The resilient functioning of defence and security personnel

Defence and security personnel operate in situations and settings that expose them to combinations of physical, psychological, and social demands.

Operations may take place in austere environments, like in deserts, jungles, at the higher latitudes, and at altitude, where unique physical demands like extreme temperatures, unpredictable weather and changes in air pressure can negatively impact upon operators’ performance and health. Other activities might amplify psychological and social demands. For instance, during intelligence, surveillance, and reconnaissance tasks, demands associated with a lack of sleep, information uncertainty, decision making pressure, and an underlying fear of discovery can all adversely affect the functioning of personnel. During longer-term deployments, such as when stationed for many months at a diplomatic outpost in a hostile region, the demand of living and working in proximity to others under conditions of isolation and confinement can lead to interpersonal tension and conflicts that disrupts teamworking and interferes with the completion of mission objectives.

Regardless of the specific operation, the extent to which defence and security personnel respond resiliently to the demands they face directly influences their safety, the successful completion of their work, and their subsequent readiness for future taskings

What is resilience?

Different perspectives have been adopted in the study of psychological resilience in humans. Some have treated resilience as being a relatively stable, trait-like disposition where people can vary according to possessed levels of resilience. Consistent with this approach, those scoring higher in resilience would typically be better able to respond to stressful circumstances. Others have considered resilience as a dynamic process of stress adaptation. Based on this stance, resilience is believed to vary in individuals over time and across contexts based on a range of personal and situational factors. Whilst work in both perspectives has produced insightful findings, there has continued to be intense debate about what resilience is and how it should be studied.

In an attempt to provide definitional clarity and better operationalise resilience research, in 2017 leading international scholars produced a consensus statement and framework that encouraged others working in this area to treat resilience as an outcome best understood by looking at a person’s functioning, extending to aspects of both performance and mental health and wellbeing, before, during, and after exposure to stressful demands. Within this framework, resilience outcomes are proposed to be shaped by various resilience factors and processes. This understanding has informed our own and others’ recent work in the study of resilience in defence and security populations. 

Trajectories of resilience

To determine whether someone is demonstrating resilience necessitates having an insight into their trajectory of functioning. This first relies on identifying markers of functioning that are relevant to resilience in the context being studied or observed. For example, in one of our recent projects we were interested in the resilient performance of Counter-Terrorist Specialist Firearms Officers (CTSFOs). Given the focus of that work was on aspects of performance, resilience was examined based on levels of shooting accuracy, a key marker of the officers’ functioning, during a stressful assessment and selection task. In a different study, we looked at resilience during polar ski expeditions in the Arctic.

During and after exposure to stressful demands, a person may experience a deterioration in their mental health and wellbeing, but this soon returns to pre-stressor levels.

For that project, resilience was investigated by looking at daily fluctuations in physical health, emotion, team cohesion and task performance as these indicators were directly related to functioning effectively in the demanding expedition setting. With markers of functioning identified, there are different resilience trajectories that can be observed. The profile that characterises much work related to resilience is the bounce back trajectory. This follows a decline and return pattern of functioning. For instance, during and after exposure to stressful demands, a person may experience a deterioration in their mental health and wellbeing, but this soon returns to pre-stressor levels. Another profile is the maintained trajectory. This is characterised by stability in functioning. In this case, stressful demands do not lead to noticeable changes in a person’s functioning, perhaps seen as maintained vigilance during an observational task despite being under pressure. The third profile is marked by enhancement. This can be seen as an improvement in functioning during and potentially following stressful demands. The stress of an emergency situation, for example, may catalyse improved interpersonal behaviours like communication and cooperation that allows an individual and team to function effectively whilst dealing with the difficult situation. Although there are complexities associated with studying intra-individual trajectories of functioning, such a focus emphasises the importance of thinking about resilience as a temporal construct that is understood by looking at changes in how a person is operating, ideally considering the period before, but at the very least the time during and after encountering stressful demands.       

Resilience factors and processes underpinning a resilient stress response

The extent to which a person is able to respond resiliently to stress is shaped by a range of resilience factors and processes. Resilience factors are relatively stable trait-like predisposing and contextual variables that impact upon a person’s functioning during and after exposure to stressful demands. Much of the existing work looking at resilience factors in the context of high-pressure environments, like those occupied by defence and security personnel, has focused on individual differences in variables used to distinguish between how different people adapt and respond to stressful circumstances. Individual differences in scores on hardiness, mental toughness, and grit, intelligence, and elements of personality related to conscientiousness, extraversion, and neuroticism, as well as prior experience, amongst other variables, have been found to contribute to resilience. Other potential resilience factors including those related to abilities like being able to regulate emotions, and external structures such as the perceived availability of social support have been found to be enabling for resilience. Although so far studied to a lesser extent, resilience processes that are connected to situational dynamics like the events encountered, coping strategies used, and perceived feelings of autonomy, competence, and relatedness have also been shown to contribute to resilient responses whilst operating in challenging conditions. In our work with defence and security personnel we identified two levels of variables that align with resilience factors and processes: we called these global-contextual enablers and disablers, and situational processes.  

