The military environment presents an intersection between a setting featuring unavoidable risk and individual risk-taking propensity; prior work suggests risk-takers have positive and negative outcomes here, and messaging about risk-taking in the military is mixed. The current study used social identity theory to examine how self-reported risk propensity related to three identities/outcomes among cadets at the U.S. Military Academy: attributes of an archetypal “Model Soldier” (physical and military excellence), “Model Student” (grade point average, service positions, and behavior), and Military Values (bravery, duty, and resilience). Structural equation modeling demonstrated that risk-taking was positively related to our Model Soldier and Military Values identities but negatively associated with being a Model Student. Additionally, high-risk-taking cadets were viewed by peers and instructors as confident but prone to judgment, self-discipline, and insight difficulties, suggesting overconfidence among risk-takers. Quantified as a difference between confidence and self-discipline, judgment, and insight, overconfidence mediated the relationship between risk-taking and the three identities, suggesting overconfidence drives both positive and negative associations with risk-taking. Military and leadership implications are presented.

Although hostile expressions of masculinity have robust negative impacts in multiple domains among civilian populations, in the military, masculinity is a rarer target of inquiry and remains a polarizing subject. This article examines hostile and hypermasculine attitudes that prior work suggests may be associated with negative consequences for the social environment and men themselves in a U.S. military educational environment (N = 1,560 freshmen and 499 graduating senior men). Multivariate moderated multiple regressions (MMMR) linked military hypermasculinity facets (Machiavellian desire for status and control; conformity to masculine norms including emotional control, violence tolerance, needing to win, and impersonal sex preference; hostile and benevolent sexism) to performance outcomes including academics, leadership, and fitness; perceptions of peers, leadership, and antibias programming; and behavior. Desire for status, impersonal sex preference, violence tolerance, and benevolent sexism predicted negative performance outcomes. Violence tolerance, emotional control, and hostile sexism were associated with poorer perception of character education and/or anti-bias programming. Needing to win and control were associated with positive performance outcomes. Healthy messaging surrounding emotions, sex, and perception of women may help assuage toxic expressions of masculinity in the military. Contextualized demonstration of the counterproductive aspects of military hypermasculinity might sidestep opposition to altering hegemonic norms.

Although previous studies have demonstrated that mental health programs like Battlemind training can exert positive effects on soldiers returning from a combat deployment, questions regarding optimal group size for training delivery remain. The present study examines whether training group size is related to Battlemind effectiveness. Individual soldiers recently returned from Iraq were randomized to one of three conditions: small group Battlemind, large group Battlemind and large group stress education. Soldiers (N = 2,439) were surveyed prior to the one-hour training and again three months later (59.8% follow-up rate). Battlemind received more positive ratings than stress education, and small group Battlemind received more positive ratings than large group Battlemind. Over time, soldiers in small Battlemind also reported increases in perceived organizational support relative to those in stress education (r-squared effect size estimate of 0.2%). There were, however, no consistent significant effects for PTSD symptoms, depression, or the interaction between condition and combat experiences nor did the large and small Battlemind groups significantly differ from each other. Results confirm that a 1-hr intervention can have a small but measureable impact on soldiers over time and suggest that providing such training in small groups may be advantageous.

In this paper, we model the interaction between idiocentric and allocentric immigrants in two settings – in a society that is predominantly collectivist and in a society that is predominantly individualist. Immigrants, either allocentric or idiocentric, can also be entity theorists (fixed mindset) or incremental theorists (growth mindset). We use evolutionary game theory to model how the host country cultural environment places selective pressure on the cultures of immigrant populations. This has implications for how well immigrants assimilate into their host country. Our results show: (a) depending on the initial ratio of allocentric and idiocentric immigrants, assimilation is either complete or nonexistent in collectivist societies; (b) in individualist societies assimilation is never complete (c) the lower the cost of coordination for allocentric immigrants, the easier it becomes for both allocentric and idiocentric immigrants to assimilate into collectivist societies; (d) the lower the cost of coordination for allocentric immigrants, the harder it becomes for both allocentric and idiocentric immigrants to assimilate into individualist societies and; (e) entity theorists are more likely to be favored in individualist societies. 1 Names appear in alphabetical order. Manuscript Submitted to Journal of Social, Evolutionary, and Cultural Psychology 2011, 5(x), x-x. 2 | P a g e Generally speaking our modeling approach can inform our understanding of the dynamic link between psychology and culture.

Combat exposure is associated with increased rates of mental health problems such as post-traumatic stress disorder, depression, and anxiety when Soldiers return home. Another important health consequence of combat exposure involves the potential for increased risk-taking propensity and unsafe behavior among returning service members. Survey responses regarding 37 different combat experiences were collected from 1252 US Army Soldiers immediately upon return home from combat deployment during Operation Iraqi Freedom. A second survey that included the Evaluation of Risks Scale (EVAR) and questions about recent risky behavior was administered to these same Soldiers 3 months after the initial post-deployment survey. Combat experiences were reduced to seven factors using principal components analysis and used to predict post-deployment risk-propensity scores. Although effect sizes were small, specific combat experiences, including greater exposure to violent combat, killing another person, and contact with high levels of human trauma, were predictive of greater risk-taking propensity after homecoming. Greater exposure to these combat experiences was also predictive of actual risk-related behaviors in the preceding month, including more frequent and greater quantities of alcohol use and increased verbal and physical aggression toward others. Exposure to violent combat, human trauma, and having direct responsibility for taking the life of another person may alter an individual’s perceived threshold of invincibility and slightly increase the propensity to engage in risky behavior upon returning home after wartime deployment. Findings highlight the importance of education and counseling for returning service members to mitigate the public health consequences of elevated risk-propensity associated with combat exposure.