Exploring the Victimization of British Veterans: Comparing British Beliefs About Veterans With Beliefs About Soldiers

• Author: Vincent Connelly,Rita Helena Phillips,Mark Burgess
• DOI: 10.1177/0095327X20942244
• Published date: 01 April 2022
• Date: 01 April 2022
• Subject Matter: Articles

https://doi.org/10.1177/0095327X20942244

Armed Forces & Society

2022, Vol. 48(2) 385 –409

© The Author(s) 2020

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DOI: 10.1177/0095327X20942244

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Article

Exploring the

Victimization of British

Veterans: Comparing

British Beliefs About

Veterans With Beliefs

About Soldiers

Rita Helena Phillips

1

, Vincent Connelly

2

and Mark Burgess

2

Abstract

Evidence suggests that most of the UK public appreciate currently serving UK

Armed Forces personnel but are less positive in their beliefs about veterans. This

research examined the social representations held by civilian participants of UK

veterans and serving soldiers to understand why veterans may be seen more

negatively. An open-ended word association task was completed by 234 UK parti-

cipants where they were asked to provide three initial responses to the words

“veteran” and “soldier” and to evaluate their responses in accordance to proto-

typicality. The 1,404 resultant associations were grouped into 14 thematic clusters.

Using the hierarchical evocation method, the results suggest “heroizing associations”

to be a defining coreelement for “soldier” and “veteran”but “victimizing associations”

to be an element only for “veteran.” Principal component analyses suggest victimizing

associations are related to war and deindividuated associations; “heroizing

associations”are related to characterizations of the veteran’s personality. Implications

and future directions are discussed.

1

Robert Gordon University, Aberdeen, United Kingdom

2

Oxford Brookes University, United Kingdom

Corresponding Author:

Rita Helena Phillips, Robert Gordon University, Garthdee Campus, Aberdeen AB10 7QB, United

Kingdom.

Email: r.phillips5@rgu.ac.uk

,

386 Armed Forces & Society 48(2)

Keywords

veteran, soldiers, civil–military gap, social representation theory, structural approach

There is an increasing concern that British public perceptions of veterans can be

negative (Secretary of State for Defense, 2018). Such concern has led to a call from

many politicians and policy makers to include the UK veteran’s national reputation

in the academic research agenda (i.e., Armour et al., 2018; SSAFA, 2019; YouGov,

2018). However, in contrast to strategies that aim to improve the veteran’s national

reputation, to date underlying reasons for negative beliefs about veterans remain

unclear. Additionally, the question of how public perceptions of veterans may differ

from positive public perceptions of serving armed forces personnel remains unad-

dressed. The present study addresses this by examining word associations that cor-

respond to both soldiers and veterans.

Public perceptions of UK Armed Forces veterans have attracted a considerable

amount of literature. Numerous opinion polls and surveys with representative sam-

ples of the British population indicate that the public may hold negative beliefs about

veterans (i.e., Armour et al., 2018; Ashcroft & KCMG, 2012, 2017; British Social

Attitudes [BSA], 2012; YouGov, 2018). While the public perceive serving armed

forces personnel positively, the m ajority perceive veterans to be more li kely to

experience unemployment, homelessness, drug addiction, and physical or mental

health problems than nonveteran members of the civilian population (i.e., Ashcroft

& KCMG, 2012, 2017; BSA, 2012; ICM, 2011–2015). Although these beliefs may

be somewhat accurate for veterans in an international context (Hoerster et al., 2012;

Thompson et al., 2014), they are disputed for UK veterans, and research illustrates

very much lower actual difficulties for veterans than the public perceives (Connelly

& Burgess, 2013; King’s Centre for Military Health Research, 2014; MOD Career

Transition Report, 2014; MOD Statistic Notice, 2015). However, it is also the case

that studies which report the British public may also hold many favorable views of

those who have served in the UK Armed Forces. For example, the majority of UK

respondents from representative opinion polls and surveys characterized veterans as

highly skilled, capable, and valorous individuals (Ashcroft & KCMG, 2012, 2017;

BSA, 2012; ICM, 2011–2015; YouGov, 2018). This would suggest that the British

public believes those who have served in the UK Armed Forces are both heroic and

victims.

Little scientific attention has been devoted to why members of the British public

may hold potentially contradicto ry, heroizing, and victimizing se ntiments about

veterans. In addition, it remains unclear why negative perceptions of veterans are

so pervasive and persistent over time, given that they are not consistent with the

reality of most veterans’ lives (cf. Ashcroft, 2014; Ashcroft & KCMG, 2012, 2017;

BSA, 2012; ICM, 2011–2015). This article addresses this gap in knowledge by

utilizing word-associations informed by the structural approach in social

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