Emotional information processing and posttraumatic stress in individuals with high risk of psychological trauma exposure: The case of policemen

Abstract

Current article examines mechanisms of attentional biases among policemen whose occupation is related to large amountsof negative emotional information up to the risk of psychological traumatization. Healthy individuals with psychological trauma exposure during professional activity were expected to demonstrate emotional Stroop effect (ESE) in response to stress-related stimuli. One hundred thirty-eightmale policemen from the Arkhangelsk region aged from 22 to 50 years participatedin the study. To captureESE, words with neutral and threatening meaning were used. Symptoms of posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD) were measured with the PCL-5; emotion regulation strategies were measured with the Cognitive Emotion Regulation Questionnaire (CERQ). It was found that response time to stress-related words in the emotional Stroop task was greater compared to neutral words. Two types of ESE, direct and reverse, were identified in the sample. Individuals with reverse ESE processed the professional stress-related stimuli faster compared to neutral stimuli. Policemen with reverse ESE were found to have stronger symptoms of excitability, which is one of the criteria of PTSD. In individuals with reverse ESE, excitability and general index of PTSD positively correlatedwith the cognitive emotion regulation strategy Other-blame. Word by word analysis found differential effect ofthreatening words in participants with direct and reverse ESE. The results are discussed in context of the policemen professional activity features.