University of Pennsylvania ScholarlyCommons Master of Applied Positive Psychology (MAPP) Master of Applied Positive Psychology (MAPP) Capstone Projects Capstones 8-1-2018 So Others May Live: Enhancing Resilience and Performance for United States Coast Guard Helicopter Rescue Swimmer Candidates to Help Close the AST Body-to-Billet Gap Joseph E. Glaser-Reich University of Pennsylvania, [email protected] Follow this and additional works at: https://repository.upenn.edu/mapp_capstone Part of the Cognitive Psychology Commons, Industrial and Organizational Psychology Commons, and the Other Psychology Commons Glaser-Reich, Joseph E., "So Others May Live: Enhancing Resilience and Performance for United States Coast Guard Helicopter Rescue Swimmer Candidates to Help Close the AST Body-to-Billet Gap" (2018). Master of Applied Positive Psychology (MAPP) Capstone Projects. 135. https://repository.upenn.edu/mapp_capstone/135 This paper is posted at ScholarlyCommons. https://repository.upenn.edu/mapp_capstone/135 For more information, please contact [email protected]. So Others May Live: Enhancing Resilience and Performance for United States Coast Guard Helicopter Rescue Swimmer Candidates to Help Close the AST Body-to-Billet Gap Abstract The Coast Guard is facing a shortage of entry-level Aviation Survival Technicians, more commonly known as helicopter rescue swimmers, due to high attrition from the training pipeline. Stretching thin a workforce which operates under some of the worst conditions on the planet is a recipe for injury or even loss of life. Positive and performance psychology offer tools to enhance candidates’ performance and resilience in this high-stress environment to enable them to meet rigorous graduation standards. Informed by the military’s recent focus on building resilience, traditional psychological skills training (PST) and mindfulness training (MT) offer empirically-grounded instructional paradigms to help address this shortfall of rescue swimmers. Situating PST and MT in the stress exposure training cycle already employed in many military settings offers a contextually relevant framework for applying these interventions. Specifically, I propose incorporating PST and MT into existing training in three places: 1) PREP, the five-day candidate preparatory program, 2) the web-based information portal for candidates, and 3) specific portions of the school. Introducing this targeted mental training as part of the rescue swimmer training pipeline should help increase graduation rates and produce more candidates prepared to live the rescue swimmer motto, “so others may live.” Keywords military, resilience, mindfulness, meditation, performance, coast guard, rescue swimmer, stress exposure training Disciplines Cognitive Psychology | Industrial and Organizational Psychology | Other Psychology | Psychology | Social and Behavioral Sciences This thesis or dissertation is available at ScholarlyCommons: https://repository.upenn.edu/mapp_capstone/135 Running Head: SO OTHERS MAY LIVE 1 So Others May Live: Enhancing Resilience and Performance for United States Coast Guard Helicopter Rescue Swimmer Candidates to Help Close the AST Body-to-Billet Gap Joseph E. Glaser-Reich University of Pennsylvania A Capstone Project Submitted In Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree of Master of Applied Positive Psychology Advisor: Gloria H. Park August 1, 2018 SO OTHERS MAY LIVE 2 So Others May Live: Enhancing Resilience and Performance for United States Coast Guard Helicopter Rescue Swimmer Candidates to Help Close the AST Body-to-Billet Gap Joseph E. Glaser-Reich [email protected] Capstone Project Master of Applied Positive Psychology University of Pennsylvania Advisor: Gloria H. Park August 1, 2018 Abstract The Coast Guard is facing a shortage of entry-level Aviation Survival Technicians, more commonly known as helicopter rescue swimmers, due to high attrition from the training pipeline. Stretching thin a workforce which operates under some of the worst conditions on the planet is a recipe for injury or even loss of life. Positive and performance psychology offer tools to enhance candidates’ performance and resilience in this high-stress environment to enable them to meet rigorous graduation standards. Informed by the military’s recent focus on building resilience, traditional psychological skills training (PST) and mindfulness training (MT) offer empirically- grounded instructional paradigms to help address this shortfall of rescue swimmers. Situating PST and MT in the stress exposure training cycle already employed in many military settings offers a contextually relevant framework for applying these interventions. Specifically, I propose incorporating PST and MT into existing training in three places: 1) PREP, the five-day candidate preparatory program, 2) the web-based information portal for candidates, and 3) specific portions of the school. Introducing this targeted mental training as part of the rescue swimmer training pipeline should help increase graduation rates and produce more candidates prepared to live the rescue swimmer motto, “so others may live.” SO OTHERS MAY LIVE 3 Table of Contents Acknowledgements ....................................................................................................................... 4 Table of Abbreviations ................................................................................................................. 6 Demand Signal .............................................................................................................................. 7 The Problem ..............................................................................................................................................9 AST A-School .........................................................................................................................................11 Extant Analysis ........................................................................................................................................12 The Role of the Mind ..............................................................................................................................13 Positive and Performance Psychology ...................................................................................... 18 Positive Psychology .................................................................................................................................18 Sport and Performance Psychology .........................................................................................................20 Overlap ....................................................................................................................................................21 Distinctions ..............................................................................................................................................22 Positive Interventions ..............................................................................................................................23 Cognitive Behavioral Interventions .........................................................................................................25 Resilience ..................................................................................................................................... 26 Protective Factors ....................................................................................................................................27 Building Resilience .................................................................................................................................29 Specific Resilience Programs ..................................................................................................................30 Performance ................................................................................................................................ 32 Stress Exposure Training Overview ........................................................................................................33 Stage Two Training .................................................................................................................................36 Psychological Skills Training ..................................................................................................................37 Mindfulness Training ..............................................................................................................................39 Solutions ....................................................................................................................................... 47 Implementation ........................................................................................................................................48 Contextual Intelligence: Why Me? ..........................................................................................................51 Measurement Plan ...................................................................................................................................53 Conclusion ................................................................................................................................... 55 Appendix ...................................................................................................................................... 57 References ...................................................................................................................................