Effects of threat, trait anxiety and state anxiety on police officers’ actions during an arrest

Abstract

Purpose We investigated the effects of threat and trait anxiety on state anxiety and how that affects police officers’ actions during an arrest. Most experiments on police performance under anxiety test the performance of one particular skill. Yet, police work often involves concerted use of a combination of skills. Methods We created situations – with two different levels of threat – in which officers had to choose and initiate their actions to control and arrest a non‐cooperative suspect. We examined whether threat, trait anxiety and state anxiety influenced decision‐making (e.g., choosing the appropriate actions) and performance (e.g., quality of communication and the execution of skills). Results Trait anxiety affected the level of state anxiety, but not any of the decision‐making and performance variables. As for decision‐making, results showed that only threat determined which action officers took to gain control over the suspect. As for performance, higher levels of state anxiety were accompanied by lower scores of overall performance, communication, proportionality of applied force and quality of skill execution. Conclusion It is concluded that state anxiety not only impairs performance of single perceptual‐motor tasks, but also relevant accompanying skills such as communicating and applying appropriate force. We argue that police training should focus on an integrated set of decision‐making and perceptual‐motor skills and not just on the performance of isolated motor skills.

Differential Effects of Physiological Arousal Following Acute Stress on Police Officer Performance in a Simulated Critical Incident

“…Considering elevated antithrombin as an indicator of the police officer stress response, it is plausible that skills that were more effortful were differentially affected. This is consistent with another study that reported high acute stress and high trait anxiety negatively correlated with verbal communication by police officers during an arrest (Renden et al., 2017a). Verbal communication is cognitively demanding, requiring attentional and processing resources that, during a critical incident, would be also in use by visual scanning and working memory as the officer assessed the scene.…”

“…Acute physiological arousal (as measured by indices such as cortisol) is predictive of impaired communication skills (Schlotz et al., 2006) with some research suggesting that nonverbal communication (e.g., eye contact) can be predicted by physiological stress levels even prior to the encounter (van Dulmen et al., 2007). In police officers, high acute stress and high trait anxiety predict poor verbal communication during an arrest (Renden et al., 2017a).…”

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

“…Additionally, previous studies suggest that psychophysiological stress responses might have differential effects on police work performance (Renden et al, 2014, 2017; Arble et al, 2019). While observational studies report a negative effect of stress on tactical behaviors such as handcuffing or arrest procedures (Renden et al, 2014), increases in physiological stress responses did not impair general police work performance, but specifically impaired verbal communication as compared to tactical performance and non-verbal communication (Arble et al, 2019).…”

“…The present study raises several issues that require future research. It seems well-documented that police officers experience severe psychophysiological stress responses (Groer et al, 2010; Taverniers and De Boeck, 2014; Strahler and Ziegert, 2015; Arble et al, 2019) and show impaired perceptual-motor performance under stress (Nieuwenhuys and Oudejans, 2010, 2011, 2017; Renden et al, 2014, 2017; Arble et al, 2019). However, it remains unclear through which mechanisms performance can be maintained.…”

Sitting duck or scaredy‐cat? Effects of shot execution strategy on anxiety and police officers’ shooting performance under high threat

“…For example, in our experiment officers only fired one round per trial and always stepped one metre to the left or right, whereas in real life, officers may fire more than once (e.g., to increase their chance of hitting or to afford safe withdrawal), may effectively hit assailants in other places than the chest (e.g., head or torso), and move over considerably greater (or smaller) distances (e.g., Naeyé et al ., ). In addition, in real life, officers are likely to select the nature of their responses based on an analysis of the environment and the level of threat with which they are confronted (Renden et al ., ), whereas, in the current experiment, experimental control required forced execution of both shot execution strategies. As such, before drawing implications for practice it is important to test the selection and effectiveness of both shot execution strategies under increasingly variable conditions.…”