2014 US RAND RR750 Enhancing performance under stress - stress innocuation training in battlefield airmen
Ensure That Applicable Skills Are Mastered Before Exposure to Stressful Conditions Stress inoculation training will be inefficient or ineffective if individuals are unable to successfully perform target job tasks in nonstress conditions. For example, pool harassment to simulate rotor wash will not promote stress inoculation if the individual is not a capable and confident swimmer. On the contrary, exposure to intense stressors before mastery may interfere with the acquisition of skills and may create despair in trainees (Keinan and Friedland, We recommend evaluating whether a preparatory course may benefit battlefield airmen candidates. Additionally, we also recommend that evaluations be conducted to determine if the two-week preparatory course for PJ candidates is sufficient for the physical demands of the Indoctrination Course. A longer preparatory course may not only be useful for introducing psychological skills training but may also be used to improve physical conditioning and the development of other necessary physical skills (e.g., swimming. The Navy’s significantly longer eight-week preparatory course has been found to significantly decrease the number of drop-on-requests in follow-on BUDS training.
