Friends of the Forensic Science Blog, this week we present the paper “Psychological Profile, Emotion Regulation, and Aggression in Police Applicants: a Swiss Cross-Sectional Study”, by Ceschi, G.; Meylan, S.; Rowe, C. and Boudoukha, A. H. (2022), in which authors carry out a study to know the general psychological characteristics that police officers use to share, and how these interact with the critical situations they are exposed to. 

While ensuring public safety, police officers are repeatedly exposed to stressful, violent and traumatic situations, which translates into tremendous psychological pressure. 

For example, it is not uncommon for a police officer to be required to provide protection to the victim of a crime while, at the same time, he/she has to deal with a dangerous offender. 

These situations require sophisticated emotion control and coping strategies, a strong personal predisposition to deal with stress, and enough cognitive resources to manage all of the above. 

Not surprisingly, previous research has shown that exposure to traumatic events contributes to the development of mental health problems. For example, these are associated with post-traumatic stress disorder, depression, obsessive-compulsive symptoms, anger and aggressive attitudes.

Research suggests that police officers may “give clues” to possible mental health problems indirectly. For example, they may exhibit chronic fatigue, worries about some aspects of their work and personal lives, feelings of lack of support from their superiors, feelings of work overload…. 

However, it is interesting to mention that, despite the fact that police officers are continuously exposed to stressful events, only a minority of them report chronic post-traumatic stress disorders or major emotional imbalances. For example, a 2010 Swedish study found that police officers had better mental health than the civilian population.

In short, police officers show good emotional competencies in the face of adverse events. However, the fact that they are significantly and recurrently exposed to traumatic situations throughout their professional career puts them at risk of eventually suffering from emotional imbalance and a progressive erosion of their original temperament. 

It is therefore necessary to anticipate this in order to be able to support at-risk police officers from the beginning of their career, and to help preserve their mental health and professional potential in the best way. 

The aim of the present study was to describe the psychological profile of aspiring police officers in the Swiss context, assessing their levels of stress, anxiety, depression, happiness, aggressiveness, impulsivity… among others. 

For this purpose, a sample of 149 police applicants between 20 and 36 years participated, also, a control group of 110 people between 18 and 33 years. Both groups were asked to complete a series of scientifically valid tests and scales to assess their personality traits. 

In line with previous findings, the authors’ research confirms that police applicants in the Swiss context have a similar psychological profile that is mainly characterized by balanced affective feelings; that is, they have low levels of anxiety, depression, and anger. 

In addition, they self-report few impulsive dispositions and seem to be more likely to think about consequences before acting and to maintain concentration even when performing complex or boring tasks (that is, they are more persistent).

However, this remarkably balanced psychological profile must be tempered by a marked socially desirable style that leads candidates to present themselves in an overly positive light

It has been found that police applicants tend to deceive themselves more than the rest of the population, according to studies from 1997 and 1999. 

Repression would be a factor influencing the latter. In addition, it would also affect the evaluation of stressful situations. That is, repression may cause these people to selectively avoid paying attention to negative information or stimuli and, when they are exposed with them, they may tend to interpret these situations as non-threatening, non-dangerous, and overestimate their own coping potential and capacity for control. 

On the other hand, the current study indicates that the aggressive action tendencies of aspiring police officers are influenced by their high levels of anxiety in certain moments, degree of urgency when confronted with negative feelings, and a marked sensitivity to reward.

That is, more reward-sensitive police applicants, motivated by positive incentives and gratitude, might more readily use aggressive attitudes when encountering obstacles. Thus, authors consider that the desire for rewards can be considered a risk factor for aggressive attitudes. 

Authors understand, therefore, that there is a psychological profile that is intuitively selected, which is specific and consistent with the repressive coping style. In fact, this profile is very favorable in providing, at least initially, a positive image of the candidate that includes good adaptive strategies when dealing with adversities. What should not be forgotten is that chronic exposure to stressful events erodes the individual’s coping potential. 

Authors point out that while this study is revealing, more empirical work is needed to draw conclusions. What can be confirmed is that the findings reveal the importance of continuing efforts to understand law enforcement members’ methods of coping with stressful situations. 

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