Paul Bartone

National Defense University · Institute for National Strategic Studies

Introduction The ability to perform optimally under pressure is critical across many occupations, including the military, first responders, and competitive sport. Despite recognition that such performance depends on a range of cognitive factors, how common these factors are across performance domains remains unclear. The current study sought to int...

The COVID-19 pandemic has led to sharp increases in mental health problems around the world, most notably in anxiety and depression. The present study examines hardiness and age as potential protective factors against the mental health effects of COVID-related stress. A sample of Canadians balanced across age and gender, completed an online survey...

Objective Stress is a growing problem in the general population, but most especially for workers responding to the COVID-19 crisis. The present study examines stress and Burnout in Health Care workers and Emergency Responders during the third COVID wave in Italy. In addition, we explore the value of psychological Hardiness and positive coping strat...

Objective: Burnout is a costly problem, and it appears to be getting worse due to COVID-related stressors. It is thus important for organizations to find better tools to prevent and mitigate worker burnout. Methods: Conditional PROCESS path analysis was used to assess the relation of hardiness to burnout in a representative sample of U.S. worker...

Based on the Conservation of Resources Theory, this longitudinal study analyzes the contribution of organizational affective commitment during the preparation phase of a peacekeeping mission (T1) to explain the well-being of soldiers during that mission (T2). A sample of 409 Brazilian army participants in the MINUSTAH (United Nations Stabilization...

Previous research shows that psychological hardiness is an important factor contributing to stress resilience in individuals. Of the various instruments available to measure hardiness, the most commonly used is the Dispositional Resilience Scale (DRS). Despite its demonstrated utility, the DRS-15 still has a number of serious limitations, including...

The purpose of the study was to examine the psychometric properties of a new hardiness scale, the Hardiness-Resilience Gauge (HRG). Data were collected from 280 Greek undergraduates, studying in a social science department. Data analyses included the examination of factorial validity, internal consistency, and correlation with external criteria. Re...

Hardiness and resilience are known as internal traits that buffer the negative effects of stress and play important roles in individuals’ well-being and psychological sustainability. This study aimed to validate the Korean version of the hardiness resilience gauge (HRG Korean). Reliability and validity were analyzed using data obtained from 389 Kor...

The ability to perform optimally under pressure is critical across many occupations, including the military, first responders, and competitive sport, and depends on a range of cognitive factors. How common these key performance factors are across application domains remains unclear. The current study sought to integrate existing knowledge in the pe...

PurposeResearch suggests that interpersonal and intrapersonal resiliency factors protect against poor post-deployment mental health outcomes among Reserve/Guard soldiers who have been deployed. There is increasing awareness that never-deployed soldiers are also at risk. The purpose of this study was to examine the relationships between resiliency f...

Future deep space astronauts must maintain adequate nutrition despite highly stressful, isolated, confined and dangerous environments. The present case-study investigated appetite regulating hormones, nutrition status, and physical and emotional stress in a space analog condition: an explorer conducting a 93-day unsupported solo crossing of Antarct...

Death, grief, and loss have always been a part of the military community. Historically, research on grief in the military has focused on the impact of combat operations and deployment separations on the grief experience of service members and loved ones. However, as the transient nature of military life and the dangers of military service exist out...

This chapter provides an overview of the use of peer support programs to facilitate healthy grief recovery in the bereaved. We begin with some background on peer support in general, including evidence for its effectiveness in a variety of groups. Next we consider the use of peer support specifically for bereaved individuals. To clarify how peer sup...

Background Negative emotions related to never having been deployed are associated with an increased risk of hazardous drinking among United States Army Reserve/National Guard (USAR/NG) soldiers. Resiliency factors are known to buffer the effects of combat on hazardous drinking among service members who have been deployed, but it is not known if the...

Introduction Thousands of military personnel have suffered severe wounds and traumatic amputations in recent overseas conflicts. They face multiple surgeries and long, painful rehabilitation. Despite the tremendous stress for these servicemen and families, many appear to cope quite well and even thrive despite their devastating wounds. Hardiness is...

The coronavirus pandemic that emerged in the final weeks of 2019 has placed unprecedented stress on communities around the world as they struggle to deal with the profound health and economic sequelae. The COVID-19 pandemic is a major disaster and, unlike most disasters that strike only certain areas for a limited timespan, this one has affected th...

