| MAX_TACTIC_USED | Mean Positive Emotionality | Mean Negative Emotionality | Mean Contstraint |
|---|---|---|---|
| Firearm | 56.48 | 47.02 | 49.20 |
| No Tactic Used | 56.46 | 46.15 | 48.72 |
| Pepper spray | 54.37 | 45.75 | 46.74 |
| Taser | 55.96 | 46.14 | 47.11 |
| Verbal descalaiton | 56.86 | 47.12 | 48.23 |
Police Use of Violence and Personality
Background
This data, from the National Institute of Justice, contains data gathered from 64 law enforcement officers and 101 civilians. The original work outlines an attempt to alter citizen views on police officers, as well as demonstrating relationships between personality measures and behavior in a officer training simulation. Data gathered from this study include a battery of survey responses and observations of participants’ tactics while completing an officer training simulation. See here for a full account of data.
The original work outlines an attempt to alter citizen views on police officers, as well as demonstrating relationships between personality measures and behavior in a officer training simulation.
This project:
As this project evolves through the semester, I plan to explore the multi-dimensional personality questionnaire brief form’s (MPQ-BF) relationship to behaviors in a training simulation. Here, initial exploration reveals a potential relationship between sub factors of negative emotionality and violent behaviors. I want to extend this exploration to other variables in the future. For example: the simulation scenario (low, med, high risk) and survey responses regarding officer social network as it pertains to the MPQ-BF sub-factor, Alienation.
Research Questions:
Does the multi dimensional personality questionnaire brief form correlate with behavior?
In other words, is there evidence for criterion validity?
Do higher traits of certain personality traits show increased violence in samples of police officers?
Data Preparation
A data frame was created with the following variables
Data included:
-Participant ID Number
-Sample: officer or civilian
-MPQ-BF survey results :155 questions with three primary factors:
1.Positive Emotionality: constructed from, wellbeing, social potency, and achievement
2.Negative Emotinality: which consists of stress reaction, alienation, and aggression
3.Constraint: composed of control, harm avoidance, and traditionalism.
-SCENARIO:Firearms Training Scenario
-N_DEESCALATE_TOTAL:Total number of verbal de-escalation statements/actions a subject uses within the scenario
-N_FIREARM_TOTAL: Total number of times a subject uses a firearm within the scenario
-N_SPRAY_TOTAL: Total number of times a subject uses pepper spray within scenario
-N_TASER_TOTAL: Total number of times a subject uses a taser within scenario
-MAX_TACTIC_USED: Categorical variable for most severe use of force used by the subject during the scenario
-N_FORCE_BY_YOU: (officer only) response to question: Over the course of your career as a law enforcement officer (across all departments), how many times -if any- have you used lethal force against another person in the line of duty?
First Manipulation
Participant sample, weapon used, and officer use of force recoded to numeric values.
Next, a new column totaling instances of weapon use by participant. (firearm, taser, pepper spray) used in simulation.
Lastly, the creation of seperate civilian and officer data frames to allow for easier descriptive analyses
Civilian Descriptive Statistics
Mean MPQ scores group by the weapon participant used
Civilians MPQ score by how many times they used a weapon during the simulation
| total_weapon_used | Mean Positive Emotionality | Mean Negative Emotionality | Mean Contstraint |
|---|---|---|---|
| 0 | 56.56 | 46.39 | 48.60 |
| 1 | 56.12 | 46.95 | 48.34 |
| 2 | 56.23 | 43.79 | 45.45 |
| 3 | 46.89 | 40.51 | 51.52 |
Officer Descriptive Statistics
Officer Mean MPQ Grouped by Weapon Used in Simulation.
| MAX_TACTIC_USED | Mean Positive Emotionality | Mean Negative Emotionality | Mean Contstraint |
|---|---|---|---|
| Firearm | 57.56 | 47.10 | 50.31 |
| No Tactic Used | 56.96 | 46.06 | 52.58 |
| Pepper spray | 52.70 | 47.18 | 45.05 |
| Taser | 56.27 | 46.74 | 50.61 |
| Verbal descalaiton | 57.90 | 45.83 | 52.41 |
Officer MPQ score by how many times they used a weapon during the simulation
| total_weapon_used | Mean Positive Emotionality | Mean Negative Emotionality | Mean Contstraint |
|---|---|---|---|
| 0 | 57.59 | 45.90 | 52.47 |
| 1 | 56.97 | 46.77 | 50.34 |
| 2 | 55.43 | 50.43 | 46.49 |
| 3 | 63.29 | 42.55 | 56.03 |
Officer Mean MPQ grouped by the amount of times officer has used deadly force on the job
| Numeric_Force | Mean Positive Emotionality | Mean Negative Emotionality | Mean Constraint |
|---|---|---|---|
| more than once | 55.09 | 50.55 | 54.22 |
| once | 58.74 | 50.31 | 48.09 |
| zero | 57.14 | 45.45 | 51.35 |
Additional manipulation to Officer Data Frame
A new variable is created combining real and simulated uses of violence. With one instance catergorized as low, two as medium, and three or more as high. These categories are created to keep group sizes similar. See descriptive statistics of this new variable below.
| High_LOW_sim_real | Mean Positive Emotionality | Mean Negative Emotionality | Mean Constraint |
|---|---|---|---|
| high | 57.72 | 49.44 | 50.92 |
| low | 58.33 | 44.88 | 52.92 |
| medium | 56.08 | 46.41 | 49.82 |
The above table and plot showing average MPQ scores by instances of both simulated and real violence shows a higher mean in negative emotion. Therefore, the sub factors of negative emotionality (aggression, stress, and alienation) are examined further.
Negative Emotionality sub-factor exploration
| High_LOW_sim_real | Mean Aggression | Mean Stress Reaction | Mean Alienation |
|---|---|---|---|
| high | 49.32 | 44.80 | 53.18 |
| low | 43.78 | 41.52 | 50.94 |
| medium | 46.47 | 42.23 | 51.92 |
Plot Demonstrating above Descriptive Statistics
Results
As demonstrated by examining descriptive statistics, the personality trait, Negative Emotionality might shed insight into an officer’s tendency to use force. Due to this analysis showing MPQ negative emotionality being higher on average for officers more like to use force, I want to explore this relationship to determine if there is statistical significance. I also want to examine other subfactors of the three parent factors to determine if they can shed light on who is more likely to use force.
Reflection
I learned a lot from this assignment. One of the largest takeaways was the practice I gained writing syntax from memory. I did my best not to use the internet unless I really needed to, as I felt this might make it hard for me to memorize syntax I use a lot. By the time I got done, I felt a lot more comfortable.
Another example of what I learned is the importance of carefully inspecting code when you are downloading a dataset. There was an instance where use of force by polic officers was coded as 1 for 0 2 for one, and so on. I should have seen this sooner. Additionally, gaining insight into all variables, and planning an approach is crucial.