Emotional distress among police academy recruits: Humor and coping

Abstract

Police work, beginning as early as academy training, is inherently stressful and carries risks for officer wellbeing. Humor has been cited as useful way for officers to handle stress. This study investigated the relationship between humor and emotional distress among a sample of 101 police recruits from Phase 1 of the National Police Research Platform. Findings indicated that reliance on humor as a coping strategy increased among recruits during the police academy and hierarchical regression analyses showed that greater levels of use of humor as a coping strategy in the academy predicted a decrease in emotional distress upon academy graduation.