RELEVANT
FOCUSED
READY

Police Officers: Stress and Decision-Making
Gurlean Pandher

Introduction

The purpose of this critical appraisal was to analyze the effect of stress on
decision-making and apply that research to better understand a police
officer’s actions. This is an area of significance requiring further research as
stress is an inevitable aspect of policing and can have a large impact on
police officers’ decision-making processes (Verhage, et al., 2018).
Through further research on the role of stress in decision-making, the public
can be made aware of the psychological stressors and external variables that
play a role when police officers are compelled to make these rapid decisions
under stress. The media often emphasizes a “focus on the negative criticism
rather than positive or successful crime prevention efforts” (Dowler, 2002,
p.228). In doing so, the media can criticize officer actions and present this
story to the public.

Being provided with a resource, such as this critical appraisal which
presented information without a link to a media organization, will ensure
that there is significantly less bias in the information being shared. This
study will provide the public with objective findings, as opposed to biased
negativity portrayed by the media to answer the research question: How
does stress play a role in decision-making for police officers?

Methods

This study follows the design of a critical appraisal. The applicable research
was gathered through JIBC’s EBSCOHost using the inclusion and exclusion
criteria shown in Table 1. The following keywords were used in the revised
search which produced the 187 hits: stress OR emotion OR pressure AND
decision making OR decision-making OR decision making process OR
decision-making process AND police officer OR law enforcement OR cops OR
police AND impact OR effect OR influence.
To select the 15 articles, the results from the search underwent a title
review, abstract review, and full-text review as per the inclusion and
exclusion criteria shown in Table 1. Then, the articles were assessed in terms
of validity, trustworthiness, and relevance and value. Finally, the conclusions
made by the research were weighed accordingly and applied to the topic of
police officers to answer the research question.

Results

As shown in Figure 1, the most prominent effect of stress on decision-making
was error in emotional regulation (8 out of 15 articles) which alters an officer’s
perception and causes them to under or overreact. Upon completion of the
critical appraisal, it was found that four of the 15 articles had some issues with
validity, five had issues with trustworthiness, and five had issues with
relevance and value.
Figure 1
Results Pie Graph

Note. This pie graph displays the conclusions as suggested by the articles
which were used for this critical appraisal.

Discussion

The most prominent effect of stress on decision-making was found to be error
in emotional regulation. This claim was weighed heavily in this critical
appraisal as the articles which concluded these findings were deemed to be of
high relevance and value.
One of the studies concluded that the role of stress did not have a substantial
impact on an officer’s ability to make timely decisions. However, that article
was deemed to have issues with validity, and relevance and value, therefore
the finding was not weighed heavily. Additionally, 18% of the findings also
supported that stress helps officers make better decisions. Therefore, this is an
area requiring further research as this could become a practiced skill which
could be helpful for officers on the field.

Conclusion

Potential limitations of this study included issues regarding the restricted
research process and time constraints. As the research design allowed for the
sole inclusion of secondary sources, this research may be missing crucial
findings from primary research. The time frame for the publication of selected
articles was limited which may have resulted in the omission of valuable
articles, and the time allotted to complete this study also limited this research.
Nonetheless, this study produced the following recommendations:

Table 1
Inclusion and Exclusion Criteria

1. Conduct further research on daily experiences of police officers and adapt
training to prepare new recruits for those specific situations.
2. Emphasize mindfulness and self-monitoring within police departments to
encourage officers to recognize emotional triggers.
3. As per Mercadillo, et al.’s (2015) findings, recruit more women into policing
as research suggests they are more empathic and compassionate when dealing
with civilians, therefore are likely to have skills that more suitable to perform
well under stress.

Note. This table displays the criteria used while conducting searches to
select articles.
In terms of ethical considerations, this study was conducted by a student of
the law enforcement field, therefore there may be a positive bias towards
police officers and attempting to provide rationale for their actions.

References

On the contrary, being exposed to the media reports regarding cases of
police brutality, could have resulted in preconceived negative biases about
certain police-civilian interactions. Nonetheless, an outlined research plan
was followed in recognition and attempted mitigation of these potential
biases.

Mercadillo, R. E., Alcauter, S., Fernández-Ruiz, J. & Barrios, F. A. (2015). Police
culture influences the brain function underlying compassion: A gender study.
Social neuroscience, 10(2), 135-152.

Bachelor of Law Enforcement Studies

Dowler, K. (2002). Media influence on citizen attitudes toward police
effectiveness. Policing and society, 12(3), 227-238.

Verhage, A., Noppe, J., Feys, Y. & Ledegen, E. (2018). Force, stress, and
decision-making within the Belgian police: The impact of stressful situations on
police decision-making. Journal of Police and Criminal Psychology, 33(4), 345357.

Justice Institute of British Columbia

April 2022