RESUMEN

Long-standing structural features of the military have created a culture and society that is dramatically different and disconnected from civilian society. Thus, veterans transitioning to civilian society face a number of challenges related to fulfilling basic psychological needs (e.g., need for structure and order, belonging) and civilians' reliance on stereotypes to understand military veterans. In an attempt to enrich the understanding of these challenges, we integrate social psychological theories and insights with research from sociology, clinical psychology, military psychology, and organizational behavior. Theories of compensatory control, stereotype threat, and stereotyping are drawn on to help explain the psychological challenges that veterans may encounter during their transition to civilian society. We present recent research that leverages these theories to understand issues veterans face. This theoretical integration illustrates the opportunity and potential for psychological researchers to conduct basic and applied research in the context of veterans and for clinicians and managers to draw on basic theory to inform programs and interventions.

Asunto(s)

RESUMEN

Previous research has suggested that men who were exposed to combat during wartime differed from those who were not. Yet little is known about how selection into combat has changed over time. This paper estimates sequential logistic models using data from the Panel Study of Income Dynamics to examine the stratification of military service and combat exposure in the US during the last six decades of the twentieth century. It tests potentially overlapping hypotheses drawn from two competing theories, class bias and dual selection. It also tests a hypothesis, drawn from the life course perspective, that the processes by which people came to see combat have changed historically. The findings show that human capital, institutional screening, and class bias all determined who saw combat. They also show that, net of historical change in the odds of service and combat, the impact of only one background characteristic, race, changed over time.

RESUMEN

The following article tests the hypothesis that veterans have better health if they were officers when they were in the U.S. military than if they served in the enlisted ranks. It examines this hypothesis by presenting results from logistic regressions that are based on four surveys: the National Survey of Veterans, the Survey of Retired Military, the Panel Study of Income Dynamics, and the Wisconsin Longitudinal Study. In all four of these surveys, the evidence is consistent with the hypothesis that military rank is associated with health, particularly among veterans who served longer. It also suggests that the health gradient by rank is independent of similar gradients by education and income as well as health differences by race. These findings indicate that health may be influenced not just by differences in civilian society but also by those in the military.

RESUMEN

This study evaluates the characteristics of the men who served in the volunteer military in combat occupations. It examines whether these characteristics stem from supply-side or demand-side decisions, or reflect class bias. The findings suggest that, on the supply side, men who had greater academic abilities were more likely to go to college, thereby avoiding military service and the possibility of serving in a combat occupation. On the demand side, the armed forces were more likely to exclude men with lower academic abilities but were more likely to assign such men in the military to combat occupations. Net of the impacts of these supply-side and demand-side decisions, men who served in combat occupations still differed from those who did not in terms of their family background. The impact of family background was stronger on entering the military than on being assigned to combat occupations once in the military.

RESUMEN

Sociologists have long recognized that historical events, such as wars, depressions, and natural disasters, can affect the trajectories of people's lives and can reproduce or alter social structure. The following paper examines the effect of a type of event, war, on a facet of people's lives, their ability to work. It uses data from the Panel Study of Income Dynamics to test three accounts regarding how wars affect men's lives. The direct cumulative disadvantage account sees wars as negatively affecting the service-men who see combat regardless of their pre-combat characteristics. The moderated cumulative disadvantage account suggests that combat most negatively affects those who, before they fought, had lower status. The turning point account suggests the reverse: combat most negatively affects those who, before they fought, had greater status. The evidence suggests that, with regard to disability and unemployment, the effects of combat are most consistent with the direct cumulative disadvantage account.

RESUMEN

This article examines the effects of peacetime cold war military service on the life course according to four potentially overlapping theories that state that military service (1) was a disruption, (2) was a positive turning point, (3) allowed veterans to accumulate advantage, and (4) was an agent of social reproduction. The article argues that the extent to which the effect of military service on veterans' lives corresponds with one or another of the preceding theories depends on historical shifts in three dimensions: conscription, conflict, and benefits. Military service during the peacetime draft era of the late 1950s had a neutral effect on the socioeconomic attainment of enlisted veterans. However, it had a positive effect on veterans who served as officers, which partly stemmed from status reproduction and selection. Yet net of pre-service and educational differences by rank, officers in this peacetime draft era were still able to accumulate advantage.

RESUMEN

This paper uses data from focused interviews to look at how veterans who served primarily during the peacetime Cold War portrayed the effects of military service. Most veterans described being a soldier, sailor, or airman as a neutral, transitional role. Veterans also described their service as having features that are consistent with views of such service as both a positive turning point and a negative disruption. However, only one veteran described military service as operating as a positive turning point in his own life, and just two described it has having been a disruption in their lives. In addition, veterans who served as officers described learning leadership and confidence in the armed forces, which may help explain an observed quantitative officer premium. This latter finding is consistent with a view of the armed forces as facilitating the accumulation of advantage.