Psychological well-being among West Point cadets: the role of emotion beliefs and emotional integration

Cadets at the United States Military Academy face challenges that evoke negative emotions, threatening their psychological well-being. Emotional integration – having an accepting and interested stance towards emotions – has been shown to promote well-being in prior research, but no research has been conducted in military contexts. It is therefore important to develop an understanding of the role that emotional integration plays in the psychological well-being of military leaders. Across two studies with West Point cadets (Ns = 192, 187), we examined beliefs about emotions as a potential predictor of emotional integration, and in turn the ability of emotional integration to predict psychological well-being. Our results in both studies showed that emotion beliefs predicted higher levels of emotional integration, which in turn predicted psychological well-being. Emotional integration also mediated the relationship between emotion beliefs and psychological well-being. Implications for leader development programs are discussed along with recommendations for future research.