Assessing psychological readiness and stress coping behaviors in U.S. Army Soldiers

Relationships with physical performance in hand-to-hand combat training

Peter R. Jensen, Ph.D., United States Military Academy

Michael A. Pickering, Ph.D., Eastern Washington State University

Ryan Hill, M.S., United States Military Academy

Cameron Turner, M.S., United States Military Academy

Daniel Lorenzen, M.S., United States Military Academy

The opinions or assertions contained herein are the private views of the authors and are not to be construed as official or representing the views of the U.S. Special Operations Command, Department of the Army or the Department of Defense.

Psychological Readiness and Performance in Military Tasks

Pickering (2012)

US Army Physical Fitness Test

US Army Rappelling Event

More desirable psychological readiness profile prior to training

Higher Performance

Scores

• US Army Basic Training Soldiers(n =2,500)• PRQ survey before training

Delahaij, van Dam, Gaillard, & Soeters (2011)

Problem-focused coping

Emotion-focused coping

Military self-defense exercise(open skill environment)

• Dutch Basic Training Soldiers (n = 254)• Survey of coping behaviors after stressful event

Stress Coping Behavior in Military Tasks

Higher Performance

Lower Performance

photo removed

• Examine components of psychological readiness in military population

• Psychological readiness contribute to performance in an open-skill event?

• Should readiness predict performance, is their a relationship between readiness and stress coping?

Research Question

Participants

AnalysisProcedure

Instruments

n = 213 cadets (11.70% women)Age mean = 21.03 (SD = 1.19)Racial demographics

• Caucasian/White = 69.95%• Hispanic = 6.57%• African-American = 8.45%• Asian = 7.04%• Other = 6.01%

• US Military Academy IRB approval•19 lesson (1 hour/lesson) mandatory, self-defense course• PRQ administered at lesson 17• Two graded performance events during lesson 18 or 19• CITS administered immediately after 2nd graded performance event

Psychological Readiness Questionnaire (PRQ)• 25 items, Likert scale• 5 dimensions: Psychological Confidence, Physical Confidence, Self-Esteem, Focus, & Worry

Coping Inventory for Task Stress (CITS)• 14 items, Likert scale• 2 dimensions: Problem-focus, Emotion-focus• Matthews & Campbell (2009)

• Exploratory factor analysis on PRQ/CITS data • K-means cluster analysis to explore the possibility of emergent profile groups• Testing a potential explanatory model

Performance Event

• PRQ and CITS – Structure reasonable consistent with previous empirical

findings

• Considered Independently– PRQ accounted for 14% of variance in performance scores– CITS accounted for 21% of variance in performance scores

• When performance was regressed upon both PRQ and CITS scores simultaneously– Total variance 26%– Suggests some overlap of variance accounted for in

performance by PRQ and CITS scores.

Results

K-means cluster analysisExamine possibility of emergent profile groups

-3.00000

-2.50000

-2.00000

-1.50000

-1.00000

-.50000

.00000

.50000

1.00000

1.50000

2.00000

ready confident task coping not ready very weak

ZprqFOCUS Zscore(prqFOCUS) ZprqPHYSCONF Zscore(prqPHYSCONF) ZprqNOWORRY Zscore(prqNOWORRY)

ZprqSELFWORTH Zscore(prqSELFWORTH) ZprqPSYCHCONF Zscore(prqPSYCHCONF) ZCITSemotion Zscore(CITSemotion)

ZCITStask Zscore(CITStask)

Relationships between readiness, coping and performance – A mediation model

e1

e2

e3

e4

e5

Self Worth

Physical

Confidence

Self-Esteem

Psychological

Confidence

Focus

Readiness

CITS_Emotio

n

CITS_Task

Total

D_Emotion

D_Task

.21

.05

-.66

.04

.44

.18

-.42

D_Total

.26

.65

.43

.63

.66

.65

chi square 55.737 df =18 p = 0000

CFI = .897 TLI = .794 AIC = 107.737

• Results should be considered preliminary and somewhat exploratory

• Consistent with stress and coping theory

• Suggests higher self-appraisal of capacity to deal with expected stressful events -> problem-focused coping and presumably better performance.

Discussion

• Preparing individuals to enter stressful situations with stronger readiness/mental skills may enhance performance, at least partially by effecting better stress coping

• Consistent with mental skills training for military recruits (e.g., Adler et al., 2015)

• Physical and Psychological Confidence training– Building Confidence approaches (e.g. Ravizza &

Hanson, 1995; Zinsser, Bunker, & Williams, 2010)• Stress Coping Behaviors training

– Emphasize Problem-focused Stress Coping duringevent

– Attend to task-relevant stimuli (e.g., Fairbrother, 2010; Kibele, 2006; Wrisberg, 2007)

Possible Implications for Applied Settings

• Carolyn Westlake, M.S., Geneva Foundation

• Helen Lily, M.S., US Military Academy

• Roos Delahaij, Ph.D., Netherlands Organisation for Applied Scientific Research (TNO)

Acknowledgements

Adler, A. B., Bliese, P. D., Pickering, M. A., Hammermeister, J., Williams, J., Harada, C., Csoka, L., Holliday, B., & Ohlson, C. (2015, May 25). Mental Skills Training With Basic Combat Training Soldiers: A Group-Randomized Trial. Journal of Applied Psychology. Advance online publication. http://dx.doi.org/10.1037/apl0000021

Delahaij, R., van Dam, K., Gaillard, A. W. K., & Soeters, J. (2011). Predicting performance under acute stress: The role of individual characteristics. International Journal of Stress Management, 18, 49–66. doi:10.1037/a0020891

Fairbrother, J. T. (2010). Fundamentals of motor behavior. Human Kinetics Publishers.

Hanson, T., & Ravizza, K. (1995). Heads-up baseball: Playing the game one pitch at a time. New York, NY: McGraw-Hill.

Kibele, K. (2006). Non-consciously controlled decision making for fast motor reactions in sports—A priming approach for motor responses to non-consciously perceived movement features. Psychology of Sport and Exercise, 7, 590-610.

Matthews, G., & Campbell, S. E. (2009). Sustained performance under overload: Personality and individual differences in stress and coping. Theoretical Issues in Ergonomics Science, 10, 417–442. doi:10.1080/14639220903106395.

Wrisberg, C. A. (2007). Sport skill instruction for coaches. Champaign, IL: Human Kinetics.

Zinsser, N., Bunker, L., & Williams, J. M. (2010). Cognitive techniques for building confidence and enhancing performance. In J. Williams (Ed.), Applied sport psychology: Personal growth to peak performance (pp. 305-335). Champaign, IL: Human Kinetics.

References