<p> The importance of understanding how individuals appraise and cope with stressors is essential in the overall effective management of stress, especially in high-stress professions such as law enforcement. This study focused on understanding the reasons behind the dissimilarities in the appraisal of stressors and subsequent employment of different coping strategies among a sample of law enforcement officers. Although different variables have been examined independently, there was no clear understanding of the potential relationships between variables such as personality characteristics and coping strategies, especially when considering the appraisal of stressors. The purpose of this quantitative, correlational study was to examine the relationship among appraisal of occupational stressors, personality traits, and coping strategies for a sample of 97 law enforcement officers from the West Virginia State Police and the Federal Bureau of Investigation National Academy Associates. This study included the appraisals of occupational stressors and personality traits as predictor variables and coping strategy choices will serve as the criterion variable. Multiple regression analyses were planned in order to evaluate how stress appraisals and personality traits predict coping strategies. Data were collected by using questionnaires consisting of the Operational Police Stress Questionnaire to measure stress appraisals, the Brief COPE Inventory Questionnaire to identify coping strategies, and the NEO Personality Inventory (NEO PI-3) to provide information on the Big Five Personality constructs. An insufficient number of officers completed the stress questionnaire to complete all of the planned analyses. However, results from multiple regression analyses using personality traits to predict coping suggested that certain personality traits are strongly associated with particular types of problem and emotion-focused coping. These findings have provided a better understanding of personalities and how those fit within the coping process for law enforcement officers.</p>
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:PROQUEST/oai:pqdtoai.proquest.com:10128496 |
| Date | 19 August 2016 |
| Creators | Fortney, Michael B. |
| Publisher | Northcentral University |
| Source Sets | ProQuest.com |
| Language | English |
| Detected Language | English |
| Type | thesis |
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