The role of stress on soldiers¿ efficiency and well-being has been largely acknowledged in Military psychology. Most research on stress within the military, however, has focused personality characteristics, and in particular on emotional instability as the crucial antecedents of soldiers' resistance to stress. Consequently, many of contemporaneous attempt to reduce stress on the military have emphasized the need for an accurate recruiting, under the basic premise that emotional instability is a stable trait resistant to change. An unanswered question remains, however, regarding the potential mechanisms linking emotional instability to the development of symptom of work related stress in the military. This research project aims to contribute to this line of research, by pointing to the role of Work Self-efficacy beliefs in managing Negative Emotions (WSNE) as the mediator of the relation between emotional stability and stress resistance. To do so, we will use a sample of military cadets of Italian Financial Police (i.e., Guardia di Finanza or gdf). This organization represents a perfect scenario to investigate the relationship between personality factors and WSNE on the development of stress related symptoms. Indeed, cadets are at their first military experience, must manage possible dangerous tasks (i.e., the use of weapons), adapt to a highly competitive organizational environment characterized by strict conduct rules and forced discipline. For testing our hypotheses we will collect data on personality, WSNE, and on subjective and objective data on stress on a cohort of military cadets three times from their entrance in academy at the end of every year, until their third (and last) year in four prestigious military academies of the gdf. Our results will offer new insight to research on stress prevention in the military by pointing to the role of malleable psychological structures (such as WSNE) in improving soldiers¿ ability of dealing with work related stress.
Using a theoretical model that is based on trait theory and social cognitive theory (Caprara, 2002; Caprara et al., 2013), the current study will investigate the dynamic interplay of personality, self-efficacy regarding the management of emotions, and work related stress. In this study, we target the most important personality factor in protecting soldiers from burning out, namely emotional stability. We will use a representative cohort of cadets, which will be followed for almost two year starting from their initial entry into a prestigious military academy in Italy, a period in which they will be asked to adapt to a new and challenging work environment. This period represents one of the important and stressing phase in the military life and thus represent a kind of unique natural experiment.
Our data will offer a unique perspective on the relationship between emotional stability, self-efficacy beliefs in managing negative emotions at work and work related stress, by combining subjective and objective measures that are extremely difficult to gather. Moreover, if our theoretical model will be supported, it will be able to offer several new insights about how to prevent work related stress in the military.
It is important to acknowledge that the Big Five model of personality and the social cognitive construct of work self-efficacy beliefs have occupied prominent roles in organizational psychology during the last decades, and they offer two different frameworks for looking at predictors of occupational health outcomes. Specifically, the trait theory of personality based on the Big Five model (McCrae & Costa, 2008) conceived individual behavior as an expression of inter-individual differences in the hierarchical organization of stable patterns of cognition, affect and behavior. Social cognitive theory, in contrast, conceptualizes organizational behavior as resulting from the synergistic action of different cognitive structures. Most importantly, previous studies have separately applied each approach to the study of work-related stress. Our study concurs recent perspectives on the explanation of organizational behavior (i.e., Jackson, Hill, & Roberts, 2012), and aims to demonstrate that both positions may complement each other. This represent a big step forward to understand the personal determinants of stress, and to unravel those deleterious processes that sustain it (i.e., high emotional stability predicts stress via low self-efficacy beliefs).
In our research project, the novelty is conceiving the relationship between workers¿ emotional stability and work-related stress, as indirect. From our perspective, workers¿ emotional stability sets the basis of soldiers' perceived ability to manage negative emotions. However, workers high in emotional stability will show a naturally increased ability to deal with negative work-related emotions, and this latter should ensure them a higher resistance to stress. In sum, according to our model soldiers¿ emotional self-efficacy beliefs in managing negative emotions at work represents a key mechanism linking their basic emotional stability level to work-related stress symptoms. This represent an important theoretical innovation, able to integrate actually distinct research traditions.
PRACTICAL IMPLICATIONS:
It is important to underline that each theoretical innovation in the model may stimulate possible innovations in the organizational practice. Indeed, from an applied point of view, our model provides directions for interventions designed to sustain soldiers¿ health, and to prevent the consequences of work related stress. Whereas one may view emotional stability as a stable personality trait, and thus as a difficult target to address directly in an intervention, emotional self-efficacy beliefs represent cognitive structures that are naturally responsive to change. The application of self-efficacy principles to emotional functioning represents a promising approach to promote effective emotional processing (Kirk, Schutte, & Hine, 2011). In this regard, social cognitive theory suggests how to promote individuals¿ positive beliefs on managing negative emotions and dysphoric affect through the techniques of persuasion, imitation and mastery experiences. Indeed, in the organizational context, these techniques are at the core of coaching and training programs that aim at the strengthening of workers¿ self-efficacy.
(Dacre-Pool & Qualter, 2012; Kirk et al., 2011).