Emotional labor among trainee police officers: The interpersonal role of positive emotions

The aim of this study is to get an insight of the interpersonal process of emotional labor, and the role of positive emotions in the interaction between the sender and receiver, while taking both the perspective of the sender and the receiver into account. We tested the influence of the perceived display of positive emotions of Dutch trainee police officers (N?=?80) during an interaction with offenders on perceived authenticity and perceived performance success, incorporating the senders’ emotion regulation technique (i.e., deep acting and surface acting). Consistent with hypotheses, results of structural equation modeling analyses showed that perceived authenticity mediates the relationship between the perceived display of positive emotions and perceived performance success, while the specific senders’ emotion regulation technique was not related to perceived performance success. Furthermore, results showed that perceived performance success mediated the relationship between the perceived display of positive emotions and senders’ felt positive emotions after the interaction, controlling for senders’ positive affect.     

The role of work experience and individual beliefs in police officers' perceptions of date rape: An integration of quantitative and qualitative methods

Surveyed police officers from two police departments in the Midwest on their perceptions of date rape (N=91). The aim of this research was to examine the influence of officers' work experiences and general beliefs about women on their perceptions of date rape. Two approaches were utilized. First, using quantitative structural-equation modeling, a model that integrated work experiences and individual beliefs was evaluated using LISREL VII. Results suggest a direct path from the work experience variables to perceptions of date rape: Officers with more experience with rape cases held more sympathetic beliefs about data rape and date rape victims. Officers who found their training on rape to be very helpful, and those who reported that their work environment was sexualized and sexual harassment was a problem, were also less victim blaming. An indirect influence of these variables was also supported. Officers with more experience, those who perceived their training as helpful, and those with heightened awareness of sexual harassment in the workplace also held more favorable attitudes toward women, which, in turn, predicted less victim-blaming perceptions of date rape. Second, qualitative methods were used to have the police define and describe in their own words what has shaped their beliefs about date rape. These narratives were content analyzed by two raters. The qualitative results validated the quantitative findings as the officers were most likely to mention professional experience with rape cases and departmental trainings as important factors that changed their opinions. Work climate and personal experiences were also cited as influential. Implications for integrating qualitative and quantitative methods in research, and training interventions with police are discussed. The author thanks the Editor, Bill Davidson, Holly Angelique, Susan Englund, Doug Luke, Melody Scofield, and three anonymous reviewers for their helpful comments on this paper. I also acknowledge Camille Johnson and Jody Venable for their assistance collecting and coding the data. This research was supported by a grant from the George W. Fairweather Fund.     

New Directions in Measuring Reactive and Proactive Aggression: Validation of a Teacher Questionnaire

The well-known distinction between reactive and proactive aggression is theoretically important but empirically controversial. Recently, aggression researchers have argued that we should separate the form and function of aggression to make a clearer distinction between reactive and proactive aggression. This article describes the validation of a new teacher-report Instrument for Reactive and Proactive Aggression (IRPA) that assesses the form separate from the function of aggression. We demonstrated good discriminant, convergent, and construct validity of the IRPA in a sample of 427 children aged 10 to 13. Reactive and proactive functions of aggression were independent constructs (r = 0.03) which indicates excellent discriminant validity. Convergent validity was satisfactory; scores from the IRPA were moderately to highly related to scores from the widely used Teacher Rating Instrument, TRI (Dodge and Coie in Journal of Personality and Social Psychology 53:1146–1158, 1987). Additionally, reactive and proactive aggression showed unique correlations with most a priori hypothesized theoretically relevant variables, which indicates construct validity. (150 words)     

Police and prosecution systems: An evaluation of a police criminal case preparation program

Program evaluation can provide objective information relevant to decisions on program maintenance. A program to address problems in the preparation of criminal investigation reports in a metropolitan police department was evaluated. The program permanently altered environmental conditions under which reports were prepared to facilitate performance. Police officers, who had previously prepared reports without assistance, visited the Case Preparation Room to prepare reports with assistance from office personnel. Compared to reports prepared without assistance, reports prepared in the Case Preparation Room documented more case elements required by the state legal code for criminal prosecution, were completed in fewer days following arrests, and received higher ratings from Assistant District Attorneys. Operation of a permanent program available to approximately 945 officers proved a practical solution to improving the preparation of criminal investigation reports.     

