| Resilience is commonly defined as a phenomenon or process reflecting relatively positive adaptation despite experiences of significant adversity or trauma when inner and outer protective factors take effects collectively. Recently many psychological studies on its concept and applications have been conducted to examine individual resilience, especially those who work under special workplace or have special experiences. As most Chinese military personnel live under demanding workplaces and take on challenging tasks, and currently we have yet developed an appropriate resilience scale for this particular group of people. In this study, a new resilience scale based upon previous studies was compiled and its reliability and validity were examined. Besides, we also conducted further investigations and discussions on the resilience of military personnel in a general perspective.OBJECTIVE:To develop a suitable resilience scale for Chinese military, to verify its reliability and validity, and to discover the characteristics of military resilience.METHOD:Extensive studies on contemporary literature reviews and conducting interviews with military personnel comprised the basic theoretical methodology of compiling military resilience scale. The questionnaire was then formed by setting up a resilience scale question pool through recomposing and holding discussions among psychological professionals. A representative sample of 860 Nan Jing Military personnel was used for the purpose. The results supported the construct of a precise resilience scale whose validity and reliability were then examined by increasing the sample size to 1579. Lastly, within two military areas, a representative sample of 1710 was formed by random selection from army, navy, air force and police force; in addition, the resilience behavior of our entire military force was investigated and analyzed.RESULTS:According to factor analysis, we chose five factors, named problem-solving, interpersonal interaction, volition, optimism, family support and one lie factor. The final scale contained 27 items and 5 lie items. To illustrate the reliability and stability, we had the following results. Firstly, the Cronbach'αof total scale was 0.872, and subscales 0.600～0.768; all split-half reliability was 0.692 of total scale, and 0.522～0.712 of subscales. Secondly, the correlation coefficients among factors were 0.309～ 0.65 and correlation coefficients of total scale scores and each factor were 0.664-0.819, with P<0.01. Thirdly, according to the results of confirmatory factor analysis, there was a higher degree of accordance between the sample data and the hypothesized structure of five factors, with Chi-Square statistic equal to 1663.997, RMSEA (root mean square error of approximation) equal to 0.054, RMR (root mean square residual) equal to 0.021, TLI (Tucker-Lewis index), CFI (comparative fit index),IFI (incremental fit index) and GFI (goodness of fit index) 0.921,0.931,0.931,0.922 respectively. Further studies showed that men had a higher scale scores in problem-solving, optimism, volition, and interpersonal interaction than those of women; amongst all these factors, problem-solving, optimism, and volition, demonstrated a higher difference, with P<0.05. Besides, there is also a high difference among the four groups of military forces in these three factors, with P<0.01. Education levels differentiate with P<0.05, except for volition factor; professions also differentiate with P<0.01 in problem-solving and interpersonal interaction.CONCLUSION:This paper accomplished the compile of a new military resilience scale, which meets the requirement of psychological scale. Validity and reliability were investigated and the scale could be extended in other research interests for military personnel. A further investigation showed that army had a lower resilience compared with other military forces, men had a higher resilience than women soldiers, and higher educated military personnel had higher resilience in general.
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