Polisen som en känslokameleont - En intervjustudie om emotionellt arbete inom polismyndigheten

Sammanfattning: This study is based on six interviews with a mixture of female and male police officers regarding their emotional labour. The purpose of the study has been to examine how the police handle their emotions, as well as account for experienced differences between feelings that arise at meetings with perpetrators or crime victims. The study also strives to gain a deeper understanding of what happens when strategies as Hochschild (2012) researched, become the police's everyday work to deal with emotionally demanding situations. In conclusion, the results of my interviews have shown that the police officers handle their emotions differently and through different strategies, such as Goffman’s (2011) and Hochschild’s (2012) concept of surface acting and deep acting. The most common strategies for managing and processing difficult feelings in the profession, is talking to colleagues and close family members. Among these strategies, the study also finds more cognitive processes such as social support in the form of relieve-calls and debriefing with professional supervisors (psychologists, therapists, etc.). However, many of my respondents also describe scenarios where they have had to take a break, breathe, drink water or focus on the ongoing situation. Some also argue that it might be easier to handle difficult situations by joking about them. Based on the coding, the study discovers that there are both informal and formal emotional rules, but that the informal dominates the police work. These rules differ, depending on the situation and position of the police. Finally, the strategies used by the police thus have noticeable consequences, such as emotional disturbance and emotional dissonance.