”ONKS’ PAKKO JOS EI TAHO?” – Maanpuolustusajattelun ja sotilaan sosiaalisuuden yhteydestä

Kirjoittajat

• Risto Sinkko Maanpuolustuskorkeakoulu

Abstrakti

The main concern of this article is the dependency between the propensity to defend the country – or willingness to defend – and soldier’s sociability among conscripts. The data was collected in three brigades 2010 and the number of respondents varies between 3 000 – 1 200. The data is based on a questionnaire survey, which was completed twice for the same respondents, in the beginning of the conscript service and close to the end of the service. To measure the propensity to defend the country a combined index-type variable was constructed. It is based on 12 items, which are 5-point scales dealing with different ideas and opinions of the defense in general, of the conscript service and of the respondents´ experiences during the service. This summary variable is called “defense thinking”. It´s reliability measure (Cronbach´s alpha) is as high as ,931. This variable gives a broader view on the defense thinking than a single distribution of a single question in a survey that is normally used in Finland. Soldier´s sociability is a similarly constructed combined variable. It´s 11 items cover two sides of the notion of sociability: social skills and sociability as a personality trait as described by Keltikangas-Järvinen. Reliability measure for this variable is ,797. The correlation between these two variables is very strong – stronger than between any other independent variable and willingness to defend the country in this data – r = ,551. This result is from the first wave of the survey, and the second wave gave almost as high correlation. This is the first time this kind of dependency was indicated among Finnish conscripts. Some additional analyses showed, that soldier’s sociability was negatively correlated with neuroticism and higher levels of stress. Neuroticism was measured using Big Five Neuroticism Measure, which is an internationally validated test, and stress level was measured using a widely used test among Finnish conscripts and reservists. The best predictor of soldier’s sociability was a measure of social capital, which describes person’s resources gained in home and school. Social capital, anyhow, was not directly linked with person’s willingness to defend the country. Some non-linear relationships appear to take place here. Further analysis showed, that soldier’s sociability was the best predictor to predict the selection of the conscripts for leadership training. This result left open the question, whether the selection process is the best possible or not. Some implicit factors may interfere in there. This was briefly surveyed among trained platoon leaders, and a minor fraction of them were not fully confident in the training received.