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Review.
In a prepublication review, John Keegan expressed his hope that this handbook would be a standard reference for the years ahead. Two years after its release, that expectation has come true. Without a doubt, the volume represents the standard for information on contemporary military psychology's goals and recommendations, and the mainstream approach for dealing with its subject will be shaped by the issues it identifies. Because of the demand that military planners have for helpful models to describe and interpret the military and to producing effective and efficient mission performance, it can be predicted that there will be increased interest in applying the models presented here.
Seven sections believed to "resemble the relevant fields of psychology" are divided into a total of 39 individual chapters "to account for the diversity within each section." Each section opens with an editorial, followed by a brief review "of past, present and future directions." The chapter authors come form seven different countries: Australia, Germany, Israel, the Netherlands, New Zealand, the United Kingdom, and the United States of America.
The following addresses and briefly summarizes the seven major sections, then concludes with an assessment and some evaluative remarks.
II
"Selection, Classification and Placement in Military Services" discusses various techniques for solving the old organizational problem of placing the right person in the right position. On the basis of personality theories, differential and (general) cognitive psychology, and decisionmaking theories for large-scale organizations, diagnostic strategies are explored, including problems of measurement and validation. Exemplary applications for the selection of military officers are discussed, and the authors specifically emphasize the selection of pilots--especially in the free world--as well as air traffic control cadets. A discussion of the essential methodological and individual dilemmas confronting the practitioner of personnel selection and classification concludes the section.
The introduction to "Human Factors and Military Performance" indicates the specialized focus of the articles in the next section: "The goal of military human factors research and applications is to improve military performance--to increase the probability and ease of combat success." Ergonomics, human factors engineering, and human factors such as leadership, morale, experience, motivation, training, and discipline in a traditional military sense, represent the general focus. The authors specifically deal with "cultural ergonomics," i.e., "cultural variables and cross-national considerations in relation to various types of work." The current status and direction of artificial intelligence research conducted by American and British forces on integrated human-machine systems, and research on the impact of stress on military performance, are emphasized.
The following 180 pages, "Environmental Factors and Military Performance," detail sources of poor military performance that affect the "weak link" in military systems, the "human combatant." Environmental complexities of the battlefield are identified as a "mixtum compositum" of extreme heat and cold, high terrestrial altitudes, combat fatigue, and rest and sleep needs. Other hazards stem from motion-induced sickness, acoustic noise stress, toxic fumes, sustained acceleration and vibration, as well as from radiation exposure. Information about these obviously is not only important for military planners, but also gives the interested amateur a better understanding of the impact of combat on soldiers--and should be required reading for politicians involved in important defense decisions.
"Leadership in Military Performance" reviews one of the more popular themes of every military organization: how to train a military leader to implement a top-to-bottom leadership system that results in effective small-unit combat performance. Challenging new models are presented that describe an approach to overcoming the limits of traditional face-to-face leadership theories and exploring a construct of leadership in large-scale, formal, and bureaucratic organizations. These models are based on insufficient empirical evidence and hence are not necessarily reliable and valid--a trait they have in common with their predecessors. Their starting point, however, may sound revolutionary to some military leaders: that being committed to a position doesn't automatically make an officer a leader. The officer's role is that of a "position incumbent" incapable of dealing with complex requirements unless thoroughly trained in the necessary qualifications.
"Individual and Group Behavior" explores the classic question of military psychology: What motivates soldiers on the battlefield? Among the factors affecting "esprit de corps" and sustaining combat motivation under stress conditions are soldier personality and small-unit cohesion. Combat success and the individual's patriotism are also identified as strong motivators. Unfortunately, the lessons learned from challenges to man's psyche in extreme military combat situations are here reduced to a list of the personality characteristics of a great military leader.
The seven articles in Section 6, "Clinical and Consultative/Organizational Psychology," document the central areas of the clinical and consultative work of psychologists in military organizations. They also serve as a contribution to the professionalizing of military psychologists, through discussion of various facets of clinical psychological assessment and professional training programs for military psychologists.
Information is presented on the therapeutic and consulting work of psychologists in the military, techniques of neuropsychological assessment, and the training of neuropsychologists in the U.S. military.
There is a discussion of substance abuse programs, in particular alcoholism, and their history in the U.S. forces, along with the approaches of "health psychology," the historical development of the "health risk appraisal" approach, and its implications for the military context.
This is followed by a discussion of the relevance and history of consultation in the military setting. Major areas of consulting (selection and placement of manpower, leadership, training, mental health, organizational effectiveness) are presented and illustrated by concrete examples.
