Dr Nikki Power

Title
The Psychology of Interoperability: A systematic review of joint working between the UK Emergency Services

Authors
Power, N., Alcock, J., Philpot, R., & Levine, M.

Publication
2023. Journal of Occupational and Organizational Psychology. https://doi.org/10.1111/joop.12469

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Background: Emergency responding requires effective interoperability, whereby different emergency teams combine efforts and expertise to contain and reduce the impact of an emergency. Within the United Kingdom, the capacity for the Emergency Services to be interoperable has been criticized by public enquiries. This systematic review had three goals to: (i) define interoperability; (ii) identify the structural principles that underpin interoperability and (iii) identify the psychological principles that outline how interoperability can be achieved.

Methods: A PRISMA framework was used to identify 137 articles, including 94 articles from the systematic review, 15 articles from grey literature and 28 articles based on author expertise. 

Findings: We identified two structural principles of interoperability: (i) being able to communicate and exchange information effectively; and (ii) having a decentralized and flexible team network. We identified three psychological principles that informed how interoperability might be embedded in the team: (i) establishing trust between team members; (ii) developing secure team identities and (iii) building cohesive goals. We defined interoperability as a shared system of technology and teamwork built upon trust, identification, goals, communication and flexibility.

Conclusion: Regular psychologically immersive training that targets these psychological principles will help to embed interoperability into the social fabric of multi-team systems operating in high-reliability organizations.

Title
Prosocial rule breaking, ingroups and social norms: Parental decision-making about COVID-19 rule breaking in the UK.

Authors
Power, N., Warmelink, L., & Wallace, R.

Publication
2023. JOURNAL OF COMMUNITY & APPLIED SOCIAL PSYCHOLOGY, 33(1), 123-137. doi:10.1002/casp.2650

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Background: The British public generally adhered to COVID-19-related restrictions, but as the pandemic drew on, it became challenging for some populations. Parents with young children were identified as a vulnerable group.

Methods: We collected rich, mixed-methods survey data from 99 UK-based parents (91 mothers) of children under 12, who described their lockdown transgressions.

Findings: Household mixing was the most prevalent broken rule. Template analysis found that rule breaking was driven by ‘ingroup-level’ prosocial motivations to protect the mental and social health of family and loved ones, and that parents were ‘engaged’ decision-makers who underwent careful deliberation when deciding to break rules, making trade-offs, bending rules, mitigating risks, reaching consensus, and reacting to perceived rule injustices. Cumulative link models found that the perceived reasonableness of rule violations was predicted by social norms.

Conclusion: Rules were broken by parents not for antisocial reasons, but for ‘ingroup-level’ prosocial reasons, linked to supporting loved ones.

Title
Communication and coordination across event phases: A multi-team system emergency response.

Authors
Brown, O., Power, N., & Conchie, S. M.

Publication
2021. JOURNAL OF OCCUPATIONAL AND ORGANIZATIONAL PSYCHOLOGY, 94(3), 591-615. doi:10.1111/joop.12349

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Background: This paper explores how multi-agency response teams communicate and coordinate in different phases of a simulated terrorist incident. Procedural guidelines state that responders should coordinate their response to a major emergency across two phases: ‘response’ (when the incident is ongoing) and ‘recovery’ (when the threat has subsided, but the legacy of the incident is ongoing). However, no research has examined whether these phases map to the behaviours of responders in situ.

Methods: To address this, we used measures of communication and coordination to examine how behaviours evolved during a simulated terrorist incident in the United Kingdom. We grounded our approach within the theoretical literature on multi-team systems.

Findings: It was found that the current response/recovery classification does not fit the nuanced context of an emergency. Instead, a three-phase structure of ‘response/resolve/recovery’ is more reflective of behaviour. It was also found that coordination between agencies improved when communication networks became less centralized. This suggests that collaborative working in multi-team systems may be improved by adopting decentralized communication networks.

Conclusion: To better prepare responders for emergencies, we recommend a three-phase structure of ‘response/resolve/recovery’ is introduced in place of the current guidelines that outline a two-phase structure of response and recovery.

