Defence and security digest
We hope you enjoy this new feature we’re launching of relevant events and publications of interest to members of the Defence and Security Psychology Section.
18 March 2025
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In this edition, we have included below some references that have been suggested by our committee. Please let us know what you would like to be included in our next edition!
International Military Psychology Association Conference
The Conference will be held between 22 September – 26 September 2025, in Antwerp, Belgium. The conference theme is: 'Military psychology today - New horizons in the psychological study of the Armed Forces'.
Global strategic trends: Out to 2055
Global strategic trends: Out to 2055 (Seventh Edition) offers foresight analysis from a thematic and geographic perspective, complemented by five scenarios which describe hypothetical pathways into a future world order.
The publication identifies six key global drivers of change, connected in turn to 22 underlying trends that can be observed today, and which are likely to shape the coming decades. Taken together, these drivers represent a complex set of dynamics which serve to influence, counteract or accelerate each other, often in unexpected ways.
Defence industrial strategy – Statement of intent
This statement of intent outlines the approach and process the Ministry of Defence will follow in developing this new defence industrial strategy. It is designed to send an early market signal to business to see the government's direction of travel, take advantage of new opportunities, partner with government, and prepare for change.
Women veteran transition mental health and well-being support group programs: A scoping review
Women veterans learn to become soldiers, sailors and aviators in a male-dominated environment and culture in which their presence is highly visible, challenged and often subject to institutional prejudice. The aim of this review was to examine the existing literature on mental health and wellbeing support group programmes delivered to women veterans to understand what women veterans value and find most helpful in the design and delivery of such programmes.
This paper addresses operational stress injuries (OSIs) among military service members (SM) and public safety personnel (PSP) resulting from prolonged exposure to potentially psychologically traumatic events (PPTEs). While psychotherapeutic interventions for post-traumatic stress injuries (PTSIs) are well established, there is a significant gap in evidence-based mental health training programmes addressing proactive mitigation of negative outcomes from PPTEs, the authors say.
Building on the Functional Disconnection/Functional Reconnection (FD/FR) model, we introduce FD/FR 2, emphasising early identification and management of psychological risks. FD/FR 2 discusses the practice of emotional suppression, or 'pseudo-stoicism', and its potential negative impact on mental health. By integrating authentic Stoic principles, FD/FR 2 offers practical exercises to enhance resilience and wellbeing, addressing a critical need in current training approaches for military SM and PSP.
The aim of this review was to assess the factors influencing the occupational stress of state security forces during the Covid-19 pandemic. The study concluded that organisational, situational, and personal factors may have influenced the stress levels of police officers during the pandemic, and measures need to be taken to minimise their impact.
Assessment of the mental health of police officers: A systematic review of specific instruments
Objective: The objective was to identify validated instruments from the literature that assess the mental health of police officers. This review identified 27 self-administered validated instruments useful for assessing various mental health outcomes in police officers, with the most frequently used being the Police Stress Questionnaire. These findings may help guide security force administration, occupational health professionals, and mental health researchers in selecting and implementing psychometrically reliable instruments for screening the mental health of police officers.
Personnel performance under stress hinges on various factors, including individual traits, training, context, mental and physiological states, and task demands. This study explored the link between the traits of military personnel and their performance outcomes in five domains: Move, shoot, communicate, navigate, and sustain.
Stress carries diverse implications for perceptual, cognitive, and affective functions. One population particularly susceptible to acute stress-induced cognitive changes are individuals with high-stress jobs (e.g. military personnel). These individuals are often tasked with maintaining peak cognitive performance, including memory, spatial navigation, and decision-making under threatening and uncertain conditions.
Previous research has separately examined decision-making under conditions of stress or uncertainty (i.e. ambiguous discrimination between friends and foes). However, questions remain about how operationally relevant stress impacts memory encoding and recall, or spatial learning, as well as how uncertainty may impact decision-making during stress. To address this gap, we examined the influence of a military-relevant emotional stressor on a series of cognitive tasks including recognition memory task (RMT), spatial orienting task (SOT), and shoot/don't shoot decision making (DMT).
We discuss several avenues for future research, including methodological considerations to better assess the magnitude and specificity of emotional stress-induction techniques in soldiers.
In recent years, virtual reality (VR) has emerged as a promising tool for enhancing training responses in high-stress professions, notably among police officers. This study investigates the psychophysiological responses and subjective user experience of active police officers undergoing mental health crisis response (MHCR) training using an immersive full-body VR system. The findings contribute to improving our understanding of the physiology associated with decision-making in police officers to draw a weapon, emphasising the role of advanced simulation and physiological monitoring technology in developing evidence-based training programmes for public safety.
In this study, a total of 102 high-ranking commanders from a military and police background were included in a simulation involving hybrid attacks on Norway. The aim was to explore the commanders' decision-making in the context of hybrid warfare and changing threats. Data was collected in a simulated national headquarters and analyzed by a multinominal logistic regression method using a scenario that transformed from peacetime into war and returned to peace. The results demonstrated significant differences in the commanders' preferences for unilateral or interagency forces depending on whether decisions were made in peacetime, war or the post-conflict phase. The results also showed how the commanders' level of operational experience was associated with an increased preference for interagency forces.
Performance in command and control: Results from a scoping review
Command and control are critical components of emergency management when disaster strikes. Command posts act as a support system within the command chain for leaders, and the performance of these teams is essential for successful operation. This paper presents the findings of a scoping review on the performance of command posts, identifying six performance factors: Scenario, resilience, situational awareness, decision making, team structures and teamwork, and operational execution. Furthermore, this paper presents objective indicators for performance measurement in three dimensions: process, effectiveness, and efficiency. Additionally, it provides insights and methodologies for evaluating command post exercises.
Modern societies are characterised by unprecedently broad and fast diffusion of various forms of false and harmful information. Military personnel's motivation to defend their country may be harmed by their exposure to disinformation. Therefore, specific education and training programmes should be devised for the military to systematically improve (social) media literacy and build resilience against information influence activities.
This article put forward a useful methodological approach to designing such programmes based on a case study: The process of developing a media literacy learning platform tailored to the needs of the Estonian defense forces in 2021. The approach is grounded in data on (a) the current needs and skills of the learners, (b) the kinds of influence activities that the learners may encounter, and (c) the learning design principles that would enhance their learning experience, such as learning through play and dialogue through feedback.