Finally, "Special Subjects and Special Situations" evaluates relevant groups outside the military. One of these includes POWs and hostages, and patterns of reaction by the victim and the perpetrator are described. We get an idea of survival techniques in captivity, measures proven useful in hostage negotiation, and subsequent treatment of victims and their families. An article on "Women and the Military" presents an interesting compilation of material suggesting that women perform well in a military setting and that the male/female combat distinction is somewhat contrived.
Although these three chapters are pragmatic and descriptive in character, that on "Propaganda and Active Measures" contains a theory of power and a theory of war that combine post-structuralist ideas with consideration of the functions of war and propaganda. The combination is an interesting and promising one, but is inconclusive. It is doubtful whether these theories provide the moral justification for willful action, be it propaganda or harming others, and the view of the world as based on an alleged anthropological will to power would have the logical conclusion of total war.
The book makes clear that it is more and more difficult to present an integrated military psychology. Many specialties have evolved since the field's inception, and most have a highly sophisticated vocabulary of their own. Many of the chapters seem to be written by experts for experts, which puts amateurs interested in the material at a disadvantage. For example, what lay person is able to assess the content of a piece entitled "Radiological Factors and Their Effects on Military Performance"?
Very compactly written, with a wealth of technical facts and figures, the handbook offers a view of military psychology previously neglected in comparable publications. Still, the fact that a majority of the authors come from the Anglo-American language and scientific sphere causes a double deficiency. The approaches and results produced by many European military psychologists, (e.g., Dutch, Scandinavian, and East Europeans) are largely missing, if not totally excluded. The U.S.-centrism also means that the book's contents reflect the American traditions of positivistic scientific thinking. As a result, the more theoretical approach to psychological research issues found in Continental Europe is not explored.
It was, in fact, the plan of the editors to provide a rundown of the paradigms and results of an application-oriented military psychology: "Military psychology is defined in part by the context where it is applied. It is the application of principles and methods to military operations" (p. xxvi). So far, so good. The primary result of this approach, however, is a psychology for the military, rather than the equally important psychology of the military. Additionally, in reality, organizational variables are not as independent and invariant as defined here. How the individual adapts in a military setting is an important problem, of course, but only one of many important questions concerning a military embedded in a democratic society. The imperative, "to optimize the performance of both hardware and the human operators" (p. xxvii), does not answer the question of "why." Before covering issues of application, larger questions need to be addressed. For example, prerequisite questions include why individual aggression and violence are collectively organized and why war occurs.
New military missions such as police and peacekeeping actions or humanitarian operations under the UN flag without doubt raise important military-psychology questions. Increasingly relevant to future missions is the problem of how to combine the combat orientation of traditional soldiership with peacekeeping operations. The various concepts of military psychology should be able to answer these questions and must therefore undergo changes. Regrettably, the handbook does not satisfactorily address these matters.
In addition, only a small cross-section of what is understood as "military" is covered. For example, one searches in vain for a psychology of civilians working in the military, or for a psychology of the reserves that almost all active military services employ. Nor are the psychological requirements for militia organizations and paramilitary units mentioned. Including these topics would, of course, have increased the length of this already long volume, but they are missed.
The clear orientation of contemporary military psychology towards "practical use" suggests another fundamental limitation. Despite the elaborateness and methodological finesse of this presentation, it is not clear whether military psychology has developed as a distinct and separate branch of psychology. As an academic discipline it is in the first stage of getting established, and is under heavy pressure to justify its own existence, which may be one of the reasons it sometimes appears as if military psychologists simply adapt concepts of neighboring behavioral disciplines and apply them to similar concerns in the military. Edgar M. Johnson, Chief Psychologist of the U.S. Army, confirms this impression when he says, "...military psychology is unique only in the focus of application"
Defining a discipline's scope of knowledge in this way is generally permitted and has surely contributed to the development of other scientific disciplines. But given the practical demands and requirements of the armed forces on the one hand, and the way psychological research normally is carried out (under these perspectives) on the other, military psychologists will be hard pressed to formulate their own original theoretical approaches and hypotheses that will be necessary for developing an original psychology of the military.
In the final analysis, however, this work offers a unique, thoroughly competent overview of that contemporary psychology which deals with practical military concerns. It is an essential first step toward establishing and institutionalizing a genuine military psychology.
Heinz-Ulrich Kohr, Jurgen Kuhlmann, Ekkehard Lippert, and Ruth Seifert.
Research Fellows, Sozialwissenschaftliches Institut der Bundeswehr (German Armed Forces Institute for Social Research--SOWI)
The authors wish to acknowledge the help they received from Ms. Evelyn Golembe and Dr. Amy Adler, U.S. Army Medical Research Unit-Europe, in adapting the English.
Copyright Transaction Inc. Spring 1994