Distinctive Military Attitudes among U.S. Enlistees, 1976-1997: Self-Selection versus Socialization

Abstract

Recent reports have again raised questions about military culture and civil-military differences. This article examines panel data from the Monitoring the Future project's nationally representative samples of young men from the high school classes of 1976-1995. The study compares military recruits with their high school classmates who entered college or full-time employment, using "before-and-after" measures obtained during the senior year of high school and one or two years later. The largest disparities involved servicemen's preferences for greater military spending, and they reflected both selection (differences existing before the end of high school) and socialization (increased differences after enlistment). Servicemen were also more likely than civilian men to support greater military influence in the U.S. and were slightly more willing than their age-mates to employ U.S. military force; both reflect selection effects, with no consistent evidence of socialization. On the whole, these patterns of military attitudes have changed very little across the two decades studied.