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Acute Stress and Performance in Police Recruits

I. Introduction

1. The author gives the topic and how stress can impair how an emergency worker functions.  He cites sources and other works to back up his statements.

2. Paragraph two talks about how acute stress resulting in both physiological and psychological       forms.  There is also primary and secondary appraisal.  The author cites many sources throughout this very long paragraph.

3. The author now is telling about the research that has been conducted on the effects of stress on performance.

4. Two findings of stress related performance have been found to contradict one another. The first shows that people under stress experience tunnel vision and the second shows that they experience a widening of the senses.  In tunnel vision the person cannot think “outside the box” and when the senses are widened they are apt to be distracted.   There are many sources cited within this paragraph.

5. Cortisol release was used as a level to see the response to stress. There is a study cited within the paragraph of 45 male soldiers from the US. The performance of the soldiers was dictated by how much cortisol they released and how their performance was at the time of the test.

6. Relationship between self evaluations of one’s own abilities and how people of less confidence of themselves ranked their self lower and scored higher and vice versa.

7. Next paragraph before methods explains the study on both the psychological and physiological assessment of measuring performance under stressful situations.  

II. Methods

1. Paragraph explains the participants and how they are being studied, where they are from, and also what outside variables that may have influenced the outcome of the study.

III. Research Protocol

1. This area explains how the research was gathered and what methods/tests were used.  A training system named Firearms Training System (FATS) plays real life scenarios.

IV. Post-Scenario Reactions

1. This area describes how the information was gathered after the FATS test was ran. Heart rate (HR), blood pressure (BP), cortisol levels, saliva production were all measured and recorded. Also, there was a post interview of the people in the study for a self assessment of how they felt they did.

V. Measures

1. Psychological Demographic information was measured through how much anxiety was experienced directly after the scenario. It was based on a test with a scale to measure scores.

2. STAI or state anxiety is a commonly used assessment of how much stress was experienced during an event.

            3. Physiological heart rate was measured to see how much cortisol the participant had produced.

4. Salivary cortisol is a measurement how much the participant salivated during their test in FATS.  

            5. Performance was videotaped during the FATS runs and then reviewed by experts.

6. A performance checklist was used to keep track on how well the officers did within the simulation.

7. Relative ranking of global performance was then used to see how the recruits did against a scale of all officers in the world.

VI. Results

1. Connections are drawn between psychological stress and performance.
2. Physiological stress and performance were assessed through the recruits HR and cortisol levels.
3. Subjective evaluations of performance was a self evaluation that all the recruits completed on how well they felt that they completed the necessary tasks that FATS gave them during the simulation.

VII. Discussion

1. This part develops how the study and explains how emergency personal may be affected during stressful situations.  It discusses the results of the findings.
2. 3 sources are cited about cortisol levels and how they have a positive impact on those who have lager cortisol levels during stressful events.
3. Explains how stress can play a role in self assessment.
4. The final paragraph of the discussion area wraps up all the study and how cortisol levels affect situations.

VII. Limitations

1. Limitation section describes how self assessment may play a role in behavior at stressful scenes/environments. This also talks about what future research could be conducted with this idea in mind and what outside influences may play a role. 

 

Risk Taking and Police Pursuit

1. Introduction

 

1. The beginning paragraph is how to measure and predict high risk individuals within the policing community.
2. Then it discusses how the study is constructed and where the information is derived from. The first is the study with policing policies on high speed pursuit.
3. The second paragraph explains the second study that was used and how it shows the measurement without policing policies on high speed pursuit.
4. Two variables are being accounted for: 1) risk taking and 2) sensation seeking.
5. The last small paragraph explains the basic purpose of the study. It is their hypothesis that risk taking and sensation seeking are correlations that act on one another.

 

1. Method

 

1. This paragraph outlines how the subjects were chosen through policing departments that were willing to cooperate.
2. The final part of methods shows what people were used in the study. Officer’s with less than two years of experience were excluded from the study with all except 3 being male white. They were issued a scaled to determine their sensation seeking and also a questionnaire about risk taking.

 

Instruments

 

1. The instruments section details on how the sensation seeking scale is measured.  It is a 40 item scale on choice.
2. Risk taking was assessed using a 3 page questionnaire.  The subjects were given three statements to show how they believed policing was.
3. After each statement the officer was to circle a number on how they felt towards it.
4. The three measures used were; self report, scenarios and official
5. Self report asked subjects how many times they initiated a high speed pursuit within the last 12 months.
6. The scenarios gave officer’s two different hypothetical situations in which they would pursue a car leaving a routine traffic stop and also a car fleeing a scene of a burglary.
7. Official records of the department were looked over to see the number of times officers would record their police pursuits.
8. Finally the three tests were standardized and called a pursuit scale.

