and Hogan (1989) have shown that both cognitive and noncognitive measures of functioning could aid in selection and reduce attrition in explosive ordinance disposal training. Similarly, Milgran, Pinchas, and Ronen (1988) developed a composite measure for Israeli women in compulsory military training. Their combined measure of intellectual ability, attitudes toward women's jobs, and discomfort with basic training correlated with later basic military performance ratings. In a 13-year follow-up study of Swedish men who had completed their compulsory military training, perceived mental health problems at baseline increased the probability of a later anxiety neurosis .
Even the situational reaction of depression as seen in homesickness detrimentally affects job performance. In a college sample, college freshmen who reported homesickness showed more psychological disturbance and cognitive failure . Again in a college sample, students with a negative explanatory style received lower grades (Peterson & Barrett, 1987).
About the same age as college students, military recruits not only separate from home, but also undergo intensive training in a type of probationary job status. During the 1970s several researchers tried to develop criteria for adaptation for basic training (Bucky & Edwards, 1974; Lachar, Sparks, Larsen, & Bisbee, 1974), a search that continues today. Laurence and Trent (1993) have summarized recent efforts in their monograph on adaptability screening for the armed forces.
In many instances, work termination leads to a situation of considerable stress for those who are separated (Fleming, Baum,