Psychology of consulting and coaching
The Examination of the Five-Factor Model as a Predictor of Emotional
Dissonance in Police Officers
Submitted by
Darrel Martin
A Dissertation Proposal Presented in Partial Fulfillment
of the Requirements for the Degree
Doctorate of Philosophy
Grand Canyon University
Phoenix, Arizona
October 17, 2016
© by Darrel Martin 2016
All rights reserved.
GRAND CANYON UNIVERSITY
The Examination of the Five-Factor Model as a Predictor of Emotional
Dissonance in Police Officers
Darrel Martin
Approved
October 17, 2016
DISSERTATION COMMITTEE:
Lori Caudle, Ph.D., Dissertation Chair
Rodger Broome, Ph.D., Committee Member
Nancy Walker, Ph.D., Committee Member
ACCEPTED AND SIGNED:
________________________________________
Michael R. Berger, Ed. D.
Dean, College of Doctoral Studies
_________________________________________
Date
Abstract
To identify some the contributing factors of work place stress (e.g., emotional
dissonance) a quantitative correlational study was used to determine the relationship of
five-factor model personality traits (e.g., neuroticism, agreeableness, conscientiousness,
extraversion, openness) as predictors of emotional dissonance among police officers. This
study provided empirical evidence based on both theoretical foundations of five-factor
model and emotional dissonance theories that would help predict five-factor model as a
predictor of emotional dissonance among police officers. The participants selected for the
study were 122 police officers that worked for a large Midwestern Police Department,
who were selected using a purposive sampling method. A Pearson r correlation and
multiple regression analysis were used to test hypotheses. The Pearson r correlation
substantiated that neuroticism (r = .25), agreeableness (r = -.31), and conscientiousness
(r = -.25) had statistically significant relationships with emotional dissonance,
experienced among police officers. A multiple regression analysis showed a statistically
significant relationship with all five-five factor model personalities and emotional
dissonance (adjusted 𝑅2 = .11, F (5, 114) 3.84, p < .003). The findings of this study
provided multiple recommendations that will be informational to large police
departments and organizations on how to address the stress factors associated the effects
of emotional dissonance experienced by work personnel. This study helped establish a
greater understanding for the broader population of law enforcement, and through
statistical analyses, it was substantiated that some personality traits were predictors of
emotional dissonance.
Keywords: Emotional Dissonance, Five-Factor Model, Police Officers
vi
Dedication
This dissertation is first dedicated to God, and my Lord and Savior Jesus Christ,
because without them, I would have not had the strength and discipline to endure the
rigorous dissertation process. Further dedication is to my beautiful wife Ola F. Martin,
who has been patient and encouraging, even while in the process of writing her own
doctoral dissertation. I also give thanks to my four beautiful children: Austin, Emily,
Noah, and Isabella for being patient and understanding.
Additionally, this dissertation is dedicated to my co-workers: Kenneth Martin,
Lieutenant Herbert Myles, Sergeant Kevin D. Miller and Sergeant Darrell McClendon,
and all my other coworkers for all the encouragement and support that kept me pushing
through my dissertation journey. Thank you God for giving me such an awesome support
system.
vii
Acknowledgments
I would like to acknowledge my dissertation committee: Dr. Lori Caudle, Dr.
Rodger Broome, and Dr. Nancy Walker thank you for all your support through this
dissertation process. A special appreciation goes out to Dr. Lori Caudle because she has
been one biggest supporters and mentors in the process creating the final draft of my
dissertation.
viii
Table of Contents
List of Tables .................................................................................................................... xii
List of Figures .................................................................................................................. xiii
Chapter 1: Introduction to the Study ................................................................................... 1
Introduction ................................................................................................................... 1
Background of the Study .............................................................................................. 4
Problem Statement ........................................................................................................ 7
Purpose of the Study ..................................................................................................... 8
Research Question and Hypotheses ............................................................................ 10
Advancing Scientific Knowledge ............................................................................... 11
Significance of the Study ............................................................................................ 13
Rationale for Methodology ......................................................................................... 14
Nature of the Research Design for the Study .............................................................. 16
Definition of Terms..................................................................................................... 18
Assumptions, Limitations, Delimitations ................................................................... 20
Assumptions. ...................................................................................................... 20
Limitations. ........................................................................................................ 20
Delimitations. ..................................................................................................... 21
Summary and Organization of the Remainder of the Study ....................................... 21
Chapter 2: Literature Review ............................................................................................ 23
Introduction to the Chapter and Background to the Problem ..................................... 23
Background to the Problem ........................................................................................ 25
Theoretical Foundations.............................................................................................. 27
Emotional dissonance. ....................................................................................... 27
ix
Five-factor model. .............................................................................................. 30
Review of the Literature ............................................................................................. 33
Emotional labor. ................................................................................................. 33
Emotional dissonance. ....................................................................................... 43
Personality and role-conflict. ............................................................................. 51
Understanding the five-factor model. ................................................................ 58
Five-factor model personality traits. .................................................................. 62
Connecting the five-factor model to emotional factors. .................................... 63
Five-factor model measure................................................................................. 73
Emotional dissonance measure. ......................................................................... 77
Summary ..................................................................................................................... 80
Chapter 3: Methodology ................................................................................................... 84
Introduction ................................................................................................................. 84
Statement of the Problem ............................................................................................ 85
Research Question and Hypotheses ............................................................................ 86
Research Methodology ............................................................................................... 87
Research Design.......................................................................................................... 88
Population and Sample Selection................................................................................ 91
Instrumentation ........................................................................................................... 93
Emotional dissonance psychometric survey. ..................................................... 94
NEO-five-factor inventory. ................................................................................ 95
Validity ....................................................................................................................... 96
Reliability .................................................................................................................... 98
Data Collection and Management ............................................................................... 99
x
Data Analysis Procedures ......................................................................................... 101
Ethical Considerations .............................................................................................. 105
Limitations and Delimitations ................................................................................... 107
Summary ................................................................................................................... 109
Chapter 4: Data Analysis and Results ............................................................................. 111
Introduction ............................................................................................................... 111
Descriptive Data........................................................................................................ 113
Data Analysis Procedures ......................................................................................... 121
Data evaluation. ............................................................................................... 122
Data cleaning.................................................................................................... 123
Reliability. ........................................................................................................ 125
Normality ......................................................................................................... 126
Multicollinearity............................................................................................... 127
Results ....................................................................................................................... 127
Hypothesis 1. .................................................................................................... 128
Hypothesis 2 ..................................................................................................... 130
Hypothesis 3 ..................................................................................................... 131
Hypothesis 4 ..................................................................................................... 133
Hypothesis 5. .................................................................................................... 134
Multiple regression analysis............................................................................. 136
Multiple regression-stepwise analyses. ............................................................ 136
Summary ................................................................................................................... 138
Chapter 5: Summary, Conclusions, and Recommendations ........................................... 141
Introduction ............................................................................................................... 141
xi
Summary of the Study .............................................................................................. 142
Summary of Findings and Conclusion ...................................................................... 145
Implications............................................................................................................... 145
Theoretical implications. .................................................................................. 146
Practical implications. ...................................................................................... 147
Future implications. ......................................................................................... 148
Recommendations ..................................................................................................... 150
Recommendations for future research. ............................................................ 151
Recommendations for future practice. ............................................................. 153
References ................................................................................................................... 156
Appendix A. IRB Approval Letter.................................................................................. 172
Appendix B. Informed Consent Form ............................................................................ 173
Appendix C. Permission to Use and Publish the Survey Instruments ............................ 176
Appendix D. Emotional Dissonance Subscale................................................................ 178
Appendix E. NEO-Five-Factor Model Inventory Instrument ......................................... 179
Appendix F. Site Permission Letter to Conduct Study ................................................... 180
Appendix G. Approval Letter from the Chief of Police ................................................. 181
Appendix H. Permission to Conduct Study from the Detroit Police Officers
Association ................................................................................................ 182
Appendix I. Power Analysis ........................................................................................... 183
Appendix K. Post-Hoc Power Analysis .......................................................................... 184
xii
List of Tables
Table 1. Demographic-Rank .......................................................................................... 113
Table 2. Demographics-Gender ..................................................................................... 114
Table 3. Group Statistics of Gender Differences ........................................................... 116
Table 4. Demographics-Tenure ..................................................................................... 117
Table 5. Demographics-Age .......................................................................................... 118
Table 6. Demographics-Race ......................................................................................... 120
Table 7. Summary of Variables and Statistical Tests Used to Evaluate
Research Question 1 ........................................................................................ 122
Table 8. Mahalanobis Distance Values for the Predictor Variables .............................. 124
Table 9. Skewness and Kurtosis used to Evaluate the Predictor Variables ................... 127
Table 10. Pearson r Correlation Between Neuroticism and Emotional Dissonance ....... 128
Table 11. Pearson Correlation Between Agreeableness and Emotional Dissonance ..... 130
Table 12. Pearson Correlation Between Conscientiousness and Emotional
Dissonance ...................................................................................................... 132
Table 13. Pearson Correlation Between Extraversion and Emotional Dissonance ........ 133
Table 14. Pearson r Correlation Between Openness and Emotional Dissonance ........... 135
Table 15. Model Summary of Multiple Regression Analysis for Research
Question 1 ....................................................................................................... 136
Table 16. Models Summary Multiple Regression Stepwise Analysis ............................ 138
xiii
List of Figures
Figure 1. A representation of the five-factor theory personality system. ........................ 32
Figure 2. Contributing factors of personality on role-conflict outcomes......................... 52
Figure 3. Gender histogram. ........................................................................................... 115
Figure 4. Tenure histogram. ............................................................................................ 118
Figure 5. Tenure histogram. ............................................................................................ 119
Figure 6. Race histogram. ............................................................................................... 120
Figure 7. Scatter plot of neuroticism and emotional dissonance .................................... 129
Figure 9. Scatter plot of conscientiousness and emotional dissonance. ......................... 132
Figure 10. Scatter plot of extraversion and emotional dissonance. ................................ 134
Figure 11. Scatter plot of openness and emotional dissonance. ..................................... 135
1
Chapter 1: Introduction to the Study
Introduction
The role of police officers is a multifaceted work position that requires many
different emotional and physical demands (e.g., Hall, Dollard, Tuckey, Winefield, &
Thompson, 2010; Bakker & Heuven, 2006) where police officers are expected by their
police departments, local communities, and elected officials to perform emotional labor.
Due to their frequent exposure to the public, police officers are expected to be neutral
peacekeepers and impartial disciplinarian’s in order perform their roles. Because of the
multiplicity of emotional demands from performing emotional labor (or emotion work)
chronic stress arises, triggering emotional dissonance (Andela, Truchot, & Van der Doef,
2015). Further, emotional dissonance has been related to higher (emotional) stress in
police officers; thus, causing burnout that results in diminished physical and
psychological wellbeing (Bakker & Heuven, 2006; Pugh Groth, Hennig-Thurau, &
2011). Carrasco, Martínez-Tur, Moliner, Peiró, and Ramis (2014). Grant and Langan-Fox
(2007) and Leikas and Lindeman (2009) indicated that in various work environments,
emotions and/ or stress experienced at work can differ depending on the type of
personality trait. For these reasons, the objective of this study was to determine if the
five-factor model personalities (e.g., neuroticism, agreeableness, conscientiousness,
extraversion, openness) are predictors of emotional dissonance in police officers.
The conceptualization of emotional dissonance was first theorized in
Hochschild’s (1983) pioneering book, The Managed Heart: Commercialization of
Human Feelings, where she posited that emotional labor was the result of emotion
management where flight attendants suppressed (e.g., utilizing surface acting and deep
2
acting) their own emotions in order to display outward emotions to meet organizational
mandated emotional display rules (e.g., flights attendants must always present a smile in
front of customers). Following Hochschild’s theory on emotional dissonance, Rafaeli and
Sutton (1987) added a different conceptualization of emotional dissonance. They added
that emotional dissonance is a type of role-conflict, that is, person role-conflict that
results from a conflict between personal standards (e.g., employees own work
expectations and role-requirements). Each of these theories on emotional dissonance was
used as the theoretical foundation for the conceptualization emotional dissonance used in
this dissertation.
Recent research on emotional dissonance has mainly investigated stress-related
factors (e.g., mental and physical well-being), and work and family interference that
contributed to work burnout and (emotional) exhaustion. Studies by Bakker and Heuven
(2006), Cheung and Tang (2012), and Diestel and Schmidt (2011) examined human
service workers and substantiated that stress-induced (dissonance) by emotional
dissonance resulted in a conflict with organizational display rules that caused burnout. In
other emotional dissonance research, Abraham (1998; 1999a; 1999b; 2000) set out to
understand the many different facets to understanding the effects of emotional dissonance
examining: psychological factors (e.g., negativity affectivity), job control, turnover,
cognitive controls (self-regulatory process) (e.g., Diestel & Schmidt, 2011) antecedent’s
consequences, and moderators. In line with the objectives of this current study, Abrahams
(1998) examined negative affectivity, which has been considered closely related to one of
the five-factor personalities, neuroticism. Abraham’s study substantiated a correlation
3
between emotional dissonance and negative affectivity; thus, proving a relationship
between personality and emotional dissonance.
Another study by Diamond (2005) also examined personality, but used the five-
factor model to learn if personality was an antecedent of emotional dissonance in debt
collectors. The results of the stud revealed that some five-factor models personality traits
had a negative correlation (e.g., agreeableness, extraversion, openness) when determining
emotional dissonance in debt-collectors. Finally, in Rafaeli and Sutton’s (1987) study,
emotional dissonance was considered a form of role-conflict, and that the dissonance
experienced from role-conflict (e.g. Kahn, Wolfe, Quinn, Snoek, and Rosenthal (1964),
may be a contributor to individual personality traits, in this way, making personality a
moderator of emotional dissonance. While it has been demonstrated that individual
personality traits may be predictors of emotional dissonance, it was not known how or to
what extent the five-factor model personalities predicted emotional dissonance
experienced by police officers.
This chapter outlines the background and rationale for why this study is needed in
emotional dissonance research. For instance, it is discussed that a substantial amount of
research in emotional dissonance research has only examined stress related factors, e.g.,
burnout. Furthermore, this dissertation study has shown very few studies have examined
emotional dissonance and personality. For example, Diamond (2005) studied emotional
dissonance and the five-factor model, in which the sample consisted of debt collectors.
However, this study has evaluated the relationship between the five-factor model and
emotional dissonance, and found that some of the five-factor model personality traits
were predictors of emotional dissonance among police officers. Finally, this chapter
4
explains how the conceptualization of emotional dissonance is based on theories by
Abraham (1998), Kahn et al. 1964), and Rafaeli and Sutton (1987), in which all support
the argument that emotional dissonance is a form of role conflict. For these reasons,
further research is needed to examine how the five-factor model predicts level of
emotional dissonance among police officers.
Background of the Study
After evaluating emotional dissonance research, there have been minimal studies
examining police officer and emotional dissonance, in which have examined the
association of burnout, e.g., exhaustion, disengagement, and cynicism (e.g., Bakker &
Heuven, 2006). This gap further extends to the lack of research of the five-factor model
as a predictor of emotional dissonance experienced by police officers. Furthermore,
studies by Abraham (1998; 1999a) have been some of the few substantiating the
relationship between negativity affectivity (neuroticism) and emotional dissonance, as
predictors on emotional dissonance. Abraham (1999a) reported that negative affectivity is
an emotional trait disposition, and considered to have the same negative emotional
properties as neuroticism (e.g., Gore & Widiger, 2013), thus inferring that neuroticism
will also determine the level of stress outcomes associated with emotional dissonance.
Police work is one of the most stressful occupations, for it requires patrol officers
to display and repress various positive emotions (e.g., presenting a cheerful smile when
encountering citizens) and negative emotions (e.g., having to suppress anger when
criminals commit violent crimes) when interacting with citizens, e.g., victims of crimes
and violent criminals. Furthermore, not only do police officers have to face stressful
encounters with citizens that involve physical and verbal attacks against them, abuse
5
afflicted (molestation, child abuse, death) on children, and death perpetrated on fellow
police officers (Daderman & De Colli, 2014). Police officers stress can also be associated
with organizational stress factors such as: personnel shortage, pressure from supervisors
and long work hours (Conn & Butterfield, 2013). As result, numerous research studies
have substantiated that police work can be detrimental to an individual’s physical and
psychological wellbeing (Bakker & Heuven, 2006; Conn & Butterfield, 2013). The
impact of stress on police officers has been substantiated to cause behavioral outcomes
among police officers, e.g., “absenteeism, domestic violence, excessive use of force, and
substance abuse” (Conn & Butterfield, 2013, p. 273).
This dissertation study used a large Midwestern police department for the study
sample. Crime statistics have indicated that police officers working in larger cities have
higher incidents of stress outcomes (physical and mental health problems) due to the
frequency of crime rates (FBI , 2011; Marchand, Nadeau, Beaulieu-Prévost, Boyer, &
Martin, 2015; Van der Velden, Kleber, Grievink, &Yzermans, 2010). Furthermore, police
officers’ stress outcomes can be attributed to population size and location of the police
department. For instance, the FBI (2011) census showed that based on population size
and location (e.g., non-suburban and suburban), there was a significant difference in the
percentage of major crimes (e.g., forcible rape, robbery, aggravated assault) between
large cities than small cities. For example, large cities with a population size of more
250,000 citizens had three times the crime rate than cities with a population less than a
100,000 citizens. The FBI (2011) census revealed that there also was a substantial
difference between non-suburban and suburban cities when it came to major crimes.
Non-suburban cities had a more substantial amount of major crimes than suburban cities.
6
Meanwhile, because of higher crime rates based on population and location, police
officers working in large cities are faced with higher incidents of violent crimes, which
involve more aggressive encounters with criminals. Marchand, Nadeau, Beaulieu-
Prévost, Boyer, and Martin (2015) and Van der Velden, et al. (2010) stated that because
of higher incidents (chronic work conditions) of confrontations between police officers
and criminals, they have decreased job performance (e.g., Beehr, Ivanitskaya, Glaser,
Erofeev, Canali, 2004), increased mental health problems such as, anxiety, hostility, and
burnout. As a result, Van der Velden et al. reported that police officers experience more
mental health problems (e.g., posttraumatic stress syndrome, (PTSD) and/or (ASD) acute
stress disorder) from increased conformation with criminals that have aggressive intent.
The sample chosen for this study was selected from the largest city in Michigan, which
has been deemed by the FBI as one of the most dangerous cities in the United States for
violent crimes. For this reason, the study provided a unique perspective on how police
officers working in large cities, personalities (five-factor model) might act as predictors
of emotional dissonance among street patrol officers.
To further expand on stress outcomes associated with police officers, Bakker and
Heuven (2006) examined the relationship of emotional dissonance and burnout among
police officers and nurses. Bakker and Heuven substantiated that because police officers
are required to perform (emotional labor) specific emotional and behavioral display rules;
they undergo an emotional conflict that arises from suppressing their genuine felt
emotions. According to Bakker and Heuven, suppression of felt emotions experienced by
police officers causes an increased psychological strain that contributes to burnout, and as
a consequence can lead to deterioration in physical and mental wellbeing. Their study
7
demonstrated an association of emotional dissonance as a stress factor that led to burnout
among police officers (Bakker& Heuven, 2006). Further, there have been other studies
that have investigated the relationship of personality characteristics on police stress, and
also revealed an association between personality and stress outcomes (e.g., Du Preez,
Ghazinour, Cassimjee, Lauritz, & Richter, 2011; Van Gelderen, Bakker, Konijn, &
Demerouti, 2011).
In this empirical study, it was argued that being a police officer is a unique career
where personality will be an indicator of the level emotional dissonance experienced by
law enforcement officers. To evaluate the relationship between emotional dissonance and
five-factor model research, past and current research was reviewed and analyzed in a
literature review in order to strengthen the research objectives for this empirical study. In
the next section, there was a brief outline of the background of the study.
Problem Statement
It was not known to what extent the five-factor model of personalities predicted
level of emotional dissonance among police officers. Furthermore, the objective of the
study was to examine if police officers’ personalities act as predictors, in that, their level
of emotional dissonance is determined by their personalities. The population of the study
consisted of police from a large Midwestern metropolitan police department in the
Detroit area. Specifically, the study targeted all police officers that have worked street
patrol. Due to an exhaustive search of emotional dissonance literature there has been
minimal, if any, research linking personality traits (e.g., five factor model) as predictors
of emotional dissonance on police officers. Consequently, in a study by Diamond (2005)
she examined personality and emotional dissonance among debt collectors. However, the
8
results in Diamond’s substantiated that only neuroticism (anger) and consciousness were
the only two five-factor model personality traits positively correlated with emotional
dissonance. Because emotional dissonance correlated with only two five-factor model
personality traits, these findings might be limited do to the fact debt collectors work in
conditions where there is no face-to-face interactions with customers. Research has
substantiated occupations that have face-to-face interactions with customers, will prompt
more behavioral and emotional responses (Ashforth & Humphrey, 1993).
Furthermore, research on emotional dissonance has strictly addressed stressor
factors (e.g., burnout and wellbeing, e.g., physical and psychological) that have been a
result of an emotional conflict experienced between employees displaying mandated
organizational displays of emotions, and their genuine felt emotions (Bakker & Heuven,
2006; Cheung & Cheung, 2013; Cheung & Tang, 2012; Diestel & Schmidt, 2011; Pugh
et al., 2011; Mishra & Bhatnagar, 2010; Kovács, Kovács, & Heg). To address the
shortage of research in emotional dissonance research, this current study has contributed
to the body of knowledge in emotional dissonance research in order to determine if the
five-factor personality traits predict the level of emotional dissonance among street patrol
police officers.
Purpose of the Study
The purpose of this quantitative correlative study was to examine the predictive
power of the five-factor model personality model on emotional dissonance of police
officers working street patrol. To examine the relationship between personality (five-
factor model) and emotional dissonance, a correlational research design was used to
examine a sample of 138 police officers from a large Midwestern Police Department with
9
a population of 1000 street patrol officers. This sample was selected in order to learn if
personality (five-factor model) is a predictor in decreasing or increasing the level of
emotional dissonance. To analyze all variables in this correlational study, the Pearson r
correlation and multiple regression analysis was used to assess how the five-factor model
personality traits predict the level of emotional dissonance among police officers.
The predictor variable for the study was the five-factor model personality traits.
The five-factor model was measured using the NEO-Five Factor Inventory (NEO-FFI)
that contains 60 items using a 5-point Likert Scale (McCrae & Costa, 2010; McCrae &
John, 1992). The criterion variable for this study was emotional dissonance, which was
measured using Andela, Truchot, and Borteyrou (2015a) emotional labor scale that
measures emotional dissonance. The emotional dissonance sub-scale contains 4 items
using 5-point Likert scale that has been designed to specifically distinguish between the
emotion (display) regulation process, e.g., surface and deep acting (e.g., Andela et al.,
2015a; Andela et al. 2015b).
Understanding the relationship between five-factor model and emotional
dissonance was vital in learning how individual personality among police officers may
contribute to the emotional stress factors associated with emotional dissonance. Because
the mass of research on emotional dissonance has strictly addressed stressor factors (e.g.,
burnout and wellbeing, e.g., physical and psychological) that have been a result of an
emotional conflict experienced by employees to perform required organizational display
rules, which come into conflict with their genuine felt emotions (e.g., Bakker & Heuven,
2006; Cheung & Cheung, 2013; Cheung & Tang, 2012; Cheung & Tang, 2012; Diesel &
Schmidt, 2011; Pugh, Groth, & Hennig-Thurau, 2011; Mishra & Bhatnagar, 2010;
10
Kovács, Kovács, & Hegedűs, 2010). Therefore, the purpose of this study was to learn if
personality is a precursor to emotional dissonance in police officers. The next section will
briefly discuss the measurement instruments that will be used to measure emotional
dissonance and the five-factor model of personalities.
Research Question and Hypotheses
The objective of this study was to extend the body of knowledge in emotional
dissonance research and private sector, which will provide new insight on the relationship
between five-factor model and emotional dissonance. Therefore, this research study has
presented findings that will help answer the following research question and hypotheses.
For these reasons, this research study was guided by the below research question
and hypotheses:
R1: What influence, if any and to what degree, do the 5 Factor Model personality
traits contribute to emotional dissonance experienced among police officers?
H0: Police officers scores in Five-Factor Model of personality will show no
correlation with differences in scores in emotional dissonance.
H1: Police officers high in neuroticism will show a proportional correlation with
scores in emotional dissonance.
H2: Police officers high in agreeableness will show an inverse correlation with their
scores in emotional dissonance.
H3: Police officers high in conscientiousness will show an inverse correlation with
their scores in emotional dissonance.
H4: Police officers high in extraversion will show a proportional correlation with their
scores in emotional dissonance.
11
H5: Police officers high in openness to experience will show a proportional
correlation with their scores in emotional dissonance.
To further extend the body knowledge in emotional dissonance research, the
above research questions provided research to discover if personality (five-factor model)
predicts emotional dissonance among police officers. This research has helped address
the literature that has not examined the individual personality among police officers,
which may be a factor in contributing to the emotional discrepancy of emotional
dissonance. Furthermore, the outcomes of each research question has helped provide
valuable information for other law enforcement agencies and organizations; in addition to
bringing new insight to personality and emotional dissonance research.
Advancing Scientific Knowledge
Over the past 30 years, the body of knowledge on emotional dissonance has
continued to grow; however, emotional dissonance is still considered a new construct.
For this reason, information gathered from this study will further expand the scientific
knowledge in emotional dissonance by examining the lack of research examining how the
five-factor model predicts the level of emotional dissonance in police officers. The
information gleaned from this study will not only bring greater understanding to how
personality might be a contributor to emotional dissonance in large metropolitan police
departments, but it will also inform all law enforcement agencies on police officers
personalities may influence emotional dissonance. The theory of this study was
conceptualized on the assumption that five-factor model of personalities would be
predictors of emotional dissonance in police officers.
12
The theoretical framework used for this study is Hochschild (1983)
conceptualization of emotional dissonance and the five-factor model (McCrae & Costa,
2010; McCrae & John, 1992). Hochschild’s theory on emotional dissonance contends
that employees’ emotions are at the center of the emotional conflict between their actual
felt emotions and organizational display rules. In addition, Rafaeli and Sutton (1987)
conceptualization of emotional dissonance was used in conjunction with Hochschild
theory. Rafaeli and Sutton theorized that the emotional conflict that arises from emotional
dissonance is a result of role-conflict between the employee’s personal principles
(employee’s own work expectations) and required organizational role expectations.
McCrae and Costa’s five-factor model theory highlights five hierarchy personality traits
that are used to assess personality in different cultural settings, e.g., police departments
and hospitals.
The contribution of this study has advanced the body of knowledge in emotional
dissonance by providing research on understanding how emotional dissonance creates
emotional stress based on the police officers five-factor model personality trait. Police
officers face many different emotional demands that require a professional demeanor set
forth by organizational display rules that often times contradict how police officers truly
wish to express their actual true emotions with criminals and citizens. The use of
Hochschild and Rafaeli and Sutton’s emotional dissonance theory and McCrae and
Costa’s five-factor model will help advance the scientific knowledge in understanding
how five-factor model personality traits may influence emotional dissonance experienced
by police officers.
13
Significance of the Study
The contributions of this study have provided new insight using quantitative data
to evaluate how the five-factor model of personalities act as predictors of emotional
dissonance experienced by police officers. In today’s society, police officers are being
held more accountable for their encounters with citizens by having to be more
compassionate and kinder peace officers. Because police are expected to maintain a
professional demeanor at all times with citizens, they are now held to a higher standard of
professional conduct by their supervisors, communities, and politicians that have set forth
mandated organizational display rules that have been substantiated to cause an emotional
conflict with police officers actual felt emotions; in this way, resulting in emotional
dissonance (Bakker & Heuven, 2006). Furthermore, the information obtained from this
study can aid law enforcement agencies on how personality may contribute to emotional
and stress factors such as emotional dissonance that lead to burnout such as job
exhaustion, depersonalization cynicism, and disengagement (Bakker & Heuven, 2006).
Information gleaned from this study will be a tool in assisting: organizational
executives and management, human resource departments, industrial and organizational
psychologists, clinical psychologists, social psychologists and socialists, and policy
makers. In addition, by understanding how the five-factor model predicts emotional
dissonance, this current research can help provide insight into improving organizational
processes like personnel selection (e.g., pre-employment and promotions), personality
assessment test (e.g., Myers-Briggs Type Inventory and NEO-PI-R), job performance,
and organizational restructuring, e.g., downsizing (Detrick & Chibnall, 2013).
