Summary
"In the context of policing, an officer’s risk perception of felonious death and likelihood ofusing deadly force as a risk response are paramount among police concerns in the UnitedStates. Prior research on these topics has predominantly involved macro-analyticalmethodologies under a mono-disciplinary approach, with limited emphasis on theoretical basedperspectives. Risk perceptions and responses were examined using a quantitative,interdisciplinary correlational methodology. Its purpose was to examine whether theSocial Amplification of Risk Framework applied to a specialized occupational populationof Missouri police officers. The methodology included a pilot study of an adaptedinstrument designated the Cognitive Appraisal of Felonious Death Risk questionnaire(CAFDR), followed by a full study using the final form of the CAFDR. The participantswere full time Missouri police officers. A total of 192 surveys were completed, fromwhich 154 surveys were randomly selected for analyses. Key findings indicated that onlytwo of the 30 permutations of the analyses reached statistical significance. Those twooutcomes equated with extant literature while the remaining results largely contradictedthe contemporary literature on the influence of these covariates. The result was thatSocial Amplification of Risk Framework did not explain the relationships between riskperceptions and risk responses in this specialized occupational population. What wasdiscovered concerns the influence that socio-cultural, legal, and psychological influencesfrom controversial police shooting events may have on these Missouri officers. Resultsof the debriefing questionnaire portion revealed significant psychological resilienceamong the officers, but raised the possibility that a stigma associated with accessingmental health services was present within police cultures."--Pages 4-5.