Subjective Cohesion and Mental Health among Civilians Working in Iraq and Afghanistan

• In Event: 162 - Section on Peace, War and Social Conflict Paper Session. Wars and After Wars

Abstract

Research identifies unit cohesion as critical for psychological well-being in the military, but has seldom considered civilians who often work alongside the military. We examine whether cohesion contributes to the mental health of civilians assigned to war zones areas using a probability sample of civilians working with the U.S. Army in Iraq and Afghanistan. Subjective cohesion is inversely related to externalizing but is not significantly related to internalizing symptoms of distress. For both forms of distress, cohesion buffers a central stressor associated with working in a war zone—a sense of threat to one’s life—but does so non-linearly, with buffering observed at moderate but not high levels of cohesion. Cohesion is an important resource for the mental health of civilians working in war zones, but more consistently as a stress buffer, and the buffering benefits of cohesion are negated at high levels of cohesion.

Authors

• Alex E. Bierman, University of Calgary

• Ryan D. Kelty, Washington College