Abstract:
Resilience is the ability to positively adapt to the stressors and adversities that we face throughout our lifetimes. Members of the military, such as those in the New Zealand Defence Force (NZDF), are exposed to a range of adversities during their careers that are ingrained into their job descriptions both at home and on deployment overseas. This is why, internationally, Defence Forces have begun dedicating millions of dollars to investigate resilience development in their soldiers. In the New Zealand Army, this development first occurs during basic training in which civilians are taught the fundamental skills to be a soldier and are introduced to the experiences that they will be exposed to as soldiers in the NZDF. To date, however, there has been no academic research investigating the development of resilience in New Zealand Army recruits. How resilient are NZ Army recruits? Does resilience change over time? What are the correlates of resilience and can we predict resilience scores in recruits? What role does personality play and what other factors might be involved? To investigate resilience in New Zealand Army recruits, comprehensive psychometric surveys were delivered to recruits on basic training at the beginning, middle and end of two basic training courses and combined with data collected by the NZDF during the course. The results indicated that New Zealand Army recruits are broadly resilient when compared with similar populations, that resilience marginally increases during the training course and that personality, optimism and self-efficacy were positively correlated with resiliency. Furthermore, personality and self-efficacy significantly predicted resiliency, within a model accounting for up to 51% of the variance in final resilience scores. Follow up analysis also found that self-efficacy fully mediated the relationship between the openness to experience personality factor and resiliency, identifying one mechanism through which personality may be related to resilience. Contrary to expectations, however, the results found no evidence of a correlation between resilience and age, gender, level of education, fitness or self-esteem in New Zealand Army recruits.