K. R. KARAPETYAN, PhD in Psychological Sciences (RF), Senior Lecturer, Cycle
of Military Pedagogy and Psychology, Chair of Military Law and Leadership,
Vazgen Sargsyan Military Academy, MOD, RA
SUMMARY
Commonly in order to commit an action or refuse doing one, a person always has to be properly motivated. Yet, the more important the action is, the more grounded the motivation has to be, especially when it deals with risking one’s life. This primarily relates to the conduct of armed struggle, when the instinct of self-preservation dictates a person some intake to avoid battle. Therefore, a commanding officer must be able to overcome not only the dictates of his own instinct, but also those of his subordinate. As Garegin Nzhdeh, prominent Armenian military and military-political figure of the first half of the 20th century, vividly put it, here is how a commander ought to motivate his warrier in the battle: “Little he turns to his soldiers’ reasoning, but always to their hearts. He himself puts heart in every word of his uttered, hence, if we cut his words out, they will bleed. …. hence, he is seen everywhere, he reaches to everybody, in order to … keep the internal moral bond of the troops intact, and in this way make everybody feel that the entire army, the nation, the tribe, and the God of success thyself, stand by him”.
Proper motivation is no less important during the process of a future officer’s training. Motivation through social security is by no means essential, all the same not sufficient. It is fundamental that the most “long-lasting” and stable motivations conceivable be chosen, to the most possible extent consistent with the cadets’ mental traits, especially temperament, and their state of mind.
Of course, numerous studies have been detailed in the professional literature, the digest of which we have tried to present in the article hereinabove. However, it should be borne in mind that those were conducted with young people brought up in quite different social environment and with a different national psychic setup, therefore for our reality they cannot be considered completely reliable and acceptable. Consequently, we assume that studies of this type should be regularly conducted in our academy, too, and appropriate guidelines should be developed by generalizing their results.