![\"Police](\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/policepsychologyblog.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/11\/oragutans.jpg\")
<\/a>whining constantly and not listening. You do something about her!\u201d his spouse says as she throws her hands up in the air. The cop thinks about the body he just pulled out of a car and applied first aid until the paramedics came. Or, how hard it was to keep a domestic incident out of the kitchen earlier in the day because that is where the knives are. Or, the three hours of paperwork either one of these situation caused and thinks a little kid whining just doesn\u2019t compare.<\/span><\/p>\nEveryone in the world makes comparisons. She\u2019s prettier than me. He\u2019s smarter than me. Her house is bigger than mine. His kids are more respectful than my kids. She\u2019s taller than me, and I\u2019m taller than him, if she wears heels, I will be embarrassed. We tend to compare everything in our own lives to other situations. It helps us put our own problems in perspective. It helps us rank our own successes against other people. It gives us something to which we can measure Cops make the same comparisons everyone else make: his partner is better than my partner; he gets paid more than I get paid; his gun is bigger than my gun (okay, maybe not so much that). But they also take these comparisons one step further. They look at every problem they encounter and measure it up against previous situations they\u2019ve been in. For instance, a shoplifting case that a cop is confronted with seems relatively trivial compared to the fatal crash he had to solve last week. Dealing with a man who ran a red light seems so insignificant when compared to the rape last night. Because cops experience some of the most extreme situations out there, their comparison scales get completely messed up. The high-end of their scale is much higher than a typical person\u2019s scales. This becomes a significant problem when they come home from work and take the scale with them.<\/span><\/p>\n At home, they are forced to measure average, day-to-day problems against the larger one\u2019s that law enforcement personnel deal with. When this occurs, the typical \u201chome\u201d problems definitely fall short. Killing a bee that got into the house is a small problem when compared to the company\u2019s finances collapsing, or the shooting<\/a> they witnessed that morning, or even the domestic abuse they had to put a stop to. And because of this, it becomes much easier to brush off such a problem, or say no<\/a> to a request.<\/span><\/p>\n This mindset can pose a serious problem both to their mental stability and their home life, creating a lot of police stress<\/u>. When they compare every single situation at home to a problem they encountered while on the job, of course their home problems will seem smaller. It is important for cops to understand that their spouse and their kids don\u2019t have the same scale of comparison. When your wife gets upset that you left the toilet seat up, and you brush it off as, \u201cno big deal\u201d compared to the other things you\u2019ve had to put up with this week, it sends the message to her that you don\u2019t care about her needs. Or you might hear \u201cyou\u2019re not validating my feelings\u201d if they have been watching a lot of TV therapists. You end up belittling the things that she finds concerning. When your kids ask you to pick them up from school, and you forget to get them on time, they can\u2019t brush it off as easily as you can. Sure, a cop can think, \u201cWhat\u2019s the big deal running a few minutes late?\u201d But to your kids, this can be huge.<\/span><\/p>\n In police psychology<\/u>, we need to understand that this problem stems completely from the fact that cops and other people in law enforcement have an entirely different scale of comparison, not because they lack sensitivity. To them, a \u201cbig problem\u201d is a murder. To an average person, a \u201cbig problem\u201d is when the pilot light goes off and the heat shuts off so you don\u2019t have hot running water for your shower in the morning, or when you can\u2019t do laundry because your spouse forgot to pick up detergent from the store last night. Because this scale is completely different, it is hard for cops to translate other people\u2019s concerns onto their own scale. While putting the toilet seat down may fall high on their wife\u2019s scale, it would barely make it onto a cop\u2019s scale when put in the context of the rest of the problems he\/she encounters. When you can learn how to adjust your scale to account for different degrees of work-problems and different degrees of home-problems, you are taking an enormous step in the right direction for your own mental health and your relationship.<\/span><\/p>\n<\/a>ourselves and see if we come out on top. It even helps us know what to expect in the future. This is a very natural thing to do, and it can even help you improve by demonstrating which areas you need to focus on and which areas are already your strengths. However, there is one major downside to such comparisons (aside from the obvious blow to your self-esteem), your \u201ccomparison\u201d scale can become incredibly skewed, especially when you encounter a wide range of situations, each with a different level of concern. Also, you can invalidate another person\u2019s problems and create stress for yourself. Nothing in real life can measure up to a catastrophic world full of people real problems. This is especially the case when it comes to police psychology<\/strong> and police stress<\/strong>.<\/span><\/p>\nPolice Psychology: Cop Comparisons<\/h2>\n
<\/a>3 Simple Steps: The Importance of Different Scales<\/h3>\n