Bangor University DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY Examining Personality and Performance in Extreme Environments Du Preez, Thomas Award date: 2017 Awarding institution: Bangor University Link to publication General rights Copyright and moral rights for the publications made accessible in the public portal are retained by the authors and/or other copyright owners and it is a condition of accessing publications that users recognise and abide by the legal requirements associated with these rights. • Users may download and print one copy of any publication from the public portal for the purpose of private study or research. • You may not further distribute the material or use it for any profit-making activity or commercial gain • You may freely distribute the URL identifying the publication in the public portal ? Take down policy If you believe that this document breaches copyright please contact us providing details, and we will remove access to the work immediately and investigate your claim. Download date: 24. Sep. 2021 Prifysgol Bangor University Examining Personality and Performance in Extreme Environments Ph.D. Thesis Thomas L. du Preez January 2017 Thesis submitted to Bangor University in fulfilment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy at the School of Sport, Health and Exercise Sciences. i Contents Acknowledgements 1 Declaration and Consent 3 Thesis Summary 6 Chapter 1: General Introduction 9 1.1. Military Training 12 1.2. Psychoticism 14 1.3. Psychopathy 15 1.4. Psychopathy and Courage 18 1.5. Courage within the Military 19 1.6. Characteristics of Courageous Soldiers 20 1.7. Characteristics Contributing to Successful Training Outcomes 22 1.8. Purpose of the Thesis 27 Chapter 2: Identifying Psychological Attributes that can Differentiate 29 Successful from Unsuccessful Recruits starting Military Basic Training Abstract 30 2.1. Introduction 31 2.1.1. Personality 32 2.1.2. Punishment and Reward Sensitivity 35 2.1.3. Mental Toughness 36 2.1.4. Effortful Control 38 2.1.5. Core Values 39 2.2. Method 40 2.2.1. Participants 40 2.2.2. Measures 41 2.2.3. Procedure 44 2.2.4. Data Analysis 45 2.3. Results 46 2.3.1. Performance Outcome 46 2.3.2. Results for recruits who successfully completed CIC training first time 47 vs. recruits who were unsuccessful in completing CIC training first time. 2.3.3. Results for top ranking recruits who successfully completed CIC 53 training first time vs. recruits who left the military before completing CIC training first time. 2.3.4. Pattern Recognition Analysis 57 2.4. Discussion 64 2.5. Limitations and Future Directions 72 2.6. Conclusion 73 ii Chapter 3: The Effect of Military Basic Training on Psychological Attributes of 75 Recruits Abstract 76 3.1. Introduction 77 3.1.1. Personality 78 3.1.2. Punishment and Reward Sensitivity 81 3.1.3. Mental Toughness 83 3.1.4. Effortful Control 85 3.1.5. Core Values 86 3.2. Method 88 3.2.1. Participants 88 3.2.2. Measures 88 3.2.3. Procedure 91 3.2.4. Data Analysis 92 3.3. Results 92 3.3.1. Descriptive Statistics 92 3.3.2. The effect of basic military training on measured psychological 94 parameters 3.3.3. Supplementary Analyses 98 2.4. Discussion 101 2.5. Limitations and Future Directions 111 Chapter 4: The Personality Profile of Courageous Soldiers 115 Abstract 116 4.1. Introduction 117 4.1.1. Courage 117 4.1.2. Characteristics of Courageous Soldiers 117 4.1.3. Psychopathy 120 4.1.4. Courageous Soldiers and Psychopathy 122 4.1.5. Courage and Psychopathy: Empirical Evidence 123 4.1.6. Research Hypotheses 125 4.2. Methods 127 4.2.1. Participant Selection 127 4.2.2. Participants 128 4.2.3. Measures 128 4.2.4. Interview Guide 131 4.2.5. Procedure 133 4.2.6. Data Analysis 134 4.2.7. Verification, Reliability and Trustworthiness 135 4.3. Results 136 4.3.1. Quantitative Data Results 136 4.3.1.1. Self- Report Measures 136 4.3.1.2. Informant-Rated Measures 147 iii 4.3.1.3. Zero Order Correlations between PPI-R self-report data and 153 PPI-R informant-rated data 4.3.1.4. Discussion 155 4.3.2. Qualitative Results 159 4.3.2.1. Fear and Fearlessness 159 4.3.2.2. Caring, Coldheartedness and Compartmentalisation 172 4.3.2.3. Sensation Seeking and Impulsivity 189 4.3.2.4. Other Correlates of Courageous Behaviour 198 4.3.2.5. Situational circumstances of the courageous acts 203 4.4. General Discussion 207 4.5. Practical Implications and Future Directions 216 4.6. Limitations 219 4.7. Conclusion 220 Chapter 5: General Discussion 221 5.1. Summary of Results 222 5.2. Theoretical Points of Interest 224 5.2.1. Personality 225 5.2.2. Punishment and Reward Sensitivity 228 5.2.3. Mental Toughness 230 5.2.4. Effortful Control and General Core Values 231 5.3. Applied Issues 232 5.3.1. Developing Mindset 232 5.3.2. Developing Mental Toughness 233 5.3.3. Developing Courageous Behaviour 235 5.4. Limitations and Strengths of the Thesis 240 5.4.1. Limitations 240 5.4.2. Strengths 241 5.5. Future Directions 242 5.6. Conclusion 243 iv Appendices Appendix A Chapter 2 - Pattern