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A perception of threat

NMU master’s student completes thesis

By CHRISTIE BLECK

Journal Staff Writer

MARQUETTE — What happens when a person is exposed to a threatening situation? If you’re in law enforcement, that could be a different dynamic.

Ellyse VanDyke, who just finished her master’s degree in psychological science at Northern Michigan University, conducted a study that suggests repeated exposure to use-of-force training simulations decreases participants’ perception of threat, manifested by an overall decrease in emotional response.

“I’ve always been interested in forensic psychology, which is the intersect between law enforcement and psychology,” VanDyke said.

She learned about the study as an undergraduate. So, she stayed on to earn her master’s degree.

The project involved a simulator at NMU’s Thomas Fine Arts Building that has a screen and a remote control Glock replica that criminal justice students use.

Various scenarios are shown with the simulator.

“One of our scenarios is a school shooting situation where people are running around but someone’s in the hallway standing there, and there’s three different endings,” VanDyke said. “They can turn around with their hands up, they can turn around on a cell phone and they can turn around and shoot at them, and they have to be able to react to that.”

Measured in the study were emotional responses before and after the simulation as well as throughout the course’s training, she said.

VanDyke noticed participants became desensitized to the threat, even though it’s a simulated one.

“They have so many different scenarios from every law enforcement agency and every situation,” VanDyke said. “And they’re pretty realistic, so when you’re there, you kind of feel like you’re in it a little bit. Obviously, it’s a street and everything like that, but they have to do verbal commands. They have tactical stuff.”

She acknowledged that at the beginning of the study, there were two hypotheses: increased or decreased emotional responses.

What was interesting, VanDyke said, was the findings being apparent enough to confirm the “decreased” hypothesis.

“We studied positive effect, negative effect, anxiety and respiration, and they were all significantly lower at the end of the semester after training,” VanDyke said. “We were thinking it could be just less anxiety because they’re more familiar after awhile with the simulation, but the trend happened immediately after the simulation and over the course of the semester, so we’re thinking there’s more to it than just that.”

So, is a decreased perception of threat a good or bad thing?

“We don’t really know,” VanDyke said. “If you’re desensitized to threatening stimuli, it could mean you would see violence as more acceptable or normal, so that would be bad, but we don’t really know what the effects are yet. That’s another study we have to do.”

Her thesis will be published in The Commons, the institutional repository for NMU, although she plans to submit it to a journal. A sales associate for Coldwell Banker in Rhinelander, Wisconsin, VanDyke’s goal is to look for a job in a criminal laboratory, for example.

Joshua Carlson, Ph.D., NMU associate professor with the Cognitive x Affective Behavior and Integrated Neuroscience Lab, was VanDyke’s adviser.

“The preliminary results are interesting and suggest that repeated use of force training can result in affective dampening or decreased emotional reactivity,” Carlson said in an email. “The results are based on a small sample size and should be interpreted with caution, but are a promising first step toward understanding the emotional impact of the training.”

Charlie Mesloh, Ph.D., a professor in the Department of Criminal Justice at NMU, said the department was happy to assist VanDyke with her study.

Mesloh is a retired police officer from Florida, with areas of expertise including use of force, police dogs and use of fewer lethal weapons. A former law enforcement training officer and K9 handler, he frequently serves as an expert witness in federal cases in which law enforcement uses force during its investigations.

The NMU simulator was the fourth such device of which he was certified as an instructor or master instructor.

“Although use-of-force simulation has been used for over 30 years in law enforcement training, very few studies have ever examined the downstream effects upon its users,” Mesloh said in an email. “Consequently, it was very much in our interests to have a better understanding of how it might be affecting our criminal justice students who are potentially our future law enforcement officers, and I hope that her study lays the foundation for future research in this area.”

Mesloh said simulators allow people to put officers, trainees and students under a variety of adverse conditions to test problem solving while under high stress.

The most successful outcome is one where no force is used, he noted, but that isn’t always possible.

“In those cases, the student needs to rapidly form alternative use of force strategies to resolve the confrontation in accordance with case law and agency policy,” Mesloh said. “Each participant is equipped with a simulated handgun, TASER and chemical and, of course, basic verbal de-escalation techniques.

“Under stress, it’s often difficult making the right choice and rarely enough time to switch to a different tool. However, over time, participants get much better at making the right choice. which is clearly our goal as trainers.”

There could be practical workforce applications stemming from VanDyke’s study, particularly with police safety and training.

“If they’re desensitized to threat, it could make their interactions with people more violent just because they can see violence as more normal,” VanDyke said, “or they wouldn’t put a stop to the violence.”

Christie Bleck can be reached at 906-228-2500, ext. 250. Her email address is cbleck@miningjournal .net.

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