UPJ

SPECIFICITY OF THE RELATIONSHIPS BETWEEN COMBATANTS’ EMOTIONS, INTELLIGENCE AND POSTTRAUMATIC STRESS IN EXTRAORDINARY CONDITIONS OF THE JOINT FORCES OPERATION

Author:
O. I. Bohucharova, D.Sc. in Psychology, Professor of the Department of Legal Linguistics and Practical Psychology, Didorenkо Luhansk State University of Internal Affairs
ORCID: 0000-0001-5617-9175
E-mail: bogucharova_o@i.ua

DOI: https://doi.org/10.17721/upj.2020.1(13).2

Article Information
Issue: 1(13) 2020, pages: 30-43
Language: Ukrainian
Received: 19.01.2020
1 st Revision: 28.01.2020
Accepted: 31.01.2020

Abstract

The article analyzes the relationship between post-traumatic stress (PTS) and individual psychological characteristics of the military and police personnel who performed combat tasks during the joint forces operation in the East of Ukraine. The sample consisted of 172 military and police combatants of the National Guard and the National Police; the military personnel had a higher level of resistance to combat stress than policemen-combatants. Police personnel had more difficulties in war than the military ones, demonstrated a lot of correlations with stress indicators including DSM symptoms and deeper depression.
The National Guard’s combatants demonstrated high correlations with hopelessness, neurotisation, general anxiety too. Moreover, their optimism is twice as low as that of policemen. However, there were no clinical signs of PTSD in the sample. Statistically significant differences were determined with the author’s non-standardized “negative emotionality” scale between the group of combatants having psychological signs of PTS and the “norm” group. These differences related to: anxiety, depression, hopelessness, and also intelligence. The higher the intellectual abilities were, the lower the experienced combat stress. The average-high intelligence determined combatants’ low vulnerability to post-traumatic stress (the “norm” group).
Also, it was found that combatants’ individual psychological characteristics played a greater role in appearance of post-traumatic stress signs then belonging to different combat units (military or police).
Execution of various military missions and belonging to different combat units (military or police) were predictors of emotional stability and sensitivity to combat stressors, and, at the same time, different psychological coping resources used by combatants: policemen used socially-psychological resources, military personnel used personality ones. The importance of the cognitive
Key words:post-traumatic stress, combat stress, intelligence, emotional stability, negative emotionality, neuroticism, combatants, personal adaptive potential, psychological resources.

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