Personality and Gender As Predictor Of Coping Of Suspects In Police Custody In Anambra State

Personality and Gender As Predictor Of Coping Of Suspects In Police Custody In Anambra State

ABSTRACT

The study examines personality and gender as predictors of coping of suspects in police custody in Anambra state. The study adopted EPQ  and the Organisational police stress Questionnaire. The question was distributed to the respondent using the conventional method of questionnaires distribution. The study used  100 female participants and 300 male participants.

The findings showed that extroversion’ and ‘introversion’ personality trait is one of the ways through which suspects cope under stress and gender is a good predictor of coping among suspects in police custody. Consistent with the hypotheses, the analysis found that those who are optimistic are more likely to cope when under police custody.

Therefore, it is recommended that the services of psychologists should be employed in the Nigerian force to study the kind of personality possessed by each suspect so has to enable the police force properly know how to handle different suspects with their different personalities used for coping under police custody.

INTRODUCTION

The psychology of personality is a very broad topic, to which people have taken diverse theoretical approaches (McAdams & Olson 20 I 0). Personality is easy to observe but hard to pin down. According to Allport (1961), personality is the dynamic organization within the person of the psychological and physical systems that underlie that person’s patterns of actions, thoughts, and feelings. What dynamics are assumed, however, and what systems are proposed to underlie those dynamics vary greatly across theoretical viewpoints.

Evidence has pointed to the robustness of personality traits in the explanation of subjective well-being (Costa, & McCrae, 1998; David & Suls, 1999). This has been admitted and applied in psychology, sociology, and management (Clayson & Sheffect, 2006). The Five-Factor Model ((Costa & McCrae, 1989) has been widely used in investigating the role of personality on life satisfaction. These factors of personality traits are extraversion, neuroticism, agreeableness, openness to experience, and conscientiousness.

Extroversion focuses mainly on the quantity and intensity of relationships (Dneve & Cooper, 1998). Extraverted individuals tend to be sociable, gregarious, and assertive (Costa & McCrae, 1992). They are prone to reward in an interpersonal relationship (Watson & Clark, 1997), and are predisposed to experience positive emotion (Costa & McCrea, 1992). Agreeable individuals are friendly and cooperative. Related behaviors include being flexible, trusting, forgiving, and tolerant (McCrae & Costa, 1986).

Associated behaviors of a conscientious individual include being careful, thorough, responsible, organized, and achievement-oriented (McCrae & Costa, 1986). Openness to experience describes imaginative and carouse tendencies. Highly open people are original, cultured, broadminded, and intelligent (McCaer & Costa, 1986). Individuals high in neuroticism experience more negative life events than others (Magnus, Diener, Fujita, & Pavot, 1993). Related behaviors are being anxious, depressed, emotional, worried, and insecure.

Broadly speaking, personality and temperament all refer to characteristic patterns of thoughts, feelings, and behaviors over time and across situations. Although temperament often refers to traits reflecting predominantly biological predispositions, while personality is traits influenced by environmental factors.  Coping has also been described as “personality in action under stress” (Bolger, 1990, p. 525), therefore, personality and gender coping among suspects are the ability of male gender or female suspects to cope under stress when in police custody.

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