Reassessing the Association of Intent to Join the Military and Subsequent Enlistment

Intent to join the military, or propensity as labeled here, has traditionally been one of the best predictors of actual enlistment among American youth. Yet, the predictive validity of measures of propensity taken since the early 1990s has not been assessed. In the current study we reassessed the va...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:Military psychology 2014-01, Vol.26 (1), p.1-14
Main Authors: Ford, Michael T, Gibson, Jennifer L, Griepentrog, Brian K, Marsh, Sean M
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
Armed forces
Attitudes
Children & youth
Ethnicity
military
propensity
Race
recruiting
staffing
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Summary:Intent to join the military, or propensity as labeled here, has traditionally been one of the best predictors of actual enlistment among American youth. Yet, the predictive validity of measures of propensity taken since the early 1990s has not been assessed. In the current study we reassessed the validity of measures of propensity from the Youth Attitude Tracking Surveys (Barnas, Dempsey, Knapp, Lerro, & Schroyer, 1991) and Youth Polls (Carvalho, et al., 2013) conducted from 1995 through 2003, attending to the format of the question and the demographic, temporal, local, and regional characteristics that may moderate the effect of propensity on enlistment. Results show that a single propensity item with four response options remains the best single predictor of enlistment. Several interesting moderators of this relationship also emerged, including time, location, race/ethnicity, and characteristics of one's locality.
ISSN:0899-5605
1532-7876
DOI:10.1037/mil0000020