Regulação emocional e estilo decisional: um estudo com oficiais da polícia militar

Abstract

The dynamic and uncertain contemporary work context has required workers to have effective emotional regulation skills, given the need to make important decisions on a daily basis, especially for public security professionals such as military police officers. The aim of this thesis is to provide evidence of the relationship between modes of emotional regulation (ER), decisionmaking styles (DM) and the individual characteristics of military police officers in a northeastern state. The main assumption is that adaptive and functional modes of emotion regulation are associated with more effective decision-making styles (neither impulsive nor avoidant). The thesis is structured in four studies, one a literature review, two adapting measures and one testing a relationship model. The first study consisted of a systematic literature review guided by the PRISMA protocol, seeking to characterize empirical studies on decision-making and emotions in a sample of military police officers and related studies in other countries, in order to answer the question of the effects of military police officers' emotions on decision-making (DM). The databases consulted were: PubMed, Scientific Electronic Library Online (SciELO), Latin American and Caribbean Health Sciences Literature (Lilacs) and nine other Brazilian Scientific Journals on Public Security, of empirical articles available between January 2010 and December 2022, with the descriptors 'decision', 'emotion' and 'police' in Portuguese and English. The articles were analyzed by two independent reviewers. Ten articles were reviewed and organized into three categories: 1) Recognition of emotion as an antecedent of DM; 2) DM under pressure and stress; 3) CR training and its impact on DM. The results pointed to the scarcity of studies on decision-making and its relationship with emotions in military police officers. The empirical results suggest that emotions have an effect on DM, with the use of adaptive emotion regulation strategies and emotion regulation training in times of pressure or stress being associated with more balanced decisions (neither impulsive nor delaying). The three other empirical studies in this thesis used the same database of a sample of 339 Military Police officers (with ranks of Captain, Major, Lieutenant Colonel or Colonel). The participants answered a questionnaire containing a measure of emotional regulation and a scale of decision-making styles, both adapted for the context of military police work, as well as sociodemographic and socio-professional questions. Study 2 aimed to adapt and seek evidence of the validity of the internal structure of the MDMQ - Melbourn Decision-Making Questionnaire for the context of military police work. The original scale assesses four styles of decision-making under risk or stress: Vigilant, Hypervigilant, Pure Postergator and Passing the Baton Postergator, referring to the decisionmaker's four coping strategies under stress. The scale used as a reference for the adaptation was the one translated into Portuguese. The results of the MDMQ-Br-PM for the military police10 context, through parallel analysis with the support of Factor software, suggested two factors: adaptive decision-making style (which encompasses the original Vigilant style) and maladaptive (which brought together the other three styles of the original scale), in disagreement with the original four-factor version. The results were discussed from the perspective of Jannis and Mann's Conflict Decision Theory, the basis of the measure, taking into account the reality of the military police officer and being able to map vigilant and non-vigilant DM styles. The MDMQBr-PM showed psychometric properties that allow it to be used for diagnosing and training decision-makers in the military police. Study 3 aimed to adapt and find evidence of the validity of the internal structure of Re-Trab for the context of military police work. The original scale assesses two modes of emotional regulation: upward regulation (positive emotions - AR), which predicts greater use of adaptive strategies, and downward regulation (negative emotions - DR), which predicts greater use of functional strategies. The scale used as a reference for this study was adapted to the general work context in Brazil. The results of the Retrab-PM for the military police context, through parallel analysis with the support of Software Factor, pointed to two factors, one for each mode of emotional regulation (RD and RA), in line with the original version. The results were discussed from the perspective of Gross's Emotional Regulation Cycle, the theoretical basis of the measure, considering the reality of the military police. The ReTrabPM showed psychometric properties that allow it to be used for diagnosing and training more functional and adaptive modes of emotional regulation in police leaders. The fourth and final study in this thesis analyzed the associations between upward (AR) and downward (DR) emotion regulation strategies and the Vigilant, Hypervigilant and Avoidant decision-making styles. It also tested the moderating role of gender, rank, length of service and military allocation in the relationships between these variables. The measures adapted to the military police context (ReTrab-PM and MDMQ-Br-PM) were used. The results of the statistical regression analyses revealed that the use of adaptive and functional emotion regulation strategies predicts an adaptive decision-making style (vigilant), while the use of dysfunctional strategies predicts a maladaptive DM style (impulsive or procrastinating). The studies in this thesis contribute to providing measures adapted to the military context and provide evidence that emotions have an effect on decision-making (DM). Therefore, it can be concluded that adequate emotional regulation is indispensable for good performance in the area of public security, especially for leaders who make decisions that have an impact on other hierarchical levels, the corporation and society in general.