Police officers have a challenging and dangerous job that requires certain personality traits to handle the stresses and meet the demands. Research has found common personality characteristics among police officers, which have been called the “police personality.” This refers to a set of traits that are particularly well-suited for police work. Understanding the police personality can provide insight into improving police recruitment, training, and practices.
What are the key traits of the police personality?
Several key traits tend to be more prominent in police officers compared to the general population:
- Cynicism and suspicion
- Social isolation
- Solidarity
- Conservatism
- Machismo
- Pragmatism
- Aggression
- Self-assuredness
Cynicism and suspicion help officers maintain safety and detect crimes. However, it can contribute to negative attitudes about the public. Social isolation comes from shift work, trauma exposure, and the “us vs. them” mentality between police and citizens. Solidarity refers to the strong loyalty and bonding between officers. Conservatism aligns with following rules and procedures. Machismo indicates an emphasis on masculinity, toughness, and seeking action.
Pragmatism involves focusing on concrete goals and tasks rather than emotions. Aggression helps officers gain control in confrontations. However, it can lead to excessive force. Finally, self-assuredness provides confidence needed for the job, but too much can appear as arrogance.
What causes the police personality?
The police personality stems from both individual characteristics attracted to policing and socialization processes on the job. Certain people with particular traits may be drawn to police work for the action, authority, or opportunity to help others. However, socialization pressures shape personalities further.
Training emphasizes danger, solidarity, and outsmarting criminals. This can heighten cynicism, isolation, and masculinity. Shift work reduces social circles. Negative public encounters promote an “us vs. them” mentality. Repeated trauma exposure leads to emotional callousing. The police culture reinforces specific attitudes, values, and behaviors.
Over time, continual experiences and social pressures mold personalities to align with the police role. Both self-selection and socialization shape the common traits seen in the police personality.
Positive Aspects
While the police personality has concerning negative effects, it also has adaptive benefits for meeting the demands of the job.
Helps Officers Manage Stress and Trauma
Policing exposes officers to danger, tragedy, conflict, and human suffering on a regular basis. To handle these intense stressors, officers often develop emotional detachment, gallows humor, cynicism, and callousness. These traits help protect against distress, anxiety, and burnout. The solidarity and machismo of the police culture also gives officers strength to cope with the job’s challenges.
Boosts Confidence and Decisiveness
Quick, confident decision-making is essential in emergencies and confrontations. Traits like pragmatism, self-assuredness, and aggression give officers the assertiveness to take charge and command situations. Self-doubt or hesitation could be life-threatening.
Enables Focus on Tasks and Goals
Police work involves many rules, protocols, and concrete objectives. The pragmatic thinking style of the police personality facilitates focusing directly on the job at hand. Less emotional sensitivity helps officers carry out required duties and solve problems in an efficient, analytical manner.
Promotes Bonding, Loyalty, and Safety
The solidarity and isolation of the police personality strengthen cohesion among officers. Having each other’s backs builds essential trust for dangerous situations. Group loyalty enables coordinating effectively as a team. The “us vs. them” mentality also heightens vigilance against potential threats.
So while some aspects of the police personality may be concerning, other parts have clear functional benefits for managing the demands of police work. The traits help officers be resilient, decisive, task-focused, and bonded like a family.
Negative Aspects
However, the police personality also has adverse effects on police-community relations, bias, and misconduct.
Harms Community Relations
The cynicism, social isolation, conservatism, and “us vs. them” outlook of the police personality generates negative attitudes toward citizens. Viewing the public as potentially deceptive or dangerous creates a harmful distrust. Officers may feel that no one understands their perspective except fellow police. This precludes building connections with the community.
Increases Biased Policing
When officers expect certain groups to be more criminal or dangerous, it leads to racial/ethnic profiling and over-policing of those groups. For example, cynicism and suspicion linked to the police personality can enhance implicit bias against young men of color. Officers are more likely to interpret ambiguous behaviors as threatening based on biased assumptions.
Promotes Excessive Force
Certain traits like aggression, boldness, and machismo increase the likelihood that officers will use extreme or unwarranted force. Believing physical dominance is essential can lead to overly punitive responses. Lack of empathy, detachment from emotions, and dehumanization of others also enable violence against civilians.