14
This study has provided a new outlook on understanding how personalities,
specifically, five-factor model and emotional dissonance will relate in other social
science settings (e.g., mental health, relationship therapy), particularly, outside of the
workplace. Furthermore, the knowledge gained from this study will provide insight in
learning how personality characteristics in romantic relationships may also contribute to
emotional dissonance. Research in examining emotional dissonance outside the
workplace is very limited. Although, Hwang and Matsuomoto (2012) indicated that
display rules are commonly used in intimate relationships among different ethnicities
when dictating the expression of negative and positive emotions. Display rules (e.g.,
culture mandated displays of behavior and emotions) are one of the two (genuine felt
emotions) emotional components that create an emotional conflict, resulting into
emotional dissonance. Therefore, information gleaned from this study has contributed
valuable knowledge on how personality characteristics may contribute to emotional
dissonance within individual relationships. Therefore, this current research has added to
the body of knowledge in emotional dissonance research through empirical literature, by
examining how the five-factor model predicts the level of emotional dissonance among
police officers. The next section describes the rationale for the methodology approach
that will use for the purpose of this study.
Rationale for Methodology
The following research describes a quantitative correlative study of police officers
that examined how the five-factor personality model predicts emotional dissonance
among police officers. Johnson and Christensen (2008) reported that a quantitative
approach is considered the most appropriate methodology to conduct quantitative
15
research when examining cause and effect, and determining the relationship between
variables, to test hypotheses. Further, because the study used scaled measurements, a
quantitative approach provided the best outlook in examining the relationship between
two or more variables. For this reason, a correlational research design was selected on the
basis of determining how the five-factor model predicts emotional dissonance. Even
though correlational studies cannot prove causation, they do propose a predictive
direction or time sequence relation between two variables (Rumrill, 2004). Such
information can be useful when making practical decisions in law enforcement personnel.
The rationale for a quantitative analysis was further supported by numerous studies (e.g.,
Cheung & Cheung, 2013; Hosie, Gilbert, Simpson, & Daffern, 2014) that used a
correlation analysis to examine the relationship of variables such as emotional dissonance
and personality (e.g., the five-factor model. Furthermore, a correlational research
designed was selected to measure (e.g., Pearson r correlation and Multiple regression
analysis) to determine the relationship between personalities (e.g., five-factor model) and
emotional dissonance experienced among police officers.
Finally, in efforts to collect data appropriate for this current study, self-report
psychometric questionnaires were used. Self-reports are commonly used in psychological
research that provide data on individual behavioral experiences (Luong, Charles, Rook,
Reynolds, Gatz, 2015). Further, self-report questionnaires were used in the form of
survey method measures (e.g., Likert Scales) that were given to all participants working
for a large Midwestern metropolitan police department.
16
Nature of the Research Design for the Study
The following research was a quantitative correlative study of police officers to
examine how the five-factor personality model predicts emotional dissonance among
police officers. Rumrill (2004) described how correlational research design is commonly
used in research in order to examine how much variation (e.g., coefficient of variation) is
associated between the independent variable and dependent variable. Furthermore, Keiss
and Green (2010) indicated that variables that are deemed as characteristics or attributes
are defined as subject variables, e.g., anxiety level, personality, age and gender. Because
both variables in this study are considered subject variables, a correlational research
design is the best approach for measuring how five-factor model of personalities predicts
emotional dissonance.
Furthermore, because the study used scaled measurements, a quantitative
approach provided the best outlook in examining the relationship between two or more
variables. For this reason, a correlational research design was selected on the basis of
determining a relationship between five-factor model and emotional dissonance. Rumrill
(2004) indicated that correlational research design is commonly used in research in order
to examine how much variation (e.g., coefficient of variation) is associated between the
criterion and predictor variables. The rationale for a quantitative analysis was further
supported by numerous studies (e.g., Cheung & Cheung, 2013; Hosie et al., 2014; Jones
& Woods, & Hutchinson; 2014) that used a correlation analysis to examine the
relationship of variables such as emotional dissonance and five-factor model. A
correlational design was selected because the objective of the study was to determine a
relationship, and not a cause and effect, which is mainly used in experimental designs.
17
Therefore, a correlational design is the appropriate statistical design for measuring causal
relationship between five-factor model and emotional dissonance among police officers.
The participants selected for this dissertation study were comprised of police
officers working street patrol from a large Midwestern metropolitan police department.
The sample was selected because this police department is the largest in the state of
Michigan. In this way, providing a diverse population (e.g., race, sex, age, etc.) when
selecting research participants for this study. Furthermore, a purposive sampling (type,
homogenous sample) was used to select 138 police officers working street patrol from a
population of 1,000 patrol officers. Street patrol officers were chosen for this study
because they are the first responders to 911 police calls and are often confronted with
emotionally charged situations, such as civil and domestic disputes, violent and non-
violent criminals (Kachurik, Ruiz, & Staub, 2013). Further, to measure the five-factor
model and emotional dissonance, two psychometric instruments were used to measure
both variables. For example, the NEO Five-Factor inventory (McCrae & Costa, 2010;
McCrae & John, 1992) and Andela, Truchot, and Borteyrou (2015a) emotional
dissonance subscale. In order to qualify, to participate in the study, all research
participants were sworn police officers that have worked a minimum of one year as street
patrol officers.
As for security of the data, only the researcher and administrator responsible for
the data at SurveyMonkey and statistician analyzing the data had access to all collected
data. Furthermore, confidentiality of all data will be secured through SurveyMonkey
secure website, in which each participant gave implied consent, and were not identified
on survey questionnaires, in this way, protecting their identities.
18
A Pearson Correlation Coefficient and multiple regression analyses were used to
measure collected data in order to determine the correlations between five-factor model
personalities and emotional dissonance. In addition, both statistical tests were used to
learn the correlations with demographic variables, that is: age, race, gender, and tenure.
Finally, in answering the research questions, descriptive statistics will be used to learn the
relationship and correlations between each variable.
Definition of Terms
For the use of this study, each concept, phenomena, and technical terminology
was defined as:
Display rules. The display of cultural norms, that is, behaviors, emotions, and
rituals expected by all members to conform too in societal, organizations, and
occupational settings (Ashforth & Humphrey, 1993).
Emotional dissonance. A conflict set forth by an emotional conflict between the
employee’s actual felt emotions and the organizational display of emotions (Hochschild,
1983). The scores acquired on the emotional dissonance questionnaire
Emotional exhaustion. Extreme emotional overloads experienced by employees
that result in diminished physical and emotional wellbeing (Van den Tooren & Rutte,
2015).
Emotional dissonance. A conflict set forth by an emotional conflict between the
employee’s actual felt emotions and the organizational display of emotions (Hochschild,
1983).
Emotional labor. The emotional effort employee exhorts to accomplish the
organization-mandated display of emotions (expression of emotions) and rules when
19
interacting with customers (Ashforth & Humphrey, 1993; Hochschild, 1983).
Five-factor model. The five-factor model personality traits are five hierarchical
personality traits that have been composed from the taxonomy of personalities by way of
(generated from adjectives, e.g., anxious, organized, assertive, kind, curious) factor
analysis traits (McCrae & Costa, 2010; McCrae and John, 1992). Furthermore, each of
the personality traits is used to generalize from the subcategories (e.g., friendly) of
personality traits to generalize from the broader population (McCrae, 2010).
People that exhibit five-factor personalities traits will more likely display the
below traits (McCrae & John, 1992, p. 178-179):
1. Neuroticism: anxious, self-pitying, tense, touchy, unstable, and worrying.
2. Agreeableness: appreciative, forgiving, generous, kind, and sympathetic.
3. Consciousness: efficient, organized, plainful, reliable, responding, and thorough.
4. Extraversion: active, assertive, energetic, outgoing, and talkative.
5. Openness: artistic, curious, imaginative, insightful, and wide interest.
Negative emotions. Negative emotions can be described as emotional responses
that are engendered from problematic situations (e.g. work-stress, intimate relationships,
threats to survival, wellbeing) that can be exhibited in the form of anger, sadness, fear, or
hurt, etc. (Lee & Wu, 2015; Pe, Koval, Houben, Erbas, Champagne, & Kuppens, 2015).
As a result each of sub-emotions can lead to different situational outcomes (Lee & Wu,
2015).
Role-conflict. A dual conflict that results from various role expectation exhorted
on individuals by employers that is contrary to their own work expectations; in this way
making their own job more difficult (Han, Wang, & Dong, 2014).
20
Street patrol officers. Street patrol officers are sworn law enforcement officers
that have been swore to protect and serve the citizens of state, county, and city
municipalities. Police officer’s duties consist, answering 911 calls that involve, citizen’s
complaints, violent (e.g., homicides and robberies) and non-violent crimes (e.g., thefts
and deaths for natural causes), and traffic enforcement (writing traffic tickets) (Kachurik,
Ruiz, & Staub, 2013).
Assumptions, Limitations, Delimitations
Assumptions. The research from this current study assumed the following:
1. The findings for this study will provide valuable knowledge to the majority police departments, providing insight on how personality can contribute emotional
instability in police officers.
2. The findings for this study will provide as a valuable tool for law enforcement human resources departments in the area of personnel selection, and providing
data to human resources department in the organizational private sector.
3. This study provided a framework, in which will bring an understanding of police officers personalities, and its contribution to emotional dissonance that may affect
the interactions with citizens.
4. Due to the previous results (demonstrated reliability and validity) of data collection tools, it was assumed that the instruments selected for this study will
adequately enhance the quality of responses from surveys (Bakker & Heuven,
2006; McCrae & John, 1992).
5. Finally, it was assumed that police officers’ personalities (five-factor model) may contribute to understanding how personality affects the level of emotional
dissonance experienced in police officers. Further, knowing that each police
officer has unique personalities, it was assumed that all police officers have
unique personalities, in this way, affecting their emotions.
Limitations. The limitations and for this current study were:
1. Only sworn police officers (sergeants) working patrol were selected to participate in the study, excluding Lieutenants, Captains and other command staff.
2. The participants were selected based on a purposive sampling that entails selecting research participants on a voluntary basis. Because a non-probability
sampling was used for this study, the use of random sample was not utilized, in
21
this way, reducing generalizability from the population (Bordens & Abbott,
2011).
3. Only Detroit Police Officers were used in the sample, which is not representative of the population of police officers.
Delimitations. The delimitation for this current study is as follows: The author of
this study is a sworn Detroit Police Officer of 18 years, which may have involved contact
with other Detroit Police officers. In order to prevent any form of bias, the author took
precautionary steps to reduce bias; for example, private security codes, and the use of
validated and reliable survey instruments.
Summary and Organization of the Remainder of the Study
This current research has set out to determine the predictive relationship between
five-factory model of personalities and emotional dissonance among police officers.
Emotional dissonance research has substantiated that emotional dissonance is a
contributor of stress, resulting in to burnout (Bakker & Heuven; 2006; Cheung & Tang,
2012; 2013; Diestel & Schmidt, 2011). In a study by Abraham (1998) and Kahn (1964) it
has been posited that role conflict experienced from emotional dissonance may contribute
to the dissonance (emotional tension), exhibited from emotional dissonance. Therefore,
the aim of this study is determine if there the five-factor model predicts emotional
dissonance among police officers.
Furthermore, this study used quantitative research methods to measure both five-
factor model personalities and emotional dissonance utilizing measures that were
substantiated to demonstrate reliability and validity. The dependent variable analyzed
was emotional dissonance, which was measured by Andela, Truchot, and Borteyrou
(2015a) emotional dissonance subscale. The independent variable analyzed was five-
factor model personality traits that were measured by NEO Five-Factory Inventory
22
(NEO-FFI). The results obtained from both instruments have provided valuable data to
the body of knowledge emotional dissonance by showing the utility of personality as a
predictor of emotional dissonance in various police departments and organizational
settings.
To support the research question and hypotheses, Chapter 2 provided an
exhaustive literature review investigating emotional dissonance, five-factory model,
emotional labor, role conflict and police officers, and organizational display rules.
Chapter 2, further provided a historical and current analysis of each literature theme,
which was used to establish empirical support for substantiating the relationship between
five-factory model personalities and emotional dissonance among police officers.
Chapter 3 explained the methodology of the study, which was used to help
support the rationale for the research design and quantitative methods needed to
substantiate the research and hypotheses. Chapter 3 also explained the utility of data
collection method and survey instruments that have been demonstrated reliability and
validity. As for the completion of the study, the prospectus has been approved. The
approval for the proposal is expected by December 5, 2015. An approval from Grand
Canyon University IRB will be expected by December 28, 2015. Once the IRB approval
the participation letter was sent to the Detroit Police Department, Chief of Police
immediately after the approval. Then, the notices to participate were dispersed via Detroit
Police Department intranet: memo’, and fliers, and the expected date of collecting all
psychometric survey questionnaires was two weeks later. Chapter 4 can be expected to be
completed March 21, 2016. Chapter 5 and the final approval of the proposal are expected
by August 4, 2016.
23
Chapter 2: Literature Review
Introduction to the Chapter and Background to the Problem
This chapter was organized to examine the theoretical framework and current
research supporting the research emphasis on police officers’ personalities, and the
relationship with emotional dissonance. Furthermore, this chapter discussed five themes
to cover a detail overview over the research topics. The first theme explained how
emotional labor, or as Hochschild (1983) exclaimed “emotional work” is a required work
condition expected by organizations for employment. Literature was used to describe
how the various facets (e.g., neutral, surface and deep acting, emotional-rule dissonance)
have a connection with understanding how emotional dissonance is closely associated
with police officers work stress. Literature on the second theme was used to examine the
different theories and models on emotional dissonance in order provide a broader
understanding on a fairly new workplace phenomenon. Next, the third theme discussed
display rules, and their emotional connection to emotional dissonance. The fourth theme
provided literature to discuss how police officers’ many different expected roles create a
dual conflict, that is, person to role-conflict with personality.
Finally, the fifth theme provided literature on linking five-factor personalities
with negative emotional factors, which have been found to be associated with emotional
dissonance. Numerous search terms were used in various combinations to obtain
literature for the literature review; for example: five-factor model, five-factor model and
emotions, emotions, personality and emotions, neuroticism, police officers, police officers
and stress and emotions, personality and police officers, role conflict, personality and
role- conflict, role-conflict and police, negative emotions, positive emotions, negative and
24
positive emotions, negative affectivity, negative affectivity and personality negative
affectivity five-factor mode, burnout and five-factor model, display rules, organizational
display rules, emotional dissonance, emotional dissonance and personality, emotional
dissonance and neuroticism, emotional dissonance and police officers emotional labor,
emotional labor and emotional dissonance. These collections of literature terms were
comprised through the use of Grand Canyon University Library. Others sources were also
used such as local libraries to gather books, and the use of other scholarly and empirical
material were collected. In addition, other data was collected from the Detroit Police
Department Human Resource Department.
The following chapter provided literature from past and current peer-reviewed
research information to support this current research in determining the relationship
between five-factor model personalities and emotional dissonance among police officers.
Finally, in the closing of the literature review section, an exhaustive literature review of
the strengths and weakness was divulged to explore the gaps in order to support
theoretical foundation for the research question and hypotheses.
Police officers face many different unknown situations (e.g., traffic stops,
criminal activity) when dealing with the public, making it one of the most stressful jobs
(Wu, 2009). Police officers have sworn an oath to protect and serve all citizens regardless
of their own personal feelings about whom they protect and serve. The role of a police
officer can be contradictory in nature, in that, they must maintain a high level of
interpersonal sensitivity and neutrality (unbiased behavior and/or attitude), but then
portray themselves as the probing insensitive skeptic and/or disciplinarian when dealing
with victims of crimes and criminals (Beutler, Nussbaum, & Meredith, 1988). This
25
dualistic conflict is just not self-contradictory in police officers’ work roles, but there is a
conflict between their own emotions, and the expected emotions (e.g., emotional labor)
required by their organizations as conditions for employment (Rafaeli & Sutton, 1987).
To further understand this emotional conflict in police officers, Bakker and Heuven
(2006) examined the relationship between emotional dissonance and burnout (e.g.,
emotional exhaustion, depersonalization, cynicism) among police officers, substantiating
that emotional dissonance is correlated with burnout. The objective of this study is to
extend the body of knowledge in emotional dissonance research in order to learn if other
factors such as personality (e.g., five-factor model personality traits) is associated with
emotional dissonance among police officers.
Background to the Problem
Research has substantiated that there is a relationship with emotional dissonance
and burnout that contributes to emotional exhaustion, cynicism, and depersonalization
among police officers (Bakker & Heuven, 2006). Other research has also substantiated
emotional dissonance as contributor to burnout with the service industry occupations (e.g.
Cheung & Cheung, 2013; Cheung & Tang, 2012; Diesel & Schmidt, 2011; Pugh, Groth,
& Hennig-Thurau, 2011). To further understand emotional dissonance and its relation
with stress factors, this study postulates that personality factors may be involved in police
officers level of emotional dissonance while working on duty. Furthermore, there have
been limited studies examining personality (e.g. five-factor model) as a predicting factor
in emotional dissonance among police officers. Diamond (2005) investigated five-factor
model and emotional dissonance personalities among debt collectors. Diamond’s study
was limited in substantiating the five-factor model of personalities as an antecedent of
26
emotional dissonance, which only substantiated two personality traits (neuroticism, i.e.,
anger) and conscientiousness) as antecedents of emotional dissonance. These findings
maybe limited, due to the fact that debt collectors in Diamond’s study did not have face-
to-face interactions with their customers, whereas in this current study police officers
have face-to-face interactions with bystanders. Research has reported that face-to-face
interactions with higher norm strength (e.g., the degree in which employees internalize
their expected work roles) will have higher emotional reactions with customer contact
(Ashforth & Humphrey, 1993).
To further support the theory of personalities (five-factor model) as indicator of
emotional dissonance among police officers, current published literature emphasized their
studies on examining personalities and emotions. Zanon, Bastianello, Pacico, and Hutz
(2013) and Komulainen et al. (2014) both investigated the relationship between negative
affectivity and five-factor model, which revealed that other personality traits maybe
associated with negative affectivity besides neuroticism. A study conducted by Kehoe,
Toomey, Balsters, and Bokde (2012) researched two five-factor personality (neuroticism
and extraversion) traits to learn the brain proximity of emotional processes, that is,
emotional arousal and valence. In a similar study investigating coping strategies, Sorić,
Penezic, and Burić (2013) noted that the Big Five personality traits would have a
relationship in how individuals use coping strategies to reduce negative achievement
emotions, e.g., unhappiness, anger, anxiety, humiliation.
Ebstrup, Eplov, Pisinger, and Jørgensen (2011) indicated that five-factor model
personalities would have a relationship with perceived stress. Tornröos et al. (2013) also
investigated the relationship between five-factor model personalities and perceived job
27
strain, but examined perceived job strain using the demand-control model. In similar
study Grant and Langan-Fox (2007) originally investigated the relationship of five-factor-
model personalities and perceived job strain, but examined the relationship using the
stressor-strain model. Armon, Shirom, and Melamed (2012) examined burnout using the
Maslach Burnout Inventory (exhaustion, cynicism, professional efficacy) to determine if
five-factor model personalities attributed to burnout in employees working various
occupations.
Similarly, Hurt, Grist, Maleski, and McCord (2013) also examined the
relationship between five-factor model personalities and burnout, but used the Shirom-
Melamed Burnout Measures as the burnout (e.g., physical fatigue, emotional exhaustion,
cognitive weariness) measure. Sutin and Costa, Jr. (2010) investigated the relationship of
five-factor model and employee occupational experience using the demand control
model. These studies will help provide additional understanding how personality may
have similar related factors (e.g., negatives affectivity, negative emotions and stress) to
emotional dissonance.
Therefore, the objective of the literature review was to provide a comprehensive
review of the literature to support the basis of the research questions and hypotheses by
providing a literature review, in which helped determine if five-factor model personalities
will have a relationship between five-factor model personality traits as predictors of
emotional dissonance among police officers.
Theoretical Foundations
Emotional dissonance. Emotional dissonance theory was used as the framework
for this proposed study. The origins of emotional dissonance began with Hochschild’s
28
(1983) seminal work, The Managed Heart: Commercialization of Human Feelings where
she posited that emotional labor was the result of emotion management, where flight
attendants suppressed their own emotions in order to display outward emotions required
by the organization or airline. Hochschild stated that, “This kind of labor calls for a
coordination of mind and feeling, and it sometimes draws on a source of self that we
honor as deep and integral to our individuality (p.7). As a result, Hochschild described
this person-role-conflict as discrepancy between suppressing felt emotions and required
organizational emotional demands resulting in emotive dissonance. Consequently, in
order for employees to comply with organizational demands, that is, display rules (e.g.,
employees must always present a smile when interacting with customers or maintain a
polite demeanor at all times) they will employ what Hochschild described as strategies
(surface acting and deep acting) to manage emotions.
Surface acting can be described as the temporary effort and/or faking used to alter
emotions that are incongruence with felt emotions (Hochschild, 1983; Pugh, Groth, &
Hennig-Thurau, 2011). For example, an employee becomes agitated, but pretends to
ignore a customer’s rude behavior by faking a friendly smile. Deep acting can also be
described as conscious effort to embody the actual experienced emotion necessary to
preform actual emotions needed for required organizational emotion work (Hochschild,
1983; Pugh, Groth, & Hennig-Thurau, 2011). Therefore, based on emotional labor
research (e.g., Ashforth & Humphrey, 1993; Hochschild, 1983; Morris & Feldman,
1996), emotional labor is the contingent element for emotional dissonance, in which
requires an emotional conflict between felt emotions and organizational displayed
emotions. Hochschild’s theory on emotional dissonance was selected because it posited
29
that the expression of organizational display rules is expressed outwardly (behaviorally)
from an internal emotional state that requires mind and feeling.
When understanding the emotion work (emotion management) of human service
providers, police officers have a unique interaction between citizen and victim of crimes
that has led to emotional dissonance; resulting in burnout, e.g., exhaustion, cynicism and
disengagement (Bakker & Heuven, 2006; 2012; 2013; Diestel & Schmidt, 2011). Bakker
and Heuven (2006) stated that emotion work required by police officers require police
officers to have a professional demeanor that is calm, flexible, and unbiased. According
to Bakker and Heuven, “Their work environment asks for a suppression of emotions to
adequately deal with, for example, conflict situations, manipulation, and aggression”
(p.426). As a result, police officers experience role-conflict that puts them in conflict with
their felt emotions and the display rules that require a professional demeanor, in which
expects police officers to suppress emotions vocally and physically (Bakker & Heuven,
2006). For example, during a traffic stop, police officers are required to be courteous and
non-threating verbally or physically, even if citizens are rude.
In contrast to Hocschild’s theory, Rafaeli and Sutton (1987) prescribed to the
premise that emotional dissonance is a form of person-to-role conflict, which is a result
of a conflict between personal principles (employees own work expectations) and
required role expectations. However, both Rafaeli and Sutton both prescribed to the
premise that organizational display rules is expressed in the form emotions whereas
Morris and Feldman (1996) theorized that display rules are expressed in the form of
behavior. Meanwhile, Rafaeli and Sutton indicated there are two types of role
expectations. Organizational context are formal and informal systems within the
30
organization that make up context such as selection, socialization, rewards and
punishment (Rafaeli & Sutton, 1987). Organizations use these contexts to instill in
employees the prescribed displays of emotions required to influence customers and
clients. Emotional transactions can be described as verbal and non-verbal interactions
between sender and receiver that result in the receiver altering the sender’s organizational
display of emotions (Rafaeli & Sutton, 1987). Rafaeli and Sutton stated that, “The cycles
of displayed emotion, reaction, and readjustments may reinforce or weaken the effects of
feeling rules as an emotional transaction” (p.29). For these reasons, Rafaeli and Sutton
suggested that when employees’ inner feelings (felt emotions) are hindered
(organizational context) or altered through emotional transactions, they experience
person-to- role conflict; thus, causing emotional dissonance. Rafaeli and Sutton’s theory
on emotional dissonance will provide as the theoretical foundation for this dissertation
study because it is based on the premise that the conflict that arises from emotional
dissonance is an emotional conflict between personal principles (employees own work
expectations) and required role expectations.
Five-factor model. Five-factor model of personality provides a direct look into
five hierarchal human personality traits: (1) neuroticism (2) agreeableness (3)
consciousness (4) extraversion (5) openness. Each of these personality traits provides a
general description on the vast amount of characteristics traits that make up human
personality. McCrae and John (1992) indicated that five-factor model is not a theory, but
a tool to assist researchers in creating:
A common language for psychologist from different traditions, a basic
phenomenon for personality theorist to explain, a natural framework for
31
organizing research, and a guide to the comprehensive assessment of individuals
that should be of value to educational, industrial/organizational, clinical
psychologist. (p. 177)
Because the five-factor model has been criticized for being atherotical, McCrae
and Costa (2008b) created a more comprehensive theory for explaining the theoretical
implications of the five-factor model (Laher, 2013). As a result, McCrae and Costa
(2008b) devised the five-factor theory (FFT), which defined and delineated a personality
system to explain the hierarchal tenants of personality by positing that personality is a
make-up of basic tendencies (e.g., neuroticism, conscientious, agreeableness,
extraversion, openness) characteristics adaptations (e.g., roles, habits, attitudes, skills),
self concept (e.g., self-schema, personal myths), external influence (e.g., cultural norms,
life events), and dynamic processes (e.g., perception, learning, planning). McCrae and
Costa also proposed in the FFT that: five-factor model personality traits are influenced by
biological factors (for a more comprehensive review of the FFT personality systems read
McCrae & Costa, 2008b). Additionally, when describing personality using the FFT
personality system, McCrae and Costa proposed that, “Personality consists of a system
defined by personality traits and the dynamic processes by which they affect the
individual’s psychological functioning” (p.76). For example, the model below delineates
the processes (i.e., personality system) that shape personality (neuroticism,
conscientiousness, agreeableness, extraversion, openness) within the FFT (see Figure 1;
McCrae & Costa, 2008b, p. 163).
32
Figure 1. A representation of the five-factor theory personality system.
Therefore, for the purpose of this study, the five-factor model was only used in order to
gain a general outlook on how the five hierarchal personality traits (e.g., neuroticism,
agreeableness, conscientiousness, extraversion, and openness) contribute to learning if
the five-factor model personality traits are predictors of emotional dissonance among
police officers.
The first personality trait normally identified in the FFM is neuroticism, in which
individuals high in this trait can be described as: anxious, self-pitying, tense, touchy,
unstable, and worrying. The second FFM trait is agreeableness, and people high in this
trait can be described as: appreciative, forgiving, cooperative (uncooperative),
antagonistic, trusting, kind, and aggressive. The third FFM trait is conscientiousness, and
individuals high in this trait will be described as: responsible, avoid risk, efficient,
dependable, cautious, and achievement oriented. The fourth FFM trait is extraversion,
which is associated with people that have a higher propensity to be: active, talkative,
energetic, outgoing, assertive, aggressive, and status seeking. The final FFM trait is
33
openness to experience, in which describe individuals who are: artistic, intellectual
curiosity, imaginative, insightful, and have a wide interest.
Five-factor model was first conceptualized as a model of personality by McCrae
and Costa (1992; 1998) who believed that personality traits could contribute to
understanding human behavior in many different areas of study, e.g., Industrial and
Organizational psychology (e.g., Choi, Oh, & Colbert, 2015), clinical psychology
(Bastiaansen, Rossi, & De Fruyt, 2013), and developmental psychology (e.g., Hessels,
Van den Hanenberg, De Castro, & Van Aken, 2014). Further, with the development
NEO-PI-R assessment scale, the FFM has been substantiated to measure personality
across numerous cultures, and identify personality differences between men and women
in different settings (McCrae &Terracciano, 2005). In police personnel selection, the
five-factor model also has been substantiated as indicator of job performance, contextual
and task performance (Detrick & Chibnall, 2013). Consequently, Block (2001) argued
that the FFM comes with limitations, and should not be considered an exhaustive
taxonomy for describing personalities. In countering Block’s argument, McCrae
maintained that FFM is not considered as means to replace taxonomy of personalities
trait, but provide as tool to narrow down specific traits among different cultures, gender,
and various work settings. Therefore, the five-factor model provided as an excellent
indicator for determining if personality is a predictor of the level emotional dissonance
among police officer.
