The level of life meaningfulness in special forces officers: from adolescence to adulthood

We discuss the problem of personal growth in adolescence, youth and maturity in training and achieving a high level of professional skills in special forces officers. We suggest that in professional activity of an officer, the fundamental factor to personal growth is the professional requirements to his personality. We describe an empirical study, in which took part cadets of a military school, training special forces officers (adolescence), and officers of the special forces (25 to 29 years old – youth, 30 to 45 years old – maturity). Use of “Existence Scale” (“Existenzskala”) by A. Langley and K. Orgler allowed us to determine the level of existential fullness as a central aspect of life. It was revealed that the levels of existential fullness and its components increased during training (the differences between the indices in I and IV courses students are statistically significant). The highest rates of existential fullness are typical to the special forces officers (the differences between the two groups of officers and cadets are statistically significant), and their increases from youth to maturity is insignificant.

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