Workbook

POLICE
and
PSYCHOLOGY
LIU Cheuk Yik Regina 53904346
Cheng Hoi Man 54794163
Cheung Ka Wai 54799761
Chia Chen Hsuan 54051451
Lam Chak Hei 54067887

Contents
1. Introduction of police p. 2
2. Police culture p. 3
3. Influence to police p. 8
4. Stresses of police p. 11
5. Emotion of police p. 17
6. Prejudice in police p. 21
7. Reference P.27
1

1. Introduction of police
Law is used to regulate what we
can do and what we cannot do in order
to create a safe and fair society. To ensure
the social order and we all obey to the law,
police is then needed. Police officers’
primary duty is to protect people and
property. And according to the Bureau of
Labor Statistics, common duties of a police
officer include patrolling designated areas,
enforcing laws, answering calls for help,
arresting individuals suspected of
committing crimes, issuing citations,
testifying in court, detecting criminal cases,
controlling the stream of people in events or
protests and conducting traffic stops. So
police act as an important role in the city
to keep social harmony.
2

2. Police culture
2.1 Onion concept
Onion concept will be used and illustrated in the following
in order to show the culture among police officers. Values
will also be analyzed with Hofstede's cultural dimensions
theory.
Badge, uniform, jargon
B
Fallen officers
Worship Guan
Gong
B
B
Cultural
Dimension
Theory
There are number of layers in the onion concept which
represent different features when viewing a culture.
3

SYMBOLS
The outer layer is symbols which is the most
superficial layer and can be easily mimicked
(Hofstede, Hofstede, & Minkov, 2010). The example of
this layer for police officers would be the uniform
they wear, the jargons they use as well as their
badges.
HEROES
Heroes of that particular culture makes up the second
layer of the model. Heroes refer to whoever has an
influence on the group of people (Hofstede, Hofstede,
& Minkov, 2010). Those fallen police officers would
be considered as the heroes in the task force.
RITUALS
The second most inner layer is rituals that are unique
to the culture which worshiping the god of war (Guan
Gong) would be an example (Hofstede, Hofstede, &
Minkov, 2010).
VALUES
The center of the onion is the values that the culture
upholds. This layer however is difficult to recognize
because it is embedded deep down in the culture
(Hofstede, Hofstede, & Minkov, 2010).
4

2.2 Values- Hofstede's Cultural Dimensions Theory
We have picked three aspects in the Hofstede's cultural
dimensions theory. The theory mainly describes the
values of a particular culture and how those values affect
their behaviours.
POWER DISTANCE
Power distance refers to the extent of less powerful
members in an organization perceive, expect and accept
that the power is distributed unequally (Qian, & Li, 2015).
Police tend to have a high level of power distance mainly
due to the strict hierarchy. Police is a professional that
highly emphasizes on rankings and status and people
project different level of respect towards supervisors and
colleagues. Besides, high level of obedience and discipline
also contribute to the high level of power distance.
5

UNCERTAINTY AVOIDDANCE
Uncertainty avoidance means to what extent the members
are comfortable with changes and unknown situations
(Dorfman, & Howell, 1988). Uncertainty avoidance among
police officers is relatively low. The reason of that is
because it is rather dangerous to be in uncertain
situations where officers are not able to control. Therefore,
officers receive large amount of training in better
handling uncertain environments. Officers also need to
follow protocols and rules to minimize the effects of
uncertainties.
COLLECTIVISM VS INDIVIDUALISM
Collectivism values interdependence relationships, group
cohesion and harmony (Lee, Beckert, & Goodrich, 2010).
Police department acts as a government body and officers
are members of the group. Officers tend to value
collectivism rather that individualism because they are
representing the department, therefore they need to
maintain the harmony within group. The idea of
collectivism is emphasized even at the beginning of the
training. All the team members will be punished when an
individual made a mistake. Individuals also need to seek
acceptance from other members, so they are more likely
to be collectivists.
6

COMMUNICATION
Chinese is a language which is indirect and high in context.
Indirect conversation aims in maintaining a harmonious
relationship with others and ignore the possibilities in
creating misunderstanding. High context communication
refers to the implicit communication with unclear details
and instructions. The gestures, voice and context maybe
include hidden agenda as well (Kim, Pan, & Park, 1998).
This however may not facilitate communication among
police officers as it usually takes more time and efforts to
understand the meaning behind the conversation. Police
officers should try to communicate in a more direct way
especially when there are emergencies.
7

