Estudio sobre constructos psicológicos en personal militar del ejército de tierra español

Résumé

Background: Currently, the military profession is arduous and persevering, full of sacrifices based on the duty demanded by the nation. This means that its members are sometimes subjected to psychological pressures that could cause psychosocial problems, affecting their competencies and/or skills, as well as their interpersonal relationships. General Aim: To analyze the psychological constructs of: emotional intelligence, empathy, resilience and self-esteem in military personnel belonging to the Spanish Army. From this General Aim, the following Specific Aims are derived: 1) To determine whether there are differences in means between the levels of emotional intelligence, empathy, resilience and self-esteem according to: gender, daily alcohol consumption, tobacco consumption, participation in international missions, marital status, military scale, number of years of military service, level of studies, and time of completion of the last international mission; 2) To explore the relationship between emotional intelligence, empathy, resilience and self-esteem, in relation to age, number of children and number of international missions carried out; and 3) To find out the influence of resilience on emotional intelligence, empathy and self-esteem, and how resilience, empathy and self-esteem influence emotional intelligence. Method: The sample was composed of N = 739 military personnel belonging to the three army scales (officers, non-commissioned officers and professional military troops and sailors), aged between 18 and 66 years. The questionnaires used were: a) a questionnaire developed ad-hoc for sociodemographic data; and for the measurement of the psychological constructs: b) the Emotional Intelligence Inventory EQ-i-M20; c) The Interpersonal Reactivity Index for empathy; d) The Resilience Scale; e) the Self-Esteem Scale. Regarding the analysis techniques for the different variables, the following were carried out: descriptive statistics, Student's t-test, Pearson's correlation, ANOVA test, regression analysis (logistic, simple linear and multiple linear), scatter plot, two-stage cluster analysis and analysis of direct and indirect effects. Results: Among the results obtained, a significant correlation was reported between emotional intelligence, empathy, resilience and self-esteem, with a higher level among military personnel who did not consume alcohol on a daily basis. Emotional intelligence was explained by empathy, resilience and self-esteem. Simple mediation analyses reported that resilience mediated the General Mood factor of emotional intelligence and the Perspective Taking component of empathic ability. Conclusion: The results obtained allow us to postulate that the constructs studied influence the improvement of well-being in the military personnel of the current Spanish Army, so it is important that they be taken into account for the design of future intervention programs in the military institution.