Title
Immersive simulations with extreme teams

Authors
Brown, O., Power, N., & Conchie, S. M

Publication
2020. ORGANIZATIONAL PSYCHOLOGY REVIEW, 10(3-4), 115-135. doi:10.1177/2041386620926037

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Background: Extreme teams (ETs) work in challenging, high pressured contexts, where poor performance can have severe consequences. These teams must coordinate their skill sets, align their goals, and develop shared awareness, all under stressful conditions. How best to research these teams poses unique challenges as researchers seek to provide applied recommendations while conducting rigorous research to test how teamwork models work in practice.

Findings: In this article, we identify immersive simulations as one solution to this, outlining their advantages over existing methodologies and suggesting how researchers can best make use of recent advances in technology and analytical techniques when designing simulation studies.

Conclusion: We conclude that immersive simulations are key to ensuring ecological validity and empirically reliable research with ETs.

Title
Decision Inertia in Critical Incidents

Authors
Power, N., & Alison, L.

Publication
2019. EUROPEAN PSYCHOLOGIST, 24(3), 209-218. doi:10.1027/1016-9040/a000320

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Link to author accepted version of paper here

Background: When presented with competing options, critical incident decision makers often struggle to commit to a choice (in particular when all options appear to yield negative consequences). Despite being motivated to take action in disasters, terrorism, major investigations, and complex political interventions, decision makers can become inert, looping between phases of situation assessment, option generation, and option evaluation. This “looping” is functionally redundant when it persists until they have lost the opportunity to take action.

Findings: We define this as “decision inertia”: the result of a process of (redundant) deliberation over possible options and in the absence of any further useful information. In the context of critical incidents (political, security, military, law enforcement) we have discovered that rather than disengaging and avoiding difficult choices, decision makers are acutely aware of the negative consequences that might arise if they failed to decide (i.e., the incident would escalate). The sensitization to possible future outcomes leads to intense deliberation over possible choices and their consequences and, ultimately, can result in a failure to take any action in time (or at all).

Conclusion: We (i) discuss decision inertia as a novel psychological process of redundant deliberation during crises; (ii) define the concept and discuss the emerging studies in support of our tentative hypotheses regarding how the cognitively active process of deliberation can result in complete behavioural inactivity; and (iii) suggest recommendations and interventions for combatting inertia.

Title
Intensive care decision-making: Identifying the challenges and generating solutions to improve inter-specialty referrals to critical care

Authors
Power, N., Plummer, N. R., Baldwin, J., James, F. R., & Laha, S.

Publication
2018. Journal of the Intensive Care Society, 19(4), 287-298. doi:10.1177/1751143718758933

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Background: Decision-making regarding admission to UK intensive care units is challenging. Demand for beds exceeds capacity, yet the need to provide emergency cover creates pressure to build redundancy into the system. Guidelines to aid clinical decision-making are outdated, resulting in an over-reliance on professional judgement. Although clinicians are highly skilled, there is variability in intensive care unit decision-making, especially at the inter-specialty level wherein cognitive biases contribute to disagreement.

Method: This research is the first to explore intensive care unit referral and admission decision-making using the Critical Decision Method interviewing technique. We interviewed intensive care unit (n = 9) and non-intensive care unit (n = 6) consultants about a challenging referral they had dealt with in the past where there was disagreement about the patient’s suitability for intensive care unit.

Findings: We present: (i) a description of the referral pathway; (ii) challenges that appear to derail referrals (i.e. process issues, decision biases, inherent stressors, post-decision consequences) and (iii) potential solutions to improve this process.

Conclusion: This research provides a foundation upon which interventions to improve inter-specialty decision-making can be based.

Title
Decision-making in intensive care medicine – A review.

Authors
James, F. R., Power, N., & Laha, S.

Publication
Journal of the Intensive Care Society, 19(3), 247-258. doi:10.1177/1751143717746566

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Background: Decision-making by intensivists around accepting patients to intensive care units is a complex area, with often high-stakes, difficult, emotive decisions being made with limited patient information, high uncertainty about outcomes and extreme pressure to make these decisions quickly. This is exacerbated by a lack of clear guidelines to help guide this difficult decision-making process, with the onus largely relying on clinical experience and judgement. In addition to uncertainty compounding decision-making at the individual clinical level, it is further complicated at the multi-speciality level for the senior doctors and surgeons referring to intensive care units.