3. What influences the police?
We are constantly influence by others on a daily basis.
Let’s discuss some influence factors that could possibly
influence our police officers.
1. Conformity
Conformity refers to the changes in behaviour or
opinion because of real or imagined pressure given
by groups or a person (Aronson, 2011). The first
type of conformity is informational influence which
an individual takes others’ opinion as a reference
and follows the information received. Police
officers especially who are newly recruited would
highly rely on the information given by others or
by observing others to adjust their own behaviour.
The second one is normative social influence which
people want to be accepted by the others. In our
example, police officers work in a team which they
would want to be accepted by teammates,
therefore, they could be easily influenced by the
others.
8

2. Compliance
Compliance refers
to the behavior changes because of others’
direct requests, either a person or a group
(Griggs, 2014). People do that because they
want to maintain a good relationship with
others or they want to receive help from others
in the future. The example of compliance within
the taskforce could be from colleagues at the
same rank. Co-workers might want to change
shift with another employee, he/she may be
reluctantly agreed because they want to
maintain a positive relationship with others.
3. Obedience
Obedience basically means the behaviour
changes because of an order given by
authority which obey is the only option
(Aronson, 2011). This is probably the most
common type of influential force in the
police department because of the strict
hierarchy. For police officers, they normally
do not get to raise objection when they
receive an order.
9

Deindividuation
Deindividuation refers to people who lose their
individuality when they are in a group (Wilson, &
Brewer, 1993). Wearing police uniform is a way to
enhance the effect of deindividuation because it is
more difficult to identify an individual when they all
dressed the same. When police officers are in a team,
they might lose self-control or moral restraints and
feel unaccountable for their behaviour (Donner,
Fridell, & Jennings, 2016). One example would be
police officers act more aggressively than they have
to in dealing with protests. Police officers who are
deindividualized may also experienced responsibility
diffusion which increased the chances of performing
undesirable behaviour.
10

4. Stress of police
1. Stress level of police
Many police officers suffer from distress, which
is a kind of bad and negative stress, people will
feel anxious and worry. This is mainly a result of
excess of adaptive demand placed upon us.
From A cross-sectional study conducted from
June to August 2014, above one tenth of the
participants reported to have at least one of the
chronic diseases. In a study done by Selokar et
al., 18%, 6%, and 2% of participants reported of
having hypertension, diabetes, and tuberculosis,
respectively, and three-fourth were addicted to
tobacco use. (Selokar et al., 2011)
2. Sources of stress
1. Environmental Source
2. Psychological Source
3. Social Source
11

1. Environmental Source
For environmental source of stress, it is mainly related
to working schedule, financial status and illness. Firstly,
police are stressed because of their job nature. For
example, police officers are constantly exposed to
danger which threatens their safety and that creates
huge amounts of stress. In addition, dues to the fact that
Chinese society is considered as a high power distance
society, police need to obey and strictly follow the
orders from their supervisors even if they don’t want to.
The hierarchy also projects stress to people who are
involved. Another job related stress factor would be the
difficulties in delivering bad news to citizens. Cops
sometimes need to deliver death notification to victims’
families which could seriously affect their emotions.
Also, most of the officers need to work on shifts,
including night shifts, this make them hard to spend
quality time with families and friends. Besides, working
on shifts could also affect their functions of circadian
rhythms (see below for definition) and cause different
levels of stress on individuals. Many of them also suffer
from fatigue since police need to pay their full attention
during work, be alert of the surroundings and mobilize
energy. Besides, they may even need to be aware of
what is going on around them when they are off shift, in
order to maintain social order.
12

Circadian rhythms A system that controls our
daily internal fluctuations which everyone’s
internal clock is different. Shift work could
adversely affect one’s circadian rhythms and
cause negative impacts. This could also be a
stressor for the police officers. For those who
need to work on shift, they should expose
themselves to lots of light while working which
however could be difficult for those who work
at the field.
2. Psychological Source
For psychological source of stress, police may feel stress
because sometimes they failed to protect someone or
catch the suspects. They may also have a hard time in
controlling their emotion while they are in work. For
example, during the Occupy Central movement, police
need to conceal their feelings, they still need to perform
their job duties whether or not they support this
movement. This may be one of the stimuli which cause
the distress. Besides, fear of lawsuits is one of the
psychological stressors too. Most of the police officers
believe that they have to act as a role model in the
society, it is important for them to strictly follow the
laws and regulations. However, one may be fear that
he/she cannot comply with those rules and this belief
might as well be a psychological source of stress to the
officers.
13

