Cultural Stress: How Interactions With and Among Foreign Populations Affect Military Personnel

The purpose of this article is to expand civil—military and military health research’s concepts of stress with the addition of a theoretical construct of the concept known as “cultural stress.” Military research often discusses combat and operational stress and its effect on soldiers but does not address unique culturally induced stressors created by the modern military’s interaction with indigenous populations. Civilian research discusses stress as it relates to “culture shock” but does not account for unique pressures facing servicemen in both peacetime and wartime environments. This article synthesizes these concepts to produce a new conceptual basis of “cultural stress” from which further empirical research can be conducted.