Method: This is a systematic review of the existing literature about this decision-making process and the factors that help guide these decisions on both sides of the intensive care unit admission dilemma.

Findings: We found many studies exist assessing the patient factors correlated with intensive care unit admission decisions. Analysing these together suggests that factors consistently found to be correlated with a decision to admit or refuse a patient from intensive care unit are bed availability, severity of illness, initial ward or team referred from, patient choice, do not resuscitate status, age and functional baseline. Less research has been done on the decision-making process itself and the factors that are important to the accepting intensivists; however, similar themes are seen. Even less research exists on referral decision and demonstrates that in addition to the factors correlated with intensive care unit admission decisions, other wider variables are considered by the referring non-intensivists.

Conclusion: No studies are available that investigate the decision-making process in referring non-intensivists or the mismatch of processes and pressure between the two sides of the intensive care unit referral dilemma.

Title
Extreme Teams: Toward a Greater Understanding of Multiagency Teamwork During Major Emergencies and Disasters.

Authors
Power, N.

Publication
2018. AMERICAN PSYCHOLOGIST, 73(4), 478-490. doi:10.1037/amp0000248

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Link to author accepted version of paper here

Background: Major emergencies are extreme team decision making environments. They are complex, dynamic, high-stakes and fast paced events, wherein successful resolution is contingent upon effective teamwork. Not only do emergency teams coordinate at the intrateam level (e.g., police team), but they are increasingly required to operate at the interteam level (e.g., police, fire and ambulance teams). This is in response to the desire for networked and cost-effective practice and due to the evolving nature of modern threats, such as extreme weather events and terrorist attacks, which require a multi- rather than single-agency response. Yet the capacity for interoperability between emergency teams is under researched and poorly understood. Much of the teamwork research is based on student-samples or in artificial lab settings, reducing the salient contextual demands of emergencies (e.g., high-stakes, meaningful risk). Furthermore, the minimal research that has been conducted has tended to provide broad descriptive accounts of challenges faced during emergencies, but failed to develop and test solutions.

Findings: This article identifies what is known about emergency teams and highlights why it is an important and timely area for research. It will focus on the challenges and solutions to three areas of team processing: cooperation, coordination, and communication.

Conclusion: Future research must have a solutions-focused approach. This can be oriented around areas: training, sociotechnical networks, and policies/procedural guidelines. Greater collaboration between academics and practitioners can grow knowledge in this domain, ensuring that interventions to improve emergency teamwork are both contextually grounded and empirically validated.

Title
Redundant Deliberation About Negative Consequences: Decision Inertia in Emergency Responders.

Authors
Power, N., & Alison, L.

Publication
2017. PSYCHOLOGY PUBLIC POLICY AND LAW, 23(2), 243-258. doi:10.1037/law0000114

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Link to author accepted version of paper here.

Background: Major emergencies are high-stakes, ambiguous, dynamic, and stressful events. Emergency response commanders rely on their expertise and training to mitigate these factors and implement action.

Method: The Critical Decision Method was used to interview 31 commanders from the police (n = 12), fire and rescue (n = 15), and ambulance services (n = 4) in the United Kingdom about challenges to decision making. Transcripts were analyzed in 2 ways: (a) using thematic analyses to categorize the challenges to incident command and (b) grounded theory to develop a theoretical understanding of how challenges influenced decision processing.

Findings: There were 9 core challenges to incident command, themed into 2 categories: (a) those relating to the perceived characteristics of the incident itself; and (b) those relating to uncertainties about (inter)personal dynamics of the team(s) responding. Consideration of challenges featured prominently in decision makers’ prospective modeling, especially when thinking about goal accomplishment (i.e., What if I deploy now? What if I do not?). Commanders were motivated to save life (attack/approach goal), yet also sought to prevent harm (defend/avoid goal). Challenges led commanders to redundantly deliberate about what to do; their prospective modeling was related to the anticipation of potential negative consequences that might arise both for acting (attack) and not acting (defend). Commanders identified this difficult trade-off, yet described how experience and their responsibility as a commander gave them confidence to overcome decision inertia.

