Correlations between Hand Test variables and patrolman performance.

While law-enforcement agencies have made great technological gains in recent decades, surprising little personality research has focused on the optimum selection of the principal human component of police departments, namely, the police officer. Studies have indicated that, while most local police forces do employ psychological tests, practically all the instruments used were designed to assess intelligence (Oglesby, 1957; Narrol & Levin, 1963; Blum, 1964; Baehr, Furcon, & Froernel, 1969). Unfortunately, intelligence has proven to be an unsatisfactory single measure of patrolmen's performance, yielding validity coefficients generally no higher than .25. The present study is an attempt to assess the relationship among personality dimensions as measured by the Hand Test, a projective technique, and supervisor's evaluations of patrolmen's performance, in an effort to determine whether factors other than inrelligence can be used to predict success as a police officer. The entire force of 42 patrolmen of the Cuyahoga Falls Police Deparunent were tested in this study. The mean age was 32.2 yr. (SD of 8.7); tenure averaged 6.9 yr. Ss were independently rank-ordered by four lieutenants on the over-all criterion of successhl performance of their duties as patrolmen. The lieutenants were in excellent over-all agreement, a statistical comparison of their rankings yielding a Kendall W of .91 (p < .01). Therefore, the original four rankings for each patrolman were averaged and then reranked to provide an over-all, composite evaluation. The Hand Test was administered to each officer individually and performance rankings were then correlated with 21 Hand Test variables using Spearman's Rho. As shown in Table 1, six of the 21 Hand Test variables correlated significantly with the criterion (p < .05). Interpreting these results at face value, according to the Hand Test manual (Wagner, 1962), the more successful policeman would be less dependent upon other people for need fulfillment, less overtly aggressive, more environmentally oriented, less fearful, and less concerned with relating to people than his less successful counterpart. These findings seem logical when the quotidian, unglamorous nature of police work is considered. The policeman must be prepared to handle responsibly a variety of situations, many of which are environmental in nature, such as checking doors and driving a car. Furthermore, overt displays of aggression, reliance on other people, fear, and too much interpersonal sensitivity could prove deleterious to the efficient performance of his routine duties. The efficacy of the Hand Test in predicting behavior for a nonpathological group is probably attributable to the highly reliable performance criterion and to the fact that the test is a "narrow band" instrument which directly reflects action tendencies which are close to the surface and apt to be expressed in behavior (Wagner, 1971, p. 429). At any rate, it appears that personality factors do contribute to successful parrolmen's performance and 'Appreciation is expressed to Chief Donald J. Brown and Dr. Robert Kirkhart for their help in securing this population.