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The military is a multifaceted organisation consisting of an extremely diverse workforce where multiple individual differences are found among personnel. Therefore, possessing knowledge of personality characteristics that are adaptive along with those that are maladaptive in training and combat situations would be very advantageous for the military, especially when recruiting and training new recruits. The present thesis contains five chapters with the intent to first explore individual differences that could account for recruits who pass or fail military basic training (MTB). A second purpose of the thesis was to develop a deeper understanding of the personality profiles of courageous actors who have been decorated for their acts of bravery. Chapter 1 offers brief empirical reviews on personalities and their relationship with performance in the military environment and identify certain gaps in the literature that needs to be addressed. In particular: (i) limited current empirical research is available on the effect that military basic training (MBT) may have on the personality of recruits under training; (ii) limited empirical evidence is available exploring the positive adaptation and functioning of psychoticism and psychopathy personality types within the military environment; (iii) limited research is available that explore the relationship between courageous soldiers and psychopathy; and (iv) limited empirical evidence is available on the positive effect of psychological attributes (i.e., punishment and reward sensitivity, mental toughness, effortful control, internalisation of core values) on performance of military recruits under training. The chapter concludes by proposing that the military creates an environment where individuals with some measure of psychoticism (Eysenck & Eysenck, 1976) and psychopathy (Lilienfeld & Widows, 2005) may flourish, provided that they are given appropriate training. The focus of Chapter 2 falls on psychological attributes and behaviours that British male Infantry recruits bring to the start of MBT and how those attributes influence retention and performance outcomes. Results indicated that at that start of MBT, high levels of psychoticism, mental toughness (MT), activation control and attention control, and low levels of neuroticism and punishment sensitivity successfully differentiated between recruits who successfully completed MBT first time from recruits who did not complete MBT first time. The results and theoretical implications are discussed in terms of what the Army may do to improve recruitment and retention. Chapter 3 is longitudinal in nature and explored the effect MBT has on the psychological attributes of military recruits during a 26 week MBT training programme. The same psychological attributes that were explored within Chapter 2 were investigated in Chapter 3. With relevance to personality, results indicated a significant increase in extraversion across training, whereas neuroticism and punishment sensitivity significantly decreased during MBT. With relation cognitive variables, only external regulation levels significantly decreased during MBT. The results and theoretical implications are discussed in terms of how training may (or may not) influence some deep-rooted characteristics of the recruit. Chapter 4 examines the ultimate expression of military performance; namely, the decorated courageous soldier. The chapter followed a multi-methodological approach involving qualitative and quantitative methods to explore the personality of courageous soldiers with specific reference, but not limited to: psychopathy, cognitive processes, motivation and behaviours. Findings indicated that decorated courageous soldiers are not psychopathic; however, decorated courageous soldiers share certain characteristics with psychopaths. The findings from Chapter 4 further suggest that courageous acts were performed as a result of the right person, with the right genetic-makeup, being in the right situation when it mattered. The results and theoretical implications are discussed in terms of individual differences in personality, behaviour, cognitions and motivation. Chapter 5 concludes the thesis by providing a summary of the empirical chapters, followed by a discussion of theoretical points of interest and applied implications. Some limitations and strengths of the thesis are highlighted; whereafter the thesis is concluded by forwarding future research questions in order to further understand personalities and their performance within the military environment.

This thesis critically examines the military disciplining of trauma through a detailed ethnographic study of post-9/11 lower-enlisted soldiers and veterans in the U.S. who have links to a national movement of resistance to, and healing from, militarism. Drawing on 12 months of ethnographic fieldwork at two G.I. coffeehouses and with the post-9/11 veteran anti-militarism movement in U.S., it analyses the journey of joining the military, becoming a soldier, leaving the military and veteran identities. It explores militarism and military power as a cultural process which reproduces and conceals itself within normative conceptions of the everyday, and military trauma as a site of contested power and resistance. In doing so, this research addresses an urgent need to critically engage with military trauma as a means to challenge normalised discourses of militarism. This research reveals a disjuncture between the imagined and lived reality of military identities in the post-9/11 era. It explores the politics of recognition of veterans’ public and private lives, their contested identities, and their constrained relationship to the state. It argues that veterans are silenced and their identities reduced to symbolic tools in a public military imaginary which constructs military trauma into politically manageable categories, while disciplining and silencing the nation from critically examining war and militarism. In this way, this thesis argues that veterans serve a vital function in U.S. society by absorbing and containing the violence of the state, which then becomes unspeakable, unhearable, and inescapable. This thesis shows how a small number of soldiers and veterans are pushing back against this narrative. In sum, this thesis seeks to challenge the disciplinary effects of militarism upon trauma and support veteran voices to speak their own truths.

