Abstract

Police practices tend to produce disparate outcomes for people of color. Outcome disparities have been addressed in other industries by increasing representativeness within those industries (i.e., increasing “organizational diversity”), though the outcome of these efforts is less clear in policing. Despite mixed findings, examining the barriers and facilitators to diversity within policing has been a growing focus of related research. While research has been done that investigates the experiences of minority race officers and how the presence of minority race officers may affect perceptions of police integrity in communities, little research has focused on how minority communities perceive minority police officers. The present work sought to provide insight into how community and police race impact such perceptions. In a pilot study and two larger studies, I demonstrated that 1) Black (and Asian) participants’ perceptions of police officers differed from White participants’ perceptions, and 2) that both participant and officer race related to perceptions of officer traits like warmth and competence. I also examined how personal beliefs about policing and racial equity, trait social desirability, and implicit attitudes towards race and policing related to perceptions and approach decisions. Overall, perceiver race and target officer race remained primary predictors of judgments of warmth and competence even when accounting for personal beliefs. Individual beliefs did, however, influence decisions and judgments of warmth and competence, indicating that both race and individual beliefs might be areas to leverage for improving both perceived and actual police legitimacy. In particular, integrating discussions around race into structural initiatives like community policing could improve officer-civilian contact as these programs emphasize continued relationship building between police and community-stakeholders.

Publication Date

6-20-2024

Document Type

Thesis

Student Type

Graduate

Degree Name

Experimental Psychology (MS)

Department, Program, or Center

Psychology, Department of

College

College of Liberal Arts

Advisor

Marjorie Prokosch

Advisor/Committee Member

John Edlund

Advisor/Committee Member

Jason Scott

Campus

RIT – Main Campus

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