Training with anxiety: Short- and long-term effects on police officers' shooting behavior under pressure

Abstract

We investigated short-and long-term effects of training with anxiety on police officers' shooting behavior under pressure. Using a pretest, posttest, and retention test design, 27 police officers executed a shooting exercise against an opponent that did (high anxiety) or did not (low anxiety) shoot back using colored soap cartridges. During the training sessions, the experimental group practiced with anxiety and the control group practiced without anxiety. At the pretest, anxiety had a negative effect on shot accuracy for both groups. At the posttest, shot accuracy of the experimental group no longer deteriorated under anxiety, while shot accuracy of the control group was still equally affected. At the retention test, 4 months after training, positive results for the experimental group remained present, indicating that training with anxiety may have positive short-and long-term effects on police officers' shot accuracy under pressure. Additional analyses showed that these effects are potentially related to changes in visual attention on task-relevant information.

Exploring the thoughts and focus of attention of elite musicians under pressure

“…Very little is known about what exactly musicians (should) think about or focus on in high-pressure situations. Learning how to focus on task-relevant information might be helpful in preventing attention to shift away from task-relevant to task-irrelevant stimuli (e.g., Vine & Wilson, 2010, 2011; Vine, Moore, & Wilson, 2012; cf., Nieuwenhuys & Oudejans, 2011).…”

Exploring the thoughts and attentional focus of music students under pressure

“…Anxiety is known to lead to higher distractibility in an attempt to identify information related to the possible threat that causes the anxiety (Bar-Haim, Lamy, Pergamin, Bakermans-Kranenburg, & van IJzendoorn, 2007; Nieuwenhuys & Oudejans, 2012). As a result, when anxiety is increased, attention may shift from task-relevant to threat-related, yet task-irrelevant, information which in turn leads to a decrease in performance, as has been shown in several earlier studies on, for instance, dart throwing, police handgun shooting, and penalty shooting in football (e.g., Nibbeling, Oudejans, & Daanen, 2012; Nieuwenhuys & Oudejans, 2011; Wilson, Wood, & Vine, 2009; Wood & Wilson, 2011).…”

“…A different way to help students with performing under pressure may be rehearsing with induced anxiety. It appeared that after training with elevated levels of anxiety earlier drops in performance could be prevented under high anxiety in sports-related tasks (Oudejans & Pijpers, 2009, 2010) as well as in a shooting task performed by police officers (Nieuwenhuys & Oudejans, 2011). In the latter study, improved performance was accompanied by restored visual attention to the target.…”

When the response does not match the threat: The relationship between threat assessment and behavioural response in ambiguous lethal force decision-making

“…There are numerous factors in a real-world event that could influence the outcome. Research often focuses heavily on anxiety (Nieuwenhuys & Oudejans, 2010, 2011, 2012) or marksmanship (Head et al, 2017a, 2017b), which are undoubtedly important influences. However, there are advantages and disadvantages to focusing upon the threat assessment and behavioural response in computer-based paradigms.…”

“…As such, the relationship between cognition and lethal force decision-making should be investigated, particularly as the interaction pertains to threat assessment. Previous applied and cognitive research in this area has focused on how marksmanship in shooting simulators relates to live fire marksmanship (Getty, 2014; Jensen & Woodson, 2012; Scribner et al, 2007) or how realistic training scenarios can induce sufficient anxiety (Nieuwenhuys & Oudejans, 2010, 2011, 2012; Oudejans, 2008; Taverniers & De Boeck, 2014). Evidence has also demonstrated the persistence of problems in lethal force decision-making.…”