The Relationship between Personality Traits and the Effectiveness of Guardian Law Enforcement Training

ABSTRACT In recent years, there have been efforts to enhance traditional warrior-oriented police academy training with guardian law enforcement curricula that include a focus on building skills related to empathy, respect, and understanding in police-community interactions. Little is known about how officer characteristics influence training effects. Of particular importance, prior studies have not examined the role of personality traits on elements of police law enforcement training that focus on empathy in police-community interactions. This study used a pre-post survey design to examine the relationship between personality traits and police training effects among new recruits in an evaluation of guardian training at the Basic Law Enforcement Academy (BLEA) in Washington State (n = 344). Results indicate that personality traits associated with lack of empathy, as measured by the Self-Report Psychopathy-Short Form (SRP-SF), moderate the effects of training on negative police subculture and guardianship-empathy, with recruits scoring higher on the SRP-SF demonstrating less change (e.g., training effects) within these domains. Implications for police training and discussion of the assessment of personality traits in pre-employment police candidate screening are discussed.