Six characteristics of the police working personality are
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“...There are officers who are ‘experts at turning parking tickets into riots’ as well as officers who can arrest extremely dangerous suspects and ‘leave em laughing’. To say we know both types of officers exist, however, is not to say that we know anything systematic about their personal characteristics or methods.” (Braithwaite, 1996, p. 2) Show
The Police Personality: Myth Or RealityPersonality is the unique organization of characteristics that define an individual and determine that person’s pattern of interaction with the environment (Kleinmuntz, 1982). As discussed in introduction, the concept of police personality refers to the question as to whether there is evidence for describing policemen as a somewhat homogeneous group, differing psychologically from the general population and/or other occupational groups (Lefkowitz, 1975). Police officers, in the performance of their duties, face a range of potentially stressful situations and events. These have the capacity to cause significant personal distress, leading to short-term changes in mood and psychological functioning. Some researchers have argued that over the course of their police careers officers develop a number of traits, such as cynicism, aloofness, suspiciousness, and alienation, which help them cope with the stresses of their jobs. This article reports the post-hoc analysis of data collected as part of a larger study of Australian police officers' occupational stresses and coping behaviors. Subjects' responses on the Jenkins Activity Survey (measuring Type A behaviors) and the Trait scale of the State-Trait Anxiety Inventory were compared across lenght of service. Intercorrelations between the scales were also assessed. Results showed that officers with more than 12 years of service differed significantly from those with fewer years of service on the Hard-driving and Competitive dimension in the Jenkins Activity Survey and also had significantly lower trait anxiety scores. These results are discussed in terms of a general understanding of how police officers deal with their job stresses. References (62)
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High levels of competitiveness in individuals have also been discussed in relation to the concept of the type-A personality, a disposition that is further characterized by a continuously heightened stress level, high demands on performance, irritability and sometimes aggressiveness [53–56]. Research in social medicine has also shown type-A personality to be linked to an excess risk for coronary heart disease [57]. Show abstractNavigate Down The article brings together knowledge from future studies, sociology, psychology and social medicine in a study of approaches to the future in youth, their structural roots and outcomes in adult life. Three different approaches are studied: worry, indifference and competitiveness and by use of unique longitudinal data individuals are followed from childhood to middle age. Worry and indifference about the future is positively linked to economic hardship and social problems in the family of origin. Indifference towards the future in adolescence is also related to adverse adult living conditions, such as economic hardship and low educational attainment. A competitive outlook of the future finally, is not linked to living conditions in childhood, but shows a strong and positive relationship to mortality risk up to age 48. Although the mechanism behind this relationship cannot be determined by the present study, type-A-personality is suggested as factor of possible relevance. The study demonstrates how social factors forming young individuals’ life chances also impact the future outlooks of these individuals, and how these outlooks in their turn independently affect adult living conditions. 2011, Journal of Criminal Justice Citation Excerpt : In the workplace, stereotypes of what constitutes male as well as female roles tend to reinforce the employment practices of a specific organization, particularly in the areas of hiring (Petersen et al., 2000), assignment of job responsibilities, promotion, discipline and termination (Di Maggrio & Powell, 1991; Eliasoph & Lichterman, 2003; Zuckerman, 1999). Law enforcement, for example, has traditionally been viewed as a masculine job (Balkin, 1988; Brown & Heidensohn, 2000; Evans, Coman & Stanley, 1992; Seklecki & Paynich, 2007). Several reasons have been proffered for denying women entry into the profession, such as their allegedly inherent emotional weakness (Bell, 1982; Homant & Kennedy, 1985; Martin, 1980; Morash & Greene, 1986; Sherman, 1975; Tiffin, 1995), lesser physical strength, inadequate training, willingness to use force more often than male officers (Charles, 1982), and perceived reduction of the masculine reputation and status of the profession (Balkin, 1988). Show abstractNavigate Down This article examines employment practices of criminal justice agencies within state and federal court decisions that have interpreted sex discrimination claims under Title VII of the 1964 Civil Rights Act. After collecting and analyzing appellate court cases through the LEXIS-NEXIS and WESTLAW databases, the article examines lower state and federal court decisions that have been applied by the U.S. Supreme Court to criminal justice workplaces. The findings show that employment practices are valid if the employer can demonstrate: first, the disputed discriminatory action is based on considerations not solely dependent on the plaintiff's gender; and second, such considerations are more than mere pretext, making them justifiable under the circumstances. Courts have considered a wide range of employer practices in both law enforcement and corrections agencies at various stages of the employment process, such as hiring, assignment of duties, promotion, discipline, and termination. Title VII is violated when the employers’ adverse employment action is motivated by discriminatory intent and is based on gender stereotypes. Even so, employment actions are legal when employers prove their employment actions are not based on sex stereotypes, but are either business-related or justified by “legitimate,” “important,” or “compelling” interests. 