ORIGINAL RESEARCH article
Front. Psychiatry
Sec. Public Mental Health
This article is part of the Research TopicPathways to Mental Health Resilience in Emergency Personnel: Protective Strategies and Occupational ChallengesView all 22 articles
The Keys to Success: Personality Traits and Mental Strategies are associated with Success Indicators in Special Forces Selection
Provisionally accepted
- 1Charité – Universitätsmedizin Berlin, Corporate Member of Freie Universität Berlin, and Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin, Berlin, Germany
- 2Universitat der Bundeswehr Munchen, Neubiberg, Germany
- 3Charite - Universitatsmedizin Berlin Klinik fur Psychiatrie und Psychotherapie Campus Charite Mitte, Berlin, Germany
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Introduction: The selection process for the German Armed Forces Special Forces places extreme physical and psychological demands on candidates. The aim of this study was to examine associations between psychological traits and indicators of success in the multi-stage potential assessment procedure (PFV) and to explore individual resources and mental strategies reported by applicants under high stress. Specifically, we examined whether (H1) conscientiousness and cognitive performance are associated with PFV performance, (H2) successful applicants report self-regulation strategies (e.g., goal setting, self-talk, mental visualization, arousal control) and psychological protective factors (e.g., perseverance/grit, optimism, value-based meaning orientation) more frequently, and (H3) resilience is associated with marksmanship performance during training. Methodology: A sequential explanatory mixed-methods design was applied. In the quantitative part, a secondary analysis of psychological PFV data (N = confidential) was carried out. Associations between personality traits and success indicators (internal PFV ranking; external shooting performance) were examined using Spearman rank correlations. In the qualitative part, guided interviews with applicants (N = confidential) were analyzed using qualitative content analysis following a deductive–inductive approach. Results: In line with H1, conscientiousness (r = −.74, p < .05) and cognitive performance (r = −.72, p < .05) showed significant associations with better PFV performance. In line with H3, resilience was significantly associated with better shooting performance during training (r = .70, p < .05). The qualitative analysis revealed recurring self-regulation strategies and psychological protective factors that were descriptively reported more frequently by successful participants. Conclusion: The findings indicate that specific personality traits and self-regulation-related resources are associated with performance-related indicators within the PFV context. The integration of quantitative and qualitative results provides exploratory insights relevant for psychological assessment and mental preparation in a high-performance military setting. Given the study design, conclusions regarding prediction or causality are not warranted; future longitudinal studies with larger samples are needed to examine robustness, generalizability, and temporal stability of the observed associations.
Keywords: Mental skills, Mental Strategies, Military personnel selection, mindset, Special Forces selection (SOF), Success
Received: 23 Dec 2025; Accepted: 10 Feb 2026.
Copyright: © 2026 da Silva, Mair, Renner, Throne and Wesemann. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY). The use, distribution or reproduction in other forums is permitted, provided the original author(s) or licensor are credited and that the original publication in this journal is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms.
* Correspondence: Daniela da Silva
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