When the method makes a difference: Antagonistic effects on “automatic evaluations” as a function of task characteristics of the measure

Researchers often employ implicit measures as dependent variables to investigate processes of attitude formation and change. In such studies, experimentally induced differences are typically interpreted as reflecting change in automatic evaluations. We argue that experimentally induced effects on implicit measures may not always reflect genuine changes in evaluative responses, but can be driven by the mechanisms underlying the measurement procedure. In line with this assumption, the present research shows that these mechanisms can produce opposite effects of the same experimental manipulation for otherwise equivalent implicit measures. These results indicate that merely observing experimental effects on implicit measures does not allow direct inferences regarding changes in automatic evaluations. Instead, psychological interpretations of such effects hinge upon the mechanics of how a given measurement procedure responds to variations in the context. Implications for research using implicit measures are discussed.     

Stress Management with Law Enforcement Personnel: A Controlled Outcome Study of EMDR Versus a Traditional Stress Management Program

Eye Movement Desensitization and Reprocessing (EMDR) has been shown to be effective for treating posttraumatic stress disorder, but its efficacy as a stress management tool for normal individuals in highly stressful occupations has not been demonstrated. Sixty-two police officers were randomly assigned to either EMDR or a standard stress management program (SMP), each consisting of 6 hours of individualized contact. At completion, officers in the EMDR condition provided lower ratings on measures of PTSD symptoms, subjective distress, job stress, and anger; and higher marital satisfaction ratings than those in SMP. The effects of EMDR were maintained at the 6-month follow-up, indicating enduring gains from a relatively brief treatment regimen for this subclinical sample of officers who were experiencing some level of stress from their job.     

Proximal Peer-Level Effects of a Small-Group Selected Prevention on Aggression in Elementary School Children: An Investigation of the Peer Contagion Hypothesis

Examined peer contagion in small group, selected prevention programming over one school year. Participants were boys and girls in grades 3 (46 groups, 285 students) and 6 (36 groups, 219 students) attending school in low-resource, inner city communities or moderate resource urban communities. Three-level hierarchical linear modeling (observations within individuals within groups) indicated that individual change in aggression over time related to the average aggression of others in the intervention group. The individual child was pulled toward peers mean level of aggression; so the intervention appeared to reduce aggression for those high on aggression, and to make those low on aggression more aggressive. Effects appeared to be magnified in either direction when the child was more discrepant from his or her peers. From these results we derive a principle of discrepancy-proportional peer-influence for small group intervention, and discuss the implications of this for aggregating aggressive children in small group programs.     

Generalization of self-instruction: The effect of strategy adaptation training as a function of cognitive level

In an examination of the factors involved in the generalization of self-instruction training, 48 preoperational and concrete operational first- and second-grade children received either self-instruction training or no training on the Matching Familiar Figures Test. In subsequent training using a perceptual perspective-taking task, half of the children in the self-instruction group received training in the specific adaptation of the previously learned strategy, the remainder received training in the general adaptation of the strategy. All groups were posttested on these two tasks and a generalization task (Tower of Hanoi). Preoperational and concrete operational children in both adaptation groups improved significantly at posttest on both training tasks. On the generalization task, only concrete operational children in the specific adaptation group showed significant improvement. These findings support the view that the format of instructions interacts with the child's cognitive capacities. The need is emphasized for a more individualized intervention context which considers the developmental status of child.     

Early Behavior Problems as a Predictor of Later Peer Group Victimization: Moderators and Mediators in the Pathways of Social Risk

This study is a prospective investigation of the predictive association between early behavior problems (internalizing, externalizing, hyperactivity–impulsiveness, immaturity–dependency) and later victimization in the peer group. Teacher ratings of the behavioral adjustment of 389 kindergarten and 1st-grade children (approximate age range of 5 to 6 years-old) were obtained, using standardized behavior problem checklists. These ratings predicted peer nomination scores for victimization, obtained 3 years later, even after the prediction associated with concurrent behavior problems was statistically controlled. Further analyses suggested that the relation between early behavior problems and later victimization is mediated by peer rejection and moderated by children's dyadic friendships. Behavior problems appear to play an important role in determining victimization within the peer group, although the relevant pathways are complex and influenced by other aspects of children's social adjustment.     

Acquisition of the autoshaped key peck as a function of amount of preliminary magazine training

Three experiments evaluated the effect of magazine training on acquisition of the pigeon's key peck during autoshaping. In Experiment I, pigeons were exposed to two days of extended magazine training, followed on the third day by keylight-only presentations. All pigeons pecked the keylight early in the keylight-only session. Experiment II examined the relationship between the number of magazine-training trials and trials to the first peck. Pigeons were given either 0, 3, 10, or 25 magazine-training trials followed by the standard autoshaping procedure. The number of trials to the first peck was related to the number of magazine-training trials. In Experiment III, pigeons were exposed to the standard autoshaping procedure without prior magazine training. The data from Experiment III suggested that key pecking will occur only after the response of eating from the lighted hopper has occurred. Taken together, these results suggest that initial magazine training is an important variable in autoshaping. Key pecking is discussed as a generalized consummatory response.     

