Reality-based practice under pressure improves handgun shooting performance of police officers

Abstract

The current study examined whether reality-based practice under pressure may help in preventing degradation of handgun shooting performance under pressure for police officers. Using a pre-post-test design, one group of nine police officers practised handgun shooting under pressure evoked by an opponent who also fired back using marking (coloured soap) cartridges. The control group (n = 8) practised handgun shooting on standard cardboard targets instead of real opponents. Within a fortnight after the pre-test, both groups received three training sessions of 1 h, in which each person fired a total of 72 rounds. During the pre- and post test each participant took 30 shots without pressure (cardboard targets) and 30 shots under additional pressure (with an opponent firing back). While during the pre-test both groups performed worse in front of an opponent firing back compared to the cardboard targets, after the training sessions shooting performance of the experimental group no longer deteriorated with an opponent while performance of the control group was equally harmed as during the pre-test. These results indicate that training exercises involving increased pressure can acclimatize shooting performance of ordinary police officers to those situations with elevated pressure that they may encounter during their police work.

Effects of Threat on Police Officers' Shooting Behavior: Anxiety, Action Specificity, and Affective Influences on Perception

“…0.52 points with respect to anxiety score and 5.9 beats/min with respect to maximal heart rate; Table 1) the observed effects were consistent, comparable with earlier studies (e.g. Oudejans, 2008) and, hence, likely to have affected participants' shooting responses.…”

Anxiety, movement kinematics, and visual attention in elite-level performers.

“…The results provide greater understanding of the influences of anxiety on attentional control in situ, allowing the performance of these tasks to be improved via the development of suitable intervention programs. Contemporary research is attempting to investigate the effect of training under increased levels of anxiety in an attempt to mediate the adverse effects suffered in real life situations (Oudejans, 2008). A similar approach, to implement training interventions, could be utilized in other domains such as the military and in medicine in order to help combat the potential negative effects of anxiety on attentional control and subsequently, on performance.…”

Effects of anxiety on running with and without an aiming task

“…An important question that remains is if and how the negative effects of anxiety in those tasks may be countered. Recent studies by Oudejans and colleagues on aiming tasks without running (dart throwing, basketball free throw shooting, and handgun shooting) show that training with elevated levels of anxiety holds promise in this regard (Nieuwenhuys & Oudejans, 2011;Oudejans, 2008; Oudejans & Effects of anxiety on running and aiming Pijpers, 2009Pijpers, , 2010. Whether training with anxiety is also effective in preventing negative effects of anxiety in tasks that rely heavily on the aerobic system needs to be established in future research.…”