The Emotionally Intelligent Officer? Exploring Decision-Making Style and Emotional Intelligence in Hostage and Crisis Negotiators and Non-Negotiator Trained Police Officers

The research described in this article explores decision-making styles and levels of emotional intelligence displayed by police hostage and crisis negotiators in the United Kingdom. One hundred and seventeen negotiators from 21 police forces took part in the research and their data were compared with 118 non-negotiator trained police officers and 203 university students. Participants completed the General Decision-Making Style Questionnaire (Scott & Bruce, 1995) and the Emotional Intelligence Inventory (Gignac, 2007), with data analysed using multivariate analysis of covariance (MANCOVA) and t-tests. When controlling for the effects of age and social desirability, significant differences were found between both police samples and the student sample. All police officers displayed significantly lower levels of avoidant decision-making and significantly higher levels of overall emotional intelligence than students and these findings were also reflected within certain facets of emotional intelligence, specifically. These findings provide support for the existence of a unique ‘police officer profile’, but fail to support the premise of a distinct ‘hostage and crisis negotiator profile’ within the UK police population. The findings are discussed with relevance to the practice of hostage and crisis negotiation and future research directions.