Recognition Analysis 274 Appendix B Chapter 3 - Means, Standard Deviations and Intercorrelations of 286 Psychological Parameters at Time-Point 2 Appendix C Chapter 3 - Means, Standard Deviations and Intercorrelations of 287 Psychological Parameters at Time-Point 3 Appendix D Chapter 3 - Supplementary Analysis: Exploring Potential Confounding 288 Personality Differences on Mental Toughness Appendix E Chapter 3 - Supplementary Analysis: Exploring Mental Toughness 299 Group Differences on Different Personality Variables Appendix F Chapter 3 - Supplementary Analysis: Pattern Recognition Analysis 302 Figures Figure 4.1 Profile plots of participant and informant mean scores for the PPI-R 139 Total, PPI-R Factors, and PPI-R Content scales. Figure 4.2 PPI-R Profile plots of participants 144 Figure 4.3 PPI-R Profile plots of participant and informant data 154 v Tables Table 2.1 Means, Standard Deviations and Standardised Factor Loadings for 8 43 Item Military Training Mental Toughness Inventory Table 2.2 Means, Standard Deviations and Intercorrelations Among Variables 48 Table 2.3 Means, Standard Deviations and Discriminant Function Coefficients for 50 Successful and Unsuccessful Groups on Study Variables at the Start of Military Basic Training Table 2.4 Means, Standard Deviations and Discriminant Function Coefficients for 55 Top Performers and Early Leavers on Study Variables at the Start of Military Basic Training Table 2.5 Accuracy Predictions of the Three Learning Classification Algorithms 58 Table 2.6 Confusion Matrix of Reduced Subset of SVM (SMO) Algorithm 59 Table 2.7 Individual Feature Weightings Before and After Features with Low 60 Weightings were Removed and the Protocol was Re-Run Table 2.8 Predictive Accuracy of the Three Classifier Algorithms 61 Table 2.9 Confusion Matrix of Reduced Subset of SVM (SMO) Algorithm 62 Table 2.10 Individual Feature Weightings Before and After Features with Low 63 Weightings were Removed Table 3.1 Means, Standard Deviations and Intercorrelations of Psychological 93 Parameters at Time-Point 1 Table 4.1 Means, Standard Deviations and Intercorrelations among Participant’s 137 Self Rated Variables Table 4.2 Means, Standard Deviations and Intercorrelations among Participant’s 148 Self Rated PPI-R and Informant Rated PPI-R Scales Table A1 Estimates of the Predictive Performance of the Three Classifier 275 Algorithms Table A2 2 x 2 Confusion Matrices of the Three Algorithms: Successful vs. 276 Unsuccessful Table A3 Performance Characteristics of the Three Algorithms 277 Table A4 Comparison of the Estimates of the Predictive Performance of the SVM 278 (SMO) Algorithms after Individual Features with Low Weightings was Extracted Table A5 278 Performance Characteristics for the Reduced Model with 8 Attributes Table A6 Individual Feature Weightings Before and After Features with Low 279 Weightings were Removed and the Protocol was Re-Run Table A7 Estimates of the Predictive Performance of the Three Classifier 280 Algorithms: Top Performers vs. Early Leavers Table A8 2 x 2 Confusion Matrices of the Three Algorithms: Top Performers vs. 281 Early Leavers Table A9 Performance Characteristics of the Three Algorithms: Top Performers 282 vs. Early Leavers vi Table A10 Comparison of the Estimates of the Predictive Performance of the SVM 283 (SMO) Algorithms after Individual Features with Low Weightings were Extracted: Top Performers vs. Early Leavers Table A11 Performance Characteristics for the Reduced Model with 8 Attributes: 284 Top Performers vs. Early Leavers Table A12 Individual Feature Weightings before and after Features with Low 284 Weightings were Removed: Top Performers vs. Early Leavers Table B1 Means, Standard Deviations and Intercorrelations of Psychological 286 Parameters at Time-Point 2 Table C1 Means, Standard Deviations and Intercorrelations of Psychological 287 Parameters at Time-Point 3 Table F1 Accuracy Predictions of The Four Learning Classification Algorithms 303 Table F2 2 x 2 Confusion Matrices of the Four Classifying Algorithms: Increase 304 vs. Decrease Table F3 Prediction Performance Accuracy for k-Nearest Neighbour (Lazy: IB6) 305 Classification Algorithm Table F4 Comparison of the Estimates of the Predictive Performance of the k- 306 Nearest Neighbour (Lazy: IB6) Algorithms after Individual Features were Extracted Table F5 Confusion Matrix of Reduced Subset 306 Table F6 Prediction Performance Accuracy for k-Nearest Neighbour (Lazy: IB6) 307 Classification Algorithm for Reduced Subset Table F7 Accuracy Predictions of The Four Learning Classification Algorithms 308 Table F8 2 x 2 Confusion Matrices of the Four Classifying Algorithms: Increase 308 vs. Decrease - Reduced Subset Table F9 Prediction Performance Accuracy for k-Nearest Neighbour (Lazy: IB2) 309 Classification Algorithm Table F10 Comparison of the Estimates of the Predictive Performance of the ¬k- 310 Nearest Neighbour (Lazy: IB2) Algorithms After Individual Features were Extracted Table F11 Confusion Matrix of Reduced Subset: Increase vs.