2008, Journal of Criminal Justice Show abstractNavigate Down This study presented the first quantitative test of tokenism theory (Kanter, 1977) in a municipal policing context with data collected from a large sample of Baltimore police officers (Gershon, 1999). In bivariate and multivariate analyses, the effects of gender and race status and their interaction on three dependent variables capturing the central dynamics of tokenism (visibility/performance pressure, contrast/social isolation, and assimilation/role encapsulation) were explored. The study found weak to moderate support for the theory, but no evidence of a distinct “double token” interaction effect between race and gender statuses. By and large, race status alone predicted the greatest tokenism consequences. Limitations and future directions for tokenism research in policing are discussed. Do race and gender matter in police stress? A preliminary assessment of the interactive effects2005, Journal of Criminal Justice Show abstractNavigate Down The interactive effects of race and gender in a multi-dimensional assessment of police occupational stress were examined in this study. The sample from a large urban police department was divided into four subgroups: White males, African-American males, White females, and African-American females. Comparisons were carried out to assess group differences in three major domains of stress process: stressors, coping mechanisms, and multiple psychological manifestations of stress. Specific attentions were paid to observe any similar or dissimilar interactive effects of race and gender on the stress process. The results showed that dynamic factors such as measures of work environment and coping mechanisms contributed more in explaining police stress than static factors such as race and gender. Additionally, destructive coping and work-family conflict (spillover) were the most stable correlates of police stress across all subgroups included in the analysis. The impacts of negative exposure and camaraderie on police stress were conditional on the subgroup statuses. Limitations and implications of the study are discussed. Police stress, state-trait anxiety, and Stressors among U.S. Marshals2004, Journal of Criminal Justice Show abstractNavigate Down Unlike previous studies on stress in local police officers, this study was unique in that it used Deputy U.S. Marshals as the population pool. This study replicated the study conducted by Storch and Panzarella (1996) who determined stress levels and stressors of police officers. A standardized inventory of stress was combined with a questionnaire about job stressors, individual job and career variables, and personal variables. One hundred Deputy U.S. Marshals from offices across the country responded to an anonymous survey. Generally, deputies scored low on the State-Trait Anxiety Inventory (Spielberger, Gorsuch, Lushene, Vagg, & Jacobs, 1983). The main stressors identified by the respondents were related to organizational variables, i.e., problems with management, bad bosses, and work environment. More stress was experienced by deputies who were inclined to think about job-related illnesses or being injured while on duty, those who were facing retirement, and those who disliked their current assignments. The prevalence of depression, anxiety, stress and their relationship to length of service in the UK police force2022, Police Journal Research article Journal of Research in Personality, Volume 76, 2018, pp. 102-112 Show abstractNavigate Down Recent high-profile incidents reignited the conversation about psychopathic traits in police officers. Psychopathy is characterized by multiple variants: primary and secondary psychopathy. There is limited research examining psychopathy in populations that may exhibit adaptive psychopathic traits. This study used model-based cluster analyses of high psychopathy scorers to investigate psychopathic subtypes in an urban police sample. Relative to the primary subtype, the secondary group displayed higher levels of Self-Centered Impulsivity, trait anxiety, covert narcissism, borderline personality disorder traits, substance use, psychiatric treatment, and aggression. These findings support the concept of successful psychopathy and the existence of psychopathy profiles in police officers, providing a useful look at how successful psychopathy may manifest as well as implications for the criminal justice system and police departments. Research article Lingua, Volume 198, 2017, pp. 22-37 Show abstractNavigate Down In this paper, I distinguish between linguistic and non-linguistic presuppositions. I also propose that we should be interested in conversational presuppositions, which could also be called speaker-meant presuppositions or speaker's presuppositions. I also distinguish between potential and actual presuppositions. I propose that, in some cases, presuppositions can be conversationally implicated and cancellation is possible. I specify what the hard cases are and I try to explain them through ontological considerations. I try to reduce the hard cases through (a) the notion that all actual presuppositions are speaker-meant; (b) the distinction between ontological and linguistic presuppositions; and (c) the uncontroversial notion that even ontological presuppositions are susceptible to semantic under-determination that has to be tackled though pragmatic intrusion. Pragmatic intrusion for presuppositional cases, however, cannot really amount to completing or expanding or in any case computing an explicature in an ordinary sense, as explicatures have to do with truth-conditions and aim to create propositionally complete forms that are truth-evaluable, unlike propositional fragments or schemata that are usually expressed in sentences (Carston, 2002; Wilson and Sperber, 2002, 2012). They are processes similar to explicatures, but since presuppositions are only pre-conditions for an utterance's being true or false (Strawson, 1950; Macagno; 2016; Green, 1989; Marmaridou, 2000), we cannot say that these processes are completely like those of explicatures. Nevertheless, they are pragmatically-motivated, even if hard to cancel. (See Capone, 2009 on lack of cancellability or Jaszczolt, 2016 on entrenched meanings.) This more or less brings my approach in line with contextualism (even if I accept semantic invariantism, along the lines of Kratzer, 2012 or Cappelen and Lepore, 2005 (Invariantism is also shared by Carston (2002), in a form that is compatible with her