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Police Psychology: The Police Brain

Posted: March 2, 2019 in Public Information Bureau
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Police Psychology:  The Police Brain

by Gary S. Aumiller. Ph.D.  ABPP

 

What if in the hiring process for police officers you could pick someone resistant to Post Traumatic Stress Disorder, have the best ability to function under pressure, make good quick decisions with better accuracy than normal people, and someone who can control bias against minority groups.  At the same time, you could pick people that are good at setting priorities, good at organizing events, good at weeding out distractions, and good at orchestrating outcomes.  In shoot-no shoot situations, they get better scores and make better decisions on protecting themselves.  Sounds like that might be valuable, huh?  This was the presentation at the IACP Psychological Services Section by a brilliant psychologist named Dr. Mark Zelig who advocated for some level neurological testing as an addition to the standard battery for testing policemen for departments.  It also happens to fall in line with some of my thoughts.  What if neurological testing could actually help predict who is better capable of doing the job? (more…)

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Police Psychology: Reproducibility

Posted: December 5, 2018 in Public Information Bureau
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Police Psychology:  Reproducibility

by Gary S. Aumiller, Ph.D.  ABPP

 

So, my 11-year old daughter had to do a science project earlier this year and she decided because her mother was constantly saying that playing on the IPad was hurting her, she would test out whether IPad play really had an impact on her attention span.  So, we set it up with three alternate forms of a neurological test, the Trail Making Test, a connect the dots type of activity, (okay I helped a little), one before, one in the middle and one at the end.  There was an hour and a half of Minecraft in-between each of the trials.  We got her friends over and measured the change from trial to trial, with both time and number of errors as the variables.  The results….well, I’ll get to that.

We start training kids from an early age on the rigors of scientific method and how to make a scientific study.  We train them how to test a theory and how to make a hypothesis.  We train them that science requires experiments to answer questions and learn more about our world.  What I think we forget to train them in is that one study does not provide a definitive answer but only a suggestion.  The ignorance of the statement that it is only a suggestion is how we come up with a bunch of “Fake Science” being reported and guiding our way of life. (more…)

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Police Psychology: Suicide Challenge

Posted: November 20, 2018 in Public Information Bureau
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Police Psychology:  Suicide Challenges

by Gary S. Aumiller, Ph.D.  ABPP

 

It’s just an image on a App.  They used a Japanese doll artist’s rendition of a horror figure, a girl that supposedly killed herself and is apparently haunting those who live.  Ah, who knows.  What is more important is she contacts young persons on the internet and asks them to download her.   Then she gives them instructions over the course of their interactions trying to gain information about them, or their parents, or do a variety of dangerous self-harm tasks, she makes bullying threats, shames them, then talks them into killing themselves.  It’s called the “MOMO SUICIDE CHALLENGE.”  Mostly ‘tweens and young teenagers play with her online.  My 11-year old knows about it.  Her friends do.  Most parents do not.  Many cops do not, YET!

The Blue Whale Hoax started in Russia.  It was the same sort of thing, a person interrupts you from Facebook or some other App and asks you to join them by giving them your phone number or by connecting as friends.  Then they slowly give you directions, Blue Whale had over 50 posts fed to you once a day, ending in asking you to kill yourself.  People have tied this to suicides around the world, but no one has evidence of a direct causal element.  Asking pre-teen kids to kill themselves – does it get any sicker than this? (more…)

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Police Psychology: Law Enforcement Longevity and Loss

Posted: January 3, 2018 in Public Information Bureau
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Police Psychology: Law Enforcement Longevity and Loss of Self

Michael Tavolacci, PhD

Peak Performance Biofeedback, Inc.

(The interpretation of statistics and the opinions expressed in this piece are the author’s own, not reflective of the website or the editor’s.)

Consider:

In 2011 65 police officers were shot and killed! (Violanti, 2012)

In 2011 147 police officers committed suicide! (Violanti, 2012)

Ironically, the sad reality is police officers commit suicide more frequently than the civilian population. Admittedly, there are a myriad of possible explanations for the statistics, access to firearms being among the most commonly cited factors. I would suggest there is an important change that takes place in an individual who, previously determined to be of sound mind, commits suicide, weapon access notwithstanding. Degradation of self-worth, loss of hope, and feelings of helplessness are commonly understood to be elements in suicide and must have been prompted by some new variable in the officer’s life. Once the decision has been reached the weapon is merely a tool to do the job as there are various ways to end one’s life.

The Cumulative Career Traumatic Stress (CCTS) detailed by Marshall speaks directly to the hopelessness that accompanies suicide. I envision the three concepts of the suicide dynamic as the legs of a stool. As Marshall suggests that the officer’s sense of hopelessness is derived from constant, never-ending, stress, I see the leg weakening, at risk of collapse. The leg that represents the helplessness of suicide emerges as officers come to feel they cannot free themselves from the urge to help mankind, in the face of insurmountable cynicism for the very same. The third and final leg of the stool, worthlessness, represents the diminished public support perceived by most officers as they are often vilified for their mistakes and seen as representative of an increasingly distrusted government. (more…)

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Police Psychology: Active Shooter Events and News Media Reporting

Posted: September 7, 2017 in Public Information Bureau
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Police Psychology:  Active Shooter Events and News Media Reporting

Philip J. Swift, Ph.D.

It is well known that Active Shooter Events (ASE) constitute a threat to public safety in the United States. The overwhelming goal of an Active Shooter Offender(s) (ASO) is to murder and injury as many people as possible before being denied additional victims, even though the offender’s justification for committing an Active Shooter Event (ASE) varied from offender to offender. In the study “Active Shooter Event Severity, Media Reporting, Offender Age, and Location” I predicted that there was a correlation between the rate of news media reporting about an ASE, occurring in the United States between April 20, 1999, and June 15, 2016, and the severity of the subsequent ASE. I further predicted that the age and the regional location of the offender (ASO) would moderate the predicted relationship between the dependent and independent variables.  A lot of scientific talk, but let me explain. (more…)

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