ABSTRACT
Policing is about living with complexity, including ambiguity, short timescales for action, and appreciation of the ambient context of high-risk decisions (Crego & Harris, 2001). Whether to shoot a potential suicide bomber, storm a building, place a child on an at-risk (child protection) register, or make a grab for an individual teetering on a rooftop during a negotiation requires appreciation of this complexity and an awareness that such decisions hang on a knife edge of uncertainty. Researching the influences on and processes entailed in such decision making is likewise complex. We argue here that making such decisions is not simply a cognitive process but a deeply, personally involving social one that is affect laden. We further contend that these latter aspects have yet to be fully addressed. We believe that the decision-making context is one in which social/organizational identity exerts a powerful influence on the sociocognitive processes.
