Gender, self-efficacy, and warrior identification in Canadian Army personnel

ABSTRACT

Our purpose was to explore attitudes towards the presence and capabilities of women within the Canadian Army, identify gender differences in soldier self-efficacy and warrior identity and investigate relationships among these constructs. Canadian Army personnel (N = 714, 102 women, 612 men) reported attitudes on (1) the success of women’s integration within the Canadian Army, (2) self-efficacy as a soldier, and for a subset of respondents (3) warrior identification and soldier pride. We conducted general linear models and found no gender differences in attitudes towards the presence and capabilities of women in the Army, and soldier pride. However, servicewomen reported lower levels of self-efficacy in various military domains, and less warrior identification relative to servicemen. Mediation analyses indicate that soldier self-efficacy fully mediated the relationship between gender and warrior identification. Our findings were not explained by a number of covariates. These findings indicate that attitudes towards the integration of women in the Canadian Army are going in a positive direction, but that self-efficacy is one area that might be undermining women’s identification with being a warrior. The self-efficacy literature suggests that ensuring successful training experiences might be one such mechanism to improve soldier self-efficacy in servicewomen.

KEYWORDS:

• Gender
• self-efficacy
• warrior identity
• Canadian Army

Notes

1. This project was approved by the Department of National Defence’s Social Science Research Review Board. The Royal Military College of Canada’s Research Ethics Board was informed, and acknowledged this approval.