Latent Profile Analysis of the Relationship Between Psychological Hardiness,Psychological Stress and Military Performance of Special Operations Personnel

YANG Yanzhen; ZHANG Yujie; LI Yuanyuan; ZHAO Mengxue

doi:10.13730/j.issn.2097-2148.2024.10.010

Abstract：Objective To investigate the potential types of psychological hardiness and its relationship with psycho-logical pressure and military performance,and to provide scientific basis for improving the military performance level of special operations personnel.Methods The psychological hardiness,psychological stress and military performance of 730 special operations personnel were investigated by stratified convenient sampling method.Pearson correlation test was used to analyze the relationship between psychological hardiness,psychological stress and military performance;latent profile analysis(LPA)was used to explore the potential types of psychological hardiness in special operations personnel;analysis of variance was used to examine the differences in psychological stress and military performance of different types of psy-chological hardiness special operations personnel;the moderating effects of psychological stress on military performance of different types of psychological hardiness special operators were analyzed by constructing interactive terms;Bootstrap method was used to analyze the mediating effect of psychological hardiness on the relationship between psychological stress and military performance.Results There was a significant negative correlation between psychological stress and military performance and psychological hardiness(r=-0.411,-0.296,respectively,all P＜0.01),and a significant positive correlation between military performance and psy-chological hardiness(r=0.584,P＜0.01).There were 3 potential categories of psychological hardiness of special operations personnel:low,medium and high.In terms of the total score of psychological stress,military training and troop management,the low psychological hardiness group was significantly higher than the medium and high psychological hardiness group,and the high psychological hardiness group was the lowest(all P＜0.01).In terms of workload,military life and interpersonal conflict of psychological stress,the high psychological hardiness group was significantly lower than the medium and low psychological hardiness group(all P＜0.001).In the dimensions of military performance,military skills,work performance,style discipline and internal relationship,the high psychological hardiness group was significantly higher than the other two groups,and the low psychological hardiness group had the lowest score(all P＜0.001).The type of psychological hardiness had a sig-nificant moderating effect on psychological stress and military performance.The psychological pressure of high psycholog-ical hardiness group has the least effect on military performance,and the psychological pressure of low psychological har-diness group had the most effect on military performance.The mediating effect of psychological hardiness on psychological stress and military performance was significant.Both psychological stress and psychological hardiness can directly affect military performance,and psychological stress can also affect military performance through the influence of psychological hardiness.Conclusion The psychological hardiness of special operations personnel can be divided into 3 potential catego-ries:high,medium and low;psychological hardiness can effectively alleviate the negative impact of stress on the military performance of special operations personnel;it is a key task in military management to cultivate and promote psychological hardiness,which is helpful to improve the overall combat effectiveness of troops.