Global-contextual enablers and disablers are defined as relatively stable distal variables that have an enduring impact upon resilient functioning. Based on a systematic review and subsequent interviews with military, police, and intelligence personnel, factors such as experience, self-confidence, mental toughness, cognitive intelligence, adaptability and flexibility, and social support were identified as enablers of resilience. Potential disablers included arrogance, extrinsic motivation, and lack of support.

Situational processes linked to being able to function resiliently under stress included resources like appraising stress as a challenge, feelings of control, confidence and connection, and the use of regulatory skills to manage the stress response. Situational demands like task and environmental constraints and existing personal challenges, such as issues at home, could undermine the ability of personnel to respond resiliently. Also underlying the stress response are changes in stress biomarkers. Most studied in relation to stress is the biomarker cortisol. But a range of other biological variables are also implicated in the stress response. One biomarker that seems to hold promise as a precursor of resilient responses to stressful demands is neuropeptide-Y (NPY). In both our own and others’ work, NPY has been found to enable resilient stress responding in defence and security personnel, by acting as a brake to inhibit excessive activation of the stress response (Hirsch & Zukowska, 2012). Another variable that may provide insight to stress resilience, especially in team-based scenarios, is oxytocin. In a recent study of weekly biomarker dynamics in an isolated and confined analogue space mission, we found interactions between cortisol, NPY, and oxytocin with some initial evidence that these dynamics influence changes in mood.       

Although yet to be well-studied in defence and security settings, it is likely that global-contextual enablers and disablers, and situational processes, including both psychological and biological dynamics, will interact to influence whether a person functions resiliently when faced with stressful demands. To illustrate this point, someone scoring high in the personality dimension of conscientiousness (a global-contextual enabler) may spend more time focusing on planning and preparation, including how to manage setbacks, and thus find that they have higher perceptions of confidence (a situational process) that helps them to function resiliently (e.g., by quickly recovering, maintaining, or enhancing performance) when faced with a stressful situation.

NPY has been found to enable resilient stress responding in defence and security personnel, by acting as a brake to inhibit excessive activation of the stress response. 

The interactive aspect of the various global-contextual and situational process factors is important, especially considering that some of these variables might change over time. In one way this is encouraging as it suggests there may be an opportunity to develop a person’s ability to respond resiliently to stressful demands; perhaps by targeting modifiable enablers and disablers. It might also be problematic, though, in that factors that were once enabling for resilience might inadvertently become disabling for resilience when reaching high levels. In our interviews with defence and security personnel, we heard how enablers like past experience, mental toughness, and intelligence can all potentially become detrimental when passing a certain threshold. Situational processes related to resilience also fluctuate. Think about an operation or deployment spanning multiple days or months. During that time a person’s enablers and disablers will exert an influence but perceived psychological resources, the demands faced, and associated underpinning biological activity (all situational processes), will all vary within and across days, weeks, and months. These changes will have a direct impact upon markers of functioning that are representative of resilience and the performance and mental health and wellbeing of the individual or population being examined.

Supporting resilience in defence and security personnel 

Insights garnered from prior research point towards potential opportunities to support the resilience of defence and security personnel. One area where this work might contribute is around assessment, selection, and training. Of course, during assessment and selection pipelines there is potential to screen for global-contextual enablers and disablers and use this information to make decisions about the suitability of candidates for high-stress roles.

During training, knowledge on this topic might inform professional development focused on helping personnel understand how to develop enablers, minimise the impact of disablers, and optimise situational processes that positively contribute to them responding resiliently to stressful demands. In recent years, several training programmes designed for specialist branches of the military have been developed with this aim. Activities in these programmes include developing personal insights into one’s character and around enablers and disablers of stress, resilience and performance, learning, practicing and implementing regulatory skills, and encouraging the adoption of systematic self-reflection for resilience strengthening. Another way to employ the present information is in resilience monitoring. The present thinking may inform the type of data that is collected and inform analytical practices to provide timely information on the function of personnel to make accurate and justifiable performance and health-related decisions. 

A final additional avenue through which to use the present information is to focus on the development of empowering social environments that, in particular, nurture and sustain situational processes linked to resilient stress responding. This approach moves the responsibility of resilience solely from the individual and engages others in the social ecosystem including teammates, team leaders and others in position of influence to actively contribute to a culture that supports resilience.