Police Personality: A Jungian Perspective

Abstract

Analyses of the "police personality" have often blurred a useful distinc tion between exclusivity and commonality-between traits possessed only by police, on the one hand, and traits possessed by people who become police officers but who may become something else, on the other. There is persuasive evidence that the police officer does share with other police -and other specific groups-traits ranging through several dimensions of personality. The Jungian conceptual framework, as reflected in the Myers-Briggs Type Indicator (MBTI), provides a synthesizing, explanatory, and predic tive scheme for the common traits identified by other, independent ("non- Jungian") investigators. An analysis of other research on the police per sonality shows it to be remarkably similar to MBTI theoretical statements. The MBTI may be a useful tool in training, counseling, and organizational change, but it is limited as an exclusive instrument for selection.