Military Psychology: Reading the Dynamics of Conscription

The Korean Peninsula remains divided. Periods of relative calm have given way at times to renewed tensions, and when policy toward North Korea hardens, the language of the Cold War can feel close again.

South Korea still relies on conscription for men. Women can serve voluntarily. For most men with South Korean citizenship, some form of military service remains part of early adulthood.

I finished my own service years ago, including reserve training. A lot has changed since then. There was a time when you could not bring in a mobile phone. Later, soldiers were allowed to use phones outside duty hours under military rules. Television programs about military life have also made the institution more visible to people outside it.

Military Life Through the Lens of Psychology

For someone who has never served, the military remains an unfamiliar world. Conditions and pay have improved since my time, but few people are eager to be sent away to serve.

Yeo In-taek’s Military Psychology sounds as though it might be a collection of stories from the barracks. It offers relatively few personal anecdotes.

Its interest lies in why recurring situations arise. Yeo uses ideas from psychology to look at what happens when people live and work under military rules.

Familiar Ideas in an Unfamiliar Setting

This is an introduction to popular psychology. The concepts are the sort a general reader may have met elsewhere.

The book considers how they play out in military units. It discusses broken windows theory, the bystander effect, the Pygmalion and Golem effects, conformity and the halo effect.

Reading Before Enlistment

The publisher pitches the book to people about to enlist, from a new private arriving at a unit to a sergeant approaching discharge.

The questions and answers describe situations that can come up in a unit and offer ways to think them through. That makes the book useful as a preview of some of the relationships a new recruit may have to navigate.

Published in 2013, the book reflects a military culture in which personal phones were generally restricted. Present-day recruits should expect some details of daily life to differ.

Book Information

Military Psychology

Author

Yeo In-taek

Publication date

4 October 2013

ISBN13

9788993616330

View book on YES24

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