(PS10-73) Moral Injury and Displaced Aggression in Public Safety: Can Emotional Support Make a Difference?

Abstract Text: Moral injury occurs when people are exposed to events that contradict their deeply held ethical beliefs. Moral injury is associated with negative behavioral health outcomes, such as increased anger or PTSD (Jinkerson, 2016). Moral injury may lead to negative, irrational beliefs; shame and guilt, and maladaptive coping (Williamson et al., 2021). The impact of moral injury on worker behavior is of particular concern amongst public safety personnel (PSP); the duties of PSPs often require quick decisions about life and death that live in the intersection between the law and ethics (Norberg, 2013). Moral injury can negatively impact the care PSP provide to more vulnerable populations they serve, particularly survivors of intimate partner violence or other forms of trauma. Feelings of moral injury may result in heightened aggressive tendencies, which may change the quality of care provided by PSP (Maguen et al., 2009). Displaced aggression (which can be broken into three components of angry rumination, revenge planning, and displaced aggression tendencies) has been found frequently in PSPs in multiple different contexts (Johnson, 2016). Since research into moral injury is relatively new, the field does not yet have a good understanding of the variables that can minimize the impact of moral injury on displaced aggression in PSP. Emotional social support may be a potential buffer of this relationship. Social support has frequently been found to minimize the impact of trauma on the development of PTSD (Wang et al., 2021); it is possible that social support may serve the same function on the relationship between moral injury and displaced aggression. This study looks at how feelings of moral injury amongst PSP can influence feelings of displaced aggression, and how emotional support may affect this relationship.
Data was collected through an online survey, and included measures such as the Institutional Betrayal Scale, the Displaced Aggression scale, questions about social support, and demographic questions. The average age of participants was 34.5 (SD = 9.69) years, and 43.7% were female. About 231 responses were collected after data cleaning. Moral injury was significantly and positively associated with all three subscales of displaced aggression (angry rumination, revenge planning, and displaced aggression tendencies). Moderation analyses were run to determine whether reported social support moderated the relationship between experiences of moral injury and displaced aggression. Results found emotional support to be a significant moderator on the relationship between moral injury and DA (p > .001), with total and direct effects finding a significant confidence interval [(.2618, .8147) & (0754, .6579) respectively].
While the findings are correlational, the results suggest that social support is an important buffer in the relationship between moral injury and displaced aggression in PSP. As with PTSD, social support may be considered a protective factor for individuals who are struggling with feelings of moral injury, helping to give us further insight into how to best design prevention efforts and organizational structures that reduce moral injury through strong support systems.