This thesis investigates how and why various Iraqi and Lebanese politicians and laypeople account for the armed conflicts, which they have been living through, and the involved sides of these conflicts. In both of these countries people have been exposed to major international and civil wars. Both nations are also cosmopolitan societies that contain multiple ethnic, racial, and religious groups, which make the issue of identity of great importance. How wars should be examined is a subject of much debate within psychology. On the one hand, the majority of psychological studies of war rest upon the assumption that war is primarily a destructive experience. Thus, the focus has been traditionally on investigating lasting psychopathological effects of war. A Large number of previous studies have reported that a significant segment of people who were exposed to the experience of war developed psychological problems, especially post traumatic stress disorder. On the other hand, a growing number of psychology researchers contend that most people maintain their psychological equilibrium in the face of almost all types of traumatic experiences, including war-related affairs. These researchers have shifted the focus toward examining and explaining this finding. Within this vigorous debate, limited attention has been paid to the question of how and why people account for their experiences as well as the various aspects of war in their own words. Currently, a limited number of studies indicate that people can and do present the same war in significantly different ways, as a means to attain certain ends. Furthermore, a significant body of research suggests that people’s collective identities play an important role in relation to their understandings, descriptions, preferences and behaviours in relation to war. The war rhetoric is also reported as an important issue that can influence the people’s understanding of war, as well as war’s course of events. Hence, through adopting a discursive psychological approach to analysis, this thesis examines several important issues simultaneously. Accounts of the wars and collective identities are approached as communicative resources that are constructed and deployed as a means to accomplish social actions. This thesis examines, specifically, how different Iraqi laypeople and politicians construct the 2003 American and Allies intervention in Iraq, with focus on collective identity. It also examines how various Lebanese construe the events of the 2006 war and the civil strife that occurred during and afterward this war. The data is taken from three sources. The first one is represented by semi-structured interviews conducted in Lebanon in October 2006. The second source is TV interviews conducted and broadcasted live with Iraqi politicians and decision makers in the period from 2003 to 2008 and with Lebanese politicians from 2006 to 2008. The third source is an open-ended question distributed in Basra City, Iraq in May 2005 as part of an extensive questionnaire. This study has several practical and theoretical implications to psychology in general and in particular to the study of armed conflicts. The first contribution is highlighting the importance of analysing laypeople’s rhetorical accounts of wars, as directly involved people can and do present surprisingly different discourses from the outsiders’. I argue that to gain a realistic and applicable understanding of the discourse of war, its function and its potential implications, it is necessary to study the general public’s versions of such experience in addition to the elite’s discourses. The analysis shows that different participants have constructed different action-oriented accounts of the same war. Within these various accounts the participants invoked and incorporated a number of different stimulating notions, such as dignity, nationalism, religion, resilience and victory as part of the rational of the war. These accounts have important practical and discursive functions, such as establishing, warranting, rejecting, and promoting specific views of the war, the involved sides, and the appropriate course of action. Secondly, this study contributes to the theoretical understanding of the role of rhetorical collective identity during armed conflicts. The analysis shows that collective identities attain their meanings and their functions from, by, and through the accounts they are situated within. Thirdly, the findings of this thesis highlight the complex and consequential role of rhetorical accounts in relation to wars and to violence and the relevance of qualitative analysis. I argue that discourse of war can obscure its destructive effects, which in turn can contribute to maintaining people’s psychological equilibrium but, also, prolong the conflict. Thus, exposing the rhetorical strategies that legitimate war and warrant killing other people can be an important step toward making war unconditionally morally unacceptable.

Periods of military transition contain unique experiences. For those serving this includes the transition to military deployment, and upon leaving the armed forces, this includes the transition into civilian life. Given the implementation of Britain’s armed forces community covenant, which aims to bridge the gap between military and civilian communities, further exploration of the needs of military personnel is required. This thesis informs understanding of military transition experiences at a time when, following the recent restructuring of the UK armed forces the number of veterans, reservist personnel and their families requiring care from the National Health Service is likely to increase significantly. Chapter one is a critical review of the qualitative research exploring the influence of military deployment on women military spouses. Following both database and manual searches twelve studies were included and reviewed. Spouses described complex experiences that contained both challenges and opportunities for positive growth. Differences between spouses of those from reserve or regular armed forces are explored. The review highlights the heterogeneity of the population and the need to modify current conceptualisations of deployment experiences, to understand the complexity of individual needs. Suggestions for future research are discussed. Chapter two is a qualitative research study that explored Army veterans’ lived experiences of relationships built with military comrades, and how these might have influenced the transition into civilian life. Using interpretative phenomenological analysis, it provides an in-depth account of military relational experiences and the integral role that these experiences had in the formation and maintenance of military identity. Implications for future research, alongside suggestions for clinical practice and service development are discussed. Chapter three is reflective account, exploring the interface between the researcher’s self and the research process. It explores the position of the researcher and the parallels between the research topic and their own impending professional transition into qualified life.