PHYSICAL EFFORT OF POLICE OFFICERS AS A DETERMINANT OF THEIR BEHAVIORTOWARD CRIMINALS

The influence of police officers' physical effort on their (a) percept ions of criminals and (b) shooting behavior during confrontations with criminals was examined in 2 experiments. On the basis of emotion theo ry and attribution theory (Schachter, 1964; Zillmann, 1978, 1983) and Kahneman's (1973) variable-allocation capacity model, it was hypothesi zed that physical effort would result in the underestimation of crimin al aggression, less aggressive feelings toward the criminal, and decre ased willingness to shoot the criminal. These hypotheses were supporte d.