Background: Individuals’ perception of their work climate is expected to strongly influence personnel’s organizational commitment. However, the evidence about the association between organizational commitment and important outcomes, such as performance at work and turnover, is mixed. If this was not enough, little attention has been paid to how individual differences in basic personality (e.g., individual’s affective profiles) moderate this relationship. In this context, police organizations have unique obstacles in terms of work climate and when striving to make their personnel genuinely committed to the organization.

Aim: Our aim was to investigate the association between learning work climate and organizational commitment among police personnel using the affective profiles model as the framework of our study.

Method: Swedish police personnel (N = 353) answered an online survey comprising the Positive Affect Negative Affect Schedule, the Learning Climate Questionnaire, and the Three Commitment Scales. We calculated percentiles in positive and negative affect to cluster participants in four affective profiles with high/low positive affect (PA/pa) and high/low negative affect (NA/na): self-fulfilling (PAna), low affective (pana), high affective (PANA), and self-destructive (paNA). Besides correlation analyses and comparisons between police personnel with diametrical opposite profiles (i.e., PAna vs paNA and PANA vs. pana), we focused on within-individual comparisons between police personnel who differed in one affect dimension and matched in the other (i.e., PANA vs. paNA; PAna vs. pana; PAna vs PANA; and paNA vs. pana).

Results: The main analyses showed that personnel with a self-fulfilling profile scored higher on almost all learning climate dimensions and affective and normative commitment and lower in continuance commitment. However, while high negative affect was clearly associated with low levels in all learning climate dimensions, some of these dimensions and the commitment dimensions were associated to high positive affect only when negative affect was low. As expected, when considering individual differences, the relationship between work climate and commitment was complex. For instance, affective commitment was predicted by perceiving opportunities to develop for police personnel with either a self-destructive or a self-fulfilling profile but by good management relationships and style for those with a low affective profile.

Conclusions: At the general level, to be able to know which specific work climate factors will lead to an adaptive organizational commitment, police organizations and leaders need to be aware of employees’ personality. At the practical level, the promotion of positive affect and the reduction of negative affect at work and life in general might help organizations to increase police personnel’s sense of a good learning climate and their willingness to stay in the organization because they identify with the organization at an emotional, a psychological, and a social level.