• Korean Journal of Culture and Social Issue
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• v.16 no.4
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• pp.469-485
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• 2010

The present research investigated the influence of the enlistment motivation on an image of military organization, soldier's stress, a confidence of social life after discharge from military service and military life satisfaction in Korean military service. Participants of this research were 257 soldiers (121 conscript Army soldiers and 136 voluntary Marines) from 2 companies in the army and 2 companies in the Marine Corps located in South Korea. Results of this study showed that 1) conscript Army group(M=2.39, SD=.71)had a significantly higher score than voluntary Marines group(M=1.95, SD=.63)in extrinsic enlistment motivation. On the contrary, Marines group(M=4.16, SD=.76) had a significantly higher score than Army group(M=3.62, SD=.87) in intrinsic enlistment motivation. 2) Enlistment by intrinsic motivation has positive influence on the military life. Result of Regression analysis showed that enlistment by intrinsic motivation significantly predicted a military life satisfaction(𝛽=.402, t=6.424, p<.001), a confidence of social life(𝛽=.528, t=9.836, p<.001), and an image of military organization(𝛽=.494, t=8.486, p<.001). On the other hand, enlistment by extrinsic motivation has negative influence on the military life. Result of Regression analysis showed that enlistment by extrinsic motivation significantly predicted the soldier's stress in military life(𝛽=.415, t=6.642, p<.001), and no confidence of social life(𝛽=-.177, t=-3.306, p<.001). These results suggest that Korean military needs to focus on enhancing intrinsic enlistment motivation of young men of conscription age before conscription by educating, and advertising etc. And also, we discuss that Korean military needs to consider how to boost intrinsic motivation of military life.