Page 38 - Biobehavioral Resilence to Stress

Prediction of Resilience 15

Although it would be unfair to exclude applicants from the military
based on whether they have been abused as children, the scientifi c literature
on childhood and adolescent abuse may ultimately prove to be very helpful
in our understanding of psychological resilience. The CDC and the DoD are

now evaluating the feasibility of collaborative study to better understand the

long-term effects of adverse childhood events (ACE). Th is effort could play
an important part in clarifying the relevance of childhood abuse to specifi c
psychological and medical problems later in life and to the erosion or devel-
opment of psychological and physical resilience.
Personality Traits
Studies have shown consistent but modest relations between some personality

traits and military attrition (e.g., Butters, Retzlaff & Gilbertini, 1986; Elsass,
Fiedler, Skop & Hill, 2001; Fiedler, Oltmanns & Turkheimer, 2004; Lubin,
Fiedler & Whitlock, 1996, 1999; McCraw, 1990; McCraw & Bearden, 1990;

Quick, Joplin, Nelson, Mangelsdorff & Fiedler, 1996). In a study of U.S. Air
Force trainees who were tested on their last day of basic training, an instru-
ment known as the Schedule for Non-Adaptive and Adaptive Personality
(SNAP; Clark, 1993) was used successfully to identify and predict 61% of the
trainees who would separate from the Air Force within 2 years aft er testing
and 57% of those who would remain on active duty (Fiedler et al., 2004). In
the same study, peer ratings (Peer Inventory for Personality Disorders; see
Thomas, Turkheimer & Oltmanns, 2003) identifi ed 51% of the Airmen who

separated within 2 years after basic training. Peer ratings were especially
helpful as a means to assess antisocial personality traits, while self-report
ratings were more helpful as a means to identify personality traits and per-
sonality disorders related to strong feelings of emotional distress.

The personality construct known as hardiness is thought to be a measure
of resilience (Kobasa, Maddi & Kahn, 1982) and so may be an especially
important variable for understanding how individuals react to stress.
Individuals who score high on scales of hardiness are those who are gener-
ally committed to find a meaningful purpose in their lives, believe that they

can influence their surroundings and the outcome of events, and believe that

they can grow from both positive and negative life experiences. In a cross-
sectional study (Bartone, 1999), U.S. Army personnel completed several
measures and questionnaires in one sitting. Measures of hardiness were pre-
dictive of measures of level of functioning, and significant interactions were

found between hardiness, combat stress exposure, and stressful life events.
Personality measures may ultimately prove to be valuable to military
screening. For example, personality traits such as conscientiousness and per-
sistence have obvious specific relevance to military performance and may

also help us to improve our more general understanding of psychological
resilience and its attributes.

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