 

Administration of Instruments

1. This section describes how the tests were administered to the officers. A sergeant handed them out and told the officers that he needed them for his professor at his old college.  All were returned and were not signed.
2. The second part was the questionnaire.  The same procedure was followed.
3. No subjects knew of what variables were being measured.  They did however understand that they may have been connected.

 

1. Results

 

Descriptive Statistics

1. This shows the findings of the two tests given.
2. The main variable, pursuit scale, was then measured.
3. This paragraph shows the subjects’ mean sensations seeking scale.
4. The risk taking scale showed that officers were more apt to risk. It was on the high end of the scale.

Risk taking, Sensation Seeking, and Pursuit

1. Shows how the two scales correlated with one another.
2. Risk taking and sensation seeking do draw to the same correlations. When combined their ability can predict the pursuit scale.
3. This shows how the findings are interesting because they show something that was not expected but still can be left open for interpretation in some areas.

Extraneous Variables

1. When combined with the pursuit scale age showed a negative correlation.  
2. This paragraph outlines the multiple variables that could have played a part in pursuit.

 

VI.         Discussion

1. This area has the author explaining what the study was meant to accomplish.  

Direction of Causality

1. This area tells how the study may be affected by the participants. 

Sample Uniqueness

1. This area shows how the study may have been sensitized because of the officers had been previously told not to engage in so many pursuits.

Further Considerations

1. This suggests that more studies are needed to conclude accurately how sensations seeking, pursuit tendencies and risk taking can be further explored. They are low when measured on the pursuit scale.
2. This shows that policy implications were not needed to ensure that officers did not go on unneeded pursuits.
3. The final paragraph gives suggestions on how to take the sensation seeking out of an individual by either re-assignment or making them aware of their tendencies to engage in dangerous situations.

My Comparison of the Two Articles

Both introductions set up the game plan for what is going to happen within the paper.  The “Acute Stress and performance in police recruits” has a more a in depth introduction and lays more out for the reader.  The second article, “Risk Taking and Police Pursuit” has a smaller introduction paragraph and gets to the point quicker. Both authors hooked my attention very quickly.  This could be because I am interested in the topic but I feel that both opening paragraphs grab the reader’s attention and made me want to read more.   In the first article “Acute stress…” it opens with saying how work in emergency services is very stressful and how prolong exposure can endure serious health risk.  In the second article, “Risk taking…” it made me want to read and know more to why police work would make a person want to take higher risk even when they are not necessary.  The purpose of “Acute Stress…” is to determine how stressful situations may affect a person’s ability to positively respond in given situations.  It was conducted with police recruits.  The objective of “Risk Taking…” was to show that person’s with sensation seeking and risk taking personalities are more apt to start and follow a police pursuit.  Article one is was important in determining how stressful situations can impact the efforts of emergency personal. The second article was important in determining person’s/individuals who are high risk takers.  The first articles main research question dealt with if the levels of cortisol were significantly higher when dealing with high stress situations. The second articles main research question was if risk taking and sensation seeking positively correlated with pursuit decisions.  Both methods were similar to one another.  The first article though was more hands on type of style.  They were one on one with the participants either by interviews or watching videotapes.  The second article’s methods were all testing types.  They handed out different questionnaires and also looked over previous records from past years.  The results of article one showed that cortisol levels helped the improvement of stressful situations. Article two showed no strong correlations in dealing with risk taking and sensation seeking. For the first article’s conclusions the research said that further research was needed in order to find out more.  They also stated that many outside influences could have also played a role in the conclusions of the study.  In the second article’s conclusion showed that further research was definitely needed to have better outcomes.  If would also play a vital role in deciding if the correlations could be stronger. 

            In my outline the introductory paragraph with cited information will be found under the section labeled introduction.  Other information such as results, research methods, and the significance and importance of the subject will be found within in the main body.  I will have to re work the outline so it can be adjusted properly with this.

Bibliography

           1. Regehr, Cheryl, et al. “Acute stress and performance in police recruits.” Stress & Health: Journal of the International Society for the Investigation of Stress 24.4 (2008): 295-303. Academic Search Complete. EBSCO.

          2. Homant, Robert J., Daniel B. Kennedy, and Jimmy D. Howton. “Risk Taking and Police Pursuit.” Journal of Social Psychology 134.2 (1994): 213-221. Academic Search Complete. EBSCO

 

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