Avoidant But Not Avoiding: The Mediational Role of Anticipated Regret in Police Decision-making

Abstract

Police officers make significant stress-inducing decisions daily. Given the influence of emotions on police work, we examine the impact of anticipated regret on the decision-making process using a cross-cultural sample. Officers were asked to hypothetically make one of two job-related decisions of varying degrees of severity: shoot a threatening suspect (or not), or issue a speeding ticket (or not). Participants’ avoidant decision-making style, feelings of anticipated regret and predicted actions were analyzed. Results supported the mediated influence of anticipated regret on the relationship between avoidant decision-making style and avoidant decisions. Decision quality was also explored as an outcome which revealed a similar mediating influence of anticipated regret. While we found no significant cross-cultural outcome differences, we did notice differences regarding the use of avoidant decision-making style between the two samples. Implications are discussed.