contextualism.)). Research article Sustainable Cities and Society, Volume 50, 2019, Article 101692 Show abstractNavigate Down Although there have been numerous studies on the evaluation of models that estimate sky diffuse radiation on inclined surfaces, it is still difficult for investigators to select from available sky diffuse radiation models for urban microclimate and building performance simulation. This is due to the fact that results from different studies are not consistent, or even contradictive, which indicates the fact that the evaluation criterion itself has a great effect on the performance of the model. To explore the effect of different evaluation criteria on the performance rating of the models, four evaluation methods are applied in this paper: diffuse irradiance on facades with respect to sky condition, diffuse irradiance on facades with respect to orientation, diffuse irradiance distribution among sky dome with respect to sky condition and diffuse irradiance on buildings in obstructed environment. Based on a statistical test on available data, Igawa model is considered to be the most accurate and appropriate model for urban and building energy simulation. Besides, an evaluation criterion appropriate for screening sky diffuse models for urban and building energy simulation is proposed. Furthermore, potential errors that may occur in the measurement and the corresponding quality control is presented. Research article Acta Astronautica, Volume 177, 2020, pp. 545-551 Show abstractNavigate Down Astronauts are required to perform a variety of cognitively demanding tasks in the face of multiple prolonged stressors in isolated, confined and extreme (ICE) environments. Short-term ICE environmental exposure can negatively affect cognitive performance, alter emotional responses, and increase reaction time in affordance-based tasks; however, these domains have not been studied simultaneously in prolonged ICE settings. Coastal and Inland Antarctic stations are excellent analogs for spaceflight based on overlapping environmental features such as limited external communication and confinement in extreme conditions. Our purpose was to investigate the effects of 5-month ICE environment analogs, and co-occurring emotional responses, on cognitive performance and affordance perception. Participants assigned to either Inland or Coastal stations completed the Psychomotor Vigilance Test (PVT), Spaceflight Cognitive Assessment Tool for Windows (WinSCAT), Perception-Action Coupling Task (PACT), and Mental Health Checklist (MHCL) each month for five consecutive months. A series of 1-way ANOVAs were conducted to evaluate WinSCAT, PVT, and PACT performance across time. A series of backward stepwise linear regressions were conducted to determine if duration of ICE environment exposure (months 1–5), station (Coastal and Inland), gender (male and female), education (college degree and no degree), and time of day, in addition to Positive Adaptation, Poor Self-Regulation, and Anxious Apprehension MHCL subscales, were related to cognitive performance outcomes, including WinSCAT composite, PVT median reaction time and lapses, and PACT accuracy and lapses. A within-subjects’ effect indicated improvements across WinSCAT composite score, PACT Accuracy, and PACT lapses. Final regression models were significant across all outcomes, and indicate an improvement in WinSCAT and PACT performance during the winter over, assigned station and education level marginally contributed to the observed variance in cognitive performance. Sustained attention, cognitive performance, and affordance perception and actualization outcomes were marginally affected, or improved, during a prolonged ICE environmental exposure. Research article Police Psychology, 2022, pp. 63-86 Show abstractNavigate Down This chapter reviews the latest evidence concerning the psychological impact of policing, including a focus on chronic stress, burnout and compassion fatigue. Little is known about the prevalence and severity of these difficulties in police organisations, however the nature of policing means officers are exposed to occupational and organisational stressors which leave them vulnerable to psychological stress. Numerous research studies have explored associations between various psychosocial constructs and burnout, with risk factors including occupational stress, organisational stress, and personal characteristics. Chronic psychological stress and burnout are likely to develop within the complex interplay between the stress of the role, organisational restrictions and conflicts, and emotional, cognitive and interpersonal processes experienced by officers. These factors, alongside a police culture which might stigmatise stress and mental health, set the conditions for psychological difficulties to arise. Ideas from organisational psychology are explored to help understand these difficulties. Importantly, psychological theory can indicate different ways of intervening at both an individual and organisational level to mitigate against stress, burnout and compassion fatigue. As awareness of these issues grows, police organisations have an increasing responsibility to act to support officers in maintaining well-being in the face of the stresses of policing. Research article International Journal of Law, Crime and Justice, Volume 65, 2021, Article 100458 Show abstractNavigate Down The primary purpose of the present study is to examine the extent to which procedural justice and contacts with police influence people's assessments of their local police in post-colonial societies. Specifically, the study aimed to 1) determine whether favorable perceptions of procedural fairness predict individuals' willingness to accept the police as authority Fig. 2) assess the effects of two types of contacts – police-initiated and citizen-initiated contacts – on people's decision to view the police as legitimate and 3) assess the combine effect of fairness and contact on the likelihood of citizens voluntarily accepting their local police as authority figure in the community. Analyzing data systematically collected from two large metropolitan areas in Ghana, results demonstrate significant effects of procedural fairness and police-initiated contacts on citizens' propensity to consider the police as legitimate. Moreover, results further revealed an interactive effect on police legitimacy in Ghana. |
