A prospective study of character strengths as predictors of selection into the Australian army special force.

For entry into the Australian Army Special Forces (SF), applicants undergo a barrage of strenuous physical and psychological assessments. Despite this screening, subsequent attrition rates in the first weeks of initial selection courses are typically high, and entry testing results have had limited success for predicting who will complete these courses. An SF applicant's character is often thought to be a decisive factor; however, this claim has remained untested. Accordingly, SF applicants (N = 115) were asked to rank themselves on 24 character strengths at the start of the selection process. Successful applicants (n =18) assigned their top ranks to team worker (72%), integrity (67%), and persistence (50%). Applicants (n = 31) who did not include any of those three strengths in their top ranks all failed to complete the selection process. In contrast, successful versus unsuccessful applicants did not discernibly differ on physical assessments and a written test. Results are discussed with respect to their implications for enhancing the assessment of SF applicants.