Review of the Literature
Emotional labor. Research has established that emotional dissonance is
contingent on emotional labor (e.g., Ashforth & Humphrey, 1993; Hochschild, 1983;
34
Morris & Feldman, 1996); therefore, it was vital for the purposes of this study to
understand how emotional labor engenders emotional dissonance as experienced by
police officers. Further, Hochschild’s (1983) groundbreaking theory on emotional labor
has spurred numerous studies on emotional labor, which has resulted in the adaptation of
different methodological perspectives in emotional labor research that have redefined
emotional labor (Ashforth & Humphrey, 1993; Morris & Feldman, 1996). Hochshild’s
(1983) theory on emotional labor is based on the premise that the role of internal
emotions plays a critical role in emotion work needed for employees to fulfill emotional
work requirements. Hochschild stated, “Feeling rules are what guide emotion work by
establishing the sense of entitlement or obligation that governs emotional exchanges. This
emotion system works privately, often free of observation” (p. 56). However, Hochschild
indicated the expression of internal feelings can be controlled through the expression of,
“publically observable facial and bodily display” in order to preform emotional work (p.
7).
In their seminal review of emotional labor, Ashforth and Humphrey (1993)
described Hochschild’s (1983) notion of feeling rules or norms as a person level of
control, in which the level of emotional intensity, duration, and object of emotions can be
altered to meet required work demands. For example, police officers are expected to feel
emotions that can range from calm and composed to direct and stern, and debt collectors
are expected to feel emotions that can range from friendly to unconcerned. Consequently,
Ashforth and Humphrey rejected Hochschild’s theory on feeling rules and posited that
display rules require the use of actual exhibited behaviors, instead of an internal
35
emotional state needed to display physical expression (body and facial movements) of
behaviors.
In another seminal review, Morris and Feldman (1996) reconceptualized
Hochschild’s definition of emotional labor by providing four separate consequences of
emotional labor: (a) frequency of appropriate emotional display, (b) attentiveness to
required display rules, (c) variety of emotions required to be displayed, and (d) emotional
dissonance generated as the result of having to express organizationally desired emotions
not genuinely felt. As result, Morris and Feldman redefined emotional labor as, “the
effort, planning, and control needed to express organizationally desired emotion during
interpersonal transactions” (p. 987). Consequently, Morris and Feldman also agreed with
Hochschild that there must be an internal expression of emotion in order to display the
appropriate behaviors needed to display required organizational emotions. However, both
Ashforth and Humphrey (1993) and Morris and Feldman theorized behavior should
supersede the internal emotional state needed to express behaviors because display rules
are directly observable, e.g., facial and body movements.
As previously mentioned, emotional labor is contingent for the process of
emotional dissonance; for this reason, understanding emotional labor and its strategies is
vital in understanding the relationship between personality (five-factor model) and
emotional dissonance, specifically, among police officers. Bakker and Heuven (2006)
indicated that police officers often experience emotional dissonance, do to psychological
strain (chronic stress) that results from frequent suppression of their felt emotions in
order express mandated organizational displays of emotions. Police officers working in
large cities such as the large Midwestern police departments have frequent encounters
36
with citizens, particularly large non-suburban cities who have been reported by the FBI
census having higher incidents of violent crimes compared to smaller suburban cities
(FBI Census, 2011). Thus, by understanding how personality predicts the level of
emotional dissonance, the current literature on emotional dissonance has contributed to a
greater understanding on how emotional dissonance attributes to police officers working
in large non-suburban cities.
Cheung and Lun (2015) state, that emotional labor can be described as, “…the
management of emotion and expression in order to conform to organizational rules and
emotional expressions” (e.g., Andela, Truchot, Van Der Doef, 2015, p.3). Therefore, to
understand emotional labor, emotional labor strategies have to be elucidated to learn their
utility in reducing the psychological strain associated with performing emotional labor.
The most commonly used emotional labor strategies used in emotional labor research are
surface and deep acting, in addition to expression of naturally felt emotions. Surface
acting is described as faking emotions without making a natural emotional change. Deep
acting is considered the actual attempt to use internal emotions in order to create a
genuine expression of emotion to meet organizational required emotions. The expression
of naturally expressed emotions (that is, the person actual true emotions) identifies with
the genuine expression of emotions when experiencing or displaying felt emotions
(Cheung & Lun, 2015). For example, Cheung and Lun explained how the expression of
naturally expressed emotions is particularly used as a strategy in customer interactions
where exercising surface and deep acting has be exhausted, so instead employees express
their true emotions in the form of no smile, or even anger.
37
This dissertation study examined felt emotions, which is one of two (e.g., required
organizational emotions) of the main elements that make up the emotional discrepancy of
emotional dissonance. Cheung and Lun (2015) investigated three emotional labor
strategies, that is, expression of naturally expressed emotions, surface and deep acting in
order to learn their relationship with burnout (e.g., emotional exhaustion,
depersonalization, lack of personal accomplishment) and job satisfaction from a sample
of 267 school teachers from China. The results indicated that surface acting only had a
positively relationship with emotional exhaustion and depersonalization whereas deep
acting was only negatively related to lack of personal accomplishment. The expression of
naturally expressed emotions (e.g., felt emotions) had the most substantial results that
revealed that emotional exhaustion (r = -.28, p < .01) depersonalization (r = -.35, p <
.01), and lack of personal accomplishments (r = -.32, p < .01) were all negatively related
to the expression of naturally felt emotions. However, the expression of naturally felt
emotions had a positive relationship with job satisfaction. These findings indicate that
employees who exhibit their actual felt emotions will have lower stress associated with
burnout and have higher job satisfaction.
Park, O’Rourke, and O’Brien (2014) also examined naturally expressed emotions
(felt emotions) using the conservation of resources (COR) theory, which prescribes to the
protection of employee resources, e.g., money, social standing or self-esteem. They
investigated the relationship between naturally expressed emotions and surface acting,
and their relationship with Organization Citizenship Behaviors-Individual (OCB-I). In
addition, Park et al. also examined the relationship of a new emotional regulation strategy
38
(e.g., Interpersonal Influence) that they posited would reduce the negative effects of
surface acting and burnout.
Interpersonal influence can be defined as (Park et al., 2014):
A facet of political skill that reflects the ability of an individual to affect other
people in different situational settings with flexibility. Individuals high on
interpersonal influence have greater perceived control over the work environment
by having the ability to adjust their behavior to multiple situations. (p. 390)
A sample of 95 school employees was examined using a correlation and moderated
multiple regression analyses to measure all data. The results indicated that naturally felt
emotions and surface acting both had positive relationship with OCB-I. Further, it was
found that naturally felt emotions had a significant negative relationship with all three
levels of burnout, that is, emotional exhaustion, depersonalization, and lack of personal
accomplishments.
These findings were also supported in Cheung and Lun (2015) study that
substantiated negative relationships between felt emotions, and the three levels of
burnout. Meanwhile, the relationship between surface acting and emotional exhaustion
showed positive correlations, in which Park et al. (2014) reported there was a very weak
positive relationship between both variables, e.g., (r = .16, p < .05) and depersonalization
(r = .16, p< .05). It was also found that deep acting only had a positive relationship with
only personal accomplishments. The findings may vary because the conservation of
resources (COR) theory was used in Park et al. (2014) study, supporting that the lost of
employee resources had a greater effect when they used surface acting as an emotional
labor strategy. Consequently, deep acting did not have a positive correlation with OCB-I,
39
emotional exhaustion, depersonalization, or personal accomplishments. As for
interpersonal influence, there was a significant positive relationship with emotional
exhaustion, depersonalization, and lack of personal accomplishment; in addition to an
increase in organizational citizenship behaviors.
Hulsheger and Schewe (2011) reported that there are three different emotional
labor facets, where emotional dissonance rule has been examined as a facet along with
deep and surface acting. Hulsheger and Schewe (2011) conducted a meta-analysis
examining three facets of emotional labor that included the following:
1. Emotion-rule dissonance- emotional congruence between felt emotions and mandated displayed emotions.
2. Surface acting- emotions faked through outwardly expressions (e.g., fake smile), and
3. Deep acting- inner emotions that are altered to conform to expected organizational emotions.
Meanwhile, each of the above facets was examined to learn its relationship with
wellbeing (e.g., emotional exhaustion, depersonalization, lack of accomplishments,
psychological strain, psychosomatic complaints, job satisfaction), task performance (e.g.,
emotional performance and customer service), and job related performance, e.g., job
satisfaction and organizational attachment. A meta-analysis of emotional labor was
conducted that used 494 individual correlations, with a sample of 95 independent studies.
The data were analyzed using correlational and multi-regression analyses. The results
indicated that emotional-rule dissonance and surface acting had the highest correlation
with wellbeing and job related performance. However, emotional-rule dissonance had a
negative relationship with task performance variables, i.e., emotional performance and
organizational attachment. Consequently, there was negative relationship with deep
40
acting and all wellbeing variables, with the acceptation of what Hulsheger and Schewe
provides for an explanation of small relationships between deep acting and
psychosomatic complaints (p = .175) and personal accomplishments (p = .269). These
findings link emotional labor strategies (surface acting), specifically, emotional-rule
dissonance with facets of burnout.
In a longitudinal study, Bechtoldt, Rohrmann, DePater, and Beersma (2011)
investigated two facets of emotional labor (e.g., surface and deep acting) and their role in
how police officers utilize emotion recognition (e.g., characteristic of emotional
intelligence) and their level of work engagement to reduce the effects of surface acting
and deep acting. Further, in a sample of 84 police officers, Bechtoldt et al. posited that
employees high in emotion recognition would be able to moderate surface and deep
acting, and the level work engagement. The results indicated a positive relationship with
police officers’ ability of emotion recognition as a moderator on surface acting and work
engagement. Furthermore, emotion recognition had the same relationship with deep
acting, where deep acting and work engagement were moderated by emotion recognition.
The findings indicated that police officers high in emotion recognition were able to detect
the emotions of others (customer interaction), which help reduce the negative effects of
surface acting, and add stability to employee work engagement.
Grandey, Chi, and Diamond (2013) investigated the element of financial reward
incentives for performing emotional labor that results in job satisfaction, and the effect of
financial reward incentives under the conditions of surface acting and deep acting. A
correlational (Study 1) and experimental designs (Study 2) were used to test these
variables within two studies. First, Study 1 substantiated that when financial rewards was
41
high rather than low, it had a positive relationship with emotional labor and job
performance. As for Study 2, financial rewards did not moderate the deep acting and job
satisfaction with positive mood, that is, with the addition of financial rewards. However,
financial reward did moderate surface acting and negative mood. The findings indicated
that financial incentives served as a moderator on emotional labor, specifically under the
negative moods and surface acting.
Allen, Diefendorff, and Ma (2014) examined emotional labor to learn if there
were any cross-cultural differences in emotional labor. This study consisted of a cross-
cultural comparison between United States and China service workers in order to identify
differences with display rule perceptions, emotion regulation (surface and deep acting),
and the three levels of burnout (e.g., depersonalization, emotional exhaustion, and lack of
personal accomplishments). Furthermore, Allen et al. posited, based on the premise that
United States has been classified as an individualistic (e.g., uniqueness, autonomy,
separateness) culture and China as a collective (e.g., interdependence, group goals over
self goals) culture, there would be a different outcome of emotional labor and burnout
experienced from both cultures. The sample selected for this study was comprised of 602
customer service employees that completed online survey questionnaires. To analyze the
results, a correlational design was used to compare correlations and means. The results
indicated, when comparing means, there was a higher use surface and deep acting among
participants in China, compared to participants from the United States. However,
participants from the United States utilized more surface acting when they had to
conform to display rules when compared to China, display rules were perceived higher in
the United States. In addition, participants from the United States had a higher
42
relationship with surface acting and burnout, than participants from China. As for deep
acting, there was a stronger association with burnout in participants from China, than
Untied States. These findings indicated there is a cultural difference between Western
and Eastern cultures and individualistic societies; for instance, the United States, may
utilize more surfaces acting, than collective cultures, and individuals from China having a
natural propensity to conform to emotional display rules.
Cheung and Tang (2010) examined the relationship of age and gender on
selecting emotional labor strategies (surface and deep acting), and whether or not age and
gender mediate the expression of naturally felt emotions, job satisfaction, and
psychological health, from a sample of 386 organizational professionals from 30
organizations. Utilizing a correlational analysis (bivariate), the results indicated a positive
relationship between age, and deep acting (emotion labor strategies), and the expression
of naturally felt emotions; however, there was no relationship with age and surface
acting. The findings indicated that older workers relied more on deep acting, and were
able express naturally felt emotions than younger workers. Further, there was only a
partial relationship between gender and emotional labor strategies where men relied more
on surface acting than women. In addition, there was no association between women and
deep acting when regulating emotions. However, deep acting mediated the relationship
between age and job satisfaction and psychological health, which was associated with
older workers. However, Cheung and Tang (2011) substantiated there was a negative
relationship with naturally expressed emotions (e.g., felt emotions) and burnout and
positive relationship with job satisfaction. The literature revealed that emotional labor is a
result of employees having to preform emotion work, that is, organizational displays of
43
emotions and/ or behavior requirements needed to maintain employment (Hochschild,
1983). In order to preform emotion work, the literature revealed (Bechtoldt et al., 2011)
that emotional labor strategies (surface and deep acting) was used by police officers to
reduce psychological strain caused from suppressing their felt emotions, which in turn,
engenders the phenomenon known as emotional dissonance (Bechtoldt et al., 2011). For
this reason, this current dissertation study has examined the five-factor model
personalities as a predictor of emotional dissonance (a consequence of emotional labor)
among police officers. To further understand the association of emotional dissonance
with police officers, an additional examination of literature has helped provide support
that links personality and stress factors with emotional dissonance.
The literature in this section revealed that emotional labor and the stress incurred
(emotional dissonance) from emotional labor involves the use of emotional labor
strategies such as naturally expressed emotion (felt emotions) and surface and deep
acting. Because felt emotions are at the center of the emotional conflict (e.g., felt
emotions and the display of mandatory organizational emotions) in emotional dissonance,
this dissertation study has examined emotional dissonance and how other factors such as
stress, negative emotions and personality might help link personality to the level of
emotional dissonance experienced among police officers.
Emotional dissonance. Emotional dissonance can be detrimental to police
officers’ physical and psychological well-being, which can affect their interactions with
citizens, and in their own personal family lives (Chueng & Tang, 2013; Bakker &
Heuven, 2006; Hopp, Rohrmann, Zapf, & Hodapp, 2010; Van Gelderen, Bakker, Konijn,
& Demerouti, 2011). Emotional dissonance is described as an emotional incongruence
44
between the individuals genuine felt emotions and organizational required displays of
emotions. Further, because of emotional labor, police officers try to manage their feelings
in order, “to create a publicly observable facial and bodily displays,” which sometimes
conflict with how they really want to express their emotions during citizen encounters
(Bakker & Heuven, 2006; Hochschild, 1983, p.7). Police officers are faced with many
different stresses incurred from emotional job demands involving their many face-to-face
encounters with citizens. As a result, according to Bakker and Heuven (2006) police
officers have to fake and/ or suppress their felt emotions during emotional job demands
(e.g., violence, emotional confrontations with citizens and criminals, and frequent
encounters with serious injuries and/or death) in order to display organizational displays
of emotions (behaviors), in which in turn, cause psychological strain.
Bakker and Heuven (2006) indicated that police officers often experience
emotional dissonance, do to psychological strain (chronic stress) that results from
frequent suppression of their felt emotions in order express mandated organizational
displays of emotions. Police officers working in large cities such as police officers
working in large Midwestern police departments have frequent encounters with citizens,
particularly large non-suburban cities, who have been reported by the FBI census having
higher incidents of violent crimes compared to smaller suburban cities (FBI Census,
2011). Therefore, by understanding how personality predicts the level of emotional
dissonance, the current literature on emotional dissonance has shown how emotional
dissonance attributes to police officers working in large non-suburban cities.
Bakker and Heuven (2006) conducted a study to determine whether the emotional
demands of citizens would contribute to emotional dissonance, resulting in burnout (e.g.,
45
exhaustion, cynicism, and disengagement) among police officers. The study examined
101 police officers from the Netherlands. A structured equation modeling (SEM) analysis
was conducted to investigate the correlation between emotional dissonance and burnout.
The results substantiated that emotional had a significant relationship with burnout,
specifically with exhaustion and cynicism.
Police officers are faced with a consistent influx of negative emotions when
interacting with citizen throughout their work shifts. According to Van Gelderen, Bakker,
Konijn, and Demerouti (2011), police officers that frequently suppress negative discrete
emotions have a greater chance of experiencing emotional dissonance, in which is do to
trying to uphold organizational displays (display rules, e.g., be polite) of conduct.
Van Gelderen et al. suggest that, “…suppressing each of the discrete negative emotions,
anger, abhorrence, and sadness can also be seen as a form of emotional dissonance” (p.
524).
For this reason, Van Gelderen et al. (2011) investigated the relationship of
suppressing negative discrete emotion (e.g., anger, abhorrence, sadness) in order to
determine if they would have an effect on emotional job demands (e.g., interaction with
violent criminals) and the amount of exhaustion experienced by the end of a work shift.
To examine this study, a diary study was used, in which a sample of 39 Dutch police
officers working criminal investigations and forensics. The results indicated that police
officers that suppressed anger (t = 2.38, p < .05) and abhorrence (t = 2.49, p < .05) had a
significant effect with emotional job demands and exhaustion at the ‘end of work shift’
whereas sadness had no effect. The findings suggest that suppressing particular discrete
emotions can lead to emotional dissonance and exhaustion, but suppressing other
46
negative discrete emotions may not be associated with engendering emotional dissonance
and exhaustion in Dutch police officers.
Cheung and Cheung (2013) offered a different perspective on the relationship of
stress factors associated emotional dissonance. Their study investigated the stressor-strain
outcome model in order to explain the relationship of various job related stress factors
(e.g., role conflict, excessive workload, lack of support) that contribute to emotional
dissonance (in addition to, a decline in OCB), which, in turn, engenders burnout, e.g.,
emotional exhaustion, depersonalization and lack of personal accomplishments (e.g., self-
efficacy). According to Cheung and Cheung, stressor-strain outcome is a reaction from
increased stress outcomes that are contributed form environmental factors that adversely
affect employees behaviorally and psychologically. Two hundred and sixty-four Chinese
schoolteachers were surveyed. The results indicated there were positive relationships
between emotional dissonance and all three dimension of burnout. It was also found that
there was a relationship with emotional dissonance as a mediator of increased burnout,
and burnout as mediator of lower (OCB) organizational citizenship behaviors. However,
there was no direct relationship between OCB and burnout. These findings were in line
with the stressor-strain model as the contributing stress factor that links burnout (strain)
as a mediating component between emotional dissonance and OCB. Consequently,
research by Kobasa and Puccetti (1983) has substantiated that negative emotions or
negative emotional states derived from stressor-strain relationship can be modulated
through social relations.
Similarly, Abraham (1998) also demonstrated how social support was associated
with emotional dissonance. Because negative emotions have been correlated with
47
negative affectivity (e.g., Abraham, 1998; Dubey & Pandey, 2013), there has been
research interest in trying to understand personality traits and emotional dissonance.
These findings will be crucial for this current dissertation study in understanding the
relationship between personalities and emotional dissonance among police officers.
Abraham (1998) examined the relationship of negative affectivity as a moderator
of emotional dissonance, job satisfaction, and emotional dissonance. In a correlational
study, 110 customer service representative working in various career fields (e.g.,
telecommunication, food service, clothing retail industries) were evaluated. The results
were analyzed using structured equations and hierarchical regression analysis. The results
indicated that there was a substantial relationship with negative affectivity as moderator
of emotional dissonance, job satisfaction, and emotional exhaustion. Based on a
continuum, the level (high or low) negative affectivity will determine the adverse effect
of emotional dissonance experienced by employees (Abraham, 1998).
Goussinsky (2011) investigated the moderating effect of positive affectivity (or
extraversion) and negative affectivity (or neuroticism) on emotional dissonance and job
satisfaction, as they related to customer service workers who experienced aggression
from customers. To note, Goussinsky also indicated extraversion is a facet of positive
affectivity traits and neuroticism is a facet of negative affectivity. The study was
comprised of 156 undergraduate college students from Northern Israel. A Pearson r
Coefficient and hierarchical analysis was used to analyze the data. The results
substantiated that neuroticism had a positive relationship with emotional dissonance (r =
.20, p <0.05); in addition to extraversion acting as a moderator of emotional dissonance
(𝛽 = .19, p < 0.05). Consequently, the objective of the study was to determine if positive
48
affectivity (extraversion) was a moderator of customer aggression. The results indicated
that the interaction customer aggression and extraversion had a positive relationship with
emotional dissonance. The findings indicated that individual’s high positive affectivity
(extraversion) had no impact in reducing customer aggression experienced by customer
representatives. However, when customer aggression and emotional dissonance were
examined together, there was a positive relationship when individuals were high in
positive affectivity.
In similarity with this current study that’s investigating the relationship between
five-factor model and emotional dissonance among police officers. Diamond (2005) also
examined the relationship between five personality traits (e.g., extroversion,
agreeableness, consciousness, anger (neuroticism), helpfulness); however, one five-factor
model personality trait was subsequently replaced, and openness was not examined with
the studies variables. For example, openness was replaced because Diamond (2005)
reported that there was no research connecting openness to experience with debt
collectors job functions. Then, anger was utilized in place of neuroticism, first, because it
is a facet of neuroticism, and that debt collectors have to often display anger when
dealing with clients (Diamond, 2005).
Meanwhile, Diamond investigated the relationship between five-personality traits
and emotional dissonance among debt collectors. The study was comprised of 183
participants working for a large debt-collecting firm located in the mid-west. Survey
questionnaires were used to collect data, which was analyzed using a pathway analysis
and correlational matrix, and path coefficient. Diamond also used t-test to analyze the
difference of gender in emotional dissonance. First, the results indicated a significant
49
relationship between anger (neuroticism) and emotional dissonance. The results further
indicated that consciousness had a positive relationship with emotional dissonance. This
relationship consisted of debt collectors who were high in consciousness, had a low level
of emotional dissonance. In line with this study, it is also hypothesized that police
officers high in consciousness will have a decrease in emotional dissonance. Further,
because openness was not examined in Diamond’s study, this dissertation study has
provided current knowledge on the relationship of this variable with emotional
dissonance, in which is hypothesized to have a negative relationship with emotional
dissonance among police officers. Additionally, Diamond indicated a negative
relationship between agreeableness and emotional dissonance among debt collectors,
which supported the hypothesis; individuals high in agreeableness will have an increase
in emotional dissonance. However, this study hypothesizes that there will be a significant
inverse relationship between agreeableness and emotional dissonance among police.
Finally, a t test was used to compare gender and emotional dissonance and revealed a
negative relationship between women and emotional dissonance.
However, males had a significant effect, with both anger (neuroticism) (.34) and
consciousness (.31) with their relationship emotional dissonance among debt collectors
(Diamond, 2005).
Diamond (2005) investigated the relationship between personality and emotional
dissonance among debt collectors. Debt collectors have customer interactions that are
strictly non-face-to-face encounters, and mainly communicate with clients over the
phone, expressing anger and disappointment through only the faceless contact of voice-
to-voice contact. On the other hand, police officers are faced with angry citizens and their
50
complaints, non-violent and violent deaths, and victims of crimes that are sometimes
seriously injured. Because of frequent face-to-face encounters with citizens, police
officers may often time have to suppress their felt emotions such as (discrete emotions)
anger, sadness, abhorrence, and happiness in order to maintain the appropriate displays
facial and bodily expressions of professionalism expected by superiors and their
communities (Van Gelderen et al., 2011). Ashforth and Humphrey (1993) reported,
“norm strength tends to be stronger in face-to-face service encounters, especially where
emotional expressions is central to the transaction” (p. 91).
Hopp, Rohrmann, Zapf, and Hodapp (2010) investigated the physiological effects
(physical) of face-to-face interactions (with angry and rude customers) with service
industry employees who experienced emotional dissonance as a consequence of
emotional demands, in which gender and neuroticism would act as moderators.
An experimental design was use to examine 59 college students, who imagined they were
service employees that worked for a telecommunications company. In order to check
physiological and biological reactions, survey questionnaires and a pulse checking device
was used to monitor blood pressures.
A t test was used to analyze the effect of negative physiological and customer
interaction. The results indicated there was a significant effect (t (58) = -3.88, p < .001)
of physiological state during customer interaction or face-to-face contact. There also was
a significant effect (t (58) = -7.13, p < .001) of physical complaints and customer
interaction. Furthermore, utilizing a hierarchical regression analysis it was substantiated,
during emotional dissonance, men had higher physiological states than women when
systolic blood pressures were compared. The results also indicated that when both
51
women were asked to be friendly (display rule) during the state of unfriendly customer
encounters (state of emotional dissonance), they both had an increase in systolic and
diastolic blood pressures. As for neuroticism, neuroticism was positively associated with
physiological state (increased systolic blood pressure) and physical complaints,
specifically when participants had to be friendly; however, when participants did not
have to preform the required display rule (e.g., be friendly) there was no increase in
systolic blood pressure and physical complaints.
The literature has established empirical support that personality is associated with
emotional dissonance experienced among police officers (Goussinsky, 2011; Van
Gelderen et al., 2011). However, the literature revealed that numerous studies on
personality and emotional dissonance have evaluated these variables mainly using
samples from other countries, e.g., Israeli and Dutch police officers. Therefore, this
current dissertation study will help provide insight on the relationship of personality
(five-factor model) and emotional dissonance utilizing a sample comprised of police
officers from the United States. To further understand the relationship between
personality and emotional dissonance, additional literature will be used to examine the
relation between personality and role-conflict. Rafaeli and Sutton (1987) suggested
emotional dissonance is a form emotional dissonance that is engendered from the
employee’s personal principles and role requirements.
Personality and role-conflict. Studying the antecedents, consequences, and
moderators, Abraham (1998) posited role conflict theory, theorized by Kahn et al. (1964)
provided the theoretical foundation for theorizing that emotional dissonance was a form
of role conflict. For this reason, Abraham argues a relationship between role conflict and
52
personality exist based on the assumption that the dissonance (emotional tension)
experienced by the individual would vary based on personality, in this way, making
personality a predictor of (based on role conflict theory) emotional dissonance.
In their seminal book Organizational Stress: Studies in Role Conflict and
Ambiguity, Kahn et al. (1964) suggested individual characteristics (personality traits)
contribute to role conflict that, in turn, contributes to (e.g., Sorić et al., 2013) emotional
stress caused from the individual differences in personal attributes, e.g., personality trait.
According to Rafaeli and Sutton (1987) theory on emotional dissonance, stress associated
with the employee’s lack of individual control of performing their expected role’s, will
result in a conflict between a conflict personal principles and required role expectations,
in this way, causing emotional dissonance. As a result, Abraham (1998) suggested that
emotional dissonance associated with role-conflict might be associated with personality.
Kahn et al. provided a model to delineate how personality contributes to various factors
associated with causing role-conflict. (see Figure 2; Kahn et al., 1964, p. 227).
Figure 2. Contributing factors of personality on role-conflict outcomes.
Personality Factors
Role expectations
perceptions
Role pressures;
degree of conflict and ambiguity
Experience: tension,
etc.
Response:
withdrawl,
etc.
53
Kahn et al. described role conflict as external pressures exerted by organizational
forces (management) that impose undesirable role expectations on employees in order to
enforce (role pressure) organizational behaviors. As result, employees experience a
psychological conflict between their own perceived role expectations and the
organizations role pressures to preform mandated behaviors. Kahn et al. substantiated in
their study a relationship between role-conflict and personality. The objective of this
research sets out to determine if the five-factor personalities is associated with
determining the level of emotional dissonance, in which Rafaeli and Sutton (1987)
suggested is a form of role-conflict.
Pandey and Kumar (as cited in Han, Wang & Dong, 2014) provide a definition for
role conflict describing a dual conflict between the person and role expectations as
theorized by Rafaeli and Sutton (1987):
A state of mind or experience, or perception of the role incumbent arising out of
the simultaneous occurrence of two or more role expectations such that
compliance with one would make compliance with the other(s) more difficult or
even impossible. (Han, Wang, & Dong, p. 475)
Furthermore, Kahn et al. indicated there are four types of role conflict, which include
(p.19-20):
1. Intra-sender conflict- different prescriptions and proscriptions from a single member of the role set may be incompatible, as, for example, when a supervisor
requests a man to acquire material which is unavailable through normal channels
and at the same time prohibits violations of normal channels.
2. Inter-sender conflict- pressures from one role sender oppose pressures from one or more other senders. The pressures on a foreman for close supervision from his
superiors and for looser supervision form his subordinates provide an example of
inter-sender conflict.
