Using the Communication of Police Officers to Assess the Relationship Between Self-Talk and Communication Apprehension

The purpose of this research study was to assess the relationship between self-talk and communication apprehension among police officers within a western city police department (WCPD). Within the framework of the communication accommodation theory, the researcher expected that police officers would use self-talk to mitigate apprehension by adjusting their communication with the publics they engage with. Topics discussed within the literature review in respect to police officers include gaining public trust, public perceptions, team collaborations, facing stereotypes, mental illness, message diffusion, and social media. The researcher collected data from a convenience sample of 50 police officers from WCPD using the Personal Report of Communication Apprehension and the Self-Talk Scale. The results suggest that high self-talk usage is associated with low scores of communication apprehension and that high scores of self-talk usage are associated with high scores for the public speaking component of communication apprehension. These findings justify further research with larger samples, more representative of WCPD officers, whose results could serve as a basis for developing training for this population.