DOI: 10.3886/icpsr38687.v1
title: Improving Officer Decision-Making: Can Personality Predict Outcomes in Use of Force Decisions? North Carolina and South Carolina, 2018-2020
title: Version 1

description: The current study sought to examine the impact of select psychological, cognitive, professional experience and social network factors on police officers' decisions to use force. Additionally, the study examined the impact of a brief citizen education intervention (i.e. the completion of police officer training simulations) on citizens' attitudes toward police and use of force. All
participants completed three training scenarios inside a firearms training
simulator.
A sample of law enforcement officers and civilians took part in the study. Participants completed a series of questionnaires designed to measure, among other things:

Positive and Negative Emotionality
Need for Cognition
Cognitive Reflection
Professional experiences as a police officer (law enforcement participants only)
Size of friendship networks within the workplace (law enforcement participants only)
Perceptions of how their friendship networks would be impacted if
the participant were to use excessive force (law enforcement participants
only)
Pre-post measures of attitudes toward police (civilian participants only)
description: This study sought to examine the impact of select psychological, cognitive, social, and professional factors on police officers' decisions to use force. A secondary focus was to examine the impact of first-hand experiences with making use of force decisions on citizens' attitudes toward the police.
description: All participants completed three training scenarios inside a firearms training simulator. Participants interacted with noncompliant suspects on video screens and could attempt to resolve the conflict with de-escalation tactics, non-lethal force options (pepper spray or taser), or lethal force (firearm). All participants completed the same three scenarios, each with a separate task for the participant to complete. The tasks were:

Removing a homeless man with an apparent mental illness from the town park after hours (low threat encounter)
Subduing a suspect who is actively avoiding arrest and is about to stomp on a police officer who was pushed to the ground (medium threat)
Subduing a suspect who has overpowered a police officer and is holding a gun to the officer's head (high threat)

Data collected from these training exercises included:

Whether or not the participant used any type of force
If force was used, the length of time required to make that decision
The type of response tactic the participant used, be it de-escalation techniques, non-lethal force options (pepper spray or taser), or lethal force option

Finally, immediately before and after civilians completed the training scenarios, they completed a series of questions designed to measure their attitude toward police and police use of force. These questions can be grouped into four broad categories:

Civilians' impressions of the difficulty and dangerousness of police work
Civilians' views of police officer professionalism and decision making
Civilians' views on the appropriate level of force in various confrontational situations
Civilians' global perceptions of the police
description: Response Rates: All sworn officers from seven participating law enforcement departments were invited to participate. The total number of officers who were invited was 548. Of these, 117 officers (21%) were recruited into the study and completed some portion of the project; however, only 64 officers (11%) completed enough data elements to be included in the project.
Civilian residents of the selected county were invited to participate through social media, fliers, e-mails to businesses, etc. The target goal was to get 100 participating civilians which was met.
description: Presence of Common Scales: 
Multidimensional Personality Questionnaire - Brief Form (MPQ-BF)
Need for Cognition (NFC)
Cognitive Reflection Test
description: Datasets: 
DS1: Improving Officer Decision-Making: Can Personality Predict Outcomes in Use of Force Decisions? North Carolina and South Carolina, 2018-2020
description: The universe of sworn law enforcement officers across seven participating departments in North Carolina and South Carolina were targeted for this study. A convenience sample of officers responded to the recruitment materials.
description: coded video observation; on-site questionnaire; web-based surveyThere are a total of 167 respondents in the data file. Each respondent contributes three cases to the overall data file, one case for each of the three firearm training scenarios (see the variable <strong>SCENARIO</strong>). A total of 64 law enforcement officers participated across 7 de-identified departments; and 103 civilians were also surveyed.