Conclusion: Future research is needed to identify whether decision making training on how to anticipate and overcome difficult cognitive trade-offs would lead to more flexible and expedient commanding.

Title
Offence or defence? Approach and avoid goals in the multi-agency emergency response to a simulated terrorism attack.

Authors
Power, N., & Alison, L.

Publication
2017. JOURNAL OF OCCUPATIONAL AND ORGANIZATIONAL PSYCHOLOGY, 90(1), 51-76. doi:10.1111/joop.12159

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Link to author accepted version of paper here.

Background: When operating in multiteam settings, it is important that goals are cohesive between team members, especially in high-stakes, risky, and uncertain environments. This study explored goal consistency during a multiteam emergency response simulation.

Method: A total of n = 50 commanders from the UK Police Services, Fire and Rescue Services, and Ambulance Services took part in a simulated terrorism exercise, who were split into n = 13 teams. Each team responded to the same simulated terrorist event, which was based on a ‘Marauding Terrorist Firearms Attack’ (MTFA) at a city centre train station. Data were collected using electronically time-stamped ‘decision logs’ and post-incident questionnaires that measured team members’ self-reported goals. Goals that were ‘attack’ focussed (e.g., ‘treat patients’) were coded as ‘approach’ (i.e., focussed on achieving positive outcomes) and goals that were ‘defence’ focussed (e.g., protect emergency responders) were coded as ‘avoid’ (i.e., focussed on avoiding negative outcomes).

Findings: It emerged that different agencies prioritized different goal types; Fire commanders initially prioritized avoid goals but then increased approach orientations, Ambulance commanders were consistently approach oriented, and Police commanders showed goal conflict (tensions between adopting approach and avoid goals). Despite goal differences, participants rated that their interagency goals were consistent, suggesting that commanders were unaware of the nuanced differences between their agency-specific objectives. At the multiteam level, teams who predominantly held attack/approach goals were significantly faster at decision logging early in the incident, yet defend/avoid teams were faster at decision logging later into the incident.

Conclusion: The ‘save life’ goal in multiteam emergency response settings is vague and open to interpretation. This can impede coordination when agencies assume that they are working towards the same ‘save life’ goal, but are actually focussed on different and role-specific objectives with regard to how they will achieve it. Further, when responding to complex emergencies, practitioners should focus on satisficing to achieve ‘least-worst’ outcomes rather trying to maximize gains.

Title
Fear of crime on the rail networks: Perceptions of the UK public and British Transport Police.

Authors
Power, N., McManus, M. A., Lynch, R., & Bonworth, J.

Publication
2016. CRIME PREVENTION & COMMUNITY SAFETY, 18(2), 91-104. doi:10.1057/cpcs.2016.2

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Background: Counter-terrorism on the rail network is vital to the security of the United Kingdom. The British Transport Police (BTP) employ covert and overt security measures to prevent crime, which includes: closed circuit television, armed police, unarmed police, police community support officers, police dogs, stops and searches and awareness campaigns. All security measures aim to deter crime while importantly reassuring the public.

Method: We surveyed both members of the public and BTP officers about the perceived effectiveness of current security measures, specifically with regards to fear of terrorism.

Findings: Feelings of reassurance and the perceived effectiveness of security measures were positively related. The most effective and reassuring security measure was the use of armed police; whereas the least effective and reassuring was the use of awareness campaigns. However, interestingly, qualitative analyses suggested that an increase in armed police without informed awareness campaigns would have a negative impact on public reassurance by increasing fear.

Conclusion: Although awareness campaigns were generally perceived to be an ineffective security measure, they may usefully reduce the potential fear associated with the increased use of armed police by helping to inform the public.

Title
A Taxonomy of Endogenous and Exogenous Uncertainty in High-Risk, High-Impact Contexts.

Authors
Alison, L., Power, N., van den Heuvel, C., & Waring, S.

