Physical assaults are an inherent problem of modern society. One strategy available to try to prevent violence is to strengthen one's personal capacities to defend oneself. This is the scope of various self-defence programs and systems within the civil domain. While training in self-defence facilitates the use of self-protective strategies in real life situations, it is important to ascertain whether individuals learn the skills taught in self-defence classes and whether they are able to perform the skills when these are required. In order to test the effectiveness of self-defence skills in an ethically acceptable way, instructors and scholars have to design environments in which valid and practically relevant results about the performance of the learner can be obtained. The imprecise nature and the multidimensional use of terms like 'realism' and 'reality-based' leads to difficulties in designing such environments. In this article, we argue for the need to shift the emphasis from 'realistic' to 'representative' design in testing and learning environments, with the aim of developing transferable self-defence skills within the civil domain. The Trade-Off Model of Simulation Design that we propose is intended to help instructors and scholars to make more informed decisions when designing tasks for testing or training.
The current study aims to investigate corresponding self-control and self-control failures that are the result of ego depletion and its impact on police officers' decision to use force. For that purpose, a total of 200 German police recruits were randomly assigned to either an experimental or control group. Ego depletion was manipulated using the "e" crossing task. Participants then worked through a video-based scenario exercise, in which they encountered a provocative citizen. They were required to indicate the time that they would take to resort to using force to resolve the situation.Results showed that ego depleted officers intended to use force earlier than controls.This indicates that circumstances that produce ego depletion could lead to the inappropriate use of force by reducing self-control. This has major implications for the police use of force and how we understand police officers' decision making in response to provocation.
K E Y W O R D Saggression, ego depletion, police use of force, self-control
Endowed with the state monopoly on the legitimate use of even potentially lethal force, it is intolerable for police officers to act outside the governing legal and ethical framework. At the same time, officers are expected to exert self-control and refrain from excessive use of force when they deal with provocative and perilous situations. This study sought to investigate corresponding selfcontrol and self-control failures through the role of ego depletion in the decision to use force by police officers. Two experiments were conducted using officers from a German State Police force, requiring the participants to use force against a provocative role player. Experiment 1 found that the ego depletion measure failed and there were no differences between the groups. Using a different ego depletion method, experiment 2 found that ego-depleted participants aggressed earlier than controls. These results indicate that circumstances that produce ego depletion could lead to the inappropriate use of force through reducing self-control. This has major implications for the police use of force and how we understand police officers' decision-making in response to provocation.
With the goal of preventing unintentional fire-arm death and injury as well as widening the scope of police use of force training design, this study compared the impact of non-lethal training (NLT) ammunition and conventional ammunition (CA) on police officers’ psychophysiological arousal. We assessed heart rate and parasympathetic activity while police officers engaged in a demanding fighting and shooting exercise. Based on previous research, which shows that physiological arousal in representative scenario exercises does not differ from active duty operations, this study tested and corroborated the hypothesis that simulated psychophysiological demand will be the same in using both NLT and CA. Thus, the use of NLT ammunition provides a safe alternative to training the use of issue weapons with CA, equally as representative of the active duty environment of the real world. Furthermore, this study underlines that fighting elicits high levels of physiological load that police officers need to be prepared for.
Reflexion und Reflexivität sind wichtige Bestandteile einer professionellen Praxis im polizeilichen Tätigkeitsfeld. Der vor liegende Beitrag legt dar, dass Reflexivität über ein bloßes Nachdenken hinaus geht und beschreibt eine Struktur der Reflexion auf drei Ebenen, welche mit jeweils anderen Kernfragen verbunden sind. Während auf niederschwelliger Reflexionsebene die Frage nach der korrekten Handlung im Mittelpunkt steht, dreht sich die Reflexion auf einer höheren Ebene um das Aufdecken der eigenen handlungsleitenden Annahmen, welche das Handeln (un)bewusst beeinflussen sowie um die Möglichkeit zur Einnahme von anderen Perspektiven. Das Durchlaufen der drei Reflexionsebenen ist für den/die reflektierte/n Praktiker*in und hier besonders für das Konfliktmanage ment als Einsatzkraft eine notwendige Voraussetzung.
In this study, we investigated the possible development of threat-related attentional bias due to the work as a police officer. For this purpose, we compared four groups, differing with regard to their experience in policing and martial arts: (a) police officers with no experience in martial arts (n = 74), (b) martial artists (n = 50), (c) police officers with martial arts experience (n = 33), and (d) a control group (n = 48). Participants completed the Dot Probe Task, the Emotional Stroop Task, and the State-Trait Anxiety Inventory. The results on the Dot Probe and the Emotional Stroop Task showed that the groups did not differ with regard to threat-related attentional biases. However, the control group showed higher measures of trait anxiety compared with the other groups. The results are discussed in the light of police use of force and martial arts training, as well as with regard to optimizing psychological measures to capture functional threat-related attentional bias.
Cognitive biases have been identified as drivers of the excessive use of force, which has determined current affairs across the globe. In this article, we argue that the police are facing serious challenges in combating these biases. These challenges stem from the nature of cognitive biases, their sources and the fallacies that mislead police professionals in the way they think about them. Based on a framework of expert decision-making fallacies and biases, we argue that these fallacies limit the impact of efforts to mitigate cognitive biases in police conflict management. In order to achieve a systemic understanding of cognitive biases and their detrimental effects, the article concludes that implementing reflexive structures within the police is a crucial prerequisite to effectively reflect on external influences and to limit bias and fallacies from further unfolding in a self-referential loop.
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