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3. Inter-role conflict- here the role pressures associated with membership in one organization are in conflict with pressures stemming from membership in other
groups. Demands from role-senders on the job for overtime or take-home work
may conflict with pressures form one’s wife to give undivided attention to family
affairs during evening hours.
4. Person-role conflict- it can occur when role requirements violate moral values, as, for example, when pressures on an executive to enter price-fixing conspiracies are
opposed by his personal code ethics.
Further, Kahn et al. (1964) used a national survey to examine the relationship of
role conflict and personality. The results substantiated a relationship among personality
traits (e.g., high and low: neurotic anxiety, flexibility and rigid, and extrovert and
introverts) that were evaluated under various conditions (e.g., tension, frequency of
communication, and sense of futility) in order to learn their association with role conflict.
Han, Wang, and Dong (2014) examined 245 middle management managers across 32
companies in Beijing, Shanghai, and Tianjin China, to investigate the relationship of
proactive personalities as a moderator of role conflict. Major, Turner, and Fletcher (2006)
indicate that proactive personality has been found to be correlated three of the five-factor
model personalities, e.g., conscientiousness, extraversion, and openness. Meanwhile,
when examining role conflict, Han et al. only utilized two role conflict types, compared
to Kahn et al., who described four role conflict types that were aforementioned. Hang et
al. specifically selected inter-role and inter sender-role conflicts because they closely
identified with the role conflict experienced by middle managers. Further, proactive
personality was defined as, “individual differences in the extent of the tendency for
people to control situational forces and initiate change in their environment” (Hang et al.,
p.475). Han et al. further described proactive personality as high and low proactive
personalities; for example, (p. 476):
55
High proactive personality: People high in proactive personality tend to identify opportunities, show initiative, take action, and persevere until they have achieved
their goals and brought about significant change.
Low proactive personality- proactive people tend to passively adapt to their environments and rely on others to initiate change.
Utilizing a hierarchal regression analysis, the results substantiated that proactive
personality was a moderator of role conflict, specifically, during high role conflict in
middle managers. The findings indicated managers with higher proactive personalities
had less work-related anxiety and higher job satisfaction than managers with lower
proactive personalities in high role conflict conditions. The implications of these findings
will help support that premise that personality, that is, proactive personality traits have a
relationship with various forms of role-conflict. Major, Turner, and Fletcher (2006)
indicate that proactive personality traits have been consistently found to be related to
consciousness and extraversion. Based on these findings further support will be provided,
in that, five-factor model personality traits act as a predictor of emotional dissonance.
Taylor and Kluemper (2012) examined the relationship of neuroticism,
agreeableness, and consciousness as moderators of role stress (e.g., role ambiguity, role
conflict, role overload) that contributed to incivility and workplace aggression. The
sample was comprised of 404 employees and managers who were paired together. The
results substantiated that, as a result of role stress, specifically, role conflict and role
ambiguity, employees and managers high in neuroticism (r =. 0.46 and r =0.24), low in
agreeableness (r=0.36 and 0.20), and consciousness (r=0.39 and r=0.22) were
moderators of interpersonal and organizational aggression, due to an indirect effect from
each dispositional characteristic. However, each personality trait had a negative
association with role overload. These finding are integral showing that personality acted
56
as moderators on various forms of role stress, specifically, role conflict. Since, emotional
dissonance has been described as form role-conflict (Hochschild, 1987; Rafaeli & Sutton,
1987), the findings will provide strong implications that the five-factor model will be a
predictor of emotional dissonance among police officers.
Wu (2009) investigated work and family role conflict experienced by police
officers, and its relationship with emotional exhaustion (burnout) and health problems,
and, in addition, the relationship of role conflict (intra-sender), that is, uncompromising
and friendly behaviors. The sample consisted of 672 Taiwanese police officers, using a
correlational study. The results substantiated a positive relationship with work and family
conflict (inter-sender role conflict) and emotional exhaustion and health problems. The
results also substantiated a partial relationship with emotional exhaustion acting as a
mediator with only health problems, and as for role conflict and health problems,
emotional exhaustion did not act as a moderator. Furthermore, it was substantiated there
was a relationship between uncompromising and friendly (intra-sender conflict)
behaviors and emotional exhaustion and health problems. The findings indicated both
forms of role conflict had a detrimental effect on contributing to burnout (emotional
exhaustion) and health problems experienced by police officers.
In another study investigating work and family conflict, Zaman, Anis-ul-Haque,
and Nawaz (2014) examined two facets of work and family interface (WFI), that is, inter-
role conflict (e.g., conflict between work and family roles) and inter-role integration (e.g.,
integrating work and family roles), and their relationship with job performance in order to
learn the mediating effect of consciousness and agreeableness. Zaman et al. reported
work and family interface maybe described as existing, “on a continuum of segmentation
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and integration in which segmentation between work and family roles leads to inter-role
conflict whereas integration of work and family roles facilitates permeability” (p. 529).
The results substantiated inter-role conflict had a negative association with job
performance, consciousness, and agreeableness. The results further substantiated there
was a significant negative association between inter-role integration consciousness and
agreeableness. As for consciousness and agreeableness, they both acted, as moderators of
inter-role conflict and inter-role integration, only consciousness and agreeableness were
moderators of inter-role integration. Finally, the findings indicated consciousness and
agreeableness only had a partial relationship with one facet WFI, that is, inter-role
integration. Wu concluded particular traits associated with consciousness might not
regulate the negative effects of inter-role conflict associated with work and family
conflict. However, Wu pointed out that there is no clear explanation of why both
personality traits do not moderate inter-role conflict, and that further studies need to
examine the relationship with other cultures.
The literature on the connection between personality and role-conflict has clearly
established a link between personality and role-conflict, which has helped support the
implications of this current dissertation that proposes from the assumptions of
Hochschild, (1983) Rafaeli and Sutton (1987) that emotional dissonance is a form of role-
conflict, and that personality shapes (Kahn et al. 1964) the individual’s dual emotional
conflict, i.e., emotional dissonance. For this reason, it was vital for this study to learn
how five-factor model personality traits contribute to stress and emotional factors (e.g.,
positive and negative emotions) that cause the problematic (psychological strain)
58
emotional conflict that results from emotional dissonance among police officers (Bakker
& Heuven, 2006).
Understanding the five-factor model. The five-factor model has become the
contemporary method for understanding personality because five hierarchal personality
traits (e.g., neuroticism, extraversion, agreeableness, consciousness, openness to
experience) have been repeatedly identified as the main indicators of personality
(measured by the NEO-PI-R) across cultures, in 40 different languages (Ashton & Lee,
2007; McCrae & Costa; 1992; 2010; McCrae &Terracciano, 2005). McCrae and Costa
(2010; 2013) devised the five-factor model through a lexical approach (mainly used in
selecting facets for the NEO Personality Inventory), comparing personality
questionnaires, reviewing literature, and conducting factor analyses. In fact, McCrae and
John were so adamant about the utility of the five-factor model, they stated,“ If we reject
the information-processing explanation why there are five factors, what rationale
remains? We believe it is simply an empirical fact, like the fact that there are seven
continents on earth or eight American presidents from Virginia” (p. 194).
In Block’s (1995) review of the five-factor model, he refers to founders McCrae
and Costa (1992) as prescribing to empiricism because they solely used empirical
evidence based on factor analysis. Block (2010) further indicated that, “Although the
method of factor analysis can be extraordinarily illuminating, by itself the method alone
should not be empowered to make paramount and controlling decisions regarding the
concepts to be used within the field of personality (p.6), and that statistical methods
should not take president over the consensus of psychologist’s.
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Block (1995) exclaimed personality should be encompassed from various factors within
individuals such as (p. 188): Energized by motivations, dynamically organize
perceptions, cognitions, and behaviors. Further, Block suggested more research should be
conducted to establish other models of personality because five-factor model of
personalities should not be considered an exhaustive standard for describing individual
personality.
In providing a different perspective on personality, Ashton and Lee (2007) offered
a new view on personality by constructing the HEXACO model. As described by Ashton
and Lee, the HEXACO model consists of honesty-humility (e.g., fairness vs.
entitlement), emotionality (e.g., attachment vs. avoidance), agreeableness (vs. anger)
(e.g., tolerant vs. confrontational), extraversion (e.g., sociable vs. leadership),
consciousness (e.g., task oriented), openness (learning, thinking). Ashton and Lee argue
that HEXACO brings a different outlook on personality assessment by adding sixth
personality trait that includes honesty and humility as new hierarchy personality trait.
However, in McCrae and Costa’s (2008b) review on five-factor personality theory, they
also argued that honesty and humility has been already assimilated in the five-factor
model, and that it was factored as a subtrait using the NEO-PI-R. Moreover, McCrae and
Costa (2008b) maintained through factor analysis, honesty and humility have already
been factored as traits associated with agreeableness, due to their close relations as social
interaction traits.
Meanwhile, the conceptualization of Ashton and Lee’s HEXACO model is
founded on the lexical approach where personality descriptors (e.g., physical and abilities
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characteristics) are selected based on a trait adjective (nervous, energetic, careful)
selection process (e.g., McCrae & Costa, 2013). Ashton and Lee exclaimed:
The lexical approach has the important strength that the selected variables are
known to represent the full array of subjectively important personality
characteristics, as observed and described by generations of people within a given
language community. This approach, therefore, avoids the problem of researcher
biases in the selection of personality variables. (p. 151)
For this reason, Ashton and Lee suggested more attention should be emphasized
on the lexical approach, and less on the factor analysis, which is the means to analyze and
select similar personality facet through the process of elimination. Further, Ashton and
Lee’s indicate that there is an over emphasis’s on factor analysis, which is described by
Block (1995; 2010) as being the single factor for substantiating empirical grounds for
McCrae and Costa’s five-factor model. Consequently, Ashton and Lee maintained that
because HEXACO is a still a new model, it lacks substantive research that has been
produced by the five-factor model. Therefore, for the purpose of this study, the five-
factor model was used, and analyzed by the NEO-FFI, which was substantiated to have
moderate reliability and validity across: gender, age, culture and languages (McCrae &
John, 1992; McCrae & Terracciano (2005). Therefore, for the purpose of this study,
research has substantiated the strength of the different methodological strategies, that is,
sole reliability of factor analysis as empirical proof (McCrae & Costa, 2010; McCrae &
John, 1992), and the lexical approach (Ashton & Lee, 2007).
Conversely, Cervone (2004) provided a different perspective on personality
assessment that contrast with traditional (e.g., Five-Facto Model, HEXACO) approaches
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of assessing personality. Cervone proposes that traditional personality assessments, as
compared to a social cognitive approach, only examine personality from a between-
person standpoint whereas his theory and other social cognitive personality theories
examine from within-person. Furthermore, Cervone suggested that five-factor model is
limited in producing empirical results on individual personality, and explaining behavior
for an individual perspective. For this reason, McCrae and Costa (2008a) stated that they
designed the five-factor theory to explain the limitation of the five-factor model by
creating an outline of guidelines for linking personality and behavior. Moreover, McCrae
and Costa explained that the premise of the five-factor model was to only generalize to
the broader population, as Cervone exclaimed in his review. McCrae and Costa stated
that the, “The distinction he wishes to draw between explanation and description is better
seen as a distinction between proximal and distal causes, and thus between mechanistic
and trait explanations” (p.289). Cervone suggested that when personality is assessed
according to social cognitive theory, a broader picture of the individual is attained.
Cervone’s theory on social-cognitive personality utilizes five guidelines for personality
assessment (p.119):
1. Distinguish between the assessment of internal personality structures and dynamics and overt behavioral tendencies.
2. Assess personal determinants of action.
3. Keep separate response systems separate.
4. Employ assessments that are sensitive to the individual.
5. Assess persons-in-context.
Thus, social cognitive theories prescribe to assessing personality by examining cognitive
processes and structures (Cervone, 2004).
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Five-factor model personality traits. To further understand the connection
between personality and emotional dissonance among police officers, literature is
provided that describes how personality interrelates with emotions and stress, which are
some of the predispose factors that engender emotional dissonance. According to Larsen,
Augustine, and Prizmic (2009), “All of the Big Five personality traits are related to
affective experience” (p. 1412). For this reason, it is posited that each of the five-factor
model personalities will have a unique role in influencing emotional dissonance based on
their individual characteristics.
For example, individuals characterized as high in extraversion (exhibits pro-social
behaviors) will be outgoing, spontaneous, express warmth and happiness; will act in own
interest, over others (Beus, Dhanani, & McCord, 2015; Klimstra, Luyckx, Goossens,
Teppers, & De Fruyt, 2013). According to Beus, Dhanani, and McCord (2015)
individuals high in extraversion, “place primary importance on the higher order goal of
attaining status, or gaining social power and prestige” (p. 483). People who are high in
agreeableness can be characterized as pro-social, flexible (or uncooperative), and the
need to get along with others (Beus et al., 2015; Törnroos et al., 2013). Hence,
agreeableness can be associated with higher order goals of what Beus et al. mentioned as
their need for communion and altruism. Törnroos et al. also suggested agreeableness can
be associated with identity dimensions, where other individual’s opinions can alter a
person’s perceived identity. As for individuals high in openness, they can be
characterized as proactive behaviors, they can be portrayed as intellectual, curious,
adventurous or the need for exploration (Beus et al., 2015; Törnroos et al., 2013). These
characteristics can be considered higher order goals of autonomy (Beus et al., 2015).
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According to Beus et al., individuals high in openness “are more inclined to question
authority” (p.483). Conversely, individuals high in consciousness are characterized to
exhibit higher order goals of achievement (will to achieve), in which causes them to take
less risk, to be more thorough, organized, task driven, and responsible. Furthermore,
people characterized as conscientiousness can be considered to have higher order goals of
achievement (Beus et al., 2015). Chiaburu, Li, and Gardner (2011) reported that pro-
social behaviors can be classified as individuals who are high in conscientiousness and
extraversion, for they seek respect social conventions, and they both seek the need for
impulse restraint. Finally, individuals high in neuroticism can be characterized as being
associated with negative emotions that are reflective of anxiety, stress, worrying, and
nervous impulsive behaviors (Beus et al., 2015; Törnroos et al., 2013. The higher order
goals for neuroticism will be more reflective of a person who has less achievement
oriented and communion, in which is more associated with individuals low in
neuroticism (e.g., calm, secure, confident) (Beus et al., 2015).
Connecting the five-factor model to emotional factors. McCrae and Costa’s
(200) research on the five-factor model has been substantiated across many different
contexts supporting its use as an indicator of personality using five hierarchy personality
types, that is, e.g., neuroticism, extraversion, agreeableness, conscientiousness, and
openness. Further, through the abundance of research using the five-factor personality
traits, the findings have established a connection between personality and emotional
factors such as: negative affectivity, negative emotions, stress and/or strain, and
emotional dissonance. Examining negative emotional factors is critical to this study
because negative emotional factors (psychological strain and/or stress and emotional
64
exhaustion) have been found to be linked to emotional dissonance, particularly for police
officers, who suppress their actual felt emotions in order to meet organizational display
rules (Bakker & Heuven, 2006). Therefore, by examining the relation between five-factor
model personality traits and negative emotional factors, evidence was provided to learn if
there is a relationship between personality (five-factor model) and emotional dissonance
among police officers.
Zanon et al. (2013) investigated the relationship between five-factor model
personalities and positive and negative affect, in a sample of 319 college students from
Brazil. Self-report psychometric instruments were used to collect the data. The results
revealed that neuroticism had a significant positive (.71) relationship with negative affect
and a significant negative (-.37) relationship with positive affect. Extraversion had a
moderate (.34) relationship with positive affect, but no relationship with negative affect.
As for agreeableness, there was a significant negative relationship with both positive and
negative affect. Conscientiousness had positive associations with both positive (.27) and
negative (.23) affect. Consequently, there was significant negative associations between
openness and positive and negative affect. However, Steel, Schmidt, and Shultz (2008)
reported in their meta-analysis that there was a significant relation between openness and
positive effect, and with happiness when measuring them with subjective wellbeing.
Komulainen et al. (2014) examined negative and positive affectivity on daily
emotional processes (e.g., nervous, cheerful, excited, sad, calm, content, sad, tired) and
their relationship with the five-factor of personalities using a sample of 104-college
students from Helsinki, Finland. The participants were all prescreened in order to assure
that no one had any psychiatric disorders. Further, in order to collect each participant’s
65
daily emotional responses and activities, an electronic device was used to obtain this data.
The results indicated that neuroticism was positively associated with participants having
increased daily nervousness and sadness, but participants were found to have lower,
activity, calmness, and positive affect on a daily basis. It was also found that
agreeableness was positively associated with participants having higher cheerfulness and
calmness on a daily basis; consequently, participants daily, had lower negative affect.
Next, conscientiousness was positively associated with participant’s daily having higher
activity, and in addition, there was positive association with participant’s daily having
lower nervousness and sadness. Extraversion was found to be positively associated with
participants having daily, higher cheer and excitement; however, negative affect had no
association with extraversion. Finally, there was no associations found with daily
emotional process, or positive or negative affectivity; however, there was strong
association with participants having higher activity daily.
Kehoe, Toomey, Balsters, and Bokde (2012) examined 23 right-handed women to
investigate if two of the five-factor personality traits (e.g., neuroticism and extraversion)
and their relationship with emotional processes, that is, emotional arousal and valence, in
which they set out to learn their proximity of brain functioning based on personality trait
using a functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI). According to Kehoe et al. both
personality traits were selected because both represent positive (extraversion) and
negative emotions (neuroticism), which were evaluated using Eysenck Personality
Questionnaire (EPQ-R) because the measures were designed to assess neurophysiological
properties of the brain. The results indicated that there was a negative relationship with
individuals high in extraversion, who experienced increased emotional arousal, resulting
66
in no brain activity in the right cerebellum right superior parietal lobule, the right
postcentral gyrus and the left posterior hippocampus. However, there was a positive
linear relationship with extraversion and the right insula. The results also indicated that
there was negative relationship with neuroticism and decreased neural activity with
association of positive valence. However, there was a positive relationship with
neuroticism and increased emotional arousal in the brain region of right and left medial
prefrontal cortex (mPFC). According to Kehoe et al. their study was the first to show that
individuals high in neuroticism and emotional arousal caused brain activity in mPFC
without any valence.
Sorić et al. (2013) used a convenience sample to investigate personality traits in
their study of 500 high school students from Croatia. They measured the Big-Five
personality traits, including other variables (e.g., cognitive control, value appraisals, and
student’s ability to suppress or reappraise emotions) in order to learn how they would
regulate negative achievement emotions (unhappiness, anger, anxiety, humiliation) of
students during their educational experience, e.g., chemistry learning. There was a
significant relationship between students with high conscientiousness, neuroticism
(emotional stability), and agreeableness on lower levels of negative emotions, e.g., anger,
humiliation, and anxiety. However, students high in agreeableness had higher anxiety.
These findings suggest that a few (i.e., agreeableness, conscientiousness, emotional
stability or neuroticism) of the Big Five personality traits acted as distal personal
antecedents to how students regulate and use different strategies to control negative
achievement emotions. The findings further indicated that male (i.e., younger and older)
students experienced more negative emotions such as unhappiness, anger, and
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humiliation than female students. However, there was no difference between male and
female students when experiencing anxiety. Soto, John, Gosling, and Potter (2011)
indicated that during late childhood and adolescence (males and females) personality
stays stable, but through maturity and personal experiences (e.g., college, new job,
marriage, divorce, retirement) various personality traits (e.g., conscientiousness,
openness, and neuroticism particularly for women) change begin to change throughout
the adult life span.
Ebstrup et al. (2011) investigated the relationship between the five-factor model
and perceived stress, and the role of self-efficacy as moderator between the two variables.
In a cross-sectional design, Ebstrup et al. utilized a random sample of 3,471 Danish
citizens selected from the Danish Central Personal Register. Pearson r correlation
analysis was used to measure all data. The results indicated that there was a positive
relationship between perceived stress and low extroversion, conscientiousness,
agreeableness and specifically, neuroticism. However, openness was hypothesized to
have a relationship, but there was no relationship. Consequently, it was found that general
self-efficacy moderated the relationship between perceived stress and consciousness,
extraversion, agreeableness, and neuroticism, but with the acceptation of openness.
Similarly, Törnroos et al. (2013) investigated the relationship between the five-
factor model of personalities and perceived job strain (e.g., stress), investigating a sample
of 1,372 random full time employees using the demand-control model.
The demand control-model prescribes to the premise that (Törnroos et al., 2013):
Work stress originates when the demands an employees faces are high, but the
decision latitude is low. The demands of work are thought to be the stressors,
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while the decision latitude component is thought to either alleviate or prolong
stressful situation. (p. 493)
In this way, demand-control model will be made up of two components, that is,
(psychological) work demands and job control, what is known as decision latitude.
Psychological demands are defined as, “workload demands, time pressures, and conflicts
in the workplace” (Sutin & Costa, Jr., 2010, p.260). Job control is composed of two
factors, which include (Törnroos et al., 2013):
1. Control over task performance (e.g., pace and repetitiveness)
2. Skill discretion (e.g., control over the use of skills) (p. 493).
Meanwhile, the study utilized a sample of 1,372 Finnish full time employees working
various job positions. A correlational analysis was used to measure all data. The results
indicated that there was a positive relationship between high neuroticism and higher
perceived job strain, whereas employees high in consciousness, agreeableness,
extraversion, and openness were associated with lower perceived job strain. However,
employees who were high in consciousness, agreeableness, extraversion, and openness
were found to have lower job demand and job control. According to Törnroos et al., when
the four other personality traits were controlled, agreeableness was found to have a higher
relationship with job strain, which resulted in higher perceived job demand and lower
perceived job control. These results were partially consistent with a study by Grant and
Langan (2007), who investigated the relationship between five-factor model personalities
and psychological strain, in a sample of 311 managers. Their findings indicated that
agreeableness and openness were unrelated to job strain using the stressor-strain model.
Grant and Langan further substantiated the relationship of neuroticism, extraversion, and
consciousness as being related to perceived psychological job strain, which was
69
consistent with Törnroos et al. findings. Incidentally, there was no association between
men and women personality and perceived job strain (Tornroos et al., 2013).
Current studies have substantiated that burnout is a by-product of emotional
dissonance resulting from a persistent psychological strain caused from a conflict
between emotional job demands (e.g., police officer are required to be calm and neutral
with all citizens and criminals) and suppressing felt emotions (Bakker & Heuven, 2006;
Cheung & Cheung, 2013; Kovács, Kovács, & Hegedűs, 2010). To further understand the
relationship between burnout and emotional dissonance, it is proposed by Armon,
Shirom, and Melamed (2012) and Hurt, Grist, Maleski Jr., McCord (2013), and Morgan
and de Bruin (2010) that personality can determine how individuals regulate their level of
burnout.
Morgan and de Bruin (2010) posited there would be a relationship between
personality, that is, five-factor model and burnout. They used a survey research design to
examine a sample of 297 South African college students. Using a correlational research
analysis, the results indicated that neuroticism had a significant relationship with both
emotional exhaustion and cynicism, but there was no relationship with professional
efficacy. Both consciousness and extraversion had positive negative relationships with
both emotional exhaustion and cynicism, but had positive correlations with professional
efficacy. Agreeableness was found to have positive relationship with professional
efficacy; however, there was no relationship with emotional exhaustion, but there was a
positive negative correlation with cynicism. As for openness, only a relationship was
found with professional efficacy.
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In a longitudinal study, Armon et al. (2012) investigated the relationship of five-
factor model personalities (i.e., neuroticism and consciousness) and burnout, using the
Shirom-Melamed Burnout Measure (e.g., physical fatigue, emotional exhaustion,
cognitive weariness) among a sample of 1,105 healthy employees that were controlled for
chronic diseases and anti-depressive medications. The results indicated a significant
relationship between neuroticism and emotional exhaustion; however, there was no
relationship with physical fatigue and cognitive weariness. Consequently,
conscientiousness was also found to have no relationship with cognitive weariness, yet
there was an association with emotional exhaustion. Hurt, Grist, Maleski Jr., McCord
(2013) also revealed that conscientiousness was related to exhaustion. Meanwhile, there
was no relationship between agreeableness and emotional exhaustion, but there was a
positive association with physical fatigue and cognitive weariness.
Both extraversion and openness were found to have no association measuring burnout
with Shirom-Melamed Burnout Measure. However, extraversion was found to have
positive negative correlations with exhaustion and cynicism, and a positive correlation
with professional efficacy when measured with the Maslach Burnout Inventory (e.g. Hurt
et al., 2013; Morgan & de Bruin, 2010).
Hurt et al. (2013) also investigated burnout, but they used the Maslach Burnout
Inventory to measure burnout (e.g., exhaustions, cynicism, professional efficacy) in order
determine if personality (five-factor model) attributed to burnout in (ABA) applied
behavior analyst therapist. One hundred and thirteen ABA therapists were examined
using a correlational research design. The results showed that neuroticism was associated
with all three levels (exhaustions, cynicism, professional efficacy) of burnout. It was also
71
found that both extraversion and consciousness had significant negative relationships
with exhaustion and cynicism, and positive relationship with professional efficacy. These
findings suggest that ABA therapist high in extraversion and conscientiousness
experience higher levels of exhaustion and cynicism. Morgan and de Bruin (2010) who
also used the Maslach Burnout Inventory to measure burnout showed that extroversion
had negative correlations with emotional exhaustion and cynicism, but had a positive
correlation with professional efficacy. Meanwhile, Hurt et al. reported that agreeableness
was found to have a positive negative association with exhaustion and cynicism; instead
these two burnout levels were related to agreeableness. Conversely, Armon et al.
substantiated that agreeableness and exhaustion had no relationship. The findings
indicated there might be a discrepancy between Hurt et al. and Armon et al. results do to
the use of two different burnout measures, e.g., Maslach Burnout Inventory and Shirom-
Melamed Burnout Measure. As for openness, it was not examined due to the
inconsistency of research finding confirming a relationship with burnout (Armon et al.,
2012; Hurt et al. 2013; Morgan & De Bruin, 2010). However, Morgan and de Bruin
(2010) did substantiate a correlation between openness and professional efficacy.
The aforementioned findings have provided substantial evidence that various
personality traits from the five-factor model contribute to level of burnout experienced by
college students and ABA therapist. These findings have further provided connection
between negative emotional factors (e.g. negative affectivity, negative emotions, stress
and/or strain) such as burnout (e.g. negative affectivity, negative emotions, stress and/or
strain) that contribute emotional dissonance. Thus, supporting the premise that the
72
influence or degree of the five-factor model personality traits will act as predictors of
emotional dissonance among police officers.
Zillig, Hemenover, and Dienstbier (2002) investigated the five-factor model of
personalities (e.g., neuroticism, extraversion, openness, agreeableness, consciousness)
and their level of effect as affective, behavioral, and cognitive. The study utilized a
personality inventory sample that consisted of four different personality instrument
measures (e.g., NEO-PI-R, ATD, ISAR-B5, BFI), and the addition of two subset
inventories (NEO-FFI/ short-version of the NEO-PI-R and ATD Mini) in order to
increase the generalizability of the 476-item personality sample inventory. A factorial
analysis was used to measure the results for ABC components between each Big-Five
personality trait and inventories. The results for behavior ratings indicated a positive
effect with personality traits. For example, with the use of Tukey’s HSD consciousness
(following extraversion and agreeableness) had the greatest link with behavior whereas
openness and neuroticism had the least amount of association with behavior. Cognitive
ratings between inventories indicated a significant effect, particularly with openness as a
main indicator of cognitive processes; however, extraversion and extraversion had the
least association. Affective ratings indicated a significant effect of between inventories
and personality traits that substantiated neuroticism with the highest relationship among
affectivity across inventories; however, consciousness had the least association with
affectivity. Further, the findings concluded that NEO personality inventories, that is,
NEO-PI-R and NEO-FFI, which will be used for this current study, were designed with
more of emphasis on affective traits than the other inventories. For example, Zillig et al.
stated:
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The NEO inventories diverged from others in their inclusion of a substantial
(35%) affective component. In fact, the NEO inventories emphasize affect
somewhat over behavior, whereas the other inventories give a slight precedence to
behavior over affect. (p. 855)
The current literature has provided support that personality (various five-factor
model personality traits) is related to stress and emotional factors, specifically, negative
affectivity, negative emotions, stress or/and strain, negative emotions (Ebstrup et al.,
2011; Kehoe et al., 2012; Soric et al., 2013; Törnroos et al. (2013). The use of the five-
factor model personality traits as theorized by McCrae and Costa (2010) and McCrae and
John (1992) revealed that various personality traits have been associated with various
emotional factors. Furthermore, with the edition of the NEO-Five-Factory Inventory
(NEO-FFI) conceptualized by McCrae and Costa, a study by Zillig, Hemenover, and
Dienstbier (2002) compared various personality inventories, e.g., NEO-PI-R, ATD,
ISAR-B5, and BFI. The findings indicated that both the NEO- FFI and NEO-PI-R had a
stronger affect in measuring affectivity than, behavior because they were designed
specifically with the intent to measure affective traits. Therefore, based on empirical
support from the aforementioned findings, on the five-factor model traits and emotional
factors, there is sufficient evidence supporting that the five-factor model personalities
will determine the level of emotional dissonance among police officers.