Publication
2015. JOURNAL OF APPLIED PSYCHOLOGY, 100(4), 1309-1318. doi:10.1037/a0038591

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Link to author accepted version of paper

Background: By reference to a live hostage negotiation exercise, this study presents a taxonomy of uncertainty that can be usefully applied to assist in the categorization and application of findings from decision-making research conducted in naturalistic (specifically critical incident) settings.

Method: Uncertainty was measured via observational methods (during the exercise and by reference to video footage), decision logs, and postincident simulated recall interviews with trainee police officers. Transcripts were coded and analyzed thematically.

Findings: Uncertainty was dichotomized as deriving from either endogenous sources (about the problem situation itself) or exogenous sources (about the operating system that is dealing with the incident). Overall, exogenous uncertainty (75%) was more prevalent than endogenous uncertainty (25%), specifically during discussions on plan formulation and execution. It was also qualitatively associated with poor role understanding and trust. Endogenous uncertainty was more prevalent during discussions on situation assessment and plan formulation.

Conclusion: The taxonomy provides a useful way for organizational researchers to categorize uncertainty during the naturalistic observations of workplace interactions and decision making. It reduces the complexity associated with observational research to allow organizational psychologists to better tailor their recommendations for reducing uncertainty. Dealing with endogenous uncertainties would entail targeting decision making specific to the problem incident (e.g., introduce training or policy to reduce redundant fixation on rote-repetitive superordinate goals and focus on more short-term actionable goals during situation assessments). Dealing with exogenous uncertainties would entail improving decision making relating to management and team processes across critical incidents (e.g., training to clarify distributed roles in critical incident teams to aid plan formulation and execution). Organizational researchers interested in uncertainty management in the workplace should utilize this taxonomy as a guide to (a) categorize uncertainty and (b) generate applicable recommendations from their findings

Title
Decision inertia: Deciding between least worst outcomes in emergency responses to disasters.

Authors
Alison, L., Power, N., van den Heuvel, C., Humann, M., Palasinksi, M., & Crego, J.

Publication
2015. Journal of Occupational and Organizational Psychology, 88(2), 295-321. doi:10.1111/joop.12108

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Link to author accepted version of paper

Background: This study demonstrates how naturalistic decision-making (NDM) can be usefully applied to study ‘decision inertia’ – Namely the cognitive process associated with failures to execute action when a decision-maker struggles to choose between equally perceived aversive outcomes.

Method: Data assessed the response and recovery from a sudden impact disaster during a 2-day immersive simulated emergency response. Fourteen agencies (including police, fire, ambulance, and military) and 194 participants were involved in the exercise.

Findings: By assessing the frequency, type, audience, and content of communications, and by reference to five subject matter experts’ slow time analyses of critical turning points during the incident, three barriers were identified as reducing multiagency information sharing and the macrocognitive understanding of the incident. When the decision problem was non-time-bounded, involved multiple agencies, and identification of superordinate goals was lacking, the communication between agencies decreased and agencies focused on within-agency information sharing. These barriers distracted teams from timely and efficient discussions on decisions and action execution with seeking redundant information, which resulted in decision inertia.

Conclusion: Our study illustrates how naturalistic environments are conducive to examining relatively understudied concepts of decision inertia, failures to act, and shared situational macrocognition in situations involving large distributed teams.

Title
Coping with uncertainty: police strategies for resilient decision-making and action implementation.

Authors
van den Heuvel, C., Alison, L., & Power, N.

Publication
2014. COGNITION TECHNOLOGY & WORK, 16(1), 25-45. doi:10.1007/s10111-012-0241-8.

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Background: This study uses a hostage negotiation setting to demonstrate how a team of strategic police officers can utilize specific coping strategies to minimize uncertainty at different stages of their decision-making in order to foster resilient decision-making to effectively manage a high-risk critical incident. The presented model extends the existing research on coping with uncertainty by (1) applying the RAWFS heuristic of individual decision-making under uncertainty to a team critical incident decision-making domain; (2) testing the use of various coping strategies during “in situ” team decision-making by using a live simulated hostage negotiation exercise; and (3) including an additional coping strategy (“reflection-in-action”) that aids naturalistic team decision-making.

