Police Psychological Screening 2022: Get Accurate Prep and Master the Assessment
Before becoming a police officer, you'll have to pass a police psychological exam as part of your hiring process.
The Preparation Pack on this page offers full coverage for the Psychological Exam, including:
- Full 233-question personality test- Don't come in unprepared! Practice using a realistic psychological police exam so you aren't surprised by the real thing!
- Detailed analysis of 30 traits for a police job- Learn how to think like a police officer!
- Adaptive Reports to Your Specific Position- Customizable to maximize your results for your specific position!
Keep reading for more Police Psychological Exam info.
What is a Psychological Exam?
A psychological or personality test is an important step in the police recruitment process.
Each Law enforcement agency uses it to measure a variety of job-related behaviors and personality traits, and pick only the best applicants fit for a job in law enforcement.
The police personality test questions delve into your personal lifestyle, behavior, and measures your personality, motivations, preferences, attitudes, interests, and values.
Personality tests and psychological evaluations are also used in other law enforcement positions, such as 911 dispatchers, FBI Special Agents, and more.
Important things to know about The Police Psych Test:
Police personality exams are comprised of short statements, each followed by a five-point agreement scale from “strongly disagree” to “strongly agree”.
- Length: around 100 Questions
- Duration: around 15 minutes.
- Format: Questions on the police personality exam are standardized and formatted as either paper & pencil or computer-based.
- Tip: Look carefully at the response order, as some tests place “strongly agree” first and other exams place it last.
By practicing for your psychological exam prior to the actual testing date, you will become familiar with the format, questions, and answering styles found on the real test.
Our preparation pack helps you learn how to best represent your attitudes and behaviors, ensuring that you match up to law enforcement professionals.
What are Police Psychological Tests Looking for?
The vast majority of police departments utilize the Big Five personality factors as indicators of the best applicants for public safety positions in their hiring process.
This five-factor analysis includes:
- Extroversion – dominant, energetic, socially interactive, talkative
- Agreeableness – sociable, sensitive, emotionally intelligent, friendly, kind, compassionate, cooperative, sympathetic
- Emotional Stability – self-confident, ability to adjust to changing circumstances, emotionally positive
- Conscientiousness – possessing integrity, dependable, thorough
- Openness to Experiences – flexible, creative, possessing wide-ranging interests
Note: Conscientiousness (dependability) is considered to be the most important factor in predicting job performance across many fields, including law enforcement.
Some police personality exams focus on a more detailed set of 15 behavioral traits:
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Taking personal responsibility |
Emotional resilience |
Taking charge of victims, witnesses, and suspects |
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Teamwork |
Independence |
Acceptance of the views of other individuals |
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Desire for achievement |
Self-confidence |
Self-awareness |
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Logical analysis of situations |
Consideration and sensitivity |
Compliance |
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Stress tolerance |
Desire to support and assist |
Attention to detail |
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Dependability |
Impulse control |
General intelligence |
Motivation to enter the law enforcement field |
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Judgement |
Ability to deal with supervision |
Prior drug use |
Honesty & integrity |
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Personal bias or lack of bias |
Stress tolerance |
Reasonable courage |
Ability to perform tedious tasks |
Should I Practice for my Police Psychological Evaluation?
Most providers of police personality exams want you to think that there are no right or wrong answers, however, this couldn’t be further from the truth!
The purpose of stating this in the test instructions is to make you feel more at ease and willing to answer each question without too much forethought. But as they are also known as psychological screening- this part, as will all parts of the hiring process, can be the difference between getting the job or not!
One of the main reasons you should practice for your police personality test is to build familiarity and boost your confidence.
Becoming familiar with the test format, concepts, questions, and answering styles helps to eliminate the element of surprise. Another reason to practice is due to the trickiness of the exam itself.
How Can I Prepare for my Police Psychological Screening?
These tests help law enforcement agencies find desirable candidates for police officer roles and help to eliminate less desirable candidates who may not possess the necessary skills to be given a badge, gun, and authority.
We have created the PrepPack™ to ensure your ability to understand what each question is asking you so that you can avoid answering differently for re-stated questions to avoid accumulating too many extreme answers.
JobTestPrep's practice materials are designed to enhance your understanding of the traits being referenced on police personality test questions.
Start Preparing With The Complete Police Psychological Preparation Pack
Get instant access to hundreds of practice questions with full solutions, solving tips, study guides and more.
How To Answer Police Psychological Test Questions?
To pass your upcoming police personality test, there are many things you should do as well as many things you should avoid:
Do...
- Practice. This will allow you to get used to the questions you are sure to encounter, and improve your time management and answering speed. Practicing gives you a chance to review and become familiar with the test format, thus giving you an advantage over other applicants.
- Read the instructions carefully. Even if the instructions tell you there are no right or wrong answers, this is not true. Being a selection tool, the way you answer a particular question on a personality test can be detrimental to your overall profile.
- Think like a police officer. Each question on the police personality test is designed to evaluate a specific personality trait. Think of what might be expected of you in each of the situations being presented and answer accordingly.
- Answer honestly. The personality tests administered to police officers hopefuls can track whether you are really truthful or not. If a trend of dishonesty is detected during the test, you run the risk of invalidating the entire assessment. This could quash your chances of landing the role you are applying for. In other words, consistency is key.
- Be decisive. Another quality is measured by the police personality test is your ability to be decisive. Stand your ground when taking this test and avoid frequent extreme and middle ground answers.
- Show that you are right for the job. Remember, police work entails both working in a dynamic environment and many hours performing administration tasks. Be sure to show that you are right for the job in both ways.
Don’t…
- Accumulate too many extreme answers. These can be detrimental to your overall personality profile, whether they be positive or negative. Too many absolute answers (strongly agree/strongly disagree) can demonstrate a nature of inflexibility in certain areas.
- Panic! One of the main side effects of taking a personality test is anxiety. If you have practiced beforehand, this should not be an obstacle to your success.
- Become discouraged. If you don’t meet one agency’s standard, it doesn’t mean another agency can’t hire you. Just make sure that you get enough practice to understand what each of the questions is asking on the actual test and do your best!
Police Psych Test For Employment FAQs:
Yes. A psychological or personality test is often one of the last steps in the police recruitment process.
A psychological or personality test is often one of the last steps in the police recruitment process.
The aim of the police personality test is to measure a variety of job-related behaviors and personality traits.
Questions on the police personality exam are standardized and formatted as either paper & pencil or computer-based.
The police personality test questions delve into your personal lifestyle, behavior, and attitudinal attributes.
These tests consist of at least 100 questions that you will need to answer within a very short time limit.
The time limit is typically around 15 minutes.
Tips for Passing your Police Personality Test
Practice.
This will allow you to get used to the questions you are sure to encounter as well as improve your time management and answering speed.
Answer honestly.
The personality tests administered to police officer hopefuls have the ability to track whether you are really being truthful or not.
Try not to accumulate too many extreme answers.
Too many extreme answers (strongly agree/strongly disagree) can demonstrate a nature of inflexibility in certain areas.
Don’t get discouraged.
If you don’t meet one agency’s standard, it doesn’t mean another agency can’t hire you. Just make sure that you get enough practice to do your best!
Practice to ensure you will get your law-enforcement job.
We have a preparation package for this with a study guide, question and answer analysis, practice exams, and helpful testing strategies.
By using it you will be able to boost your understanding of the exam, learn how to answer each question properly, and know where to focus your preparation efforts.
