riencing a fellow officer being killed, and killing someone in the line of duty. The effects of these two events are a heightened sense of danger after the event, anger, flashbacks, isolation, emotional numbing, sleep difficulties, and depression (Violanti and Aron, 1995). Another form of stress is organizational stress. The highest ranked organizational stressor was shift work. This is a source of stress because rotating shifts may affect sleep patterns, eating habits, family life, and psychological well being (Kroes and Hurrell, 1975; Davidson and Veno, 1980; Violanti, 1984). Following this was inadequate support, incompatible patrol partner, insufficient personnel, excessive discipline, and inadequate support of supervisors (Violanti and Aron, 1995). Stress on a police officer due to shift work was also examined by Golembiewski and Kim. Police officers complain that it disrupts their family life and may also affect their job performance. Shift work entails four stress-related outcomes among police. The out comes include marital problems, suicide, alcoholism, and physical symptoms (Golembiewski and Kim).Determining what causes stress in the work place is the first step in attempting to correct the problem. The police organizations can only benefit from trying to correct this problem. It may help avoid the negative psychological effects that stressors impact on workers health, morale, and productivity (Violanti and Aron, 1995). Abernethy and Cox (1994) discussed why police officers lose their temper, and how to deal with stressful situations more efficiently. Anger, defined by Spielberger et al. (1985), is an emotional state that varies in intensity from mild irritation to fury and rage. Hostility is an attitude such as resentment and chronic anger that motivates aggressive behavior. Aggression is the destructive or punitive behaviors directed towards other people or objects (Abernethy and Cox, 1994). Two primary motivatio...
