Frontiers in psychiatry
Reality shock and mental resilience among adolescent police cadets: meaning, identity, and relational pathways in a Chinese police academy context
By Lin H.
Abstract
Introduction
Adolescent police cadets are trained in an institutional environment where schooling, collective discipline, physical training, peer living, and early occupational socialization are closely intertwined. This environment may provide structure and purpose, but may also expose cadets to a distinctive form of vocational environmental risk. However, the psychological pathways through which environmental risk and personal resources are linked to mental resilience in this population remain underexplored.
Methods
Drawing on an environmental risk and resilience framework, this cross-sectional study examined the association between reality shock and mental resilience among 642 adolescent police cadets from three police education institutions in China, and explored whether positive psychological traits were linked to resilience through occupational calling, identity work support, and relational job crafting. The sample was randomly split into an exploratory subsample (n = 321) and a confirmatory subsample (n = 321), resulting in a refined 36-item measurement model. Structural equation modeling and bootstrap mediation analyses (5,000 resamples) were conducted on the full sample.