Five-factor model measure. This current dissertation study has investigated how
the five-factor model personality traits predict emotional dissonance among police
officers. Further, based on McCrae and Costa’s (2010) conceptualization of the five-
factor model, they created the NEO-Five Factor Inventory (NEO-FFI) to measure the five
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hierarchical personality traits e.g., neuroticism, extraversion, openness, consciousness,
and agreeableness. Each of the personality traits is measured through the process of
analyzing 30 sub-traits (dispositional adjectives, e.g., active, forgiving, worrying, etc.)
that make five-factor model personality traits. The NEO-FFI is the short version of the
NEO-PR-R, which is one of the most highly, used personality inventories because it has
been substantiated to have reliability and validity across cultures and languages (e.g.,
McCrae, R. R., McCrae &Terracciano, 2005 ). The NEO-FFI has also become highly
used as a measure of the five-factor model because it has been substantiated to show
practicability and reliability even though it does not measure all facets of personality
(Körner, Czajkowska, Albani, Drapeau, Geyer, & Braehler, 2015). The NEO-FFI
contains 60 items on a 5-point Likert scale. Further, the participants will be asked a series
of statements that will be measured from 1 (strongly disagree) to 5 (strongly agree)
(McCrae & Costa, 2010). Because the psychometric properties of the NEO-FFI have
shown robustness across many studies, it will contribute proving if the five-factor model
as predictor of emotional dissonance among police officers.
For example, PilÁrik and SarmÁny-Schuller (2011) used the NEO-FFI to
examine the relationship between the “Big Five” personality traits and decision-making
among in a sample of 92 paramedics. The participants were given a computer simulation
card game that required participants to select cards, and if they failed to make the right
decision when selecting cards, they either received a reward or punishment. According to
PilÁrik et al., the card simulation was designed to create risk decision-making.
Meanwhile, a correlational design was used to test the relationship between the variables,
which were analyzed using a linear regression analysis. The results yielded a significant
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positive relationship of women having lower emotional variability (e.g., neuroticism and
extraversion) than men that resulted to a decline in decision-making during stressful
situations. PilÁrik and SarmÁny-Schuller report that signs of poor decision making
during stressful situations can be identified from increased procrastination and
hypervigilance. Therefore, the use of the NEO-FFI in PilÁrik and SarmÁny-Schuller
study, has provided as evidence on the validity of this measure in order to support the
usefulness of the NEO-FFI for this current dissertation that will examine the relationship
the five-factor model personality traits and emotional dissonance, among police officers.
Hetland, Saksvik, Albertsen, Berntsen, and Henriksen (2012) utilized the NEO-
FFI to examine the relationship between the five-model personality traits and over-
commitment in a sample of 256 college students from the University of Norway. Hetland
et al. posited that by identifying personality traits that are associated with over
commitment, organizations learn how future employees, that is, college student’s
transition into the work place. The results indicated that neuroticism, agreeableness, and
consciousness were related to over-commitment. Consequently, openness was found to
have a negative relationship with over-commitment, but when the other traits were added,
there was a significant relationship. Finally, there was no relationship between
agreeableness and over-commitment. Hetland et al. study also the robustness of the NEO
Five-Factor Inventory as robust measure for measuring the five-factor model
personalities, which further support the robustness of the five-factor model.
The NEO-FFI was selected for this study because it will be easier for police
officers take, and less time consuming than NEO-PI-R that has 240 questions, as
compared to the NEO-FFI that has 60 items. The NEO-FFI psychometric instrument is
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line with the theoretical foundation (e.g. McCrae & Costa, 2010; McCrae & John, 1992),
that is, the five-factor model to analyze the data for this dissertation study. Other studies
have utilized the NEO-FFI to measure the five-factor model personality traits, based on
McCrae and Costa (2010) and McCrae and John (1992) conceptualization of the five-
factor model. For example, Saksvik and Hetland (2011) used the NEO-FFI to examine
the role of personality and stress factors to learn their relationship across various
vocational types (e.g., artistic, social, enterprising, conventional, artistic, investigative,
realistic). This study is closely related to this current dissertation study because Saksvik
and Hetland also used the five-factor model to determine its association with emotional
stress factors. Meanwhile, the results from Saksvik and Hetland research predicted a
positive relationship between neuroticism and openness, and their relationship with
distress and vocational types. Openness neuroticism (openness) and distress were both
associated with realistic and investigative vocations. Conversely, extraversion,
agreeableness, and consciousness had negative associations with distress and vocational
types. Consequently, there were significant positive associations between personality
types and specific vocational types. For example, extraversion had a significant
relationship with social and conventional vocations. Openness also had a significant
relationship with realistic and social vocations. Further, agreeableness had a significant
relationship with investigative and conventional vocations. Neuroticism had a significant
positive relationship with (1) realistic, (2) investigative, (3) artistic, and (4) enterprising.
These finding have established the robustness of the NEO-FFI as an effective
psychometric instrument for measuring five-factor model personalities. For this reason,
the NEO-FFI will be used for the psychometric instrument to measure the five-factor
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model personalities in order to learn how personality predicts level of emotional
dissonance among police officers.
Emotional dissonance measure. The examination of this study involves
determining if personality (five-factor model) will act as a predictor of emotional
dissonance among police officers. In order to learn the outcome of the level emotional
dissonance based the personality type, the emotional labor scale conceptualized by
Andela, Truchot, and Borteyrou (2015a) will be used. Andela et al.’s (2015a)
conceptualization of emotional labor scale utilizes a 4-item sub-scale to measure
emotional dissonance using a 5-point Likert scale, e.g., never to always. The four item
questions are (Andela, 2015a, p.31):
1. The emotions that I feel in my job not correspond to these I would like to feel.
2. My work situation brings me to experience emotions at variance with those I would like to feel.
3. I experience a discrepancy between the emotions I express to be professional and what I feel.
4. The emotions I show in order to be professional are not in phase with my inner feelings.
The emotional dissonance subscale was designed to measure emotional
dissonance with an emphasis on display regulation process, e.g., surface and deep acting.
Andela et al. (2015a) indicates that some of the most frequently used emotional
dissonance sub-scales such as the FEWS and the DEELS does not measure surface and
deep acting. Andela et al. (2015a) further indicates that FEWS does not measure either
surface or deep acting whereas the DEEL instrument measures surface acting, but does
not measure deep acting when measuring emotional dissonance. The DEEL instrument
was used in a similar study by Diamond who also examined the relationship between
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personality and emotional dissonance among debt collectors. Consequently, this current
dissertation study will provide a different perspective when measuring emotional
dissonance using Andela’s et al. (2015a) emotional dissonance scale; which is designed
to measure both surface and deep acting. Andela et al. (2015a) also stated that each item
for measuring emotional dissonance has been designed with an emphasis, “…only on the
feeling of discrepancy.” (p.325). Furthermore, all participants will be required to answer
only 4 items on Andela’s et al. (2015a) emotional-dissonance sub-scale. Therefore,
Andela’s et al. (2015a) emotional labor psychometric instruments use will provide as a
great tool for measuring emotional dissonance according to Hochschild’s (1983) theory
on emotional labor where the expression of emotions is preformed through the process of
emotional regulation strategies such as surface and deep acting.
Andela’s et al. (2015a) emotional labor scale is new scale designed to measure the
limitations of other emotional labor and emotional dissonance scales. Andela’s et al.
(2015a) scale on emotional dissonance yielded a Cronbach alpha reliability of (.81).
Consequently, this emotional dissonance sub-scale has been used in a few studies
including its conceptualization in Andela’s et al. (2015a) study; thus, providing reliability
and validity.
Andela et al. (2015a) designed the emotional labor scale in order to provide a new
emotional labor scale, in order to address the shortcomings (that is, conceptualization and
operationalization) of other emotional labor scales that measured emotional labor and
emotional dissonance. The study set out to examine the relationship between emotional
labor and health outcomes associated with burnout, in a sample of 688 health care
professional (e.g., nursing assistants, nurses, social workers, doctors) working in France.
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Burnout was measured using Maslach Burnout inventory (MBI), which measures
emotional exhaustion, cynicism, and self-efficacy, or personal accomplishments.
Utilizing an exploratory factor analysis, the results indicated the emotional labor scale
having construct validity.
The results further indicated that there was a positive relationship between
emotional dissonance and burnout, that is, emotional exhaustion and cynicism, but had no
association with self-efficacy. These findings will help strengthen the validity and utility
of the use of Andela’s et al. (2015a) emotional dissonance sub-scale when measuring
emotional dissonance among police officer.
To further substantiate the validity and utility of the emotional dissonance sub-
scale used in Andela et al. (2015a), emotional labor scale, Andela, Truchot, and Van der
Doef (2015b) conducted another study examining the relationship between job stressors
(e.g., workload, patient and relative requirements, patient suffering, team collaboration
problems) and burnout among sample of 455 nurses and health care assistance. This
study also used Maslach Burnout inventory (MBI) to measure burnout, and job stressors
were measured using the WSNIO that was specifically designed for examining work
problems associated with oncology nurses. The results showed that emotional dissonance
had a significant relationship with burnout. It was further substantiated that there was
significant associations between emotional dissonance and job stressors, workload,
patient suffering, and team collaboration. However, there was no relationship found
between emotional dissonance and patient and relative requirements. These results
further proved that Andela’s et al. emotional dissonance sub-scale will help strengthen
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the validity and utility of using this measure-to-measure emotional dissonance among
police officers.
Summary
The review of empirical research highlighted the various models and theories
supporting the implications of this study in order to learn if there is a significant
relationship between personality (e.g., five-factor model) and emotional dissonance
among police officers working street patrol. First, the literature review revealed that there
was a significant association between personality and role-conflict. The strong
association between personality and role-conflict was significant to this study, for Wu
(2009) confirmed in their study that police officers for go various types of role-conflict
(person-to role conflict, inter-sender, intra-sender) that presents a similar conflict
experience in emotional dissonance. Khan et al. (1964) and Rafaeli and Sutton (1987)
indicated that this form of role-conflict is a result of employees battling to express their
personal interest in order to meet the role expectations (display rules) expected by the
organization.
Furthermore, in reviewing the literature, various five-factor model personality
traits, that is, neuroticism, agreeableness, consciousness, and extraversion had a
significant relationship and/or effect on role-conflict, workload, and burnout (Taylor &
Kluemper, 2012). Additionally, the literature also revealed that besides five-factor model
personality traits, (high and low) proactive personalities acted as a moderator on high role
conflict associated with work-related anxieties in middle management (Hang et al.,
2014). These findings will further support Kahn et al.’s (1964) classic study that role-
conflict is influenced by specific personality traits. Thus, supporting Raefaeli and Sutton
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(1987) and Abrahams (1998) implications that emotional dissonance is a form of person
role-conflict. Further review of the literature suggests that five-factor model personalities
will predict levels of emotional dissonance among police officers. After reviewing the
literature, the literature provided strong support that various factors (e.g., role conflict,
negative affectivity, stress, negative and positive emotions) were associated with
personality (Kehoe et al., 2012; PilÁrik & SarmÁny-Schuller (2011) Sorić et al., 2013;
Taylor & Kluemper, 2012). These variables were examined because the objective of the
study was to link personality with emotional dissonance in order to learn if five-factor
model personalities would predict the level emotional dissonance experienced among
police officers. According to the literature role-conflict, stress, and negative emotions
have been found to be the influencing elements that cause emotional dissonance,
particularly among police officers (e.g., Abraham, 1998; Bakker & Heuven, 2006; Van
Gelderen et al., 2011).
In response to Diamond’s study on five-factor model personalities, other
personality traits maybe related to the level of emotional dissonance experienced among
police officers in face-to-face interactions. The literature provided information that
neuroticism (as a defined by the five-factor model, and not its facet, anger) will be more
associated with the antecedents of emotional dissonance, that is, stress and negative
emotions (Sorić et al., 2013; Ebstrup et al., 2011; Törnroos et al., 2013). However, the
literature revealed that individuals high in extraversion, agreeableness, consciousness and
openness had lower workplace stress (Törnroos et al., 2013). Törnroos et al. also
indicated that when using the stressor-strain model, agreeableness and openness had the
lowest association with job strain. Bakker and Heuven (2006) reported that police officer
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main source of workplace burnout that leads to emotional dissonance is chronic
emotional strain caused by daily interactions with citizens.
Consequently, negative affectivity was examined because negative emotions and
stress are the by-product or precursor of negative affectivity. Abraham (1998; 1999a)
verified in their study that negative affectivity (closely related to neuroticism) was found
to have a significant relationship with emotional dissonance among service industry
employees. To further understand negative affectivity, the literature provided further
evidence that some five-factor model personalities were associated negative affectivity.
Komulainen et al. (2014) and Zanon, Bastianello et al. (2013) Steel, Schmidt, and Shultz
(2008) showed positive correlations between personality and neuroticism,
conscientiousness and agreeableness; however, extraversion and openness had the lowest
correlations. Furthermore, research finding consistently substantiated that openness had
no relationship with negative affectivity. Conversely, Zanon et al. (2013) suggested that
the reason for the possible negative results between openness and negative affectivity,
maybe due to the premise that individuals high in openness may have lower negative
affect because these individual are adventure seeking (may reduce boredom) and often
find new ways of thinking (free thinkers), which is associated with greater freedom of
autonomy. As a result, individuals high in openness, according to Zanon will have greater
life satisfaction, in this way, reducing the adverse effects of negative affectivity.
The review of the literature has helped establish empirical support using theories
and models in order to provide evidence to determine if personalities (five-factor model)
predict the level of emotional dissonance among police officers. Through the use of
current literature role-conflict has been found to be associated with various five-factor
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model personality traits. These findings will help link emotional dissonance to
personality because emotional dissonance has been posited to be form of role conflict
(Rafaeli & Sutton, 1987). It was further confirmed that negative affectivity, negative
emotions, and workplace stress and/or strain have all been found to be associated with
various five-factor model personality traits. Therefore, the findings from this dissertation
study have help further advance the body knowledge in emotional dissonance and five-
factor model research by examining the relationship between personality (five-factor
model) and the level of emotional dissonance experienced among police officers.
In order to examine how five-factor model personalities predict emotional
dissonance among police officers; Chapter 3 describes in detail the methodology to
analyze the multiple variables. The methodology section encompassed: basis for the
methodology, research question, instrumentation, data collection, data analysis methods,
limitations of the study, and future studies.
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Chapter 3: Methodology
Introduction
The literature reviewed in Chapter 2 provided information that there is a need to
further examine if the five-factor model was an indicator emotional dissonance among
police officers. It is not known how or to what extent five-factor model predicts
emotional dissonance experienced by police officers. The design of this study was a
quantitative methodology, in which a positivism approach was used to determine if there
is a correlation between the five-factor model personalities and emotional dissonance.
Understanding the relationship between five-factor model and emotional
dissonance was vital in learning how individual personality among police officers may
contribute to the emotional stress factors associated with emotional dissonance. Because
the mass of research on emotional dissonance has strictly addressed stressor factors (e.g.,
burnout and wellbeing, e.g., physical and psychological) that have been a result of an
emotional conflict (i.e., psychological strain) experienced by employees to perform
required organizational display rules, which come into conflict with their genuine felt
emotions (e.g., Bakker & Heuven, 2006; Cheung & Cheung, 2013; Cheung & Tang,
2012; Cheung & Tang, 2012; Diesel & Schmidt, 2011; Pugh, Groth, & Hennig-Thurau,
2011; Mishra & Bhatnagar, 2010; Kovács, Kovács, & Hegedűs, 2010). Hence, for the
purpose of this study a correlational research design was selected on the basis of
determining if, and how, five-factor model acts as a predictor of the level of emotional
dissonance experienced among police officers.
Finally, the use of chapter was used to highlight the various sections of this
research such as statement of the problem, research question and hypotheses, population
85
and sample, variables and measures, validity and reliability, data collection and analysis,
and ethical considerations. Based on the research question, a correlational research design
was best suited for determining the relationship between five-factor personalities and
emotional dissonance.
Statement of the Problem
Due to an exhaustive search of emotional dissonance literature there has been
minimal, if any, research linking personality traits (e.g., five factor model) as predictors
of emotional dissonance on police officers. It is not known how or to what extent a
relationship existed between five-factor model and emotional dissonance experienced by
police officers. Furthermore, the mass of research on emotional dissonance has strictly
addressed stressor factors (burnout, e.g., emotional exhaustion, depersonalization,
cynicism) that have been found to be responsible for stress contributed from felt
emotions, which are in conflict with organizational display rules (e.g., Bakker & Heuven,
2006; Cheung & Cheung, 2013; Cheung & Tang, 2012; 2007; Diesel & Schmidt, 2011;
Pugh, Groth, & Hennig-Thurau, 2011; Mishra & Bhatnagar, 2010; Kovács, Kovács, &
Hegedűs, 2010). Consequently, there is no research examining the relationship of five-
factor model and emotional dissonance experienced by police officers. However, in a
dissertation study by Diamond (2005) she analyzed the relationship of personality as an
antecedent of emotional dissonance in debt collectors. Therefore, the purpose of this
study was to learn if the five-factor model is a predictor of emotional dissonance in police
officers.
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Research Question and Hypotheses
The objective of this study was to learn, if any and to what degree, do the five
factor model personality traits contribute to emotional dissonance experienced among
police officer. Therefore, for the purpose of this study, the below research questions and
hypotheses guided this study:
R1: What influence, if any and to what degree, do the 5 Factor Model personality
traits contribute to emotional dissonance experienced among police officers?
H0: Police officers scores in Five-Factor Model of personality will show no
correlation with differences in scores in emotional dissonance.
H1: Police officers high in neuroticism will show a proportional correlation with
scores in emotional dissonance.
H2: Police officers high in agreeableness will show an inverse correlation with their
scores in emotional dissonance.
H3: Police officers high in conscientiousness will show an inverse correlation with
their scores in emotional dissonance.
H4: Police officers high in extraversion will show a proportional correlation with their
scores in emotional dissonance.
H5: Police officers high in openness to experience will show a proportional
correlation with their scores in emotional dissonance.
The use of a correlational research design was selected to answer the research
question and hypotheses that are linked to the relationship between five-factor model and
emotional dissonance. In order to answer each research question, emotional dissonance
was measured using a scale specifically designed to measure emotional dissonance in
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police officers, and the five-factor model of personalities were measured using the NEO
Five Factor Inventory (NEO-FFI). To examine the relationship between five-factor model
and emotional dissonance, the Pearson Correlation Coefficient was used. The second
statistical analysis used was a multiple regression analysis, selected to measure all five-
factor model personalities and their relationship as a whole with emotional dissonance;
including, demographic variables: gender, age rank, and tenure.
Research Methodology
The following research was a quantitative correlative study of police officers to
examine the relationship between the five-factor personality model and emotional
dissonance among police officers. The justification for selecting a quantitative study over
a qualitative or mixed-methods study is because this study investigated the correlation
between variables. The use of a qualitative research design was not selected because of
several factors. Landrum and Garza (2015) indicated that qualitative research uses non-
numerical framework that examines phenomenon’s using dimension and magnitudes
(e.g., phenomenological, ethnography, narrative approaches, ground theory) to
understand the human experience. Research has suggested that because qualitative
research does not use traditional positivism approach that prescribes to quantitative
analysis, qualitative research lacks empirical proof (Gelo, Braakmann, & Benetka, 2008).
However, qualitative research has its strengths (e.g., triangulation methods) by providing
a more in-depth outlook of the human experience and/or descriptive accounts, whereas
quantitative research design uses aggregate data to explain a phenomenon (Gelo,
Braakmann, & Benetka, 2008).
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Therefore, a quantitative research methodology was the best approach for
answering the research question, which proposes the five-factor model, will act as a
predictor of emotional dissonance experienced among police officers. Finally, mixed-
methods research approach was not used because the goal of this correlational study is to
determine a relationship between criterion and predictor variables. Once a relationship is
determined, a predictive direction will be learned (e.g., Rumrill, 2004), which provided
valuable data. Further, the data learned contributed to using other approaches (e.g., mixed
methods experimental and qualitative research designs) in future studies in order to learn
a cause and effect, and the individual perspective on personality on personality (five-
factor model) and emotional dissonance.
Research Design
The following research is a quantitative correlative study of police officers to
examine the relationship between the five-factor personality model and emotional
dissonance among police officers. Rumrill (2004) reported that the correlational research
design is commonly used in research in order to examine how much variation (e.g.,
coefficient of variation) is associated between independent and dependent variables.
Therefore, purpose of the correlational research design was to analyze the relationship
between the five-factor model personalities as predictor’s of emotional dissonance among
police officers.
A non-experimental (correlational study) study was chosen to determine the
correlation between criterion and predictor variables, which helped learn the relationship
between the five-factor model and emotional dissonance among police officers.
Correlational study offered the benefits of using aggregate data to highlight the variation
89
between the criterion and predictor variables. Further, quantitative studies provide the use
of various statistical analyses that use descriptive statistics to analyze data (Bordens &
Abbott, 2011). Furthermore, numerous empirical studies (e.g., Cheung & Cheung, 2013;
Hosie, Gilbert et al., 2014; Jones & Woods, & Hutchinson, 2014) have used correlational
analysis to examine the relationship of emotional dissonance and five-factor model
variables.
An experimental study was not selected for this study because the objective of
this study was to learn if a correlational relationship exists between five-factor model
personalities and emotional dissonance. Further, experimental research design does have
strengths that a correlational research design does not have such as providing a higher
level of control over research variables (Bordens & Abbott, 2011). Experimental research
designs use manipulation of data, random selection, experimental and control groups
(control extraneous variables), and stronger statistic analysis in order to determine a
causal relationship. In order to determine a causal relationship the presents of another
variable indirectly or directly affects another variable (Bordens & Abbott, 2011).
Conversely, this current dissertation study has set out to learn if there is a correlational
relationship in order to learn if the changes in one variable (e.g., five-factor model
personalities) enact changes in another variable (e.g., emotional dissonance in police
officers). The NEO Five-Factory inventory (McCrae & Costa, 2010) and Andela,
Truchot, and Borteyrou, (2015a) emotional dissonance subscale was used as the
psychometric instruments to obtain participant responses for this study. Each participant
had access to each measure on a secure online website. To examine all data collected,
psychometric instruments were utilized to provide information on each participant in
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order to learn if police officers’ personalities (five-factor model) would be a predictor of
emotional dissonance. Furthermore, the selected psychometric instruments utilized scaled
measures to acquire numerical data that will be analyzed and described using descriptive
statistics, tables and graphs, to either prove or disapprove the null hypotheses. It was also
substantiated through the use of other empirical studies both psychometric have shown
strong reliability and validity. Landrum and Garza (2015) indicated that data has to be
deduced to aggregate data in order to conduct statistical analyses. According Landrum
and Garza (2015), the main objectives of quantitative research design is to highlight:
counting occurrences, volumes, or the difference in sizes between variables. For these
reasons, the Pearson r correlation and multivariate statistical analysis was used to
measure ordinal data in order to determine the relationship between five-factor model
personalities and emotional dissonance among police officers.
Utilizing a correlational design has specifically help identify if there is a
relationship between five-factor model and emotional dissonance among police officers.
According to Rumrill (2004) the use of correlational design does not provide a cause and
effect, but provides information to the researcher the relationship between predictor and
criterion variable. Rumrill (2004) reported that when determining relationships between
variables, correlational research designs typically do not rely on the process of
manipulating variables, which is commonly done in experimental research. Furthermore,
a correlational research design will help determine the level of variation criterion and
predictor variable (Rumrill, 2004). When determining a positive or negative relationship
for correlational analysis, correlations closet to 0 will represent a negative relationship
whereas the closer the correlation is to 1, the correlation will represents a positive
91
relationship (Rumrill, 2004). Therefore, the correlation can consist of a positive or
negative relationship. Finally, evidence was established why correlational research design
would serve as the most appropriate research design to examine the relationship between
five-factor model personalities emotional dissonance. Keiss and Green (2010) indicate
that variables that are deemed as characteristics or attributes are defined as subject
variables, e.g., anxiety level, personality, age and gender. Thus, because both variables in
this study would be considered subject variables, a Pearson correlation coefficient
analysis will be suited for analyzing the relationship between five-factor model of
personalities and emotional dissonance.
Population and Sample Selection
The following research is a quantitative correlative study of police officers that
examined the relationship between the five-factor personality model and emotional
dissonance among police officers. The sample selected for this study consisted of police
officers that work for the Detroit Police Department, which is the largest police
department in Michigan. The target participants for this study were street patrol officers.
The sample was selected to investigate the relationship between personality (e.g., five-
factor model) and emotional dissonance. To investigate this gap in emotional dissonance
research, a correlational research design was used to examine 1000 Detroit area police,
working street patrol. Furthermore, the process in selecting the participants from the
sample of 1000, a purposive sampling (type, homogenous sample) was used to select 138
police officers working street patrol. A purposive sample can be used in both quantitative
and qualitative research, which prescribes to the non-random selection process, which
participants are selected based on their unique and similar (e.g., homogenous)
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characteristics such as occupation (street patrol officers, e.g., often have emotional
charged encounters with violent and non-violent criminals, and victims of crimes) and/or
personality traits (Kachurik, Ruiz, & Staub, 2013; Robinson, 2014). The information
obtained from the population of Detroit Police Officers will provide additional
information on demographical variables, e.g., gender, race, educational level, and tenure
as police officer. Police officers working street patrol were informed about the details of
this current study via Detroit Police Department memorandums and intranet, and
unofficial fliers that were posted throughout the Detroit Police Department.
Before the research could be conducted, permission was obtained from the Chief
of the Detroit Police Department and Detroit Police Officers Association. In addition, the
Institutional Review Board (IRB) granted approval before the study was conducted. After
IRB approval, research participants were selected on voluntary bases where they were
notified through the Detroit Police Department intranet. Each participant was sent emails
explaining the details of the study, and the hyper link to the secure website
(SurveyMonkey) that explains the research objectives and confidentiality. All research
participants were informed in the emails that before taking survey questionnaires, they
would be required to take the surveys in a secure and comfortable location, preferably,
not in the presence of other participants. Informed consent disclaimers will be uploaded
to SurveyMonkey’s site, which will state that implied consent is given if participants
continue to the survey section on the website. In addition, it was explained that all
participant identities would remain anonymous, and at anytime they could drop out of the
study.
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There has been much dilemma about sample size; particularly how sample size
dictates effect size (Marszalek, Barber, Kohlhart, & Holmes, 2011). Marszalek, Barber,
Kohlhart, & Holmes (2011) examined in their study sample sizes in psychological studies
over 30 years, as a whole (all sub-fields psychological research) in psychological
research have not been large samples sizes, but instead the sample sizes were smaller,
ranging from 32 to 60 in size. Furthermore, McShane and Böckenholt (2016) indicate
that the size of the sample has a direct effect in the level of power for obtaining effect
size of at least 80% or higher. According to McShane and Bökenholt report that
determining effect size is, “…difficult to implement in practice because ‘we never know
true power…because we do not know the true effect size” (p.1).
The total population of Detroit Police officers was 1000 (N= 1000), and the
sample was determined with Faul, Erdfelder, Burchner, and Langs (2009) G*Power,
analysis. The power analysis was composed of a two-tailed correlation analysis that has
effect size 0.3 (medium effect size) and power = 0.95, and confidence interval of 95%,
which all specified a sample size of 138 participants (Faul et al., 2009). Thus, providing a
sufficient statistical power for substantiating the results for this current dissertation study.
Marszalek et al. noted that the larger the sample size, the higher sample effect and
statistical power.
Instrumentation
The following research is a quantitative correlative study of police officers, to
examine the relationship between the five-factor personality model and emotional
dissonance among police officers. Data was collected using two psychometric
instruments, which are, Andela, Truchot, and Borteyrou’s (2015) emotional dissonance
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sub-scale used from their emotional labor scale, and a copyrighted assessment tool named
the NEO Five-factor model inventory (McCrae & Costa, 2010).
