Risk-taking attitudes and behaviors among military personnel in dangerous contexts. A categorized research bibliography

Abstract

The purpose of this edition of Moving Soldiers is to present a categorized overview of research related to risk-taking attitudes and behaviors in military ontexts. The bibliography is grounded in a larger project – “Learning under Risk” – which has been launched to increase the knowledge about risk and its meaning for militaryperformance. In order to gain an overview of previous research in this field, it is necessary to uncover the current knowledge status. Thus, what is required is a collection of references to journal articles, books and chapters in books, and Ph.D dissertations that deal with soldiers’ experiences and attitudes towards risk and risk-taking contexts. The gathering of references has been carried out by searching academic databases by keywords in different combinations (270 search terms altogether), followed by a review of reference lists and searches in Google Scholar. The procedure uncovered 226 references found to be relevant for this bibliography,and which have been categorized into the following 12 categories: Combat motivation; Combat zone experience; Fear and courage; On killing; Leadership; Life threat;Performance under pressure; Post traumatic growth; Risk-taking; Sensation seeking; Warrior ethos; Well-being. The findings are discussed with a view to relevance for the project “Learning under Risk”.