Vol. 23 No. 2 (2020)
Articles

Personality and sociocognitive explanatory models of various forms of aggression of Bulgarian law enforcement officers

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  • Diana BAKALOVA,
  • Yolanda ZOGRAFOVA,
  • Antoaneta HRISTOVA

Published 09/10/2020

Keywords

  • aggression,
  • law enforcement,
  • police office,
  • personality traits,
  • sociocognitive processes,
  • moral disengagement
    • ...More
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How to Cite

BAKALOVA, D., ZOGRAFOVA, Y., & HRISTOVA, A. (2020). Personality and sociocognitive explanatory models of various forms of aggression of Bulgarian law enforcement officers. Psychological Research (in the Balkans), 23(2). Retrieved from https://journalofpsychology.org/index.php/1/article/view/50

Copyright (c) 2020 Psychological Research (in the Balkans)

Creative Commons License

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License.

Abstract

This study has beenaimed at developing psychological explanatory models of various forms of
aggression of law enforcement officers, which encompass both personality and sociocognitive factors.
The study was conceptually based both on the sociocognitive approach of Anderson and Bushman, and
on the personological approach of Caprara, Zimbardo and Bandura. A structured questionnaire, incl.
world-known, original and culture-specific measures and scales, was developed and employed by the
authors. The study was carried out in October 2017- April 2018 among 736 law enforcement officers from
5 departments of the Ministry of Interior of the Republic of Bulgaria in 26 Bulgarian towns. A wide range
of personality and sociocognitive characteristics was encompassed and processed by means of a stepwise
modelling procedure.

The findings suggested different personality and sociocognitive explanatory models for all studied forms of aggression - physical, verbal, indirect, instrumental and displaced aggression. Personality traits such as revengefulness, anger and hostility were found to be among the most powerful predictors of moststudied forms of aggression. The models can be particularly useful to predict the likeliness of any form of aggression, and also to duly handle various acts of aggression among law enforcement officers in Bulgaria.

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