Assessing aggressive and depressed children's social relations with classmates and friends: a matter of perspective

This study examined aggressive, depressed, and aggressive–depressed childrenr's peer relations from the children's own and from their peers' perspective. Participants were 819 fourth through sixth graders (50.2% girls) who were assessed twice during the same school year. Measures included children's aggression and depression, self-rated and peer-rated social acceptance, number of reciprocal friends, and self-rated and friend-rated friendship quality. Analyses revealed different patterns, depending on the perspective considered. Depression but not aggression was significantly related to difficulties with the peer group and with dyadic friends from the children's own perspective, whereas the opposite pattern was found according to the peers' view. The co-occurrence of aggression and depression entailed significant difficulties with peers regardless of perspective. The implications of these results for the links between children's aggression and depression and their interpersonal relationships are discussed.     

Word-finding as a function of stimulus context: Children compared with aphasic adults

A study of object naming in 202 children, aged 5–11 years, demonstrated that varying the stimulus context affected the level of response accuracy. From age 6 to 10, completing a sentence with a noun (auditory) yielded the lowest error scores, naming objects upon hearing a definition (also auditory) produced most errors, while responding with names to pictured objects was of intermediate difficulty. This is the same order of object naming difficulty found in adult aphasic patients. Children older than 10 do not appear to be affected by stimulus context in their object naming. Results are discussed in terms of the relative syntactic difficulty of the two auditory conditions, the unexpected sex differences, and the “aphaseoid” naming errors of children.     

Contingent reliance on the affect heuristic as a function of regulatory focus

Results from four studies show that the reliance on affect as a heuristic of judgment and decision making is more pronounced under a promotion focus than under a prevention focus. Two different manifestations of this phenomenon were observed. Studies 1–3 show that different types of affective inputs are weighted more heavily under promotion than under prevention in person-impression formation, product evaluations, and social recommendations. Study 4 additionally shows that valuations performed under promotion are more scope-insensitive—a characteristic of affect-based valuations—than valuations performed under prevention. The greater reliance on affect as a heuristic under promotion seems to arise because promotion-focused individuals tend to find affective inputs more diagnostic, not because promotion increases the reliance on peripheral information per se.     

Attitudes towards cancer as a function of experience with the disease: A test of three models

Abstract

The present study develops and tests three models that can account for the relationship between cancer attitudes and experience with the disease. Individuals were classified according to the extent of their experience with cancer: personal experience, familial experience and minimal experience. In three studies, each using a different sample and different method of attitude measurement, it was found that those with personal cancer experience held the most positive attitudes towards cancer, while those with familial cancer experience held the most negative attitudes. These findings are consistent with the predictions of the proposed dual process model. Results are discussed in terms of the importance of understanding the impact that cancer attitudes have on the physical and emotional management of the disease.     

An approach to and computational results on testing the form of a decision maker's utility function

In this paper we consider the problem of identifying the form of a decision maker's (DM) utility function. We consider a set of alternatives each defined by a number of criteria and we assume that the DM's preferences are consistent with some underlying utility function. We present some theory and develop approaches to test whether the DM's preferences are consistent with a linear, a quasi-concave, a quasi-convex or a general monotonic function. We present our computational experience showing that in almost all cases the approaches correctly identify the form of the underlying utility function and require very little preference information of the DM.     

Confirmation of linear system theory prediction: Rate of change of Herrnstein's kappa as a function of response-force requirement

Four human subjects worked on all combinations of five variable-interval schedules and five reinforcer magnitudes (¢/reinforcer) in each of two phases of the experiment. In one phase the force requirement on the operandum was low (1 or 11 N) and in the other it was high (25 or 146 N). Estimates of Herrnstein's κ were obtained at each reinforcer magnitude. The results were: (1) response rate was more sensitive to changes in reinforcement rate at the high than at the low force requirement, (2) κ increased from the beginning to the end of the magnitude range for all subjects at both force requirements, (3) the reciprocal of κ was a linear function of the reciprocal of reinforcer magnitude for seven of the eight data sets, and (4) the rate of change of κ was greater at the high than at the low force requirement by an order of magnitude or more. The second and third findings confirm predictions made by linear system theory, and replicate the results of an earlier experiment (McDowell & Wood, 1984). The fourth finding confirms a further prediction of the theory and supports the theory's interpretation of conflicting data on the constancy of Herrnstein's κ.