Observational Behavior Assessment for Psychological Competencies in Police Officers:A Proposed Methodology for Instrument Development

This paper proposes and showcases a methodology to develop an observational behavior assessment instrument to assess psychological competencies of police officers. We outline a step-by-step methodology for police organizations to measure and evaluate behavior in a meaningful way to assess these competencies. We illustrate the proposed methodology with a practical example. We posit that direct behavioral observation can be key in measuring the expression of psychological competence in practice, and that psychological competence in practice is what police organizations should care about. We hope this paper offers police organizations a methodology to perform scientifically informed observational behavior assessment of their police officers’ psychological competencies and inspires additional research efforts into this important area

The impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on European police officers: Stress, demands, and coping resources

Purpose: Facing the COVID-19 pandemic, police officers are confronted with various novel challenges, which might place additional strain on officers. This mixed-method study investigated officers’ strain over a three- month-period after the lockdown. Methods: In an online survey, 2567 police officers (77% male) from Austria, Germany, Switzerland, the Netherlands, and Spain participated at three measurement points per country in spring, 2020. Three-level growth curve models assessed changes in strain and its relation to stressor appraisal, emotion regulation, and pre- paredness through training. To add context to the findings, free response answers about officers’ main tasks, stressors, and crisis measures were coded inductively. Results: On average, officers seemed to tolerate the pandemic with slight decreases in strain over time. Despite substantial variance between countries, 66% of the variance occurred between individuals. Sex, work experience, stressor appraisal, emotion regulation, and preparedness significantly predicted strain. Risk of infection and deficient communication emerged as main stressors. Officers’ reports allowed to derive implications for governmental, organizational, and individual coping strategies during pandemics. Conclusion: Preparing for a pandemic requires three primary paths: 1) enacting unambiguous laws and increasing public compliance through media communication, 2) being logistically prepared, and 3) improving stress regulation skills in police training

No Pain, No Gain?: The Effects of Adding a Pain Stimulus in Virtual Training for Police Officers

Virtual training systems provide highly realistic training environments for police. This study assesses whether a pain stimulus can enhance the training responses and sense of presence of these systems. Police officers ( n  = 219) trained either with or without a pain stimulus in a 2D simulator (VirTra) and a 3D virtual reality (VR) system. 2 (training simulator) x 2 (pain stimulus) ANOVAs revealed a significant interaction effect for perceived stress ( p  = .010, ηp 2 = .039). Post hoc pairwise comparisons showed that VR provokes significantly higher levels of perceived stress compared to VirTra when no pain stimulus is used ( p  = .009). With a pain stimulus, VirTra training provokes significantly higher levels of perceived stress compared to VirTra training without a pain stimulus ( p < .001). Sense of presence was unaffected by the pain stimulus in both training systems. Our results indicate that VR training appears sufficiently realistic without adding a pain stimulus