Response decision, emotions, and victimization of police officers

Abstract

This study explores the question of whether response decision and situation-dependent emotions, concepts of the Social Information Processing model of Crick and Dodge (1994), are useful in explaining differences involving the victimization of police officers. Officers from five regional police forces in the Netherlands completed a digital questionnaire, based partially on the Social Information Processing Interview. Results indicated that victimization involving verbal violence, threats, and physical violence were associated with response decision but not with negative emotions. Police officers who had more negative outcome expectations of aggressive or assertive responses, or who selected an aggressive rather than a passive or assertive response, were more likely to report being a victim of violence than were other police officers. Not all results were as hypothesized, and associations were discussed in the context of police officers’ work situations, protocols, and training.