Method: The data for this study were derived from a videoed strategic command meeting held within a simulated live hostage training event; these video data were coded along three themes: (1) decision phase; (2) uncertainty management strategy; and (3) decision implemented or omitted.

Findings: Results illustrate that, when assessing dynamic and high-risk situations, teams of police officers cope with uncertainty by relying on “reduction” to seek additional information and update these assessments using “reflection-in-action”. They subsequently progress to a plan formulation and use “assumption-based reasoning” techniques to mentally simulate intended courses of action, and identify a preferred strategy through “weighing the pros and cons”. If uncertainty persists to the plan execution phase, it is managed by “reduction” in the form of relying on plans and standard operating procedures or by “forestalling” and intentionally deferring the decision while contingency planning for worst-case scenarios.

Conclusion: Uncertainty management occurred through the use of specific strategies within each of these phases that fostered decision progression.

Title
A systematic review of the potential hurdles of interoperability to the emergency services in major incidents: recommendations for solutions and alternatives.

Authors
House, A., Power, N., & Alison, L.

Publication
2014. COGNITION TECHNOLOGY & WORK, 16(3), 319-335. doi:10.1007/s10111-013-0259-6

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Background: This study presents a narrative synthesis of a systematic literature review relating to multi-agency interoperability and major incident decision-making in high risk, high stake environments.

Method: The review methodology includes the identification of relevant studies, a critical appraisal of the concepts inherent in the main review question and a narrative synthesis of the central themes that relate to the study as a whole.

Findings: The review firstly outlines what, currently, appear to be the perceived defining features of successful interoperability by using the SAFE-T phase model of major incident decision-making. It then considers whether these defining features are realistically achievable in major incident practice. Findings suggest that the current definition of an interoperable network is too demanding for the inherent complexity and dynamic nature of the major incident task environment. Individual teams tend to focus on agency-specific behaviour, as opposed to coordinated multi-team functioning, and so collective interoperability is not achieved. Inevitably, this reduces the ability to perform collaborative behaviours, including decision-making and action implementation.

Conclusion: Aiming for the current conceptualisation of interoperability along a hierarchical command structure may inhibit decision-making. Instead, multi-agency systems should work towards an improved understanding of a non-hierarchical and decentralised yet interoperable major incident management network. Recommendations include the need to relate theory and practice in the development of multi-agency decision-making via simulation-based training and to deepen our understanding of interoperability to prevent inertia in high risk, high stake major incident environments.

Title
Immersive Simulated Learning Environments for Researching Critical Incidents.

Authors
Alison, L., van den Heuvel, C., Waring, S., Power, N., Long, A., O’Hara, T., & Crego, J.

Publication
2013. Journal of Cognitive Engineering and Decision Making, 7(3), 255-272. doi:10.1177/1555343412468113.

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Author accepted version of paper

Background: This article provides an integration and synthesis of the strengths and weaknesses of utilizing simulation-based training environments for research. It provides information for researchers interested in exploring complex, dynamic, and high-stakes decision making in critical incidents.

Findings: The article proposes that immersive simulated learning environments (ISLEs) are an effective naturalistic decision making tool for examining strategic and tactical multiteam decision making. Specifically, they are useful for researching environments whereby decision characteristics of anticipation, preparation, mitigation, adaptation, and coping are treated as interconnected elements. The article presents the simulation tool Hydra as an example of an ISLE by describing a worked example known as Operation Pandora.

Conclusion: ISLEs can assist research on expert, high-stakes, and high-consequence critical incident decisions.

Title
The Effects of Subjective Time Pressure and Individual Differences on Hypotheses Generation and Action Prioritization in Police Investigations.

Authors
Alison, L., Doran, B., Long, M. L., Power, N., & Humphrey, A.

Publication
2013. JOURNAL OF EXPERIMENTAL PSYCHOLOGY-APPLIED, 19(1), 83-93. doi:10.1037/a0032148.