Recruiting for military service can be a highly stressful job, but it is one that is essential for success in the all-volunteer force. Military recruiters face a number of job stressors, including pressure to meet monthly production quotas, long work hours and time away from family. They also work in relative isolation, with limited work social sup...

This article explains how leaders can increase hardiness in their organizations, helping the workforce to deal positively with stress

How is it that some people are overwhelmed by the slightest disruption or change in their lives, while others seem to make it through catastrophes relatively unscathed? Or that two people, experiencing the exact same event, such as a job loss, managing a big merger, or fighting a serious illness, can react in completely different ways? “Hardiness—...

Military service members are at high risk for problematic substance use compared with the general population; deployment and combat exposure further increases this risk. It is thus critical to identify resiliency factors that can buffer the negative effects of military experiences and potentially prevent problematic alcohol use. The current researc...

Hardiness looks into the minds of people who respond well to stressful situations. These resilient individuals have the power to achieve their relationship and career goals and to quickly recover from unforeseen setbacks. Over decades of research, authors Steven J. Stein and Paul T. Bartone have identified the three personality features that such p...

The present qualitative study conducts in-depth interviews with astronauts and other subject matter experts in order to shed light on human adaptability in extreme environments. Deep space travel will entail a range of highly stressful conditions to which astronauts must adapt. Feelings of isolation will be increased, as the space traveler is farth...

This chapter describes how leaders may influence resilient stress responding at the community level. The case study method is used to identify leadership effects on resilience in groups affected by crisis and grief. The case analysis reveals that positive grief leadership entails providing recognition of the loss and suffering, honoring the victims...

The individual biopsychological response to a specific stressor is the result of a complex interplay between many different factors including physiology, behavior, and personality. The goal of the present study was to explore the potential link between physical fitness, hardiness (Kobasa 1979), and the individual autonomic stress arousal experience...

This study assessed the reliability and validity of the Korean version of the 15-item Dispositional Resilience Scale (DRS-15) in a sample of Korean adults. In a baseline study conducted in June 2015, the DRS-15, Center for Epidemiologic Studies-Depression Scale (CES-D), and Korean Resilience Questionnaire-53 (KRQ-53) were administered to 409 Korean...

Introduction: Future deep space missions will expose astronauts to more intense stressors than previously encountered. Isolation will be greater and more prolonged, living and work areas more confined, and communications and resupply channels to Earth longer and less reliable. Astronauts will need to function more autonomously, with less guidance...

Psychological hardiness has been associated with lower PTSD in military personnel, but the processes of action remain unclear. This study uses a prospective design to examine whether hardiness has an indirect effect on PTSD symptoms through avoidance coping. Our sample included 163 Norwegian military personnel who served in international operations...

Fulbright research was conducted in Norway from August 2006 through March of 2007, focused on developing a cross-culturally valid and reliable measure of psychological hardiness. Hardiness was first described by Kobasa (1979) as a set of personality variables (summarized as commitment, control and challenge) associated with continued good health un...

Background Much research has focused on stress related to deployments; however, a substantial proportion of soldiers never deploy. In a study of 1.3 million veterans, suicide risk was higher among veterans who had never deployed. Thus, not being deployed may have an impact on soldiers’ well-being; however, no measures exist to assess emotions regar...

This table is provided as supplemental material for June 2018 article in the journal "Aerospace Medicine and Human Performance."

This exploratory, qualitative study addresses the question: what are the important elements in effective peer support programs for bereaved survivors? Interviews with ten highly experienced experts were analyzed to identify recurrent themes and elements. Findings indicate that effective peer support programs for the bereaved should be: easily acces...

In the modern landscape of military and government operations, multisystem interrelated challenges demand far more complex strategies than traditional leadership models can provide. The Adaptive Leadership Model proposed by Heifetz offers an actionable answer to the question of how organizations can train their leaders to respond effectively to twe...

Over half of the US military service members are married. These couples face situations and events not typically experienced by their civilian counterparts. With these unique military challenges, they can benefit from important sources of resilience strength building approaches. This chapter provides an overview of military couples (both the typica...

High-risk operational personnel engage in physically and psychologically demanding missions involving critical and sensitive national security concerns under conditions of extreme threat with no or very limited logistical and tactical support, and dire consequences for failure. Examples of some personnel who fit this conceptualization include Speci...

Well-being is vital to the success of military operations and the health of service members and their families. We conceptualize well-being as multidimensional and define it as an ongoing integration process of dimensions (the level of happiness, meaning, and/or satisfaction) within the three domains of Work, Life, and Work–Life. This chapter exami...