Emotional dissonance psychometric survey. The study utilized Andela et al.
(2015a) emotional dissonance subscale to measure emotional dissonance in police
officers. Further, psychometric properties were evaluated by examining two previous
studies that showed strong validity and reliability (e.g., Andela, Truchot, and Borteyrou,
2015a; Andela, Truchot, & Margot Van der Doef, 2015b). Andela et al. (2015a)
emotional dissonance subscale has a 4-item, 5-point nominal Likert scale, e.g., strongly
agree to strongly disagree.
The questions for the four items are (Andela, 2015a, p.31):
1. The emotions that I feel in my job not correspond to these I would like to feel.
2. My work situation brings me to experience emotions at variance with those I would like to feel.
3. I experience a discrepancy between the emotions I express to be professional and what I feel.
4. The emotions I show in order to be professional are not in phase with my inner feelings.
The questions for Andela’s et al. (2015a) emotional dissonance subscale yielded a
Cronbach alpha level of. 81. Furthermore, some of the main qualities of Andela’s
emotional dissonance subscale is that (a) it measures both surface and deep acting (b)
place more of emphasis in measuring only feelings of discrepancy (c) and it provides a
different perspective, counter to the DEEL (does not measure surface and deep acting)
emotional dissonance subscale used in another dissertation by Diamond (2005), who also
examined the relationship between five-factor personalities and emotional dissonance.
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NEO-five-factor inventory. The study also utilized the NEO-Five-Factor
Inventory (NEO-FFI), Version 3 (McCrae & Costa, 2010), to measure the five-factor
model personality traits (e.g., neuroticism, conscientiousness, agreeableness,
extraversion, and openness) in police officers. The NEO-FFI was copyrighted by Parinc,
who gave explicit instruction that only three questions could be displayed on this
dissertation study; however, Parinc did give permission to use the NEO-FFI on
SurveyMonkey’s secure website, provided that there is a secure password. The NEO
Five-Factor Inventory utilized 60 items using a 5-point Likert nominal scales that ranged
from 0 ‘strongly disagree’ to 5 ‘strongly agree’ (Körner et al., 2015). The NEO-FFI
utilizes five specific sub-personality traits of each hierarchy personality trait (i.e.,
neuroticism, conscientiousness, agreeableness, extraversion, and openness) to determine
an individual five-factor model personality trait. Three questions used in the NEO-FFI
are:
1. At times I have been so ashamed I just wanted to hide.
2. I really enjoy talking to people.
3. Some people think of me as cold and calculating.
The NEO Five-Factor Inventory yielded a Cronbach alpha level of 0.63 to 0.83. The
Cronbach alpha level for each five-factor model consists of: neuroticism (.81),
extraversion (.73), openness (.67), agreeableness (.75), and consciousness (.78) (Kröner
et al., 2015). Factors that make NEO-FFI valuable for this study are (a) five-factor mode
be used to describe a broad population, and (b) NEO-FFI has been used in many studies,
in this way, providing strong validity.
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Validity
When selecting psychometric instruments for this study, construct and criterion
validity was a critical factor, in that, each instrument for this study should measure what
they were designed to measure. The first emotional dissonance instrument scale selected
was Andela, Truchot, and Van der Doef (2015) emotional dissonance sub-scale, in which
they maintain that construct validity was obtained through factor analysis. Construct and
criterion validity was further validated by another study conducted by Andela et al.
(2015b) where their emotional dissonance sub-scale showed a significant relationship of
emotional dissonance using emotional dissonance sub-scale. In obtaining criterion
validity, Andela et al. (2015a) setout in creating new criterion for measuring emotional
dissonance by comparing their emotional dissonance sub-scale criterion, with commonly
used emotional dissonance sub-scales such as the DEELS and FEWS. The assessment of
these two instruments caused Andela et al. (2015a) to come to the conclusion that
criterion for their scale would emphasize on surface and deep acting. This assessment
was due to the fact that FEWS did not measure neither surface nor deep acting as
criterion; in addition to, the DEELS did not include deep acting as a criterion. For these
reasons Andela (2015a) designed the emotional dissonance sub-scale to discern the
emotional conflict discrepancy from emotion regulation processes, e.g., surface and deep
acting. Therefore, the validation of this psychometric instrument has been substantiated
for this study, and Andela et al. (2015a) are confident on the construct and criterion-
related validity for this study. As previously mentioned, the Cronbach alpha level for the
emotional dissonance survey designed specifically for police officers yielded .81, which
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validates the validity and internal consistencies of Andela et al. (2015a) emotional
dissonance subscale.
Regarding the NEO Five-Factory model, it has been heavily used in research that
has established validity, e.g., construct and criterion related validity. For example, Korner
et al. (2015), McCrae & John (1992), and McCrae and Costa (2010) provided detailed
information on the psychometrics and validity and reliability that show consistencies of
each personality trait through the Cronbach alpha level values. Even though the Cronbach
alpha is used for measuring internal consistency for reliability, states that reliability is
contingent on validity (Tavakol & Dennick, 2011). Cronbach alpha levels for the NEO
Five-Factory Model Inventory ranged from 0.63 to 0.83; however, openness (.67) is the
only Cronbach alpha level below .70, which will not hurt the overall consistency of the
survey (McCrae & Costa, 2010; McCrae & John, 1992). Therefore, the validation of this
survey has been substantiated for this dissertation study, and this researcher is confident
on the validity (construct and criterion-related) for this study.
To control internal validity, a few demographic variables were tested in order to
reduce the effect of extraneous variables when testing participants. By testing for
demographic extraneous variables, the researcher has achieved internal consistency
between research participants that may vary from, for example, race or gender.
Consequently, external validity for this study was affected do to the lack of representation
of other police departments, in this way, making it difficult to generalize to the
population. Using a large metropolitan police department that has diverse population will
reduce some limitations of the external validity. In addition, because a non-probability
does not generalize to the population, this will also contribute to external validity issues.
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Reliability
The use of psychometric survey instruments have to go through a rigorous inter-
rater reliability testing ensuring that measures have internal consistency throughout
survey responses from raters. This phenomenon is known as reliability, in which
reliability can be referred to as: test-retest reliability, alternate forms reliability, inter-rater
reliability, and internal consistency reliability (Bordens & Abbott, 2011). Crobach alpha
level measures for internal consistency reliability utilizing coefficient that uses
coefficient scores that can be rated from 0 (e.g., .10) to (e.g., .70) 1 expressing the level
of reliability (Tavakol & Dennick, 2011). The minimum acceptable reliability score for
Crobach’s Alpha level is .70 (Tavakol & Dennick, 2011). Therefore, for the purpose of
this study internal consistency reliability was tested for using Crobach’s alpha or
coefficient of reliability. To evaluate the reliability for Andela’s et al. (2015) emotional
dissonance sub-scale, the use of Cronbach’s alpha was utilized to measure for the internal
consistency. The internal consistency (inter-rater reliability) for this emotional dissonance
sub-scale yielded a Cronbach alpha level of .81when tested in both Andela et al. 2015a
and Andela et al. 2015b studies, which is above the reliability coefficient of .70. The final
instrument evaluated for reliability was the NEO Five-factory Inventory (McCrae &
Costa, 2010; McCrae & John, 1992), in which each of the five personalities yielded
Cronbach alpha levels that ranged from 0.63 to 0.83. The Cronbach scores for each
personality trait were: (.81), extraversion (.73), openness (.67), agreeableness (.75), and
consciousness (.78). Cronbach alpha revealed that all except one five-factor model
personality trait scored above 0.70, except agreeableness, which had a score of (.63). As
mention above, the Cronbach alpha for agreeableness would not affect the overall power
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of the NEO Five-Factory model for internal consistency (McCrae & Costa, 2010:
McCrae & John, 1992). Finally, in discussing the reliability for both instruments,
Cronbach alpha level’s substantiated that each instrument would provide the necessary
strength providing reliability or internal consistency among survey responses.
Data Collection and Management
The Institutional Review Board (IRB) at Grand Canyon University and Detroit
Police Department granted their approvals before conducting the study. In addition, to
this process, participation letter request letter were sent to the Chief Police of the Detroit
Police Department, explaining the objectives of the study such as: purpose, benefits, risk,
time to complete the study, and contact information.
Once the approval letters were received, the participants were notified through
Detroit Police Department intranet, memorandums and unofficial fliers about
participating voluntarily in the study. The selection criteria for participation consisted of
the following: (a) a certified police officer of the State of Michigan, (b) only police
officers and Sergeants; executive officers are excluded (e.g., Lieutenants and Captains),
and (c) a minimum of 1-year experience working street patrol.
SurveyMonkey was responsible for collecting and storing all data, in which
participants were notified that implied consent was implied once each participant began
taking the surveys. In addition, all participants were informed that no names were used on
the surveys, in this way, keeping their identities anonymous. Furthermore, two
questionnaires (e.g., NEO-FFI and emotional dissonance psychometric instrument
designed Andela et al., 2015a) and demographic variables were downloaded to the
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SurveyMonkey site. In addition, any participant who is not able to take the online
surveys will have the option to take the paper version of the survey tools.
Each participant was provided with request letters outlining the objectives of the
study, the goal of the survey, consent and confidentiality, and operating functions for
submitting the surveys anonymously. Informed consent disclaimers will be downloaded
to the SurveyMonkey site, which will infer implied consent if participants continue to
the survey section of the website. Time to complete the questionnaires will take each
participant approximately 10 to 15 minutes to complete, and much of the time will be
spent on the NEO-FFI because it is comprised of 60 questions, and Andela’s et al.
(2015a) emotional dissonance sub-scale will consists of 4 items. Further, each participant
was notified that the final date to take questionnaires would end after two weeks from the
first notification of the study. After the study began, a follow- up email was given after 7
days to encourage further participation. Therefore, the time goal allotted for collecting
data will be three weeks. The data collected from SurveyMonkey was secured on a
private link, provided with a secure password. The data collected by SurveyMonkey
was secured on a private link provided with a secure password. The researcher and
administrator (conducting data analysis) at SurveyMonkey can only retrieve access to
collected data on SurveyMonkey. Furthermore, all data was locked in private safe at the
researchers’ residence where the passcode is accessible to the researcher. The data was
held for three years, and then discarded by the researcher.
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Data Analysis Procedures
The objective of the research questions was to determine if the five-factor model
personalities would or would not act as predictors of emotional dissonance among police
officers. More specifically, the goal of this research was to try to answer the research
questions in order to learn if each of the five-factor model personalities, e.g., neuroticism,
agreeableness, consciousness, openness, extraversion would be associated with the level
(low or high) of emotional dissonance experienced among police officers. For example,
the research question and hypothesis was:
What influence, if any and to what degree, do the 5 Factor Model personality traits
contribute to emotional dissonance experienced among police officers?
H10: Police officers scores in Five Factor Model of personality will show no
correlation with differences in scores in emotional dissonance.
H1a: Police officers high in neuroticism will show a proportional correlation with
scores in emotional dissonance.
H2b: Police officers high in agreeableness will show an inverse correlation with their
scores in emotional dissonance.
H3c: Police officers high in conscientiousness will show an inverse correlation with
their scores in emotional dissonance.
H4d: Police officers high in extraversion will show a proportional correlation with
their scores in emotional dissonance.
H5e: Police officers high in openness to experience will show a proportional
correlation with their scores in emotional dissonance.
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To measure emotional dissonance, Andela et al. (2015a) emotional dissonance sub-scale
was used to measure the level of emotional dissonance demonstrated by police officers.
The 4-item survey scale measured emotional dissonance, that has four response choices:
1 = never to 5 = always strongly disagree. The calculations of the scores were calculated
by adding up sum of each item, in which a high score reflects an increase in emotional
dissonance.
The NEO-Five-Factor Inventory was used to measure five-factor model (McCrae
& Costa, 2010; McCrae and John, 1992) personalities. The five-factor model is
comprised of 60 items measured on the basis of 30 sub-traits that make up each of the
five hierarchical personality traits, e.g., neuroticism, agreeableness, consciousness,
openness, extraversion. Each item was measured using five-response choices: 1 (strongly
disagree) to 5 (strongly agree). The calculations of the scores were calculated by adding
the sum of all items, in which a high score, scored for each, reflect increased emotional
dissonance.
The first step for conducting the data analysis consisted of collecting all survey
instruments from SurveyMonkey. Next, the surveys were checked for their
completeness and accuracy, all numerical data was computed into SPSS (version 21) in
order to conduct a descriptive, Pearson correlation coefficient and multi-regression
analysis on the independent and dependent variables. In addition, a missing value
analysis was conducted to identify missing values.
The second step consisted of a descriptive analysis that will be used to evaluate
the means, median, mode, standard deviation, skewness and kurtosis used to evaluate
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each of the predictor and criterion variables. The descriptive analysis provided a
summary analysis for demographic variables: age, gender, race, and tenure.
The third step of the data analysis; a correlational analysis was used to analyze the
relationship between emotional dissonance and each of the five personality variables
independently. A Pearson r Correlation was the method used to answer the research
question related to the relationship between each of the five-factor model personalities
and their relations to the level of emotional dissonance experienced among police
officers. Rumrill (2004) stated the use of correlational analysis provides an informed
analysis of the correlation coefficient between the independent (predictor) variable and
dependent (criterion) variable that indicates a linear relationship. Thus, for the purpose of
this study a Pearson r correlation was used to measure the relationship between each five-
factor model personality trait and emotional dissonance among police officers.
The results provided by the Pearson r correlation would either reflect a positive or
negative valence between each five-factor model personality trait and emotional
dissonance among police officers. The minimal level of significance for testing each
variable was a significance level of 5% or a p-value of 0.05 was utilized.
In the fourth step, a stepwise multiple-regression analysis was used to assess the
relationship as whole to rank the independent variables, as they relate in strength in
predicting emotional dissonance. A stepwise analysis was conducted to select the most
significant five-factor model personalities associated to emotional dissonance. For
instance, a stepwise analysis utilizes a model that uses a system that selects predictor
variables one at a time, which then, after a third variable is selected has the capability to
deselect independent variables if they do not have a significant level of (p ≤ .05) or
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higher (Meyers, Gamst, & Gurarino, 2013). Therefore, for the purpose of the study, the
stepwise analysis added statistical power to the multi-regression analysis by only
selecting five-factor model personalities with a significant level lower than (p ≤ .05) to
assure that predictor variables are significant in predicting emotional dissonance.
In the fifth step of the data analysis, a multiple regression analysis was used to
measure both the relationship of five-factor model and emotional dissonance in addition,
to their relationship with demographic variables: age, gender, race, and tenure. Meyers,
Gamst, & Gurarino (2013) note that when examining multiple or dichotomous variables,
multiple regression analysis provides greater prediction of criterion variables than
correlational linear regression. By utilizing a multi-regression analysis, a full perspective
can be gained by examining multiple predictor variables in order to simultaneously
acquire the variances of each five-factor model personality trait and their relationship
with the emotional dissonance; in this way, identifying predictors for emotional
dissonance.
Finally, the multiple regression analysis provided data to tests for the multiple
assumptions (e.g., linearity, normality, homoscedasticity, independence) needed to
conduct the analyses, which are assumed to be independent of each other (Williams,
Gömez, Grajales, & Kurkiewicz, 2013).
Williams et al. (2013) reported that there can be numerous assumptions violations
that can cause various assumption violations; for example, (p.1):
Biased estimates of relationships.
Over or under-confident estimates of the precision of regression coefficient (i.e. biased standard errors).
Untrustworthy confidence intervals and significance tests.
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The assumption of normality assumes that there is a normal distribution between
criterion and predictor variables (Williams et al., 2013). The assumption of
homoscedasticity also assumes normality, but assumes that because one variable sample
has normal distribution, all other variables will also have a normal distribution (Bordens
& Abbott, 2011). Homoscedasticity can be identified through the process, “…plotting
standardized (or studentized) residuals against the predicted values of Y” (p.10).
The assumption of linearity assumes that continuously variables will have a linear
pattern (e.g., scatter plot) after being measured (Bordens & Abbott, 2011). The
assumption of independence assumes that all errors are independent, which can lead to
biased estimates of standard of errors and significance (Williams et al., 2013).
Finally, in presenting all data for interpretation, each of the results from the
Pearson r correlation and multi-regression analysis were presented visually using multiple
aggregate devices. The visual tools used to highlight the results consisted of descriptive
analysis, tables and graphs, correlation matrices, and regression tables. In order to answer
the research questions, the results provided, an explanation in determining the
relationship between variables in examining which five-factor personalities are predictors
of emotional dissonance among police officers.
Ethical Considerations
Before conducting this correlational study, it was guided by the policies of the
Institutional Review Board (IRB). The participants were selected on a voluntary basis,
and were advised they could withdraw from the study at any time. Furthermore, all
participants completed all survey instruments on a secure website, in which they were
advised to take in private, preferably at their place of resident to ensure that there will be
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no contact with other research participants. In order to prevent researcher bias, no names
will be used on survey instruments. Furthermore, all data collected was secured by
SurveyMonkey’s secure website where access to data was only be permitted to the
researcher and the SurveyMonkey administrator.
Information provided on the informed consent disclaimers consisted of the name
of the researcher, contact information, purpose of the study, risk and benefits. Informed
consent disclaimers were downloaded to SurveyMonkey’s site, and before the
participants begin taking the surveys, they were asked if they agree with (check x in the
box) the terms of the study, and if they begin the next step of taking the psychometric
survey questionnaires, implied consent will be inferred. During the study, at no point
were any participant coerced or intimidated during the study. To protect anonymity of
informed consent documents, they were locked in small private safe where the researcher
only has access. Furthermore, it was explained to each participant that their legal rights or
claims would not be waived, and at any time they could withdraw their consent.
Further, in order to prevent mishandling of data, precautions were set in place in
order to uphold confidentially through entirety of the study. For example, precautions
consisted of no duplication of completed data; no shift or times were placed on surveys;
no participant I.D. numbers were printed on surveys. Any survey uncompleted were
destroyed and/or deleted from SurveyMonkey’s files, and in addition, all data was
discarded after three years. During the study, at no point were any participant coerced or
intimidated during the study.
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Limitations and Delimitations
When conducting scientific research, limitations of the study must be carefully
evaluated to ensure that scientific integrity is upheld through transparency, which will
provide for some plausibility to limitations that may occur. The limitations for this
current study reside in the representation of sample to the population, and the use of a
purposive sampling.
First, the sample was limited in representing the total population of police officers
nationwide. Survey instruments were only given to police officers and sergeants that
work patrol, or have worked street patrol. Bordens and Abbott (2011) reported that in
order to have adequate representation, the sample should have characteristics that
generalize to the population. Because Detroit Police Department is a large metropolitan
city, it may not have generalizability in smaller and rural police departments. The
characteristics of smaller and rural police department could be vital in the large scheme
of understanding how personality (five-factor model) could be a predictor of emotional
dissonance. Additionally, the sample from the Detroit Police Department was limited in
representing the total population of staffed police officers. For example, supervisors (e.g.,
Sergeants), investigators and other ancillary sworn positions were considered patrol
officers. Thus, limiting the generalizability of the findings in this current study.
Second, a purposive sample was used to select the sample from the Detroit Police
Department, who were solely selected on voluntary participation. Furthermore, the use of
a purposive sampling (non-probability) was limited because it does not provide the same
strengths (e.g., generalizability of results, decreased researcher bias, random selection
and increased external validity) as provided from random sample (Bordens & Abbott,
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2011). Therefore, by utilizing a purposive sampling, this current study was limited due to
that random sampling methods were not used. Random sampling methods allow random
selection, and the capability to generalize findings to the general population of the Detroit
Police Department.
Finally, all surveys were administered electronically to Detroit police officers by
utilizing SurveyMonkey’s secure website. Consequently, Baker (2012) and Weigold,
Weigold, and Russell (2013) reported that electronic survey maybe cost effective and can
reach a broader population of participants, but has a few limitations. For example,
limitations are: confidentiality issues (e.g., internet privacy), researcher and participant
contact, contact with other participants and laypersons, and not considering participants
who may not have private Internet access (Baker, 2012; Weigold, et al. 2013). Another
limitation is how the surveys tools will be entirely online, which may exclude participant
who do not have computers at home. Therefore, to eliminate this issue, participants with
no home computers had the option to take paper surveys.
By understanding the limitations and delimitations of utilizing one large
metropolitan police department located in Detroit, Michigan, it was considered that using
more than one police department could have reduced the generalizability of the study.
Further, examining other police department also could have provided more information
on the relation of individual personality and emotional dissonance among police officers
working in small suburban and rural police departments. Consequently, Bakker and
Heuven (2006) used only one police department, in was a large metropolitan police
department in order to examine the relationship between emotional dissonance and
burnout among police officers. Further, Bakker and Heuven made no mention of utilizing
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one police department as being a limitation, but did infer that police officers in other
countries should be examined.
Delimitations for this study ensured that SurveyMonkey does not store
participants IP address or attach IP addresses to surveys. Instead, in order to keep
participants anonymous, each participant was directed to an encrypted http server, and
secure privacy code to protect their identity from the researcher and all others. In a study
by Weigold, Weigold, & Russell (2013) they conducted a study on confidentiality and
electronic questionnaires using IRB members from various universities, and 76% of the
sample were highly in favor of encrypted http servers, which they concurred were more
than adequate to meet research participant confidentiality requirements.
By using these precautionary steps, each Detroit Police Officer was provided
confidentiality, and their identities were kept anonymous.
Summary
Chapter 3 expounded on a quantitative methodology design that was designed for
the purpose of this study to examine the relationship between five-factor personalities and
emotional dissonance among police officers. Furthermore, the objective of the study was
theorized based on the lack of research on personality and emotional dissonance among
police officers. To address this gap, a correlational research design using electronic
questionnaires was selected to measure a medium sample size of Detroit police officers
working patrol, or have worked street patrol. Furthermore, all participants had 2 weeks to
take both surveys; then the data was collected and analyzed.
The data will be collected through SurveyMonkey, using secure link, which will
not identify any participant’s names or IP servers. Further, all participant confidentiality
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will be maintained from beginning to the end of the study, and in addition, all data will be
secured in a private location. The demographic variables (e.g., age, gender, race, and
tenure) selected for this study were also examined in conjunction with five-factor model
(personalities) and emotional dissonance among police officers. Additionally, extra
precautions were taken in providing confidentiality in order to protect the anonymity of
the participant’s surveys by not placing names, dates, and times on surveys.
This study utilized Andela’s et al. (2015a) emotional dissonance sub-scale, and
the NEO Five-Factory inventory (McCrae & Costa, 2010) to assess the relationship
between five-factory model personalities and emotional dissonance among police
officers. The relationship between personality and emotional dissonance was assessed
using a Pearson r coefficient, multi-regression analysis, and Cronbachs alpha reliability
coefficient in order to determine which of the five-factor model personalities are the
significant predictors of emotional dissonance among police officers. The data was
analyzed using SPSS version 21 that provided analysis and summarization.
Finally, Chapter 4 emphasizes on the data analysis and results portion of the study
providing detailed insight on the research findings. Through the use of descriptive
statistics, correlational, and multi-regression analysis, the results will provide answers to
each of the research question and hypotheses as provided in Chapter 4. Therefore, a
broader understanding of the results and findings was explained in detail in Chapter 4 on
the relationship between five-factor model personalities and emotional dissonance among
police officer.
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Chapter 4: Data Analysis and Results
Introduction
The objective of this quantitative, correlational research design was to investigate
if, and to what degree, a correlational (proportional or inverse) relationship exists
between five-factor model personalities (e.g., neuroticism, agreeableness,
conscientiousness, extraversion, openness) and emotional dissonance experienced among
police officers. This study set out to examine police officers (Sergeants) working street
patrol in the largest city in Michigan that has been described by the FBI (2011) as one of
the most dangerous cities in America. Because of the increased criminal activity
associated with large cities, police officers working in these cities may experience higher
emotional dissonance based on their five-factor model personality type. In order to
examine this relationship, quantitative statistical methods were used, that is, Pearson r
correlation and multiple regression analysis to determine if any relationship exists
between five-factor model personalities and emotional dissonance experienced among
police officers. Further, other research studies have used quantitative, correlational
research methods to establish a relationship between personality and emotional
dissonance, and antecedents of emotional dissonance, e.g., negative affectivity, stress
and/or strain, and negative emotions (e.g., Diamond, 2005; Goussinky, 2011;
Komulainen et al., 2014; Zanon, Bastianello, Pacico, & Hutz, 2013).
The criterion variable for this study was emotional dissonance measured by
Andela, Truchot, and Van Der Doef (2015) emotional dissonance sub-scale. The
predictor variables for this study were each of the five-factor model personalities, and
they were measured using the NEO-Five-Factor Inventory (McCrae & Costa, 2010). The
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participants were selected from a sample of 1000 Detroit police officers and sergeants,
utilizing a purposive sampling method.
Utilizing a secure web link supplied by SurveyMonkey, 138 participants were
recruited by Detroit Police Department intranet and fliers based on a purposive sampling
approach. In response, a total of 138 police officers and sergeants responded; however,
(n=16) surveys were not used in the data analysis due to a large amount of participants
who did not answer any of the NEO-Five-Factor Inventory questions. In addition, all
survey measures were put together where all participants could take all surveys all
together. The small percentage of missing data may have been contributed from
participants not completing the NEO-FFI because they only answered the demographic
questions. The post hoc power analysis showed that the sample size of 122 had a power
of .92 (see Appendix K).
Further, this research was guided by assuring the research design was in
alignment with the problem statement. The objective of the study was to disprove the null
hypothesis, and show that five-factor model personality traits were predictors of
emotional dissonance experienced by police officers. The primary research question was:
RQ1: What influence, if any and to what degree, do the 5 Factor Model personality
traits contribute to emotional dissonance experienced among police officers?
H10: Police officers scores in Five-Factor Model of personality will show no
correlation with differences in scores in emotional dissonance.
H1𝐴: Police officers scores in Five-Factor Model of personality will show no
correlation with differences in scores in emotional dissonance.
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This chapter contains a summary of descriptive data (e.g., tables, graphs, scatter
plots), highlighting demographic variables. The rest of the chapter discusses data analysis
procedures (data cleaning and evaluation, and parametric assumptions), results, and key
findings. In addition, a summary of the aggregate statistical data is used to highlight the
correlational statistics (Pearson r correlations and multiple regression), which is used to
delineate the statistical data in order to interpret the results. The aggregate data are further
be described and aligned with each research question and hypothesis.
Descriptive Data
This section uses descriptive data to provide an overview the demographic data.
One hundred and thirty-eight police officer and sergeants from the Detroit Police
Department responded, but only 122 participated by taking both the NEO-FFI and the
emotional dissonance subscale. The next section provides and overview of the data
obtained from the NEO-FFI and emotional dissonance subscale. The following tables and
figures include the participants’ demographics, such as police officers rank, gender, and
tenure.
Table 1
Demographic-Rank
Frequency
Percent
Valid
Percent
Cumulative
Percent
Valid
Police
Officer 88 72.1 72.1 72.1
Sergeant 34 27.9 27.9 100.0
Total 122 100.0 100.0
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Table 1 shows the breakdown of demographics between police officers and sergeants.
The table shows that there were 88 police officers, representing 72.1%, and 34 sergeants,
representing 27.9 of the sample. The sample represents the sample of police officers,
including sergeants who have worked street patrol in a large Midwestern police
department.
Table 2
Demographics-Gender
Frequency
Percent
Valid
Percent
Cumulative
Percent
Valid
Male 89 73.0 73.0 73.0
Female 33 27.0 27.0 100.0
Total 122 100.0 100.0
Table 2 shows the demographic breakdown of gender. The table shows that there were 89
males, representing 73% of the sample, and 33 females, representing 27% of the sample.
This sample represents the population of the Detroit Police Department, and other large
metropolitan police departments.
115
Figure 3. Gender histogram.
Figure 3 represents the demographic breakdown gender in which gives a visual analysis
on the difference between males and females used in the sample. The visual inspection
showed that there were more male police officers than, female police officers. Moreover,
this gender difference may represent the broader population of large Metropolitan Police
Department because law enforcement is a predominant male occupation. However, large
Metropolitan Police Departments have a larger population of females than small and rural
police departments (Barratt, Bergman, & Thompson, 2014).
