Effects of Coping-Related Traits and Psychophysiological Stress Responses on Police Recruits’ Shooting Behavior in Reality-Based Scenarios

Abstract

Police officers are often required to perform under high-stress circumstances, in which optimal task performance is crucial for their and the bystanders’ physical integrity. However, stress responses, particularly anxiety and increased cortisol levels, shift attention from goal-directed to stimulus-driven control, leaving police officers with poor shooting performance under stress. Cardiac vagal activity and coping-related traits (i.e., self-control, sensation seeking) might help individuals to maintain performance under stress. So far, only few studies have integrated coping-related traits, psychophysiological stress markers and occupationally meaningful measures of behavior to investigate police officers’ work performance under stress. Therefore, the present study investigated 19 police recruits ( M age = 22.84, SD = 3.30) undergoing a reality-based shooting scenario in two experimental conditions in a within-design: low stress (LS) against a non-threatening mannequin, and high stress (HS), involving physical threat by an opponent. Psychological (i.e., anxiety, mental effort) and physiological stress responses (i.e., salivary cortisol, alpha-amylase, cardiac vagal activity) as well as shooting accuracy were repeatedly assessed. It was hypothesized that under stress, police recruits would demonstrate elevated psychophysiological stress responses and impaired shooting performance. Elevated psychophysiological stress responses would negatively influence shooting performance, whereas self-control, sensation seeking and cardiac vagal activity would positively influence shooting performance. While recruits reported significantly higher anxiety and mental effort in the HS scenario, both scenarios elicited comparable physiological responses. Overall, shooting accuracy was low and did not significantly decrease in the HS scenario. Shooting performance was predicted by self-control in the LS scenario and by post-task cardiac vagal activity in the HS scenario. While increased anxiety hints at a successful stress manipulation, physiological responses suggest similar stress levels for both scenarios, diminishing potential behavioral differences between the scenarios. Performance efficiency decreased under stress, as indicated by increasing mental effort. Findings on self-control suggest that suppressing negative stress responses might lead to impaired goal-directed attention, resulting in performance decrements. For police research and training, high-realism scenarios afford an opportunity to investigate and experience psychophysiological stress responses.

Active Shooter Training Drill Increases Blood and Salivary Markers of Stress

“…The main findings of this study are that the active shooter training results in significant increases in biomarkers of physiological stress, namely salivary α-amylase, SIgA and blood EPI. While other studies have shown acute stress to facilitate increases in similar markers [ 8 , 9 , 14 , 15 , 16 ], the present findings are unique in that a real-life scenario was carried out by professional actors. Secondly, the ASD lasted less than one minute in duration (~50 s).…”

“…Previous research has shown police work causes significant increases in a variety of stress markers [ 8 , 9 , 14 , 15 , 16 ]. Most of these studies have shown increases in salivary stress markers in response to training scenarios such as force-on-force handgun training [ 16 ], simulated school shooting [ 15 ], and video-based simulated critical incident scenarios [ 9 ].…”

“…Police officers are frequently engaged in a variety of high-stress scenarios, such as high-speed chases and other suspect conflicts, that directly impact their life and/or well-being [ 7 , 8 ]. Other occupational stressors such as shift work, high performance expectations, and unpredictability of potential exposure to violence contribute to police work being identified as one of the most stressful occupations [ 9 , 10 ].…”

“…Several studies have demonstrated elevated levels of stress markers such as blood and salivary cortisol, as well as subjective anxiety in response to acute occupational stressors in a variety of simulated policing activities with and without the threat of a firearm [ 8 , 9 , 14 , 15 , 16 ]. Video-based workplace scenarios have also been shown to cause significant increases in salivary stress markers including cortisol, interleukin-6, α-amylase, and secretory immunoglobulin A in police officers [ 9 ].…”

“…While police work has shown to increase a number of physiological and psychological stress markers [ 8 , 9 , 14 , 15 , 16 , 18 ], to our knowledge, only one study has investigated the impact of active shooter training on markers of psychobiological stress [ 15 ]. Potentially important to note is that the active shooter training involved officers which were given different roles, and the total scenario lasted approximately 15–20 min [ 15 ].…”