Military Psychology

Military psychology applies psychology to military settings — selection, training, performance, leadership, and the mental health of service members.

Scope

It covers personnel selection and assessment, morale and group cohesion, combat stress and trauma, and leadership in military organizations.

Core questions

• How should military personnel be selected and trained?
• What sustains morale and cohesion?
• How does combat affect mental health?
• How does leadership operate under stress?

Key concepts

• Selection and classification
• Morale and cohesion
• Relative deprivation
• Combat stress
• Leadership

Key theories

The study of soldiers

Stouffer's wartime research pioneered large-scale social-psychological study of morale, cohesion, and adjustment, and concepts like relative deprivation.

History

Military psychology developed around large-scale selection testing in the World Wars and Stouffer's American Soldier studies, and now spans performance, leadership, and the treatment of combat-related trauma.

Debates

Individual selection versus group cohesion

Whether effectiveness depends more on selecting able individuals or building cohesive units.

Key figures

• Samuel Stouffer

Seminal works

• stouffer-1949

Frequently asked questions

What is relative deprivation?

The sense of being worse off relative to a comparison group, identified in Stouffer's research as shaping morale and satisfaction.