The Adjustment of New Recruits to Military Life in the Chinese Army

Abstract

In this article, the authors present the findings of two studies analyzing new recruits' adjustment to army life in the Chinese military. In the first exploratory study, we developed a scale to measure new recruits' adjustment to military life, and found that new soldiers' adaptation could be divided into two distinct types: interpersonal adjustment and training adjustment. Interpersonal adjustment was a soldier’s ability to build harmonious relationships with peer soldiers, supervisors, and military officers. Training adjustment was a soldier’s ability to achieve standards of professional competence and military training. Based on the findings of this first study, the authors conducted a second study to investigate the predictive power of the Minnesota Multiphasic Personality Inventory-2 (MMPI-2) on new recruits' adjustment. The results of this longitudinal study indicated that MMPI-2 could predict the initial stages of both interpersonal and training adjustment, as well as the subsequent change rate of these two types of adjustment. Our analyses have several important implications for recruiting, selecting, and training Chinese military leaders and human resource professionals.