Citation

Verhaeghen P, Aikman SN. J. Community Psychol. 2022; ePub(ePub): ePub.

Copyright

(Copyright © 2022, John Wiley and Sons)

DOI

10.1002/jcop.22840

PMID

35285046

Abstract

Police officers partially rely on implicit and explicit stereotypes in their interactions with the public. We investigated if these attitudes are reciprocated, specifically, if people of color implicitly fear police, and whether the events of the summer of 2020 changed the public's attitudes about police. Seven hundred and fifty-nine college students (235 BIPOC) participated, 373 in 2019, 386 in fall 2020. BIPOC participants more readily implicitly associated police officers with threat; implicit police-as-threat scores increased after the summer of 2020 regardless of race. Explicit attitudes showed the same pattern: BIPOC participants had less favorable attitudes of police; participants in Fall 2020 had less favorable attitudes of police. Implicit attitudes were predicted by race, time, the experience of being treated with (dis)respect, and an emphasis on the binding aspect of morality. Explicit attitudes were predicted by the same variables, as well as specific community variables, the moral foundation of individualizing, and implicit attitudes.

Language: en

Keywords

attitude; bias; police; implicit attitudes; perceptions of police; police brutality; public opinion; threat perception