PERSONALITY-TRAITS AND PERFORMANCE OF MILITARY PARACHUTIST TRAINEES

Fifty-two Indian military parachutist trainees were studied throughout the training period to investigate effects of stress in parachutist t raining on performance efficiency. Stress attributable to fear, anxiet y, and apprehension about the inherent risk of paratrooping was studie d along with physiological and biochemical changes. An attempt is made to correlate personality traits with performance efficiency. In cogni tive and psychomotor tests, maximum deterioration was seen before the tower jump and aircraft jump. The deterioration was correlated with th e level of anxiety and urinary catecholamine levels. Inter-correlation s between anxiety, catecholamine, and blood pressure were positive, an d the level of anxiety was seen to be affecting the quality of perform ance adversely.