An analysis of personality traits of Chinese military medical peacekeepers in Lebanon

In this study the Chinese version of the 16 Personality Factor Questionnaire (16PF; Cattell, Eber, & Tatsuoka, 1970; Dai & Zhu, 1988) was used to investigate the personality traits of 59 Chinese medical peacekeepers in Lebanon. Survey data were compared among 59 peacekeepers, 62 military personnel (control group 1), and 58 medical workers (control group 2). The social boldness, and abstractedness scores of peacekeepers were significantly lower than those of the military and medical worker groups. A secondary factor analysis of the 16PF revealed that the cowardice/decision scores of the peacekeeper group were between the scores of the other 2 groups. The peacekeepers showed lower warmth, social boldness, and abstractedness and higher self-reliance in personality traits. The results suggest that for future peacekeeping missions psychological personality selection should be conducted to recruit military personnel with higher scores of warmth and lower scores for self-reliance.