3. Social Source
Other than that, social aspect is also a stressor to police.
Police may suffer from prejudice from citizens. Referring
to the prejudice topic we mentioned, lots of citizens
have bias on police, police may feel stressful as they are
not that kind of people mentioned by those residents.
Lastly, especially for female police officers, they also
suffer from another kind of stress that male officers do
not, which is the disapproval from public. As people
always have stereotyped thinking in the job of police,
many people think that female should not be a police as
police is a really dangerous job which is not suitable for
women. Therefore, female police officers’ friends or
families may disapprove them for joining the task force
due to their bias.
14

3. Reactions to stress
Psychological reactions
First of all, for psychological reaction, police might
experience the diminishing hedonic capacity which
means they are less able to experience happiness and
pleasure. Regarding to their salaries, benefits, and job
satisfaction, most of the officers are unhappy with their
jobs and almost three quarters of the officers quit
(McIntyre,1990).
Cognitive stress
Police officers who are experiencing stress may also be
vulnerable to cognitive reactions, such as poor
judgement, unable to concentrate, questioning one’s
ability.
15

Emotional reactions
In terms of emotional reactions, officers might not be
able to control their temper and emotions at work or at
other places. They might also ab anxious about work
even though they are well aware of the work duties.
Depression could also be another emotional reaction if
cops are under stress.
Behavioural reactions
For behavioural reaction, police may experience
symptoms of the last stage of the General Adaption
Syndrome, which include exhaustion. Other than that,
they may also suffer from headaches, fatigue, pounding
heart, lower sex drive, overeating, alcohol and drug
abuse and insomnia (Leeds, 2009)
16

5. Emotion of police
According to Gerrig and
Zimbardo, emotion is “a
complex pattern of changes, including
physiological arousal, feelings, cognitive
processes, and behavioral reactions, made
in response to a situation perceived to
be personally significant.” (2002).
1. Contemporary Model of Emotion
By definition, it is no doubt that police will have different
emotions, especially behavioral reactions, from normal
citizen. It is meaningful to figure out the differences and
why the the differences exist. According to Coon and
Mitterer, emotion appraisal, or cognitive appraisal,
means “evaluating the personal meaning of a stimulus or
situation” (2011). And Lazarus, a psychologist who
stressed the emotion appraisal is important, had
suggested a model of emotion called Contemporary
Model of Emotion by using the above concept as the core
of it. The model suggested that any emotional stimulus or
situation we met will be evaluated by our own mind
firstly, and then we will have relevant bodily arousal,
behavioral respond, emotional expression and emotional
feelings according to the appraisal we made.
17

Example
Below, we will illustrate the model using Yau Ma Tei gang
fight which happened on 2 October 2016.
Emotional
Stimulus
Yau Ma Tei
gang fight
Cognitive
Appraisal
Citizen: RUN!!
vs
Police: my duty
to stop them
Bodily
arousal
Behavioural
response
Emotional
expression
Emotional
feelings
Bodily arousal
Both citizens and officers will be alert and heart
rate increases, but the intensity may vary as
police officers received sufficient training and
they already know what to do.
18

Behavioural response
Citizens would sense the danger and probably
just run away immediately. Police officers,
however have to perform their duty and will
try to stop the fight by all means.
Emotional expression
Citizens would show their fear on their faces,
some of them might cry. Police need to conceal
their facial expressions even though they are
also scared.
Emotional feelings
Citizens would be scared and nervous but
police officers might be less nervous because
they know they have sufficient tools to solve
the issue.
19

With the illustration using the above model,
we found that the major differences
between police and normal citizens are the
behavioral response and the emotional
expression. The differences are mainly due
to the cognitive appraisal about the duty
and characteristic of police which are
unique to them. Bodily arousal and
emotional feelings are mainly affected by
the common cognitive appraisal of danger,
so there are not much differences but only
the intensity as police are supposed to be
well-trained to face those situation.
20

6. Prejudice
1. What is prejudice?
According to McLeod (2008), prejudice is an
unjustified or incorrect attitude (usually negative)
towards an individual based solely on the
individual’s membership of a social group.
Discrimination is prejudice in the form of action
and behavior and it has caused some serious
issues in the police department, especially racism
in the U.S. An investigation done by U.S justice
department in 2016 indicated that racism exists in
different cities such as San Francisco. There are
multiple reasons that U.S police are racist against
black people.
21