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Table 3
Group Statistics of Gender Differences
Gender N Mean Std. Deviation Std. Error Mean
Emotion Dissonance Male 89 12.23 4.24 .450
Female 33 10.46 5.00 .870
Neuroticism Male 89 16.71 7.13 .757
Female 33 15.33 5.60 .974
Openness Male 89 28.82 6.08 .644
Female 33 29.90 6.39 1.11
Extraversion Male 89 28.49 6.08 .644
Female 33 29.67 5.92 1.03
Agreeableness Male 89 29.80 6.12 .649
Female 33 32.85 6.62 1.15
Conscientiousness Male 89 34.52 6.34 .672
Female 33 37.21 4.91 .854
Table 3 provides a statistics breakdown of group statistics showing the mean
difference between gender and the research variables. The grouping of criterion and
predictor variables will be grouped by gender. Table 3 shows that N represents the
number of male and female police officers (sergeants), which males represented the
highest percent of police officers. These statistics are current with the national statistics
between men and women in law enforcement, and even a smaller percentage of women
in smaller and rural police departments (Barratt, Bergman, & Thompson, 2014).
Moreover, these statistics could be used to generalize to the population of large
metropolitan police departments in future studies. For this reason, acquiring enough
representation between genders was important for this study.
Further, Table 3 displays the average mean scores for each group variable based on
gender, which shows that there was no great mean difference for the five-predictor
variables. This reveals that the gender mean and standard deviations difference across
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predictor variables were consistent with each other. Table 3 further display the standard
error of the mean that provides the variation (standard deviation) between the sample
means, and because there was a moderate sample size, there will be a lower standard
error, which is more representative of the population sample. Therefore, the low values
estimated, that is, standard error of mean from Table 3 reflected a closer representation to
the population mean based, which is also reflective of the different sample standard
deviations.
Table 4 highlights the frequency and percentage of tenure work by Detroit Police
Officers. Table 4 shows a disproportionate frequency where a large percent of police
officers have 15 to 20 years (46.7%), and police officers with more than 20 years (34%).
This disproportionate percentage is representative of the population of the Detroit Police
Department; in which is a result of a hiring freeze. Consequently, the hiring freeze
resulted in an older police Department. Figure 4 allows an actual visual analysis of the
disproportionate difference of number of years between officers with 2 years and officers
with 15 years of more.
Table 4
Demographics-Tenure
Frequency Percent
Valid
Percent
Cumulative
Percent
Less than 2 years 2 1.6 1.6 1.6
Between 2 and 6 years 3 2.5 2.5 4.1
Between 6 and 10 years 8 6.6 6.6 10.7
Between 10 and 15 years 10 8.2 8.2 18.9
Between 15 and 20 years 57 46.7 46.7 65.6
More than 20 years 42 34.4 34.4 100.0
Total 122 100.0 100.0
118
\
Figure 4. Tenure histogram.
Table 5
Demographics-Age
Frequency Percent
Valid
Percent
Cumulative
Percent
Valid
21 to 29 2 1.6 1.6 1.6
30 to 39 27 22.1 22.1 23.8
40 to 49 59 48.4 48.4 72.1
50 to 59 29 23.8 23.8 95.9
60 or older 5 4.1 4.1 100.0
Total 122 100.0 100.0
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Figure 5. Tenure histogram.
Table 5 shows the frequencies and percentages of the ages of police officers
(sergeants), and these data were reflective of the vast difference in the number of years
(tenure) police have worked. Figure 5 provides a visual analysis that shows a large
population of police officers from the ages 30 to 50 years of age. This visual
representation also shows that there were very few police officers less than 30 years of
age, particularly from the ages of 18 to 30, which was only a total of 2 police officers.
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Table 6
Demographics-Race
Frequency
Percent
Valid
Percent
Cumulative
Percent
Valid
Black or African American 66 54.1 54.1 54.1
White 52 42.6 42.6 96.7
Hispanic 2 1.6 1.6 98.4
Some Other Race 2 1.6 1.6 100.0
Total 122 100.0 100.0
Table 6 gives a breakdown on the frequency and percentage of police officer race, which
shows only an 11.5% difference between African American and white police officers.
However, there was a very small percentage of Hispanics and other races that participated in
this study.
Figure 6. Race histogram.
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Figure 6 gives a visual breakdown of the amounts of participants’ race by visually identifying
the gender of each race. Further, the histogram shows that the amount African American
males and white males were almost equal when participating for the study. The amount of
women among races was a lot smaller compared to men.
Data Analysis Procedures
Correlational statistics was used to analyze and draw conclusions from the selected
Sample. To analyze the data, the Statistical Package for the Social Sciences (SPSS) version
21.0 was utilize to code and sum scores collected from the survey measures. SPSS provided a
summary of applicable data using tables, charts, and graphs that provided summarized data
such as: means, central tendency, variance, standard deviation. A Pearson r correlation and
multiple regression analyses were conducted to answer the research question and hypotheses:
RQ1: What influence, if any and to what degree, do the 5 Factor Model personality traits
contribute to emotional dissonance experienced among police officers?
H0: Police officers scores in Five-Factor Model of personality will show no correlation
with differences in scores in emotional dissonance.
H1: Police officers high in neuroticism will show a proportional correlation with scores in
emotional dissonance.
H2: Police officers high in agreeableness will show an inverse correlation with their
scores in emotional dissonance.
H3: Police officers high in conscientiousness will show an inverse correlation with their
scores in emotional dissonance.
H4: Police officers high in extraversion will show a proportional correlation with their
scores in emotional dissonance.
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H5: Police officers high in openness to experience will show a proportional correlation
with their scores in emotional dissonance.
The next section will discuss the evaluation process of measuring the criterion and
predictor variables. Then, a statistical test of assumption was conducted to check for outliers,
normality, linearity, homoscedasticity, and multicollinearity. Finally, the results were
obtained using a Pearson r correlation and multiple regression analysis to determine if a
relationship existed between criterion and predictor variables. Table 7 provides a visual a
summary of the criterion and predictor variables, and the analyses used to analyze the data.
Table 7
Summary of Variables and Statistical Tests Used to Evaluate Research Question 1
Research Question Predictor Variables Criterion Variables Analysis
Neuroticism Emotional dissonance Pearson r Correlation
RQ1 Agreeableness Multi ple Regression
Conscientiousness
Extraversion
Openness
Data evaluation. The research question and hypotheses were evaluated using a
Pearson r correlation and multiple regression analyses in order to determine if a (inverse or
proportional) relationship existed between five-factor model personalities and emotional
dissonance experienced among police officers. The criterion variable for the research
question was emotional dissonance experienced among police officers. Emotional dissonance
scores were measured using a 4-item emotional dissonance sub-scale that uses 5-point Likert
scale; the highest score a participant can score is 5 points and the lowest 0 (Andela et al.,
2015a). For example, 5 = strongly agree, 4 = agree, 3 = neutral, 2 = disagree, and 0 =
strongly disagree. The scores were summed and calculated creating a composite score for
each individual participant. The predictor variables for the research question were the five-
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factor model personalities, e.g., neuroticism, agreeableness, conscientiousness, extraversion,
and openness. Five-factor model personalities were evaluated using the NEO-FFI that uses
60 items, 5-point Likert scale (McCrae & Costa, 1992). For example, 5 = strongly agree, 4 =
agree, 3 = neutral, 2 = disagree, and 0 = strongly disagree. These scores were summed and
calculated, creating a composite score for each individual participant.
Data cleaning. Before evaluating the sample of 122 police officers (sergeants)
working street patrol for a large Midwestern police department, each of the basic parametric
assumptions (e.g., normality, linearity, homoscedasticity, and multicollinearity) were
checked. In addition, before the data were screened, missing data, and univariate and
multivariate outliers were checked. The missing data were screened using frequency
(descriptive) data sums that revealed no missing data. Consequently, 16 participants’ scores
that were associated with the criterion and predictor variables had a score of zero; thus,
showing cause to be removed from the statistical analyses. Next in order to examine
univariate outliers, raw scores were transformed to z-scores that were compared to the critical
value of +/- 3.29, p<. 001 (Meyers, Gamst & Gurarino, 2013). Thus, after the comparison,
any scores exceeding over the critical value three standard deviations from the mean were
signified as outliers. The analysis revealed that there were outliers for neuroticism and
consciousness, which had some extreme outliers. Further, there were very few outliers
because, if they significantly affected the skewness and kurtosis within the neuroticism and
conscientiousness scores, they were deleted. Meyers, Gamst, and Gurarino (2013) indicated
that Outliers that have no explanation should be considered for deletion. The goal of this
study was to keep missing data under 5%. According to Klein (2011), missing data should
not exceed over 5 %, and that, the larger the sample, missing data will present very little
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problems to statistical analysis. This study achieved the goal of having less than 5 % missing
values. Once the outliers were deleted, scores that were skewed were now below the critical
value of -/+3.29 (.001). The skewness and kurtosis is further discussed below in the
normality section. Finally, the deletions can be visibly noticed in Table 3 by the reduction in
sample sizes for neuroticism and consciousness.
Next, multivariate outliers were assessed in order to meet the check the outliers for
the multiple regression analysis. To check for multivariate outliers, the Mahalanobis distance
was used to evaluate the data scores. Meyers et al. indicated that the Mahalanobis distance is
the most suitable analysis to examine multivariate outliers. The Mahalanobis distance
measures the distance between all multivariate means. Thus, if any of Mahalanobis distance
values are above the critical value should be removed (Meyers et al., 2013). Once the
Mahalanobis distance values were obtained, they were compared to chi-square critical value,
in which no values exceeded the critical value of 20.515. Table 3 highlights the descriptive
statistics for the Mahalanobis distance values for the five-predictor variables.
Table 8
Mahalanobis Distance Values for the Predictor Variables
Case Number Value
Mahalanobis Distance
Highest
1 1 12.68
2 2 12.36
3 3 11.51
4 4 7.66
5 5 7.52
Lowest
1 122 .014
2 121 .016
3 120 .040
4 119 .047
5 118 .056
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Reliability. Substantiating reliability for this study was vital in order to prove that
each measure measured what they were supposed to measure with similar accuracy for each
participant taking the same measurement scale (Bordens & Abbott, 2011). In order to show
reliability for the criterion variable, that is, emotional dissonance, Andela et al. (2015a)
verified their emotional dissonance subscale that was used for this current dissertation study.
Further, the Andela’s et al. (2015a) scale on emotional dissonance yielded a Cronbach alpha
reliability of (.91), which is substantially higher than critical value for reliability of (.70).
Therefore, the internal consistency for Andela’s emotional dissonance subscale provides
adequate robustness for predicting emotional dissonance. In order to assure validity
(construct), Andela et al. (2015a) established validity by conducting another study using the
same emotional dissonance subscale. In addition, to test criterion validity they measured
emotional dissonance by comparing their emotional dissonance subscale criterion, with
commonly used emotional dissonance subscales such as the DEELS and FEWS, in which
established criterion validity with both measurement scales. Therefore, the validation of this
psychometric instrument has been substantiated for this study, and Andela et al. (2015a)
stated they are confident of the criterion validity of their emotional dissonance subscale,
which was used for this current study.
To show reliability of the NEO-Five-Factor Inventory (NEO-FFI), Körner et al.
(2015) substantiated internal consistency of the NEO-FFI by using Cronbach’s alpha level,
which had an average score of .67 to .82. For example, the Cronbach alpha levels were:
neuroticism (.82), agreeableness (.72) conscientiousness (.82), extraversion (.73), openness
(.63). Cronbach alpha revealed that all except one five-factor model personality trait scored
above 0.70, openness, which had a score of (.63). As mention above, the Cronbach alpha for
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openness would not affect the overall power of the NEO-FFI model for internal consistency
(McCrae & Costa, 2010; McCrae & Costa, 1992). Körner et al. set out to determine in their
study the difference of a shorter NEO-Five-Factor Inventory (NEO-FFI-30; 30 items) and the
original short version of the NEO-Five-Factor Inventory (60 items), which was comprised of
a sample (n=1908). Regarding validity for the NEO Five-Factory model, it has been heavily
used in research that has established validity, e.g., construct and criterion related validity. For
example, Korner et al. (2015), McCrae and Costa (2010), and McCrae and John (1992)
provided detailed information on the psychometrics and validity and reliability that showed
consistencies of each personality trait through the Cronbach alpha level values. Therefore,
the validation of this survey has been substantiated for this dissertation study, and this
researcher is confident on the validity (construct and criterion-related) for this study.
Normality. To meet the parametric assumptions, the basic assumptions (e.g.,
normality, linearity, homoscedasticity, multicollinearity) were assessed before analyzing the
research question. After evaluation Levene’s test of homogeneity and the examination of
scatter plots, the assumptions for homoscedasticity and linearity were met. In order to test
normality of the data, the skewness and kurtosis were examined using a technique suggested
by Tabachnick and Fidell (2007) where critical range between -3.29 and +3.29 (p< .001)
suggest non-normality. To calculate the z-skewness and kurtosis coefficients they both were
divided by their standard of errors. After evaluating the z-skewness and kurtosis coefficients,
no scores exceeded the critical range of +/-3.29 (p< .001). In addition, the analysis found that
the z-skewness and kurtosis coefficients for the criterion variable (emotional dissonance) had
no scores exceeding the critical range of +/-3.29. Therefore, the assumption normality has
been met for further statistical analysis for analyzing the results.
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Table 9
Skewness and Kurtosis used to Evaluate the Predictor Variables
Emotional
Dissonance
Neuroticism Extraversion Openness Agreeable Conscientiousness
N 122 120 122 122 122 120
Skewness -.385 .253 .329 -.031 -.309 -.565
Std. Error of
Skewness .219 .221 .219 .219 .219 .221
Kurtosis -.456 .126 -.190 -.352 .142 .961
Std. Error of
Kurtosis .435 .438 .435 .435 .435 .438
Multicollinearity. To meet the assumptions for multicollinearity, each of the five
predictor variables (e.g., neuroticism, agreeableness, conscientiousness, extraversion,
openness) were tested using correlations and collinearity statistics, that is, tolerance and
variance inflation factor (VIF). The tolerance was analyzed using the formula T = 1- 𝑅2 and
VIF that is computed by 1 divided by tolerance. The results revealed that there were no
correlational coefficients that exceeded the critical values higher than, .80. The parameters
for determining the VIF for multicollinearity were T < .10 and VIF > 10. The results revealed
that no predictor variables exceeded the critical values for VIF coefficients, indicating there
was no presence of multicollinearity. Therefore, based on the critical values for tolerance and
VIF the assumption for multicollinearity was met.
Results
This dissertation study is comprised of one research question. Further, the research
question contains five hypotheses, in which the predictions for this study will be determined
by the null or alternative hypotheses. Pearson r correlational and multiple regression analysis
were used to analyze the research question in order to determine if any significant positive
128
relationship exited between five-factor model personality traits and emotional dissonance.
The criterion variable for the research question was emotional dissonance.
The predictor variables were analyzed using the Pearson r correlation to measure the
five-factor model personalities (e.g., neuroticism, agreeableness, conscientiousness,
extraversion, openness), measured by 60 items on the NEO-Five-Factory Inventory (NEO-
FFI). The scores were summed and calculated for composite scores across the 60 NEO-FFI
items, and were used as the predictor variables for the proposed research question. The
specified null and alternative hypotheses were:
Hypothesis 1. The first null hypothesis stated that police officers scores in Five-
Factor Model of personality will show no correlation with differences in scores in emotional
dissonance. Utilizing SPSS version 21, a Person r correlation (bivariate analysis) was used to
determine if any significant positive relationships existed between five-factor model
personality traits and emotional dissonance experienced by police officers.
Table 10
Pearson r Correlation Between Neuroticism and Emotional Dissonance
Variable Emotion Dissonance Neuroticism
Emotion Dissonance
Pearson
Correlation 1 .245**
Sig. (2-
tailed)
.007
N 122 120
Neuroticism
Pearson
Correlation .245** 1
Sig. (2-
tailed) .007
N 120 120
**. Correlation is significant at the 0.01 level (2-tailed).
RQ1: What influence, if any and to what degree, do the 5 Factor Model personality traits
contribute to emotional dissonance experienced among police officers?
129
H1: Police officers high in neuroticism will show a proportional correlation with scores in
emotional dissonance.
H0: Police officers scores in Five-Factor Model of personality will show no correlation
with differences in scores in emotional dissonance.
For Hypothesis 1, the Pearson r correlation indicated that there was a significant and
propositional relationship between neuroticism scores and emotional dissonance experienced
among police officers, (r = .25, p =< .007). Therefore, the null hypothesis was rejected for
Hypothesis 1. Displayed below in Figure 7 is a scatterplot that highlights the proportional
linear pattern between neuroticism and emotional dissonance. In addition, see Table 10 for
the Pearson r results listed above and scatter plot for both variables listed below.
Figure 7. Scatter plot of neuroticism and emotional dissonance
130
Hypothesis 2. The second null hypothesis stated that police officers scores in Five
Factor Model of personality would show no correlation with differences in scores in
emotional dissonance. For Hypothesis 2, the Pearson r correlation indicated a significant
inverse relationship between agreeableness and emotional dissonance, (r = -.31, p < .001).
The null hypothesis for Hypothesis 2 was also rejected. Displayed below in Figure 8 is a
scatter plot that highlights the inverse linear pattern between agreeableness and emotional
dissonance. Also, see Table 11 for the Pearson r correlation results listed.
Table 11.
Pearson Correlation Between Agreeableness and Emotional Dissonance
Variable Emotional Dissonance Agreeableness
Emotional Dissonance
Pearson
Correlation 1 -.310**
Sig. (2-
tailed)
.001
N 122 122
Agreeableness
Pearson
Correlation -.310** 1
Sig. (2-
tailed) .001
N 122 122
**. Correlation is significant at the 0.01 level (2-tailed).
131
Figure 8. Scatter Plot of agreeableness and emotional dissonance.
Hypothesis 3. The third null hypothesis stated that police officers scores in Five-
Factor Model of personality would show no correlation with differences in scores in
emotional dissonance. For Hypothesis 3, the Pearson r correlation indicated a significant and
inverse relationship between agreeableness and emotional dissonance, (r = -.25, p < .007).
The null hypothesis for Hypothesis 3was also rejected. Displayed below in Figure 9 is a
scatter plot that highlights the inverse linear pattern between agreeableness and emotional
dissonance. Also, see Table 12 for the Pearson r correlation results.
132
Table 12.
Pearson Correlation Between Conscientiousness and Emotional
Dissonance
Variable
Emotional
Dissonance
Conscientiousness
Emotional Dissonance
Pearson
Correlation 1 -.245**
Sig. (2-tailed) .007
N 122 120
Conscientiousness
Pearson
Correlation -.245** 1
Sig. (2-tailed) .007
N 120 120
**. Correlation is significant at the 0.01 level (2-tailed).
.
Figure 9. Scatter plot of conscientiousness and emotional dissonance.
133
Hypothesis 4. The fourth null hypothesis stated that police officer scores in Five-
Factor Model of personality would show no correlation with differences in scores in
emotional dissonance. For Hypothesis 4, the Pearson r correlation indicated a negative and
inverse relationship between extraversion and emotional dissonance, (r = -.16, p >.05). The
null hypothesis for Hypothesis 4 was accepted; thus, disproving Hypothesis 4. Displayed
below in Figure 10 is a scatter plot that highlights the inverse linear pattern between
extraversion and emotional dissonance. Also, see Table 13 for the Pearson r correlation
results.
Table 13
Pearson Correlation Between Extraversion and Emotional
Dissonance
Variable Emotional Dissonance Extraversion
Emotional
Dissonance
Pearson
Correlation 1 -.162
Sig. (2-
tailed)
.074
N 122 122
Extraversion
Pearson
Correlation -.162 1
Sig. (2-
tailed) .074
N 122 122
134
Figure 10. Scatter plot of extraversion and emotional dissonance.
Hypothesis 5. The fifth null hypothesis stated that police officer scores in Five-Factor
Model of personality would show no correlation with differences in scores in emotional
dissonance. For Hypothesis 5, the Pearson r correlation indicated a negative inverse
relationship between openness and emotional dissonance, (r = -.09, p >.05). The null
hypothesis for Hypothesis 5 was also accepted; thus, disproving Hypothesis 5. Displayed
below in Figure 11 is a scatter plot that highlights the inverse linear pattern between
extraversion and emotional dissonance. Also, see Table 14 listed for the Pearson r
correlations results.
135
Table 14
Pearson r Correlation Between Openness and Emotional Dissonance
Variable Emotional Dissonance Openness
Emotional Dissonance
Pearson
Correlation 1 -.092
Sig. (2-
tailed)
.312
N 122 122
Openness
Pearson
Correlation -.092 1
Sig. (2-
tailed) .312
N 122 122
Figure 11. Scatter plot of openness and emotional dissonance.
136
Multiple regression analysis. A multiple regression analysis was utilized in order to
learn if there was any significant relationship between all five predictor variables
(neuroticism, agreeableness, conscientiousness, extraversion, openness) and emotional
dissonance. The results from the multiple regression analysis substantiated that there was a
significant relationship between emotional dissonance and a model consisting of the five-
predictor variables, (𝑅2 = .14, adjusted 𝑅2= .11, F (5, 114) 3.84, p < .003). For instance,
11% (adjusted 𝑅2 = .11) of the variability was consistent with the model comprised of the
five-predictor variables. Below is a model summary of the multiple regression analysis
presented in Table 15.
Table 15
Model Summary of Multiple Regression Analysis for Research Question 1
odel R R
Square
Adjusted R
Square
Std. Error
of the
Estimate
Change Statistics
R Square
Change
F
Change
df1 df2 Sig. F
Change
1 .380a .144 .107 4.22 .144 3.84 5 114 .003
* Predictors: (Constant), Openness, Neuroticism, Agreeableness, Conscientiousness, Extraversion
Model Unstandardized
Coefficients
Standardized
Coefficients
t Sig. Correlations
B Std. Error Beta Zero-
order
Partial Part
1
(Constant) 18.163 4.02 4.52 .000
Neuroticism .132 .071 .179 1.85 .066 .245 .171 .161
Agreeableness -.184 .064 -.263 -2.88 .005 -.293 -.261 -.250
Conscientiousness -.088 .076 -.110 -1.16 .250 -.210 -.108 -.100
Extraversion -.013 .075 -.018 -.176 .861 -.137 -.016 -.015
Openness .019 .068 .027 .285 .777 -.093 .027 .025
* Note. Criterion Variable= Emotional Dissonance; n =122
Multiple regression-stepwise analyses. Finally, utilizing the multiple regression
analysis, a stepwise analysis was conducted to find the predictor variable best for predicting
137
emotional dissonance. The stepwise analysis revealed that the best fitting model for
predicting emotional dissonance was model 2. Model 2 included neuroticism and
agreeableness (𝑅2 = .1, adjusted 𝑅2 = .13, F (1, 117) = 6.23, p < .014). When combined,
both neuroticism and agreeableness explained 13% of variance in emotional dissonance.
Whereas Model 1 included agreeableness, and had a 9 % explanation for variance in
emotional dissonance, (𝑅2 = .10, adjusted 𝑅2 = .09, F (1, 117) = 12.55, p < .001). Listed
below in Table 16 is a stepwise model summary for both model 1 and 2 displayed. Finally, a
stepwise analysis was used to determine which demographic variables were predictors of
emotional dissonance. The stepwise analysis revealed that only one demographic variable
was found to be a predictor of emotional dissonance, (𝑅2 = .033, adjusted 𝑅2 = .025, F (1,
120) = 4.11, p < .05), which had a 3% explanation for variance in emotional dissonance. To
note, for further exploratory purposes, other demographic variables were also analyzed using
a Pearson r correlation, and it was found that no other variable had a significant Pearson r
correlation with emotional dissonance. To further note, there was no significant correlation
between male and female police officers that experience emotional dissonance.
138
Table 16
Models Summary Multiple Regression Stepwise Analysis
Model Unstandardized
Coefficients
Standardized
Coefficients
t Sig. Correlations
B Std. Error Beta Zero-
order
Partial Part
1 (Constant) 18.46 1.94 9.512 .000
Agreeableness -.219 .062 -.310 -3.53 .001 -.310 -.310 -.310
2
(Constant) 15.42 2.25 6.84 .000
Agreeableness -.203 .061 -.288 -3.33 .001 -.310 -.295 -.286
Neuroticism .160 .064 .216 2.50 .014 .245 .226 .215
a. Dependent Variable: Emotional Dissonance
Model R R
Square
Adjusted R
Square
Std. Error of
the Estimate
Change Statistics
R Square
Change
F
Change
df1 df2 Sig. F
Change
1 .310a .10 .09 4.30 .10 12.44 1 117 .001
2 .377b .14 .13 4.21 .05 6.22 1 116 .014
*Note. Criterion Variable = Emotional Dissonance; n =122
Summary
The objective of this quantitative study was to learn, if any and to what degree, a
relationship (proportional or inverse) exists between the level of five-factor model
personalities and emotional dissonance experience by police officers. This study consisted of
122 police officers working for a large Midwestern police department. First, this chapter
started out by presenting descriptive statistics to highlight demographic variables using
frequency distribution data tables and graphs. Then, statistical analyses were conducted to
examine the predictor and criterion variables, which were analyzed using the Pearson r
correlations and multiple regression analysis. Also, demographic variables (e.g., gender, age
rank, tenure) were briefly evaluated using frequency distribution data tables and graphs. A
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total of one hundred and thirty eight police and sergeants responded; however, (n=16)
surveys were not used in the data analysis due to a large amount of participants who did not
answer any of the NEO-Five-Factor Inventory questionnaires and emotional dissonance sub-
scale. In this way, resulting in 0s for each of the 16 uncompleted questionnaires. As a result,
a total of 122 surveys were used for the analysis, providing an 88.4% response rate. Before
conducting the data analysis, the data were checked for missing values, outliers (e.g.,
univariate and multiple regression) and basic parametric assumptions. Data cleaning revealed
there were no missing values. Further, when checking for outliers both neuroticism and
consciousness had outliers that had a significant effect on the skewness and kurtosis (could
drastically effect normality). After the outliers were deleted, the skewness and kurtosis were
within the critical range of +/- 3.29. The assessment for checking for parametric assumptions
(e.g., normality, linearity, homoscedasticity, multicollinearity), revealed that all assumptions
were met for conducting a Pearson r correlation and multiple regression analyses.
The final result findings reported the following: First, Hypothesis 1 had a significant,
proportional relationship between neuroticism and emotional dissonance. This result means
that as neuroticism scores increased, so did emotional dissonance scores. Second, regarding
Hypothesis 2, there was a significant, inverse relationship between agreeableness and
emotional dissonance. This result means that as agreeableness scores increased, emotional
dissonance scores decreased. Third, for Hypothesis 3 there was a significant inverse
relationship between consciousness and emotional dissonance. This result means that as
conscientiousness scores increased, emotional dissonance decreased. Fourth, for Hypothesis
4, there was no significant (proportional or inverse) relationship between extraversion and
emotional dissonance. Fifth, for Hypothesis 5, there was no significant (proportional or
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inverse) between openness and emotional dissonance. Finally, only one demographic
variable, that is, tenure (years of experience) was found to predict emotional dissonance.
Consequently, these findings may be due to the variation between various years of
experience, specifically, with a low representation of police officers with 10 years or less
work experience. Chapter 5 entails a detailed summary and discussion of the findings,
conclusion, implications, and recommendations for future research on the results and
findings for this study. Finally, Chapter 5 further restates the research question and the
finding related to the outcome of each hypothesis.
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Chapter 5: Summary, Conclusions, and Recommendations
Introduction
The objective of this current study was to examine if, any, and to what degree does a
correlation (proportional or inverse) exists between five-factor model personalities and
emotional dissonance experienced among police officers. Due to the limited amount of
published literature on the relationship between five-factor model personalities and emotional
dissonance, this study has set out to add to knowledge of literature and scholarship. Other
research studies have examined the relationship between five-factor model and emotional
dissonance, but have not used police officers in their samples (Diamond, 2005). For this
reason, current research was conducted to learn if five-factor model personalities were
predictors of emotional dissonance experienced by police officers. Furthermore, this current
study has addressed the problem statement by analyzing the criterion and predictor variables
using a quantitative correlational analysis.
Therefore, to address the shortage of literature, the following research question and
hypotheses directed the research goals of this study:
RQ1: What influence, if any and to what degree, do the 5 Factor Model personality traits
contribute to emotional dissonance experienced among police officers?
H0: Police officers scores in Five-Factor Model of personality will show no correlation
with differences in scores in emotional dissonance.
H1: Police officers high in neuroticism will show a proportional correlation with scores in
emotional dissonance.
H2: Police officers high in agreeableness will show an inverse correlation with their
scores in emotional dissonance.
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H3: Police officers high in conscientiousness will show an inverse correlation with their
scores in emotional dissonance.
H4: Police officers high in extraversion will show a proportional correlation with their
scores in emotional dissonance.
