Measures of risk taking and sensation seeking were administered to 69 American patrol officers of a Suburban Police Department to determine the relationship of these traits to officers' tendencies to engage in high speed vehicular pursuit. Pursuit tendencies were measured by official departmental records, self-reports of previous pursuits, and responses to two hypothetical scenarios. These three measures of pursuit tendencies were combined to form a single scale, which was found to correlate somewhat, but significantly, with risk taking and with sensation seeking. Furthermore, risk taking and sensation seeking were relatively uncorrelated with each other. Attention to personality differences, therefore may help supervisors exercise more control over police pursuits.
Samenvatting