I have the “No” view

This week’s Forum topic is the question raised by Gantt & Slife (2015): “Is Evolution a Good Explanation for Psychological Concepts?” debated in our course textbook, Taking Sides: Clashing Views on Psychological Issues (Gantt & Slife, 2015).  Remember that a statement of the Gantt & Slife (2015) question above followed by a “Yes” or “No” answer to it, depending on your assigned article perspective, should be the start of your initial post.

Critical incident stress is most widely known due to its depictions in the media. Critical incidents include events such as officer-involved shootings, assaults, accidents, disasters, and crimes in progress. They involve feelings of shock, horror, and helplessness. The body of research on critical incident stress is more comprehensive than research on STS or organizational stress. This is likely because the last two types of stress have only recently come to be understood as having a stronger impact than critical incident stress. Critical incidents have shown to have lasting effects on police officers with reports of having vivid visual, tactile, and olfactory memories lasting more than 20 years.⁴ Critical incident stress may culminate in post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD).

PTSD rates in first responders are variable but seem to support that police officers have higher rates of PTSD than the general population.⁵ Rates for PTSD in police range from 7% to 20%⁶compared to the rate of the general population, which is 6.8%.⁷Although most, if not all, police officers are exposed to traumatic events, the majority of police offices exposed to critical incidents do not develop PTSD. Conflicting reports of PTSD rates can be confusing for some trying to make sense of the data. There are many reasons for this variability. First, police officers typically conceal their struggles with PTSD for fear of reprisals from their employers and even their coworkers. Second, the rates of PTSD in this population are often mitigated by (1) the hardy constitutions of persons who apply to be police officers, (2) preemployment psychological screening that eliminates psychologically vulnerable persons from gaining employment, and (3) training offered by police organizations that assist employees in their ability to manage their exposure to trauma. Therefore, the fact that PTSD rates rise to the level of the general population is troubling. When it exceeds this rate, which it does in many reports, it is very compelling evidence of the negative impact of the work.