International police advisor stress, self-esteem, and cultural diversity awareness in Iraq

The purpose of the study was to explore the relationships between selected self-esteem measured by Rosenberg's (1965) Self-Esteem Scale (SES), cultural awareness measured by Henry's (1991) Cultural Diversity Awareness Inventory (CDAI), and job stress measured by Spielberger and Vagg's (1999) Job Stress Survey (JSS) delineated by demographic variables of interest (i.e., age, years in police work, months in Iraq working as an international police advisor, education level, marital status, number of children, gender, and ethnicity) among international police advisors serving in Iraq. A total of 60 usable surveys by international police advisors comprised the data set used for analysis. The majority demographic profile of participants was characterized by an average age of 55.2 years, 24.4 years of police work experience, 25.3 months of work in Iraq, bachelor's educated, married, with 2.5 children, and White. Survey results for the participants indicated high levels of self-esteem (i.e., cumulative average was 1.61 out of a maximum 2.0). Conversely, cultural diversity awareness levels were low (i.e., cumulative average was .45 out of a maximum 2.0). The cumulative average job stress rating from all 60 participants was high at 7.9 out of a maximum 9.0.;The statistically significant findings included: 1. A negative and strong relationship (r = -.82) between the self-esteem and job stress with less than 1% chance for Type I error in reaching that conclusion (i.e., higher self-esteem resulted in lower job stress ratings). 2. A negative and moderately strong relationship (r = -.47) between cultural diversity awareness and job stress with less than 1% chance for Type I error in reaching that conclusion (i.e., higher cultural diversity awareness resulted in lower job stress ratings).;However, there were no statistically significant relationships between demographic variables age, years in police work, months in Iraq working as an international police advisor, and number of children and job stress ratings. In addition, job stress ratings were not significantly different as delineated by gender, marital status, education level, or ethnicity. Consequently, job stress was not significantly impacted by demographic influences.