Why stay with the police? How meaningfulness in life moderates the mediated effects of role stressors’ appraisals on anxiety and intention to leave the State Brazilian Police
| Author | Cláudio V. Torres,Sharon Glazer,Francisco Guilherme L. Macedo,Thiago G. Nascimento |
| DOI | http://doi.org/10.1177/14613557221089564 |
| Published date | 01 December 2022 |
| Date | 01 December 2022 |
| Subject Matter | Original Research Articles |
Why stay with the police? How
meaningfulness in life moderates the
mediated effects of role stressors’
appraisals on anxiety and intention to
leave the State Brazilian Police
Cláudio V. Torres
University of Brasília, Brazil
Sharon Glazer
The University of Baltimore, USA
Francisco Guilherme L. Macedo
Higher Institute of Police Sciences, Brazil; University of Brasília, Brazil
Thiago G. Nascimento
University of Brasília, Brazil; Brasília Institute of Higher Education, Brazil
Abstract
Brazilian police officers’increasing levels of work anxiety and intention to leave the job are consistent with other police
forces around the world. Among the important variables that appear to be antecedents of these unwanted organizational
outcomes are increasing role stressors associated with police work. We conjecture that how police officers appraise stres-
sors would affect whether adverse outcomes prevail. Specifically, stressors appraised as challenges result in weaker adverse
outcomes comparedwith stressors appraised as hindrances. We also anticipate that a boundary condition thatmight further
attenuate adverse outcomes is having meaningfulness in life (MIL). Likewise, having low MIL can intensify the potential
adverse outcomesof stressors appraised as hindrances.This study aims to investigate how role stressors appraised as either
challenges or hindrances may influence anxiety and intention to leave among state police officers in the Brazilian Federal
District (DF), as well as implications of MIL as a moderator variable of these relationships. Our hypotheses supported
the mediating effect of role stressors’appraisals in their prediction of police officers’anxiety and intention to leave their
job, and the moderator effects of MIL in these same relationships. Findings are discussed in terms of changes in police reg-
ulations and training programs aimed at increasing officers’MIL and coping strategies to redirect how they appraise role
stressors as challenges rather than as hindrances, which may leadto a healthier work experiencefor DF State Police officers.
Keywords
Role stressors, meaningfulness in life, challenges and hindrances, turnover intention, work-related anxiety, Brazilian police
Submitted 8 Dec 2021, Revise received 7 Feb 2022, accepted 18 Feb 2022
In many countries around the world, police officers have
been presenting increasingly high levels of work anxiety
and intention to leave the job (Ahmad et al., 2019;
Boag-Munroe et al., 2016), and the Brazilian State Police
Corresponding author:
Cláudio V. Torres, Department of Basic Psychological Processes,
University of Brasília, SQS –108, Bloco –K, Apt 604, Brasília, DF 70347-
110, Brazil.
Email: claudio.v.torres@gmail.com
Original Research Article
International Journal of
Police Science & Management
2022, Vol. 24(4) 339–355
© The Author(s) 2022
Article reuse guidelines:
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DOI: 10.1177/14613557221089564
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are no different (Ferreira-Alves and Torres, 2021).
This increase has been especially noticeable since the
beginning of the COVID-19 pandemic in Brazil, when
retired police officers and others allocated to administrative
positions were called upon to patrol the streets. In the
Brazilian Federal District (DF), where the city of Brasília
is located, this context is critical because rates of anxiety
disorders and requests for leave of absence among police
officers are high (Brazilian Federal District Military
Police or PMDF, 2021). Moreover, Brasília, the capital of
Brazil, is the central stage for protests and other political
movements, which have also increased during the pan-
demic. The DF State Police is responsible for maintaining
order during these protests. Research has shown a link
between these job-specific tasks and high levels of stress
in the police force (PMDF, 2021). Research shows that
occupational stressors are positively linked to work-related
anxiety and intention to leave an organization (Glazer and
Beehr, 2005; Lu et al., 1999; Ma et al., 2021).
