Personality In The Military
Military and Personality: What are the implications? After reading this research article, the results did not come as a surprise: the idea that military may have an impact on our personality just seemed logical if one believes that societal factors have an effect on personality change. Nonetheless, it is actually a great and important step in actual research by being one of the first scientific study to provide data on life experiences influencing personality changes. For the nurture vs nature debate that is constantly present in the field of psychology, this gives evidence for gain of cause in regards to the nurture side: experiences may indeed really matter for our personality characteristics, and probably as much as our biological conception
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I'll focus on the implications of military experience first. According to the study, military experience is associated with lower levels of agreeableness: a change that can lead to both positive and negative aspects. Very broadly, on the plus side, these recruits are well-suited for life-and-death situations, enhancing their survival on the field and can be prone to future career success. On the flip side, maintaining positive relationships with others may be affected and most likely more challenging. The fact (if otherwise disproven later on) that agreeableness is lower in military could be used as an explanative reason as to why military service may be, for example, linked to high divorce rates, but could also provide a different perspective for fellow civilians that may not fully understand how their comrades changed after military service. However, the fact that it can change personality on a long-term scale also raises some questions on how beneficial this change is. If the society these ex-recruits live in is based on competition, then I believe lower agreeableness levels are a positive change. However, if the society these ex-recruits live in is based more on cooperation (as it would seem when seeing the number of males that choose the civilian aspect of military service), then I would believe that this change actually represent a negative change, possibly leading to a harder and more difficult reintegration into a civilian lifestyle. This could be another area of future research interest: was this personality change beneficial or detrimental on the long-run for these
I'll focus on the implications of military experience first. According to the study, military experience is associated with lower levels of agreeableness: a change that can lead to both positive and negative aspects. Very broadly, on the plus side, these recruits are well-suited for life-and-death situations, enhancing their survival on the field and can be prone to future career success. On the flip side, maintaining positive relationships with others may be affected and most likely more challenging. The fact (if otherwise disproven later on) that agreeableness is lower in military could be used as an explanative reason as to why military service may be, for example, linked to high divorce rates, but could also provide a different perspective for fellow civilians that may not fully understand how their comrades changed after military service. However, the fact that it can change personality on a long-term scale also raises some questions on how beneficial this change is. If the society these ex-recruits live in is based on competition, then I believe lower agreeableness levels are a positive change. However, if the society these ex-recruits live in is based more on cooperation (as it would seem when seeing the number of males that choose the civilian aspect of military service), then I would believe that this change actually represent a negative change, possibly leading to a harder and more difficult reintegration into a civilian lifestyle. This could be another area of future research interest: was this personality change beneficial or detrimental on the long-run for these