A Reasonable Officer: Examining the Relationships Among Stress, Training, and Performance in a Highly Realistic Lethal Force Scenario

Abstract

Under conditions of physiological stress, officers are sometimes required to make split-second life-or-death decisions, where deficits in performance can have tragic outcomes, including serious injury or death and strained police–community relations. The current study assessed the performance of 122 active-duty police officers during a realistic lethal force scenario to examine whether performance was affected by the officer’s level of operational skills training, years of police service, and stress reactivity. Results demonstrated that the scenario produced elevated heart rates (i.e., 150 beats per minute), as well as perceptual and cognitive distortions, such as tunnel vision, commensurate with those observed in naturalistic use of force encounters. The average performance rating from the scenario was 59%, with 27% of participants making at least one lethal force error. Elevated stress reactivity was a predictor of poorer performance and increased lethal force errors. Level of training and years of police service had differential and complex effects on both performance and lethal force errors. Our results illustrate the need to critically reflect on police training practices and continue to make evidence-based improvements to training. The findings also highlight that while training may significantly improve outcomes, flawless performance is likely not probable, given the limits of human performance under stress. Implications for the objective reasonableness standard, which is used to assess the appropriateness of force in courts of law, are discussed.

Costs for Long-Term Health Care After a Police Shooting in Ontario, Canada

“…The costing algorithm did not include health care costs such as personal services (eg, private physiotherapy), material costs (eg, property damage), second survivor costs (eg, witnesses experiencing psychological trauma), or other losses in societal goods and services. Our study reports nothing about police training, staffing, supervision, funding, ammunition, or firearm model . Our findings did not include data on ethnicity, immigration, criminal record, or whether the use of force was justified .…”

Reducing racial bias and lethal force among Canadian police officers: Concrete recommendations for change.

“…While the degree of ecological validity and physical representativeness of simulated tasks can vary substantially (Koerner & Staller, 2021), simulations provide researchers with an opportunity to observe behaviours under naturalistic conditions that are high in psychological fidelity (i.e., capturing the operational realities and real-world demands faced by highly trained professionals “in the field”; Ward et al, 2006). To that end, police organizations and researchers around the world utilize reality-based simulations to evaluate various aspects of police behaviour, including complex tactical, arrest, self-defence skills, motor control, ability to make accurate decisions during stress and time pressure, and verbal communication skills (Baldwin et al, 2022; Bertilsson et al, 2020; Huhta et al, 2021; Nieuwenhuys et al, 2009).…”

“…We have demonstrated that reality-based scenarios elicit similar stress reactions that are present in police during UOF encounters in the real world (Andersen, Di Nota, et al, 2018; Andersen & Gustafsberg, 2016; Baldwin et al, 2019). Importantly, scientific evidence shows that elevated stress responses during reality-based scenarios are the most consistent contributor to police lethal force errors when also considering an officer’s level of training and years of service (Baldwin et al, 2022). Other research literature supports the potential risk that high stress reactivity, and a lack of training in adaptively regulating their stress responses, increase the likelihood that officers rely on implicit biases and intuitive cognitive strategies instead of their training, in turn promoting the use of deadlier force options over less lethal ones (Hine et al, 2018; O’Neill et al, 2018).…”

“…For example: (a) Williams et al state that better performance would be expected from more experienced officers. In reality, performance errors are observed even among highly trained and experienced officers in both field and training conditions (Baldwin et al, 2022; Huhta et al, 2021), with evidence for reinforced anti-Black bias among special unit officers who routinely engage with minority groups (Sim et al, 2013). (b) Williams et al state that Andersen et al (2023) propose a “problematic” (p. 147) interpretation of the recommendations by the Office of the Chief Coroner of Ontario (2017).…”

Pistol Shooting Performance Correlates with Respiratory Muscle Strength and Pulmonary Function in Police Cadets

“…When considering performance generally, psychological stress arousal can result in increased task errors and degradation of task accuracy [2,3]. Behavioral results in police studies show the detrimental effects of acute psychological stress on motor control or cognitive functions such as attention, perception, and decision-making [14,[29][30][31][32]. Other detrimental effects are the serious stability threats caused by acute and intense psychological stress.…”