A Comparative Study of Personality Dimensions between Officers and Subordinates of Security Force Personnel and their Effects on their Occupational Stress

Abstract

Realising an alarming increase in the number of suicide cases among the security force personnel, special emphasis has been given to occupational stress in policing, as its potential negative consequences affect performance in more direct and critical ways as compared to stress in many other occupations. This paper discuss about the differential effects of 20 personality dimensions over two categories (officers and subordinates) of personnel engaged in four different security forces and also measures how these occupational stress factors, as dependent variables, are influenced by these personality dimensions independently or in combination. Four hundred samples (Officers: 200 & Subordinates: 200) were collected from four different security forces (100 samples from each force), including the local police, using stratified random sampling. The findings have revealed that officers of security forces are high, as compared to their subordinates, on 12 personality dimensions like adaptability, achievement motivation, competition, enthusiasm, general ability, innovation, leadership, maturity, self control, self sufficiency and social warmth. On the other hand, the subordinates of security forces were found to be high, as compared to their officers, on personality dimensions like guilt proneness, sensitivity, suspiciousness and tension.

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