Discourages Speaking Out
The intense loyalty and solidarity among officers makes them reluctant to report each other’s misconduct. Challenging inappropriate actions violates the code of silence. Officers who break ranks face retaliation and isolation. This allows abusive patterns to continue unchecked.
Overall, the problematic aspects of the police personality undermine public trust, community relations, impartial policing, proportional use of force, and accountability. Reform is needed to shift police culture in a more positive direction.
Improving Police Recruitment
Changing police personality traits starts with re-evaluating recruitment and hiring practices.
Screen for Multiple Traits
Psychological screening should assess a broad range of personality dimensions relevant to policing. Look beyond just physical competencies or cognitive abilities. Evaluate psychological traits, motivations, and biases that predict job performance, community relations, and abuse risk.
Emphasize Interpersonal Skills
Seek recruits who show emotional intelligence, communication abilities, inclusiveness, cooperativeness, and aptitude for de-escalation. Prioritize social skills over aggressiveness, machismo, or dominance. The ideal officer relates well to diverse communities.
Increase Diversity
Actively recruit and hire more women, minorities, and people from different socioeconomic backgrounds. This diversity challenges the insular culture and brings wider perspectives. It also helps build community trust and empathy.
Attract Service-Oriented Recruits
Market policing as community service and problem-solving to draw civic-minded applicants interested in helping others. De-emphasize action and fighting crime, which attract danger-seekers with domineering tendencies.
Thoughtfully screening and selecting recruits can reshape the police personality profile over time toward more constructive traits.
Improving Police Training
After thorough recruitment, police academy training and field training are also key for influencing socialization.
Teach Interpersonal Skills
Train recruits in conflict resolution, de-escalation techniques, cross-cultural communication, ethics, empathy, and positive community relations. These skills can counteract development of callousness, cynicism, and an “us vs. them” mentality.
Promote a Guardian Mindset
Orient recruits toward a guardian role of public service and protecting communities, not just fighting wars against crime. Have trainees engage with community members to understand diverse perspectives and build empathy.
Reinforce Ethics and Inclusiveness
Provide ongoing, immersive training on minimizing bias, upholding civil rights, and valuing diversity. Reward ethical, fair conduct. Make clear that discrimination is unacceptable.
Allow Emotional Processing
Counteract detachment by encouraging recruits to discuss distressing experiences and process trauma in healthy ways. Normalize seeking mental health support when needed.
The right training approach can nurture officers’ compassion, critical thinking, and connection to citizens rather than over-identifying as tough, isolated enforcers.
Reforming Police Culture
In addition to recruitment and training, the organizational police culture must also evolve.
Discourage Excessive Force
Implement early intervention systems to identify and counsel officers who use repeated or disproportionate force. Create clear policies and accountability for de-escalation. Make clear that restraint is a greater skill than domination.
Increase Outreach and Partnerships
Have officers regularly participate in community events, dialogues, and collaborative projects. Positive interactions with diverse groups can reduce bias and “us vs. them” attitudes.
Strengthen Accountability
Establish oversight boards with community representation. Protect whistleblowers who report misconduct. Rigorously investigate problematic incidents and officers. Show that abusive actions bring consequences, not impunity.
Support Wellness Resources
Provide mental health care, peer counseling, stress management, family services, and wellness programs. Enable healthy coping rather than emotional hardening. Promote work-life balance and social connections beyond the insular police culture.
Implementing these strategies organization-wide can shift workplace values, assumptions, and norms in a more constructive direction over time.
Key Takeaways
The police personality refers to a distinctive set of traits commonly seen among officers, shaped by both self-selection and socialization pressures of the job. While some attributes help officers manage stress and meet occupational demands, others negatively impact public relations, fairness, and abuse. Improving police recruitment, training, accountability, and culture can gradually reshape police personalities to be more compassionate, ethically courageous, and invested in communities. With consistent positive reforms, police can maintain the functional benefits of their personality while minimizing adverse effects.
Conclusion
The police personality gives officers strengths but also contributes to problems. Balancing the positives while reducing harms requires holistic changes to increase diversity, encourage constructive traits, build community bonds, and support officer well-being. With care and effort, policing can better embody transparency, restraint, and protection for all people.