This expert compendium surveys the current state of military psychology across the branches of service at the clinical, research, consulting, and organizational levels. Its practical focus examines psychological adjustment pre- and post-deployment, commonly-encountered conditions (e.g., substance abuse), and the promotion of well-being, sleep, mind...

This systematic literature review assesses the evidence regarding benefits of peer support services for bereaved survivors of sudden or unexpected death. Reports were included that addressed peer support services for adults who experienced death of a family member, close friend, or coworker. Of the 32 studies meeting all inclusion criteria, most sh...

An evidence review was conducted to examine individual differences in adaptability for long duration missions. Deep space missions will expose astronauts to more intense stressors than previously encountered. Isolation will be greater and more prolonged, living and work areas more confined, and communications and resupply channels to earth longer a...

As NASA prepares for long-duration, crewed missions into deep outer space, it needs to have a better understanding as to why some individuals adapt and adjust better than others to the extreme demands of space living. Drawing upon evidence from multiple sources, the present report identifies the factors associated with individual differences in ada...

According to the renowned stress researcher Hans Selye, some amount of stress is a necessary condition of life. Even when fully at rest, our bodily systems are still working hard to maintain homeostasis. As Selye said famously, the only way to be completely free from stress is to be dead! (Selye, 1974). And while life has never been without stress,...

Military personnel often engage in excessive alcohol use after returning from deployments. Thus far, research has paid scant attention to personality factors that may increase or diminish the risk for increased alcohol consumption in this population. The present study explores how psychological hardiness, avoidance coping, and stress exposure may i...

The military occupation involves many risks amd stressors to include combat exposure, potential death and injury, witnessing others being injured or killed, uncertainty, powerlessness, boredom, heavy workload, and dangerous training activities. In international operations, all of these stress factors can come into play, as well as the sense of isol...

Many, but not all people experience diminished health, performance and well-being as a function of exposure to stress. However, the underlying neurophysiological processes which characterize hardy or resilient people are not well understood. This study examines psychological hardiness and several indicators of cardiovascular health, including body...

Associations between posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD) and perpetration of intimate partner violence (IPV) have not been extensively studied in nonveteran samples. Secondary analysis was conducted using a nationally representative U.S. sample and limited to those who reported being in a relationship in the past year (N = 25,652). This sample was...

This study examines psychological hardiness and avoidance coping as predictors of risk for alcohol abuse in military personnel following war-zone deployment. U.S. Army soldiers returning from Afghanistan completed questionnaire surveys during their first week home, and again seven to nine months later. The Time 1 survey was administered in paper fo...

BACKGROUND: Service members on active duty or returning from deployment must work through significant life changes. Service members with increased sleep difficulties, sexual problems and dissociation resulted in lower relationship satisfaction with their female significant others (Nelson-Goff et al., 2007). However, resilient couples learn to adapt...

In January 2014 the Center for Technology and National Security Policy was asked to examine some major trends within the domain of human geography, developments that will have important influence on the type of environments future military forces will be operating in. Experts were identified to address the following key topics: •Population, migrati...

a b s t r a c t The literature on the association between psychopathy and anxiety is somewhat mixed, but it has been proposed that one possible advantage of psychopathy might be resiliency against anxiety. Another con-struct related to resiliency is psychological hardiness, and several studies have identified associations between psychological hard...

http://smallwarsjournal.com/jrnl/art/human-dimension-issues-in-distributed-and-virtual-teams

The U.S. Military Academy has historically used an academically weighted composite of aptitude, leadership, and physical ability indices for selection of candidates and to predict their performance at the Academy. Researchers at West Point have begun to investigate the incremental contribution of a variety of less traditional nonaptitude or noncogn...

Purpose The aim of this study was to report translation and transcultural adaptation of the 15-item Dispositional Resilience Scale in traditional Chinese (C-DRS-15) and evaluate its psychometric properties. Methods The DRS is a self-report instrument that measures psychological hardiness. We followed an international standard of cross-cultural tra...

K-means cluster analysis was performed on a Norwegian infantry battalion deployed in Kosovo. A four-cluster solution was obtained. The High Hardy cluster showed high scores on all three facets of hardiness. The Low Hardy cluster showed low scores on all facets. The Sensation Seeking cluster was described as low on control and commitment but high on...