Police work is so stressful that it can lead to personal and
intergroup tensions with serious impacts on a police officer’s
quality of life and work (Allisey et al., 2014). The work envir-
onment in which police officers operate can be riddled with
role stressors that may create a sufficiently noxious work
experience that results in adverse outcomes for the person
and organization (Glazer and Beehr, 2005). Specifically, role
stressors have been shown to result in anxiety, reduced
mental health, lower job satisfaction and increased turnover
intention (Semmer et al., 2005; Spielberger et al., 2003),
although some studies have contradicted this assumption
(e.g. Beehr et al.’s, 2001, opposite relationship with job satis-
faction). Missing from early studies is any appraisal of the
stressor, which might explain how stressors result in anxiety
and turnover intention.
According to appraisal theory (Lazarus, 2012), an
appraisal process is triggered whenever an event or stimulus
is experienced. Appraisal is a psychological mechanism
that links stressors to outcomes. Evaluating an event as a
threat, hindrance (harmful) or challenge (primary apprai-
sals) determines whether coping resources will be sought
and used to cope with and mitigate the adverse conse-
quences. The immediate reaction to a stressor appraised
as a threat or hindrance to goal-fulfillment is typically
strain or an adverse outcome (Webster et al., 2010). A stres-
sor appraised as a challenge often results in psychological
health (Searle and Auton, 2015) and adverse outcomes
that are less noxious (Webster et al., 2010). Thus, appraisals
are expected to mediate the relationship between role stres-
sors and adverse outcomes (i.e. anxiety and intention to
leave an organization). In other words, any event, such as
a stressor, immediately triggers appraisals that result in
positive or adverse outcomes. Demands that thwart the
attainment of work or task goals are likely to be appraised
as hindrances, whereas demands that are appraised as chal-
lenges are likely to create particularly high-performance
opportunities and a sense of accomplishment. Hence, role
stressor appraisals are cognitive evaluations of the stressors
and not personality characteristics.
Further, meaningfulness in life (MIL), a generalized indi-
vidual cognitiveorientation, can be a potentmoderator of the
relationship between role stressor appraisals and outcomes.
People who have high MIL tend to evaluate events as
serving a purpose in life, even if the stressors are constraining.
The concept of hardiness may be related to MIL, but hardi-
ness, a personality style, focuses on: (a) a person appraising
experiences as motivating challenges, (b) a person’sbelief
that they have control over what happens to them, and (c) a
person’s commitment to staying the course (Bartone, 2006;
Britt et al., 2001). By contrast, MIL does not require any
action to be taken. Events that happen to people with high
MIL, even if appraised as harmful, are interpreted as having
purpose. Individuals who have a sense of MIL are generally
happier, have lower levels of negative emotions and are men-
tally healthier (Mascaro and Rosen, 2005; Pulopulos and
Kozusznik, 2018).
Drawing on job demands–resources theory (Bakker and
Demerouti, 2014), MIL may be viewed a resource that
helps one overcome stressors appraised as hindrances.
Further, within the transactional theory of stress, a cognitive
stress theory, the appraisal process mediates the relationship
between stressors and strains (i.e. adverse outcomes), and
aspects of the person (e.g. MIL) and environment influence
when this relationship is attenuated or intensified (Lazarus
and Folkman, 1984). Thus, we assess MIL as a moderator
of the relationship between the appraisal of stressors as hin-
drances or challenges with anxiety and intention to leave
among police officers.
Context
This study focuseson the police force as an institution.Police
institution are present in all modern societies and carry his-
torical differences in their social meaning, constitution and
configuration. As with any institutional organization, there
are work characteristics that hinder police officers’well-
being, which in turn,might prevent officers from performing
optimally, as evident in the desire to leave their jobs.
Scientific research regarding police officers’occupational
experiencesof role stressors and their consequences is essen-
tial for developing interventions to improve job design and
support police officers who are experiencing adverse out-
comes due to stressors (Li et al., 2021).
Police in Brazil
The national institution of the police force affects the activ-
ities of Brazilian states and the fundamental role that the
340 International Journal of Police Science & Management 24(4)
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