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Author accepted version of paper

Background: When individuals perceive time pressure, they decrease the generation of diagnostic hypotheses and prioritize information. This article examines whether individual differences in (a) internal time urgency, (b) experience, and (c) fluid mental ability can moderate these effects.

Method: Police officers worked through a computer-based rape investigative scenario, in which 35 were subjected to a time pressure manipulation, with their hypotheses generation and prioritization skills compared with a control (n = 41). Group 1 was told they would “get less time to complete the scenario compared with other officers,” although both groups had equal amounts of time.

Findings: Regression analyses found that time pressure reduced hypothesis generation and that individual differences in time urgency moderated this effect; individuals who tend to perceive time to pass more slowly than it is continued to generate hypotheses despite the presence of time pressure. Time pressure also influenced the likelihood of action prioritization at the start of the investigation. Time pressure was found to increase action prioritization, but only for officers with low time urgency or high fluid ability. Experience had no effect on time pressure during the investigative scenario.

Conclusion: Time pressure manipulations should be built into training to increase awareness of it’s effects.

Title
When do we Believe Experts? The Power of the Unorthodox View.

Authors
Alison, L., Almond, L., Christiansen, P., Waring, S., Power, N., & Villejoubert, G.

Publication
2012. BEHAVIORAL SCIENCES & THE LAW, 30(6), 729-748. doi:10.1002/bsl.2030

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Author accepted version of paper

Background: This paper examines the extent to which orthodoxy (degree of typicality) and congruence (degree of similarity with own opinion) mediate the influence of expert advice on decision makers’ judgments.

Method: 227 members of the public and 60 police officers completed an online questionnaire involving an investigation into a child sex offence. Participants were asked to first (i) formulate their own “profile” of a likely offender then (ii) estimate the guilt of two presented suspect descriptions (orthodox vs. unorthodox), and, following the presentation of an “expert’s” profile that matched either the orthodox or the unorthodox suspect, (iii) re-evaluate their guilt judgments of the two suspects based on this new advice. Finally, (iv) the perceived similarity (congruence) between the participants’ own and the expert profile was assessed.

Findings: Results revealed two key findings. First, expert profiles that matched a suspect’s description elevated perceptions of guilt in that suspect, whilst also, simultaneously, very significantly decreasing the perception of guilt of the alternative suspect. This suggests a powerful rejection and downward revision of the other suspect. Second, perceived similarity of the profile (to one’s own profile) was only a significant factor in increasing guilt judgments when assigning guilt to the unorthodox (as opposed to orthodox) suspect. Comparisons of lay judgments with those of police officers revealed few significant differences in effects.

Conclusion: The finding that advice is most influential when unorthodox and incongruent suggests that decision makers are more likely to reevaluate judgments when expert advice contributes novel information that contradicts their beliefs. The practical implications of these findings are discussed for profilers, police, and decision research in general.

Title
Drivers of Public Trust and Confidence in Police in the UK.

Authors
Merry, S., Power, N., McManus, M., & Alison, L.

Publication
2012. International Journal of Police Science & Management, 14(2), 118-135. doi:10.1350/ijps.2012.14.2.268.

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Author accepted version of paper.

Background: The term ‘public confidence’ has become the key indicator of trust, legitimacy and consent in policing and it is this measure of confidence that has become the overarching conceptualisation of successful policing.

Method: This paper focuses on providing a greater understanding of drivers of public confidence in the police using three surveys of the same community: Community Safety Survey (N = 4,499), Victim Satisfaction Survey (N = 1,084) and the Anti-Social Behaviour Survey (N = 301).

Findings: Gender and age differences were found, with females and older participants exhibiting higher confidence in policing. Non-criminal aspects of policing such as improved community cohesion and visibility were found to aid confidence. Further, crime-related policing was found to influence overall satisfaction following an incident with some crimes handled better than others (eg, burglary) and customer care needing improvement in certain areas (eg, updated information). Although this research found confidence levels to be positive overall, there was also evidence of the positive–negative asymmetry effect, where participants’ confidence levels shifted following experience with the police.

Conclusion: This paper provides further support for citizen-focused initiatives in which community focus and communication should be at the centre of strategies for improving confidence in policing.