Training with anxiety: short- and long-term effects on police officers' shooting behavior under pressure
Publication year
2011Source
Cognitive Processing, 12, 3, (2011), pp. 277-288ISSN
Publication type
Article / Letter to editor

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Organization
SW OZ BSI AO
Journal title
Cognitive Processing
Volume
vol. 12
Issue
iss. 3
Page start
p. 277
Page end
p. 288
Subject
Work, Health and PerformanceAbstract
We investigated short- and long-term effects of training with anxiety on police officers’ shooting behavior under pressure. Using a pretest, posttest, and retention test design, 27 police officers executed a shooting exercise against an opponent that did (high anxiety) or did not (low anxiety) shoot back using colored soap cartridges. During the training sessions, the experimental group practiced with anxiety and the control group practiced without anxiety. At the pretest, anxiety had a negative effect on shot accuracy for both groups. At the posttest, shot accuracy of the experimental group no longer deteriorated under anxiety, while shot accuracy of the control group was still equally affected. At the retention test, 4 months after training, positive results for the experimental group remained present, indicating that training with anxiety may have positive short- and long-term effects on police officers’ shot accuracy under pressure. Additional analyses showed that these effects are potentially related to changes in visual attention on task-relevant information.
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