H5: Police officers high in openness to experience will show a proportional correlation
with their scores in emotional dissonance.
The results provided valuable knowledge to help understand how personality
contributes to emotional dissonance among police officers. These finding are specifically
significant to all law enforcement professionals because they will bring awareness to the
various stress factors (e.g., burnout, PTSD, depression, and anxiety) that are contributed from
police officers having to present a professional demeanor (displaying organizational
emotions and/or behavior) where they have denying their own felt emotions. Finally, to
explain the results for this study, Chapter 5 provide a summary of the finding and
conclusions, implications, recommendations for research and practice were provided.
Summary of the Study
The researcher set out to present current literature to understand the relationship
between the five-factor model personalities and emotional dissonance experience by police
officers. This study emphasized exclusively on 122 police officers (sergeants) working for a
large Midwestern police department. The participants for the study were comprised of police
officers and sergeants. Meanwhile, even though there has been empirical research examining
the relationship between emotional dissonance, there has been limited research that has only
examined debt (no face-to-face contact with citizens). For this reason, the purpose of this
quantitative correlative study was to examine if, and to what degree a significant correlation
143
(inverse or proportional) exists between five-factor model personalities and emotional
dissonance experienced among police officers.
The findings for this study substantiated that there was a significant (proportional and
inverse) correlational between three (e.g., neuroticism, agreeableness, conscientiousness) of
the five-factor model personality traits and emotional dissonance. Further, based on the
problem statement the findings provided from the data will contribute to the body of
knowledge by further informing emotional dissonance and personality literature.
First, Chapter 1 is outlined by first introducing the introduction, problem statement,
and purpose of the study, which discussed the lack of current research on emotional
dissonance and five-factor model literature. In order to support the purpose of the study the
research question and hypotheses were established to create current literature. Then, to
address the lack of current literature, advancing scientific knowledge and significance of the
study was discussed in Chapter Next, Chapter 1 delineates the rationale of the methodology
and research design used to conduct and analyze the hypotheses. Finally, Chapter1 finishes
with discussing definition of research terms, assumptions, limitation, and the delimitations
for this current dissertation study.
Chapter 2 discusses the literature review, which provided a synthesis of seminal and
current literature associated to emotional dissonance and five-factor model. Further, the
literature review encompassed, back to problem, theoretical framework, and a synthesis of
the literature that provided current literature on the measures used to collect data. Finally,
Chapter 2 provides a breakdown, using literature to highlight gaps within the literature that
accentuates methodology differences and strength and weaknesses.
144
Chapter 3 provides a detailed outline of the research methodology that used
quantitative methods (e.g., Pearson r correlation and multiple regression) to analyze the
collected data. Also, the research design that was selected, that is, correlation research design
was used. Abbott Rumrill (2004) stated that research that examines aggregate data is best
suited for quantitative methodology, particularly when employing a correlation research
design that measures the variation between two variables is associated between criterion and
predictor variables. The researcher used purposive sampling method that was used to collect
data from 122 participants. The data was collected using the NEO-FFI (McCrae & Costa,
1992) to measure the five-factor model personalities, and the second measure used was
Andela’s et al. (2015a) emotional dissonance sub-scale. Both measures were used to
determine the extent of the relationship between five-factor model personalities and
emotional dissonance. Finally, in Chapter 3 a detailed discussion explaining the data analysis
procedures were discussed in order to answer the research question and hypothesis.
Chapter 4 involved a detail breakdown of the methods used to describe the analyzed
data by using descriptive data and statistics to summarize the data. In addition, various
statistical analyses methods (e.g., Pearson r correlation and multiple regression) were used to
measure the correlation between the criterion and predictors variables used in this study.
Furthermore, Chapter 4 included detailed synopsis discussing the data analysis procedures,
and an explanation of the results that were used to answer the research question and
hypotheses.
Finally, Chapter 5 highlights the overall results of this research study, which will
contribute to the body of knowledge, specifically, in emotional dissonance and personality
literature. Further, Chapter 5 provides a reiteration of the research question and hypotheses,
145
and results that are explained in the findings, conclusion, and recommendations. Chapter 5
further discusses how the findings, theoretical and future implications, suggestion on stress
and PTSD training caused from the negative outcomes of emotional dissonance, which were
discussed in recommendation for future studies.
Summary of Findings and Conclusion
The finding obtained from this study has provided beneficial statistical data that will
address the various factors stress incurred from emotional dissonance. However, this study
has gleaned that the five-factor model maybe limited in predicting personality, but this study
has not exhausted the notion that numerous other personality approaches may also be used to
determine if personality is a predictor of emotional dissonance experience among police
officers.
Therefore, further research should include examining other personality approaches as
predictors of emotional dissonance, and stress factors (e.g., burnout, PTSD, anxiety) incurred
by emotional dissonance among police officers. For these reasons, this study will provide
specific recommendations, and other methods of research that will outline training methods
to address stress experienced from emotional dissonance. Moreover, the following
recommendation will be beneficial to the study of emotional dissonance.
Implications
The results provided from this study will be beneficial to the knowledge of literature
by highlighting the theoretical, practical, and future implications. Because there has been
limited research examining the relationship between five-factor model personalities and
emotional dissonance experienced among police officers. This current research sets out to
extend empirical research in personality and emotional dissonance literature. Further, the
146
information provided in this section will provide a synopsis of the research that has been
gleaned, and have impact future studies in this area of study.
Theoretical implications. The theoretical implications for this dissertation study
utilize foundational literature to help create the theoretical framework to answer the research
question that is derived upon both theories of emotional dissonance and five-factor model.
Furthermore, the theoretical framework, along with existing literature and data will help
interpret the research question. The foundation literature for emotional dissonance is
grounded on Hochschild’a (1983) and Rafaeli and Sutton’s (1987) theories on emotional
dissonance. First, Hochschild’s theory is grounded on emotional work or emotional labor
where employees are required to perform organizational displays of emotion and/or behavior
for wages (e.g., requirements for staying employed). Subsequently, there becomes a
discrepancy between the employees felt emotions and having to present (smiling and/or
being polite) organizational display rules. This phenomenon is known as emotional
dissonance, in which Hochschild posits as away person protects their individuality or the
“self”. In order to protect the self, and perform organizational display rules, employees will
employ the use particular emotional labor strategies: (a) surface acting (faking emotions) (b)
deep acting (an attempt to mental act out the emotion) (c) felt emotions (a person’s actual
emotions). The main tenet of Hochschild’s theory and this research study is that the
expression of organizational display rules is expressed outwardly (behaviorally) from an
internal emotional state that requires mind and feeling to act out the expression of behavior.
Whereas Morris and Feldman (1996) theorize that display rules are expressed in the form of
behavior. Rafaeli and Sutton (1987) introduced an emotional dissonance theory that suggest
that emotional dissonance is a result of a person to role conflict, in which inner feelings (felt
147
emotions) are hindered or altered because of role expectations. Rafaeli and Sutton describe
emotional dissonance and emotional conflict between personal principles and require role
expectations. Further, Rafaeli and Sutton indicated that role expectations can be put into two
organizational contexts (socialization, selection, and rewards and punishment), formal and
informal systems. Moreover, organizations use these contexts to instill in employees the
prescribed displays of emotions required to influence bystanders.
Finally, this study used McCrae and Costa’s (1992) theory on personality, that is, the
five-factor model. The five-factor model is composed of hierarchical personalities: (1)
neuroticism, (2) agreeableness, (3) conscientiousness, (4) extraversion, and (5) openness,
also known as openness to experience. The five-factor model was used to determine general
descriptions of individual personality traits based on McCrae and Costa theory.
Thus, with the use of each of the theoretical foundations and findings, has contributed
to the knowledge of literature, specifically, the five-factor model in giving a general
description of police officers personalities. The findings will further add to emotional
dissonance theories on the stress police incur from citizen contact when working street patrol.
Therefore, understanding the unique relationship between five-factor model personalities and
emotional dissonance will help other large police departments and other human service
occupations learn how to improve stressful encounters with citizens that contribute to
emotional dissonance.
Practical implications. The results from this quantitative correlational study
substantiated that neuroticism, conscientiousness, and agreeableness were significantly
associated with emotional dissonance experienced by police officers. In addition, these
findings were consistent with other studies investigating both variables, which were
148
discussed in chapter 2. These findings will help law enforcement agencies across the United
States with personnel training, specifically, neuroticism (p < .007) and agreeableness (p <
.001), which were found to be highly correlated with predicting emotional dissonance in
police officer working for a large Midwestern police department. Furthermore, this
quantifiable data can be applied by understanding how neuroticism, agreeableness,
conscientiousness, and their association with emotional dissonance can be used to help
improve and increase understanding how psychological (PTSD, anxiety, depression) and
physical wellbeing (strokes and various cardiovascular problems) effect police officers and
other human service in a family or work environment. These findings will also contribute to
I/O psychology, organizational development and human resource professionals to help create
training interventions and policies that will better help law enforcement officer address
PTSD, anxiety, depression that is contributed from emotional dissonance.
Future implications. After evaluating the findings of this study, and Literature
Review of similar studies, there were future implications gleaned from this study that will
help advance the body of knowledge in personality and emotional dissonance. These future
implications will help build on understanding the relationship between five-factor model
personalities and emotional dissonance. In future studies researchers should include the work
shift police officers (predictor variable) work when examining the correlation between five-
factor model and emotional dissonance. For example, researchers should assess the police
officers work shift because research has suggested that certain shifts (i.e., afternoon and
midnight shifts) cause more stress than other work shifts (Fekedulegn et al., 2013; Kurtz,
2012). As a result of stress sustained from shift selection, particularly night shifts it was
found that police officers experienced higher incidences of morbidity, psychological and
149
physical (cardiovascular disease) wellbeing problems, than police officers that worked day
shifts (Fekedulegn et al., 2013). For these reasons, researchers should examine the correlation
work shifts with personality and their relationship with emotional dissonance.
After further analysis of the findings researchers should examine other theories of
personality that provide a more full scope of personality. For instance, rather than, examining
personality from the perspective of the five-factor model (McCrae & Costa, 1992), the five-
factor model is typically used to generalize personality (e.g., neuroticism, agreeableness,
conscientiousness, extraversion, openness), to describe the broader population (e.g.,
organizations, police departments, and hospitals), instead of individual personality. Other
theories such as the social-cognitive theory of personality should be researched. Cervone
(2001) has argued that the five-factor model is limited in giving a complete assessment of
personality from the individual perspective. The Social-cognitive theory of personality will
provide assessment of social environment context and affective or cognitive outlook in
assessing personality. Therefore, future implications from this study suggests that researchers
should consider examining personality from a social-cognitive approach, and its relationship
with emotional dissonance experienced among police officers. Additionally, the use of the
five-factor model is also a limitation of the study because it limited in describing personality
from just an individual perspective. As previously mention, the five-factor model only uses
five personality traits to explain overall human behavior; thus, making it a system of
personality assessment that is insufficient in explaining personality from different contexts.
However, McCrae and Costa did construct the five-factor theory that evolves a system that
explains personality from various dynamic processes: biological, basic tendencies,
characteristics adaptations, and external processes. Although the five-factor theory has a
150
refined theory for personality, the theory has limited use as a supplemental theory when the
five-factor model has been used in a plethora of research studies.
Another limitation of the study involved a lack of representation of police officers
less than 10 years. This limitation proposed problem because a proper comparison less senior
police officers and senior officers with 10 or more years could not be examined.
Furthermore, only a total 13 police officers participated in the study compared to 119
participants with more than 10 years. This data could have greatly provided information on
the difference between experience and less experience police officers, in how they
experience emotional dissonance based on personality.
A final limitation of the study and future implications this study only had one police
department to make up the sample, which does not provide a strong representation of the
population of police officers. In future studies, researchers should have a sample using rural
police department, small suburban police and large metropolitan police departments, which
will provide a more robust study. Finally, the study showed similar findings as other studies
examining the relationship between five-factor model personality traits and emotional
dissonance. The findings showed that there were strong proportional and inverse and
significant correlations between five-factor model personalities and emotional dissonance
experienced among police officers.
Recommendations
The findings obtained from this study have provided beneficial statistical data that
will address the various factors stress incurred from emotional dissonance. However, this
study has gleaned that the five-factor model maybe limited in predicting personality, but this
study has not exhausted the notion that numerous other personality approaches may also be
151
used to determine if personality is a predictor of emotional dissonance experience among
police officers. Therefore, further research should include examining other personality
approaches as predictors of emotional dissonance, and stress factors (e.g., burnout, PTSD,
anxiety) incurred by emotional dissonance among police officers. For these reasons, this
study will provide specific recommendations, and other methods of research that will outline
training methods to address stress experienced from emotional dissonance. Moreover, the
following recommendation will be beneficial to the study of emotional dissonance.
Recommendations for future research. The study findings have shown positive
(proportional and inverse) significance between five-factor model and emotional dissonance;
specifically, as they relate to police officers. Furthermore, the findings indicated that police
officers high in neuroticism were high in emotional dissonance, and that police officers low
both agreeableness and conscientiousness were higher in emotional dissonance. Thus, future
research should investigate these variables, and the other five-factor model variables (i.e.,
extraversion and openness) using qualitative research to understand how police officers
individual personal experiences have to do with their emotional battle of dealing with felt
emotions and having to preform organizational display rules (antecedents of emotional
dissonance) when interacting citizens or bystanders.
Further, other studies replicating this study should examine the same sample variables
using an experimental research design where a two experimental groups can be examine with
a non-treatment group (control group) in order to determine cause or effect. The use of
experimental research design will provide random sampling (every person has an equal
chance to be selected) whereas this current study used a purposive sampling method that only
solicited police officers based on voluntarily participation. Additionally, further replication of
152
this study should utilize the NEO-PI-R instead of the short version (NEO-FFI) used for this
current study. The NEO-PI-R uses a measuring scale that measures the five-factor model
with 230 items (questions), instead of 60 items used by the NEO-FFI. Further, the use of the
NEO-PI-R will provide a more comprehensive outlook of each five-factor model sub-scale.
Additionally, because conscientiousness has been found to be a predictor of job performance
in numerous occupations, further research is recommended to examine five-factor model
personalities and emotional dissonance among police officers, with the addition of examining
job performance as an outcome of the effects of emotional dissonance.
Bakker and Heuven (2006) suggested, when examining emotional dissonance,
cognitive dissonance should be included because it is the core element where emotional
dissonance is derived. For instance, cognitive dissonance is when two conflicting cognitions
are in conflict with each other, and as consequence of dissonance (emotional strain) the
individual changes their cognition or belief to protect their self-image (Bakker and Heuven,
2006). Therefore, future studies should examine cognitive dissonance and emotional
dissonance, in that, changing the conflicting cognitions by adding or reducing dissonance
(emotional strain) with positive emotions (e.g., joy, satisfaction, contentment) (Bakker &
Heuven, 2006).
Finally, other studies replicating this study should use the same variables, but also
examine the difference between police officers with more experience and police officers with
less, in addition, to age (younger and older) differences between police officers. This current
study was not able to determine a concise relationship between these variables because the
large Midwestern police department selected, had several hiring freezes, in which affected
the sample demographics for tenure (amount of experience) and age. Therefore, the
153
aforementioned recommendations will help extend the body of literature and professional
practice by further the research in understanding the relationship and/or effect five-factor
model personalities and emotional dissonance experienced among police officers.
Recommendations for future practice. The results from this current study indicated
that there were significant proportional and inverse correlations among police officers that
will be beneficial to professional practice in law enforcement occupations, and other human
service occupations. Moreover, law enforcement human resource departments will benefit
from the findings of this study, specifically, when used for personnel selection. Research has
indicated that personality test have less adverse impact on minorities than, cognitive ability
test, which have been found to have higher incidence of discrimination lawsuits (Barrett,
Miguel, Hurd, Lueke, & Tan, 2003). Further, the findings from the study were significant
because it was revealed that conscientiousness, agreeableness, and neuroticism were
predictors of emotional dissonance experienced by police officers.
Statistical analyses revealed that neuroticism (.001) and agreeableness (.012) were the
strongest predictors of emotional dissonance among police officers. Empirical research has
also substantiated that specific personality traits have been found to be indicators of
employee job performance. For example, agreeableness and neuroticism (emotional
stability), and specifically conscientiousness have been found to be indicators of job
performance (e.g., Aamodt, 2010; Cascio & Aguinis, 2011).
This current study has showed significant findings based on strong quantifiable
statistics that substantiated correlations between various five-factor model personality traits
and emotional dissonance among police officers working for a large Midwestern police
department. The evidence supplied from this study highlighted the relationships that have
154
made it capable for law enforcement administrators, human resource and organizational
development specialist (industrial and organizational psychologist) to identify training
objectives and outcomes in order to reduce the negative psychological effects (e.g., burnout
and PTSD) of emotional dissonance. For example, Chapter 2, literature review, has shown
that numerous studies have found that burnout is highly associated with emotional
dissonance and personality, resulting in reduce personal efficacy, emotional exhaustion,
depersonalization, cynicism, cognitive weariness, and physical fatigue (Bakker & Heuven,
2006; Cheung & Cheung, 2013; Armon, Shirom, and Melamed (2012) and Hurt, Grist,
Maleski Jr., McCord, 2013). Bakker and Heuven (2006) indicated that do to workload and
job demands police officers often experience increased psychological strain that causes
burnout. As a result, of burnout caused by continuous psychological strain, post-traumatic
stress disorder (PTSD) can become problematic for individuals who have exposure to high
stress situations, in this way, causing individuals to having elevated sensitivity to stress
(Brattberg, 2006). One prospective training recommendation for burnout is HeartMath
Transformation stress workshop, and it is composed of two intensive sessions the first one is
for 4 weeks than, the participants return for a 2-hour session. The training uses rhythmic
breathing, techniques to enhance positive emotions (e.g., gratitude or empathy), and bio-feed
back to encourage desired psychological mental states (e.g., Larsen, Augustine, & Prizmic,
2009).
Finally, two prospective training recommendations for PTSD, are evidence based
psychotherapy (EBP) treatments, which were used to treat veterans suffering from both
burnout and PTSD (Garcia et al., 2015). The first EBP recommended is the Cognitive
Processing Therapy (CPT), which is 12-session therapy that emphasizes addressing
155
individual trauma experiences, which are associated with safety, trust, power, control, self-
esteem, and intimacy. The second recommended training sessions is the 9 to 12 session
Prolonged Exposure Therapy that uses two therapy techniques, vivo exposure (e.g.,
individual has to confront real life and fears face-to-face) and imaginal exposure (e.g.,
individual relives past traumatic memories) (Garcia et al. 2015). Therefore, these
recommendations can be considered for practical suggestions that will help improve the
psychological and physical wellbeing of law enforcement officers and other human service
workers who have experienced the negative effects of emotional dissonance.
156
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Appendix A
IRB Approval Letter
173
Appendix B
Informed Consent Form
Grand Canyon University
College of Doctoral Studies
3300 W. Camelback Road
Phoenix, AZ 85017
Phone: 602-639-7804
Fax: 602-639-7820
INFORMED CONSENT FORM
TITLE OF RESEARCH STUDY
The examination of the Five-Factor Model and its Relationship as a Predictor of Emotional
Dissonance in Police Officers
INTRODUCTION
The purposes of this form are to provide you (as a prospective research study participant)
information that may affect your decision as to whether or not to participate in this research
and to record the consent of those who agree to be involved in the study.
RESEARCH
Darrel Martin, Student Researcher, Grand Canyon University has invited your participation
in a research study.
STUDY PURPOSE
The purpose of the research is to determine how the five-factor personality model will act
as a Predictor’s of the level of emotional dissonance experienced among police officers.
DESCRIPTION OF RESEARCH STUDY
If you decide to participate, then as a study participant you will join a study that is trying to
determine if five-factor model personalities (e.g., neuroticism, agreeableness, consciousness,
extraversion, openness) will have relationship with the level of emotional dissonance
experienced among police officers. The study requires each participant take two survey
measures that will take a minimum of 15 to 20 minutes. Each participant is required to
complete all questions listed on the survey measures once they began taking the survey
measures. The identity of each participant will be protected through a secure web link
provided by SurveyMonkey, in which only the researcher and the SurveyMonkey
researcher will have access. No identifying names will be disclosed.
Once the participants enter SurveyMonkey, the informed consent form will be posted on
the first page. Once each participant has begins taking the first survey question, consent will
be implied, implying that the participants has accepted the terms of the study. Further,
consent will last through the completion of however long it takes to complete the study.
174
Further, it advised that each participant take the survey measure in a private comfort able
place, preferably at the participant place of residents. Approximately 138 participants are
needed for the study.
RISKS
There are no known risks from taking part in this study, but in any research, there is some
possibility that you may be subject to risks that have not yet been identified.
BENEFITS
The possible/main benefits of your participation in the research are that participant will part
of a study that is trying to learn how personality maybe a factor in emotional dissonance,
which is an emotional discrepancy between the employees felt emotions and displaying
organizational display rules (e.g., be friendly to all citizens). Research has established that
emotional dissonance is one of the leading factors of various types of workplace burnout,
e.g., emotional exhaustion, cynicism, depersonalization. The results will also help learn how
police officers’ personalities, working in large cities contribute to emotional dissonance.
NEW INFORMATION
If the researchers find new information during the study that would reasonably change your
decision about participating, then they will provide this information to you.
CONFIDENTIALITY
All information obtained in this study is strictly confidential. The results of this research
study may be used in reports, presentations, and publications, but the researchers will not
identify you. In order to maintain confidentiality of your records, Darrel Martin will use
codes in the surveys and each individual will be assigned a specific code. Furthermore, all
data collected will be secured by SurveyMonkey’s secure website where access to data will
only be permitted to the researcher and the SurveyMonkey administrator. If there are paper
copies of survey measures or informed consent disclaimers, all documents will be locked in a
small private safe where the researcher will be the only person with the safe combination.
Finally, all data acquired from the study will be kept for three years after completion of the
study then destroyed.
WITHDRAWAL
Participation in this study is completely voluntary. It is ok for you to say no. Even if you say
yes now, you are free to say no later, and withdraw from the study at any time. Your
participation is voluntary and nonparticipation or withdrawal from the study, and it will not
affect your employment status in any way.
175
VOLUNTARY CONSENT
Any questions you have concerning the research study or your participation in the study,
before or after your consent, will be answered by Darrel Martin, and I be contacted by email
at dmartin5@liberty.edu
If you have questions about your rights as a subject/participant in this research, or if you feel
you have been placed at risk, you can contact the Chair of the Institutional Review Board,
through the College of Doctoral Studies at (602) 639-7804.
This form explains the nature, demands, benefits and any risk of the project. By signing this
form, you agree knowingly to assume any risks involved. Remember, your participation is
voluntary. You may choose not to participate or to withdraw your consent and discontinue
participation at any time without penalty or loss of benefit. In signing this consent form, you
are not waiving any legal claims, rights, or remedies. A copy of this consent form will be
given (offered) to you.
Your signature below indicates that you consent to participate in the above study.
___________________________ _________________________ ____________
Subject's Signature Printed Name Date
___________________________ _________________________ ____________
Other Signature Printed Name Date
(if appropriate)
INVESTIGATOR’S STATEMENT
"I certify that I have explained to the above individual the nature and purpose, the potential
benefits and possible
risks associated with participation in this research study, have answered any questions that
have been raised, and have witnessed the above signature. These elements of Informed
Consent conform to the Assurance given by Grand Canyon University to the Office for
Human Research Protections to protect the rights of human subjects. I have provided
(offered) the subject/participant a copy of this signed consent document."
Signature of Investigator_____________________________________Date___________
176
Appendix C
Permission to Use and Publish the Survey Instruments
From: Darrel Martin <dmartin5@liberty.edu>
Sent: Monday, December 28, 2015 7:56
To: Marie Andela [marie.andela@univ-fcomte.fr]
Subject: Permission to use Your Study
Hello Dr. Andela,
I am writing to ask your permission to use your psychometric questionnaire that measures
emotional labor. I am a police officer working on my Ph.D. in general psychology with a
specialization in industrial and organizational psychology, and my research question is,
“Does the 5 Factor Model personality traits contribute to emotional dissonance experienced
among police officers?” In my dissertation study, I am measuring emotional dissonance, in
which your emotional labor measurement scale has an individual sub-scale for emotional
dissonance. The sub-scale for emotional dissonance will provide valuable information for my
dissertation study because it emphasizes on “feelings of discrepancy”. I am excited to start
my research in order to investigate the relationship between five-factor model personalities
and emotional dissonance among police officers. This vital knowledge gained from this study
will greatly contribute to emotional dissonance literature. In addition, I need to obtain copies
of your questionnaires, either electronically (preferably) or via paper copies. If you have any
questions, feel free to contact me at any time. I am expecting to begin the research shortly
after approvals are obtained.
I look forward to hearing from you soon.
Sincerely,
Darrel Martin, MSP
Doctoral Student
From: Marie Andela <marie.andela@univ-fcomte.fr>
Sent: Friday, January 1, 2016 6:28 AM
To: Darrel Martin [dmartin5@liberty.edu]
Subject: RE: Permission to use Your Survey
Dear Martin,
Thank you for your interest. Of course you can use my scale. You can find the English
version of the emotional dissonance scale in the attached document or on research gate.
You’ll find it when you’ll be done with your dissertation!
I wish you all the best with your work,
Kind regards,
Marie Andela
From: Darrel Martin <dmartin5@liberty.ed>
Subject: Permission to use Your Study
Sent: Sunday, November 8, 2015 1:23 PM
177
To: Parinc Custup [custup@parinc.com]
Subject: Permission to use Your Survey
To whom it concern,
I am student at Grand Canyon University, and I am asking permission to use the Five-Factor
model psychometric questionnaire designed by McCrae and Costa (1992). I am a police
officer working on my Ph.D. in general psychology with a specialization in industrial and
organizational psychology, and my research question is, “Does the 5 Factor Model
personality traits contribute to emotional dissonance experienced among police officers?” the
questions used in McCrae and Costas’ NEO- Five-Factor Inventory (NEO-FFI) psychometric
questionnaire will be extremely valuable in measuring the five-hierarchical personalities, so I
am seeking your permission to use the psychometric questionnaire. I am excited to start my
research in order to investigate the relationship between five-factor model personalities and
emotional dissonance experienced among police officers. The vital knowledge gained from
this study will greatly contribute to emotional dissonance literature. In addition, I need to
obtain copies of your questionnaires, either electronically (preferably) or via paper copies. If
you have any questions, feel free to contact me at anytime. I am expecting to begin the
research shortly after approvals are obtained.
I look forward to hearing from you soon.
Darrel Martin, MPsy
Doctoral Candidate
Darrel, MPsy
From: Vicki McFadden <vmark@parinc.com>
Sent: Friday, January 15, 2016
To: Martin, Darrel [dmartin5@liberty.edu]
Subject: Permission to use Your Survey
Darrel,
We require that you purchase the NEO Manual and request a sample of the NEO-FFI. We do
not provide electronic versions of the published forms. Please see my prior email in regards
to the purchase of the manual.
In addition, PAR will not grant permission to include an entire test or scale in any
publication, including dissertations and theses. However, the inclusion of 3 sample items
may be approved. Do you mean your dissertation proposal, since you have not started
collecting data.
178
Appendix D
Emotional Dissonance Subscale
The emotional dissonance subscale uses a 5-point Likert scale, e.g., “1-strongly agree” to 5-
strongly disagree.
Emotional Dissonance 1
The emotions that I feel in my job do not correspond to these I would like to feel.
Emotional Dissonance 2
My work situation brings me to experience emotions at variance with those I would like to
feel.
Emotional Dissonance 3
I experience a discrepancy between the emotions I express to be
professional and what I feel.
Emotional Dissonance 4
The emotions I show in order to be professional are not in phase
with my inner feelings.
179
Appendix E.
NEO-Five-Factor Model Inventory Instrument
Because the NEO-Five Factor Model Inventory is a copyrighted measure by PAR Inc., they
gave implicit direction that only three questions can be placed on this current dissertation.
1. At times I have been so ashamed I just wanted to hide
2. I really enjoy talking to people
3. Some people think of me as cold and calculating
180
Appendix F.
Site Permission Letter to Conduct Study
Letter in file at Grand Canyon University
181
Appendix G.
Approval Letter from the Chief of Police
Site approval on file at Grand Canyon University
182
Appendix H.
Permission to Conduct Study from the Detroit Police Officers Association
Letter on file at Grand Canyon University.
183
Appendix I.
Power Analysis
184
Appendix K
Post-Hoc Power Analysis