Psychological Hardiness Predicts Admission Into Norwegian Military Officer Schools

Abstract

We examined the role of hardiness in predicting admission into Norwegian Military Officer Schools with data from officer applicants (N = 1,111) who completed a questionnaire containing dispositional hardiness measures (Bartone, 1995) on the first week of a three-week selection period. Successful applicants (M = 36.76) scored significantly higher in hardiness than unsuccessful applicants (M = 35.55, t[1091.44] = −4.64, p < .001, Cohen's d = .28). Furthermore, results of logistic regression analysis showed that, after controlling for gender, age, and social desirability responding, hardiness significantly predicted admission into Military Officer Schools (odds ratio = 1.065).

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

The authors would like to thank Live Almås-Sørensen from the Department of Leadership and Organisational Management, Norwegian School of Management, and Lieutenant Colonel Sven Olav Berg from the Norwegian Armed Forces, Joint Admission and Selection, for their invaluable help in collecting the data.

Notes

¹Cronbach's α tends to underestimate the reliability of a scale unless the very restrictive condition of (essentially) tau-equivalence holds (see Lord & Novick, 1968 for an in-depth treatment of tau equivalence).