Emotion Regulation in Persons with an Increased Risk of Mental Trauma (on the example of the Internal Affairs officers)

Abstract

The article is devoted to the study of emotion regulation strategies in officers of Department of internal affairs (DIA) in comparison with persons whose activities are not associated with the risk of mental trauma. The hypothesis is that employment in activities related to the risk of psychological trauma is associated with specific patterns of emotion regulation, which are suppression of emotional expression and misrepresentation in their own emotional state. Along with questionnaire methods, the Implicit Positive and Negative Affect Test - IPANAT was used. It is shown that police officers are more likely to deform answers in self-reporting methods than people not related to work in the police system. Police officers are likely to suppress emotions and less likely to resort to emotion regulation than persons whose profession is not associated with the risk of mental trauma. There is a significant subgroup of individuals among the police officers who are characterized by a mismatch of explicit and implicit assessments of emotional states. This group is characterized by dysfunctional strategies for emotion regulation associated with rumination and catastrophic significance of emotional situations.

Keywords

• explicit affect
• implicit affect
• social desirability
• emotion regulation
• emotion suppression