Moral Stress in a Military Context

Sofia Nilsson Swedish National Defence College Department of Leadership and Management Karlstad University Faculty of Arts and Education Sofia.nilsson@fhs.se Misa Sjberg Swedish National Defence College Department of Leadership and Management rebro University Gerry Larsson Swedish National Defence College Department of Leadership and Management University of Bergen Department of Psychosocial Science Kjell Kallenberg
rebro University Hospital Uppsala University

The Armed Forces are regularly deployed to conflict areas characterized by war and crisis-like conditions. Thus, officers are suggested to frequently encounter morally problematic situations characterized by more than one right thing to do. Such dilemmas often concern the fact that acting on one decision alternative will necessarily preclude acting on the other. This is illustrated in the following: While doing something right, the person is also doing something wrong, by not doing something else that is right. Dilemmas like this are likely to result in a specific kind of stress reaction at the individual level which has been labelled moral stress. This paper focuses upon the results of a study on moral stress within the Swedish Armed Forces. Data was gathered through qualitative semi-structure interviews. Both low- and high ranking leaders participated, with experience from ten different international missions. In order to identify the implicit nature of moral aspects, the authors were inspired by the method of ethical mapping and Flanagans critical incident technique during the data collection process. Due to lack of research emphasising moral stress within a military context, the analysis of interview data is, at the time of writing, conducted in accordance with a grounded theory approach. Aspects of the current study of moral stress that will be presented concern the nature of ethical decision making from a moral stress perspective within a military context. At the time of the conference, data will have been analysed. The presentation will also include a discussion on potential practical implications of the study.
Document ID: 2009043A.docx