Firefighters: Hostility and world assumptions

Abstract

The present project was intended to provide an initial exploratory investigation into the relationship between hostility and world assumptions for a firefighting sample. Specifically, we hypothesized that increased hostility would be associated with more negative assumptions with respect to world benevolence, world justness, and self-worth, and that these variables would also be related to years of service and self-reported mental health. The current study was part of a larger study with firefighters from British Columbia, Canada, and included 186 paid-professional firefighters who completed a series of questionnaires. We demonstrated that, for our firefighting sample, hostility was related to both world benevolence and self-worth across multiple measures, even while controlling for the individual characteristic neuroticism. We did not find any significant relationship with years of service, but world benevolence and self-worth were also important in the prediction of mental health outcomes. These findings may have clinical or occupational intervention implications in therapeutic relationships with firefighters, in that the present project demonstrated a first indication that reduced hostility in combination with increased positivity in world assumptions may help achieve good mental health.