Person. indiurd.Dr# Vol. 5, No. 2. pp. 233-236, 1984 Prtnted in Great Britain. All rights reserved 0191-8869/84$3.00 + 0.00 Copyright 0 1984 Pergamon Press Ltd zyxwvutsrqp NOTES AND SHORTER COMMUNICATIONS Fear of ‘failure’ and ‘tissue damage’ in police recruits, constables, sergeants and senior officers GKLI H. GUDJONSSCIN Department of Psychology, Institute of Psychiatry, De Crespigny Park, Denmark Hill, London SE5 8AF, England (Received 10 Augusf 1983) Summary-This study investigates the effects of occupational experiences on the pattern of fears among groups of British male police officers. Two categories of fears were studied: (1) fear of failure and negative evaluation; (2) fear of tissue damage and bodily harm. The former was expected to increase with police experience and seniority, whereas the latter should decrease due to greater exposure in uivo and limited opportunities for avoidance behaviour. The Ss comprised 72 police recruits, 62 constables, 30 sergeants and 93 senior officers, The hypotheses were confirmed, suggesting clear group differences among police officers in the pattern of fears which was related to police experience and seniority. The Fear scores were found to correlate significantly with neuroticism as measured by the EPQ. INTRODUCIION There is a growing awareness within the British police that occupational stress and its related problems require attention. It is recognized that some British police officers are subjected to considerable occupational demands arising from numerous sources. The origin and consequences of these demands or stressors have not been well documented. In addition, police officers are commonly expected to be tough, masculine and imperturbable and to possess exceptional coping skills. Stress-related problems may be construed by police officers and the public as unacceptable weakness. Consequently stress-related problems in police officers may be denied or ignored. Greater knowledge of some of the factors related to ‘police stress’ could help to draw attention to certain problem areas, Blackmore (1978) argues that four types of stressors are frequently found in police work. These relate to ‘external’ stress (e.g. negative public attitutde), ‘organizational’ stress (e.g. arbitrary rules and bureaucracy), ‘performance’ stress (e.g. having to cope with demanding and frightening situations) and ‘personal’ stress (e.g. marital problems). The purpose of the present study was to investigate aspects of performance-related fears in British police recruits, constables, sergeants and senior officers. Within the police force certain skills and behaviours are valued and rewarded accordingly. The reward may consist of praise from colleagues and the public, with the resulting increase in self-esteem and self-estimate. A more tangible reward would involve being given increased responsibility and promotion. Those who are deficient in the valued skills and behaviours may be punished in two different ways. First, they are not allowed to receive the rewards they would otherwise attain. Second, they may be directly punished by losing their job, being demoted in rank or position or being disciplined ano sentenced to prison. The basic assumption behind this study was that the pattern of fears which police officers experience are affected by occupational experiences. Occupational socialization may cause some fears to increase whereas others are likely to decrease. ‘Fear of failure’ and ‘fear of tissue damage’ are two categories of fear that are likely to be differently affected by occupational demands. The former is commonly associated with achievement-related motivation (McClelland, Atkinson, Clark and Lowell, 1953; Atkinson and Raynor, 1974; Saltoun, 1980) and may be defined as ‘non-attainment of a prescribed standard’ (Birney, Burdick and Teevan, 1969). Non-attainment takes on an aversive quality and becomes to be feared, when it leads to an aversive experience. The model developed by Birney et al. (1969), suggests three ingredients which are particularly relevant to the magnitude of fear of failure within an occupational setting: (I) the stronger the acceptance of responsibility for the non-attainment, the greater the fear of failure; (2) the greater the probability of non-attainment occurring the stronger the fear of failure; (3) when aversive consequences (e.g. external punishment) are made contingent on non-attainment, then the fear of failure will increase with the size of the punishment. The above theoretical framework leads to the following hypotheses regarding British police officers: (i) Fear of failure is directly associated with the degree of social responsibility the individual officer possesses. In addition, the more he accepts responsibility for non-attainment the greater the fear of failure. Both of these factors would be expected to be related to rank; the higher the rank the greater the fear of failure. (ii) Failures and mistakes in police work tend to be strongly disapproved of within the British police force and may lead to aversive consequences. The evidence for this assumption is based on the author’s extensive contact with British police otTicers in his capacity as a regular lecturer at the Police Staff College, Bramshill. Furthermore, recent public demands for increased accountability, the wide publicity that police mistakes commonly attract, disciplinary proceedings within the police service and the legal repercussions that sometimes follow police officers’ mistakes, suggest that failures and mistakes potentially may have very aversive consequences. Therefore, fear of failure and negative evaluation are likely to increase with police experience and seniority rather than the reverse as police officers become more aware of the aversive consequences of potential mistakes and failures. 233