Feelings of the Five-O: Emotion Regulation and Quality of Life in American Police

Abstract

Policing is an occupation that entails strong negative emotional experiences, and stereotypes suggest that police suppress their emotions and become emotionally detached. However, less is known about the emotion regulation strategies that police officers employ and how these strategies are associated with their well-being. Past work in non-police samples demonstrates that cognitive reappraisal is more beneficially associated with quality of life, whereas expressive suppression is more detrimentally associated with quality of life. This study hypothesized that the use of these two emotion regulation strategies would show similar patterns in a sample of American police officers from the northeast USA. Police officers (N = 118) completed self-report measures of emotion regulation strategies and multiple subjective well-being indices. Cognitive reappraisal was positively correlated with job satisfaction, satisfaction with life, and some but not all of the quality of life indices. Expressive suppression was negatively correlated with job satisfaction, satisfaction with life, and some but not all of the quality of life indices. These results could potentially be used to inform early intervention trainings that emphasize emotion regulation. Further research is needed to explore the implementation of emotion regulation-based programs in police officers to enhance their quality of life.