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…)