This study examines the relationship of attachment style and hardiness to positive mood in active duty military personnel with recent deployment experiences (N = 561). Soldiers high in hardiness show more secure attachments, and less attachment-related anxiety and avoidance. Controlling for age and sex, hierarchical regressions found that hardiness...

INTRODUCTION: While studies have investigated the effects of combat stress on service members, few have examined the after-effect of the severe injury on surviving service members and their families (Cozza et al, 2010; Mysliwiec, 2013). The present research examines the potential effects of resilience hardiness and family support on emotional well-...

INTRODUCTION: A major problem facing military personnel and veterans is alcohol abuse, which can devastate individual lives, and also drives up health care costs and degrades the readiness of military forces. Alcohol and substance abuse in turn contribute to a range of other negative outcomes including depression, family violence and suicide. Effec...

Much research has now documented the substantial influence of safety climate on a range of important outcomes in safety critical organizations, but there has been scant attention to the question of what factors might be responsible for positive or negative safety climate. The present paper draws from positive organizational behavior theory to test...

The present study investigates the effects of psychological hardiness and successful completion of a rigorous 250-km ski march over 9 days in Arctic winter conditions. This ski march is the final portion of a selection program for border rangers in the Norwegian Armed Forces. Study participants were N = 178 soldiers with a mean age of 19.9 years (r...

Military Psychologists' Desk Reference is the authoritative guide in the field of military mental health, covering in a clear and concise manner the depth and breadth of this expanding area at a pivotal and relevant time. It brings together the field's top experts to provide concise and targeted reviews of the most salient aspects of military menta...

To perform effectively in complex mission environments, security personnel and leaders must be flexible and adaptable in responding to rapidly changing conditions. Psychological hardiness marks resilient people who maintain their health and performance despite stressful situations. The present study evaluates psychological hardiness at entry to Wes...

Psychological hardiness characterizes people who remain healthy under psychosocial stress. The present exploratory study investigates possible links between hardiness and several immune and neuroendocrine markers: IL-6, IL-12, IL-4, IL-10, & neuropeptide-Y. A total of 21 Norwegian navy cadets were studied in the context of a highly stressful milita...

This study examined the protective effects of hardiness (dispositional resilience) on self-reported posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD) symptoms in a sample of postdeployed service members. Hardiness was negatively related to PTSD symptoms. Time in the military, number of deployments, and total time spent on deployment were all positively related...

In the years since 2005, suicides among U.S. military personnel have risen dramatically, and continue to rise despite significant leadership attention to suicide awareness and prevention. Prevention efforts have proven unsuccessful, perhaps because they have focused on associated factors, rather than the underlying more fundamental contributing one...

Today’s security forces must operate in environments of increasing complexity, uncertainty and change, a fact that has led to increased stress levels along with the challenge to adapt. For many people, such stressful conditions can lead to a range of health problems and performance decrements. But others remain healthy, showing resilience under str...

Alcohol abuse is a growing problem in the military, and a costly one. The present study evaluates the potential role of psychological hardiness, an individual resilience resource, to stress-related problem drinking in a military population. We assess the association of psychological hardiness and avoidance coping style with alcohol use patterns in...

Studies have shown that psychological hardiness is an important stress resilience resource for individuals. The 15-items Dispositional Resilience Scale (DRS-15) is a short, reliable and valid self-report instrument to measure hardiness that is not available in Italian. The present study was undertaken to create an Italian version of the DRS-15, and...

Operational psychology involves the application of the science of behavior to national security, law enforcement, and military operations. This chapter explores foundational descriptions of operational psychology, discusses its links to other areas of psychology, and addresses its scope of practice. An overview of how operational psychology is appl...

We examined the role of hardiness in predicting admission into Norwegian Military Officer Schools with data from officer applicants (N = 1,111) who completed a questionnaire containing dispositional hardiness measures (Bartone, 19952. Bartone , P. T. A short hardiness scale . Paper presented at the Annual Convention of the American Psychological So...

This book grows out of paper presentations and discussions at the Army Research Psychology Biennial Conference held April 24-25, 2008, in Bethesda, Maryland. It provides a snapshot of groundbreaking research currently being done by Army research psychologists around the globe. This book is primarily the work of the individual chapter contributors....

The abuse of prisoners by U.S. soldiers at Abu Ghraib had far-reaching consequences, leading many people around the world to question the legitimacy of U.S. goals and activities in Iraq. Drawing on extensive unclassified reports from multiple investigations that followed Abu Ghraib, this article considers both psychological and social-situational f...