2. Police’s roots of prejudice
Social roots
In American history, African American has
always been struggling in lower class level.
They generally perform poorer in school or in
other social aspects comparing to others
because of their social status, thus many of
them make a living by selling drug or other
illegal activities. Therefore, police tend to think
and believe“Black people = Criminal” (Levitt &
Dubner, 2005).
Emotional roots
Emotional root is about finding a scapegoat to
be looked down when one is in frustration. For
example, a police officer encountered some
negative incidents at work, he/she might just
find a scapegoat and unleash the anger or
frustration on that person. Another possible
reason why African American are often picked
as scapegoats is that they might not be able to
seek legal advice due to financial and other
reasons.
22

Cognitive roots
Police might overestimate the similarity of
black communities. They categorize
African American based on their skin
colour and treated them with unjustified
manner. Sometimes this mindset might
effectively prevent an actual crime but
unfortunately it will also create other
social issues or injustice among the
society.
3. Discrimination
Affect
I feel this guy is
about to do
something illegal
Stimuli:
Seeing a
black
person
ATTITUDE
Behaviour
I will go and
check him out
Cognition
I think he is
definitely
carrying a gun or
drugs
23

4. Common prejudice against police
Police officers’ negative attitude
Some citizens might have unpleasant
experiences when they interacted with police
officers. This might include impolite, lazy or
unhelpful officers. Therefore, people would have
a false impression that all the other officers are
the same. This leads to awful attitude projected
from citizens when they meet other police
officers in the future.
Scandals
The public is influenced by the news and
scandals reported from the media. Many citizens
believe that the majority of the officers are
involved in all types of illegal activities including
corruption, bribery, gambling and
prostitution. Having exposed to large amount of
news and reports made people believe that
every officer is involved in such behaviours.
24

Police brutality
The recent all over news incident in America
which a cop killed an African-American make
people believe police were acting violently.
Obviously, polices should react strongly or even
violently against dangerous criminals. However,
violent measures should not be taken in every
situation. However, these sad incidents have left a
negative impression towards the police.
Political Control
Police are sometimes used for suppressing the
objection in authoritarian regime like Germany.
Lately, in some democratic countries, police are
accused of attacking protesters in different events
and the citizens believe the government
commanded the police to do so( Aljazeera, 2016).
People prefer to think that the police are
controlled by the government rather than
believing they are simply maintaining the order of
the society.
25

5. Citizens’ roots of prejudice towards police
Cognitive roots
People learn from the mass media that many police
officers choose to hurt innocent citizens, even kill
African American by shooting. They did not spend time
in understanding why police act in a certain way, then
just regard all the police are violent.
Emotional roots
Some people are annoyed when they receive a fine
from the police, so they might express their anger or
disappointment to the cops by insulting or mocking
them. Moreover, there were cases which people just
randomly attack some officers who were not the
culprit of killing an African American. In the
“Assaulting Dallas police officers event”, a man shot
and killed the police officers who were on duty (CNN,
2016). The man who committed the act obviously
possess prejudice that all white male police will hurt or
kill black men; Therefore, when they saw any white
male officers, they might long to attack them by
revenge.
Social roots
Compared to barbaric times, nowadays, people seek
for peaceful and nonviolent ways to solve social
problems. So, seeing the police subduing the criminal
violently on TV made people who encourage nonviolence
believe that they are all fierce.
26

6. Steps to reduce prejudice
1. Reflect
Police should think about whether or not they have
an impression of all African American are
criminals. They should be honest to themselves in
order to better reflect the thoughts of themselves.
Citizens at the same time should also be aware of
any opinions, either positive or negative, that they
possess towards the police. Also, everyone should
remember human lives are all equal and we should
treat each other with dignity and respect.
2. Contact
By interacting with the police, people will
understand more about the police department in
general and also realize that there are many good
police officers out there.
On the other hand, police officers who falsely
believe that all African American are criminals
should proactively reach out to the community and
try to put themselves into their shoes.
27

3. Learn
It is important to know the reasons behind the
actions of others. For those who promote nonviolence
need to realize and understand know
that violence is necessary to subdue the criminal
in some circumstances after realize police’s
difficulties (Pranzo, n.d.).
Police officers will need to understand more about
the background and the obstacles that African
Americans are facing. Being friends with African
American also can help reduce prejudice in both
ways (Greater Good in Action, 2015).
28

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