Personalidade em contexto de formação militar: um estudo longitudinal

Abstract

Personality is a construct of great interest and prominence in Psychology as well as in several areas, due to its centrality in explaining and predicting behavior. His study has been a great challenge with respect to the diversity of theoretical approaches, emphasizing the theory of traits, which guides the most widely accepted model for the study of personality: big five or model of the five great factors. In the context of military training, personality traits have been considered as potential predictors of behavior for adaptability to career, performance and quality of life at work, and may be an important factor of professional success or failure. Despite the wide range of personality studies using multiple variables and their consideration in selective processes, there are still many gaps in their study. Among them, the temporal stability stands out. In this sense, the objective of the present study was to investigate the temporal stability of the personality in a context of military training, based on the Big Five Model, besides investigating an additional factor to evaluate the cadet personality traits by developing and validating a scale of Honesty-Humility based on the HEXACO model, as studies have pointed out that such a characteristic is essential to the military's profile. The present study also aimed to understand the relation of self-efficacy - the belief in one's own abilities to achieve results - as a predictor of other personality factors. 327 cadets of the Agulhas Negras Military Academy participated in the study, currently attending the fourth year of the official training course. The participants completed a inventory of personality (IGPF-5) and the Perceived General Self-Efficacy Scale (EAEGP) in a collection carried out in the years 2015 and 2017; and a Honesty-Humility scale developed for purposes of the present study, applied only in 2017. The psychometric results showed significant differences in all personality factors of the IGFP-5 considering the two years of data collection, with a significant increase in the scores of neuroticism and significant decrease in other factors (extroversion, agreeableness, openness and conscientiousness). Personality factors (collected in 2017) also showed a significant correlation with self-efficacy collected in 2015, thus pointing to the predictive role of self-efficacy in relation to personality. For the validation of the honesty-humility scale, the results indicated its suitability for application in a military context. The instrument presented a good internal consistency, but in the exploratory factorial analysis, different from the proposed model, two factors were obtained (honesty and humility). The conclusions of the study bring important questions to the investigation of personality in the context of military training. However, the results should be interpreted with caution, requiring a deepening and continuation in the studies, with the inclusion of other variables and samples.