Resiliency among United States Air Force personnel: The direct and interactive influence of cognitive fitness and confidence in social connections

The United States (U.S.) military has focused on increasing service members' (SM) mental and social fitness to bolster resiliency (successful role performance). The Resiliency Model of Role Performance posits that individual assets and social connections account for SM's differential success in meeting military demands and personal obligations. We used a U.S. Air Force (AF) active-duty dataset to test for a direct, positive relationship between cognitive fitness and both formal and informal social connections, and the impact on successful role performance. We also tested for potential moderating influences of formal and informal social connections on role performance among SMs with low vs. high cognitive fitness. Data were collected from a non-probability purposive sample of AF SMs and civilians (<i>N</i> = 59,094) who completed the Support and Resiliency Inventory between November 4, 2011 and January 7, 2014. We focused on the married active-duty subsample (<i>n</i> = 29,387). We employed multivariate hierarchical regression analysis across three models to explore the direct and interactive influence of cognitive and social fitness on resiliency. Controlling for military demographic characteristics, we found a positive linear relationship between cognitive fitness and resiliency and between informal and formal support and resiliency. Informal social support moderated the association between cognitive fitness and resiliency, compensating for resiliency among SMs with lower cognitive fitness. Study findings support current military resilience-building initiatives and underline the importance of prioritizing informal social support in U.S. military settings.