title: Building social resilience in soldiers: A double dissociative randomized controlled study.
abstract: Can social resilience be trained? We report results of a double-dissociative randomized controlled study in which 48 Army platoons were randomly assigned to social resilience training (intervention condition) or cultural awareness training (active control group). The same surveys were administered to all platoons at baseline and after the completion of training to determine the short-term training effects, generalization effects beyond training, and possible adverse effects. Multilevel modeling analyses indicated that social resilience, compared with cultural awareness, training produced small but significant improvements in social cognition (e.g., increased empathy, perspective taking, & military hardiness) and decreased loneliness, but no evidence was found for social resilience training to generalize beyond these training foci nor to have adverse effects. Moreover, as predicted, cultural awareness, compared with social resilience, training produced increases in knowledge about and decreases in prejudice toward Afghans. Additional research is warranted to determine the long-term durability, safety, and generalizability of social resilience training.
authors.affiliation: Department of Psychology, University of Chicago.
authors.forename: John T
authors.initials: JT
authors.lastname: Cacioppo
authors.affiliation: Walter Reed Army Institute of Research.
authors.forename: Amy B
authors.initials: AB
authors.lastname: Adler
authors.affiliation: Research Facilitation Laboratory-Army Analytics Group.
authors.forename: Paul B
authors.initials: PB
authors.lastname: Lester
authors.affiliation: U.S. Army Medical Research and Materiel Command.
authors.forename: Dennis
authors.initials: D
authors.lastname: McGurk
authors.affiliation: Walter Reed Army Institute of Research.
authors.forename: Jeffrey L
authors.initials: JL
authors.lastname: Thomas
authors.affiliation: Center for Cognitive and Social Neuroscience, University of Chicago.
authors.forename: Hsi-Yuan
authors.initials: HY
authors.lastname: Chen
authors.affiliation: Department of Psychiatry and Behavioral Neuroscience, University of Chicago.
authors.forename: Stephanie
authors.initials: S
authors.lastname: Cacioppo
mesh_terms: D000328:Adult; D055826:Afghan Campaign 2001-; D054521:Cultural Competency; D005260:Female; D006126:Group Processes; D006801:Humans; D008132:Loneliness / Q000523:psychology*; D008297:Male; D008889:Military Personnel / Q000193:education / Q000523:psychology*; D011287:Prejudice; D011615:Psychotherapy, Group / Q000379:methods*; D055500:Resilience, Psychological; D012938:Social Perception; D016896:Treatment Outcome; D055815:Young Adult