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The Concentration Of Police Officers As A Function Of Temperature

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Erin Rose
Article Review
November 20, 2014
I. Reference: Vrij, A., Van der Steen, J., & Koppelaar, L. (1994). Aggression of Police Officers as a Function of Temperature: An Experiment with the Fire Arms Training System.Journal Of Community & Applied Social Psychology, 4(5), 365-370.

II. Summary:
Temperament and Temperature on the Diamond: The Heat-Aggression Relationship in Major League Baseball, was a study done to see if heat had any effect on baseball players playing more aggressively against one another via number of hit batters per game. Their findings in this study showed a “positive and significant relationship between temperature and the number of hit batters per game.” Similarly, Zillman used his social psychology theories …show more content…

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III. Hypotheses:
1: High temperatures will increase police officers’ negative affect
2: Police officers will assess suspects as being more aggressive and more threatening in the high temperature condition.
3: High temperatures will increase police officers aggression.
All three hypotheses were supported by the results of a one-way MANOVA test.
A regression analysis was conducted and determined and threatening impression was positively correlated with tendency to shoot
Videotape evidence showed that police officers kept their weapons in their holster more often in control conditions than when in high temperature conditions.
While police shot the suspect more in warmer conditions, the effect turned out to be insignificant.
A logistic regression was conducted which proved that a (perceived) threatening impression was the only significant predictor of shooting behavior (Vrig, A. 1994).
In conclusion; the researcher’s claim that police officers would be susceptible to environmental factors (heat) is supported, and that their official police force training was not enough for them to learn to separate these factors from the situation presented. IV. Variables:
Independent Variable
The independent variable was the temperature in degrees Celsius. The higher temperature was 27 degrees Celsius, the control setting was 21 degrees Celsius. The heating and cooling of the room during the experiment is the variation between the two randomly assigned groups.

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