The very uncomfortable "odd ball out" aspect of suicides in the military

The very uncomfortable "odd ball out" aspect of suicides in the military

Sanctity of life is the central part of Judeo-Christian Ethics. Therefore the idea and the consideration of suicide as a result and product of self-regulatory mechanism of military group dynamics aimed at enhancing its cohesion and functional ability by extruding and expelling one of its dysfunctioning members feels foreign and unacceptable to us. However, any human group is a living organism which is governed by its biopsychosocial laws with the same certainty and inevitability as any biological organism is governed by its biological laws. The question is the price: is any presumed or putative advantage in cohesion and functioning worth the loss of human life and the loss of the member of the military community? The answer of course, intuitive but firm, is "no" and "no; under any circumstances". Then, it becomes, again, the issue of better understanding and better management of complex relationships between the military groups and their individual members.

References and Links

military group dynamics

Group Dynamics - Presented by Capt Tim Gleaton, CAP

Wilfred Bion - From Wikipedia

 

Sanctity of life - From Wikipedia 
 

Social cohesion - From Wikipedia

 

Structural cohesion - From Wikipedia 

Perceived cohesion
Perceived Cohesion Scale (PCS) is a six item scale that is used to measure structural cohesion in groups. In 1990, Bollen and Hoyle used the PCS and applied it to a study of large groups which were used to assess the psychometric qualities of their scale.^[3]
 

See also

• Community cohesion
• Social cohesion
• Structural cohesion 

References

1. ^ Moody, James; White, Douglas (2003). "Structural Cohesion and Embeddedness: A Hierarchical Concept of Social Groups." (PDF). American Sociological Review 68 (1): 1–25. http://www2.asanet.org/journals/ASRFeb03MoodyWhite.pdf. Retrieved 2006-08-19. 

 

1. ^ White, Douglas; Frank Harary (2001). "The Cohesiveness of Blocks in Social Networks: Node Connectivity and Conditional Density." (book). Sociological Methodology 2001 (Blackwell Publishers, Inc., Boston, USA and Oxford, UK.) 31 (1): 305–359. doi:10.1111/0081-1750.00098. http://eclectic.ss.uci.edu/~drwhite/sm-w23.PDF. Retrieved 2012-08-13. 

 

1. ^ Chin, Wynne W., et al. Perceived Cohesion: A Conceptual and Empirical Examination: Adapting and Testing the Perceived Cohesion Scale in a Small-Group Setting. 1999. Small Group Research 30(6):751-766.