ABSTRACT
the study examine personality and gender as predictor of coping of suspects in police custody in Anambra state. The study adopteEPQ and Organisational police stress Questionnaire. The question was distributed to the respondent using convenience method of questionnaires distribution. The study used 100 female participant and 300 male participant. The findings showed that extroversion’ and ‘introversion’ personality trait is one of the ways through which suspects cope under stress and gender is good predictor of coping among suspects in police custody. In Consistent with the hypotheses, the analysis found that those who are optimistic are more likely to cope when under police custody. Therefore, it is recommended that services of psychologist should be employed in the Nigeria force to study the kind of personality possessed by each suspect so has to enable the police force properly know how to handle different suspect with their different personality used for coping under police custody.
CHAPTER ONE
INTRODUCTION
Background to the Study
The psychology of personality is a very broad topic, to which people have takendiverse theoretical approaches (McAdams & Olson 20 I 0). Personality is easy toobserve but hard to pin down.According Allport (1961), personality is the dynamic organization within the person of the psychological and physical systemsthat underlie that person’s patterns of actions, thoughts, and feelings. What dynamics are assumed, however, and what systems are proposed to underlie those dynamicsvary greatly across theoretical viewpoints.
Evidences have pointed to the robustness of personality traits in explanation of subjective well-being (Costa, & McCrae, 1998; David &Suls, 1999). This has been admitted and applied in psychology, sociology and management (Clayson&Sheffect, 2006). The Five Factor Model ((Costa & McCrae, 1989) has been widely used in investigating the role of personality on life satisfaction. These factors of personality traits are extraversion, neuroticism, agreeableness, openness to experience and conscientiousness. Extroversion focuses mainly on quantity and intensity of relationship (Dneve& Cooper, 1998). Extraverted individuals tend to be sociable, gregarious and assertive (Costa & McCrae, 1992). They are prone to reward in interpersonal relationship (Watson & Clark, 1997), and are predisposed to experience positive emotion (Costa & McCrea, 1992). Agreeable individuals are friendly and cooperative. Related behaviors includes being flexible, trusting, forgiving and tolerant (McCrae & Costa, 1986). Associated behaviours of conscientious individual includes being careful, thorough, responsible, organized and achievement-oriented (McCrae & Costa, 1986). Openness to experience describes imaginative and carouse tendencies. Highly open people are original, cultured, broadminded and intelligent (McCaer& Costa, 1986). Individuals high in neuroticism experience more negative life event than others (Magnus, Diener, Fujita, &Pavot, 1993). Related behaviours are being anxious, depressed, emotional, worries and insecure.
Broadly speaking, personality and temperament all refers to characteristicpatterns of thoughts, feelings, and behaviours over time and across situations. Although temperament often refers to traits reflecting predominantly biological predispositions, while personalityis traits influenced by environmental factors. Coping has also been described as “personality in action under stress” (Bolger, 1990, p. 525), therefore, personality and gender coping among suspects is the ability of male gender or female suspects to cope under stress when in police custody.
Numerous models have been used to describe the structure of coping, with distinctions between problem- and emotion-focusedcoping, engagement (approach, active) and disengagement(avoidant) coping, and primary (assimilative) and secondary (accommodative)control coping the most widely used (Compaset al., 2001, and Skinner, Edge, Altman, &Sherwood, 2003). Modern coping research shows that coping involves all the strategies which are used by individual to overcome stress. This begins with the distinctionbetween problem-focused coping, intended to influence thesource of stress, and emotion-focused coping, intended to minimizenegative emotions through strategies such as emotional expression,support seeking, and avoidance (Lazarus &Folkman,1984). The engagement–disengagement distinction focuses on orientationtoward or away from stress, with engagement copinginvolving active attempts to manage a situation or associatedemotions, and disengagement coping involving distancing oneselffrom the stressor or related feelings. The distinction betweenprimary and secondary control coping emphasizes coping goals,with primary control coping geared toward changing the stressoror related emotions through strategies such as problem solving oremotion regulation and secondary control coping used to facilitateadaptation to stress through strategies such as acceptance or cognitiverestructuring (Rothbaum, Weisz, & Snyder, 1982). Evidence has shown that those in police custody face challenges of not being well fed, restricted movement and lack of enough space in their various prison or cell during their custody in the hands of the police force.These challenges have made it so difficult for suspects to really cope while in police custody. It is on this note that this study sort to investigate the influence of gender and personality on coping of suspects in police custody in Anambra state.
Statement of the Problem
The bulk of the literature on relations between personality and coping is based on broad, dispositional measures of coping, which are prone to reporting biases and do not reflect the transactional nature of stress and coping. It has being predicted, that broad coping measures obscured more complex relations between personality and coping. In the realm of emotion-focused coping, controlled emotion regulation strategies (e.g., relaxation) showed have shown a very different pattern of relations to personality than did negative emotion-focused coping strategies (e.g., venting), and supporting calls to distinguish more carefully between aspects of emotion-focused coping. One of the few studies assessing relations between personality facets and coping (Bishop, Tong, Diong, Enkelmann, & Why, 2001) suggests that personality facets also indicate the achievement striving and deliberation facets of coping more strongly and which predicted problem solving than did competence, order facets, and the self-discipline. According to Bishopet al ,(2001),problems inherent to retrospective self-report of coping may partly explain why the direct effects of personality on coping, and the differences between effects for dispositional and situation specific. Most suspect in custody of the police have faced a lot of stressful condition such as unkempt cell condition, inadequate feeding, in human torture and restriction of their freedom are various areas which suspects in custody of the police facedifficulties. Some of the suspect may cope by keeping to themselves, being open and keeping their mind away from the situation is a means which is used to enable suspectendeavours to cope. Some researcher have failed to adequately ascertain the nature of suspect copingpersonality and how gender predict coping among suspects. Based onthis , the study tend to examine the influence of gender and personality on coping of suspects in police custody in Anambra state.
Research Question
The following research questions are posed to guild the study as follows:
- Would personality predicts coping among suspects in police custody?
- would gender predict coping among suspects in police custody?
Purpose of the Study
The majorpurpose of this study is to examine gender and personality as a predictor of coping of suspects in police custody in Anambra state.Specifically the objective of this study are:-
- To determine whether personality will predict coping among suspects in police custody.
- To determine whether gender will predict coping among suspects in police custody.
Relevance of the Study
The study will be of benefit to Nigerian force and custodian of the Law in Anambra state and Nigeria as a whole. It will enable them see how andwhy most of the suspect are involved in criminal activities and how suspect personalities help suspects to cope with their situation under police custody. The study will also help Nigeria police forceto know the gender which are more likely to be involved in crime and the reason for that. The study will be of benefit to suspect as the findings will help them see why they have to avoid being involved in crime. It will also serve as source of research material and reference for fellow researchers.
Scope of the Study
The scope of the study will be covering gender and personality as predators of copying of suspects in police custody. In term of geographical location, the study covers onlyAnambra state and narrowed to Awka the state capital.
Contextual Definition Of key study variables
- Personality:This refers to extrovets and introverts as measured by Eyseneck personality questionnaire( adult) (1975).
- Gender: this refers to social status of being male or female as measured by demographic schedule.
- Coping:is a process by which persons face stressfull situations. Coping is often defined as effort to prevent or diminish threat, harm and loss ot to reduce associated distress as measured by 30 item uni- model coping inventory by Kohn, O’Brien wood, Pickering and Decicco(2003).
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