Who's Watching the Race? Racial Salience in Recruitment Advertising1

A recent finding (Thomas & Wise, 1999) suggested that the race of organizational representatives may be more important to minority applicants than to White applicants. Consequently, this study empirically examines the impact of race in recruitment advertising on applicant attraction. Participants (N= 194) were recruited in 3 field settings and were exposed to recruitment literature varying the race of a depicted organizational representative. Results indicate that Black and Hispanic participants were more attracted when minority representatives were depicted; White participants' reactions were unaffected by representative race. Moreover, the extent to which participants believed themselves to be similar to the representative fully mediated the effect for minority participants.     

Are Adewale and Ngochi more employable than Jamal and Lakeisha? The influence of nationality and ethnicity cues on employment-related evaluations of Blacks in the United States

ABSTRACT

Previous research has consistently shown that racial bias can influence employers’ perceptions and evaluations of Black individuals in hiring and promotion decisions. However, within-race differences (e.g., skin tone, Afrocentric features) can lead to variation in these decisions. In addition to phenotypical variation, ethnicity cues (e.g., perceived country of origin, name) may be important within-race factors influencing the perception and evaluations of Black job applicants. Using a resume evaluation paradigm, participants evaluated one of three resumes in which the target applicant’s name provided cues about ethnicity (either Black American, Black African, or White American). Results suggest that Black Americans may experience more discrimination in hiring and are generally perceived less positively across several employment-related domains than both White and Black African applicants. Specifically, we find that Black Americans are less likely to be selected for an interview or offered a job and are evaluated more negatively overall relative to Black Africans.     

Pre-operative transgender motivations for entering policing occupations

This article examines the motivations for American, English, and Welsh transgender motivations for entering policing. Historically and empirically, policing has been documented as a social environment where binary gendered ideologies are strictly enforced and upheld. Further, scant research on transgender perceptions of the police have highlighted fear of sexual assault, fear of arrest, heightened levels of police violence, and general uncomfortableness with interactions with the police. This article argues that instead of avoiding a perceived volatile binary gendered environment, pre-transition transgender identities seek out policing due to hyper masculine expectations of the job itself. I argue that MtF (male-to-female) and FtM (female-to-male) pre-transition transgender identities seek refuge within the hyper masculine environment of policing to ease internal conflicts as a result of gender dysphoria (i.e. pre-transition distress) prior to transition. In this study, 13 transgender police officers from America, England, and Wales were interviewed about their motivations for entering policing. This study found that a majority of male-to-female (MTF) and female-to-male (FTM) transgender identities chose to enter policing due to gender distress pre-transition. This research found that pre-transition people with MtF trasngender identies chose to enter policing to combat their gender dysphoria by proving their "masculinity," and people with FtM transgender identities enter policing to foster and embrace their “masculinity.”     

Why do officers support community policing? A cross‐departmental and cross‐temporal comparison

Community policing is often seen as a way to repair fractured relationships between law enforcement and the public. Despite its relationship‐building promise and widespread department‐level adoption, individual officers show varying levels of support for community policing which can harm policy implementation. Why are some officers more supportive of community policing than others? Prior research suggests that demographic factors such as the officer's gender, race, age, and education can explain this variance. Across these studies, however, there are several contradicting or non‐replicating findings. Conflicting findings may result from differences by department or differences in methodology or temporal variance – but most policing studies focus on a single department. We begin to adjudicate between the possible explanations for conflicting findings using roll‐call survey data from 741 officers across three neighboring police departments in 2016 and then a replication with 452 officers from one of the original departments in 2019. We find that experience with community policing consistently influences support for the practice while officer gender, age, and education consistently do not. Other results do not replicate across department or time, although we do find non‐replicating significant factors associated with officer support for community policing. Our findings also suggest that departmental and temporal aspects help to explain why policing studies often do not replicate or generalize to other places or contexts.     

Police responses to diversity: A social representational study of rural British policing in a changing representational context

In the first decade of the 21st century, British policing faced two new challenges in how it responded to social diversity: As well as instituting reforms in response to a highly publicized report describing the British police as ‘institutionally racist’ (Macpherson, 1999 ), they faced challenges associated with rapid increases in numbers of immigrants into the UK. Studying social representations at such times of change allows access into processes, themes and value systems that may otherwise remain hidden. This paper uses social representations theory to explore interview accounts provided by regular police officers of interactions with members of minority groups. Empirically, we focus on an area of diversity policing that has received relatively little previous attention: Police work in a rural context that has recently played host to large numbers of migrant workers. Our analysis shows that interviews operate as a site of resistance in which respondents attempt to rework hegemonic representations of the police as prejudiced and to re‐present themselves and their work as able to respond appropriately to diversity. Fairness as a defining characteristic of good police practice is a central representational theme that links identity construction processes to police work with minority groups. Recent immigrant groups are represented as both needing and deserving help to assimilate into British culture: Their lack of acculturation and language difficulties provide additional challenges to police work and to how this is judged as ‘fair’. We discuss the broader origins and implications of police officers' understandings of fairness and the use of social representations theory to study representational fields within organizational settings. Copyright © 2010 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Preference for Second-Generation African Immigrants Over Native-Born Black Americans: A College Admission Simulation

Two studies examined preferences for second-generation African immigrants over Black American natives in a college admission simulation. Study 1 showed that a Black American native applicant was less likely to be admitted when his competitor was a second-generation African immigrant applicant relative to a White American competitor. Study 2 showed that this preference did not occur when the two applicants of color were not in competition. Stereotypes and perceived SES did not explain these findings. Discussion suggests that accepting second-generation African immigrants may cover for prejudice by providing a socially desirable alternative to accepting Black American native applicants.     

The Role of Police Perceptions and Practices in the Development of “Public Disorder”1,2

Recent studies suggest that crowd conflict needs to be understood as an interaction between the crowd and out‐groups such as the police. This paper describes a questionnaire survey in which 80 police officers from 2 United Kingdom forces were asked about their perceptions of crowds, appropriate “public order” policing methods, and attributions of responsibility for crowd conflict. As predicted, police officers saw the composition of crowds as mixed; yet they also constructed a dichotomy between a powerful minority, capable of exerting influence in the service of disorder, and a majority, who are unable to resist this influence. Police officers did not clearly endorse the view that crowds pose a homogeneous threat. They recommended control and quick intervention to prevent the escalation of crowd violence but denied that such methods might themselves contribute to conflict. Path analysis provides suggestive evidence that these perceptions of the crowd are related as part of a coherent ideology. Overall, these results offer support for the elaborated social identity model of crowd behavior as a dynamic intergroup process.     

Relation between police image and police visibility

The purpose of this study was to build a model for the public image and visibility of the police. These variables were seen as central to successful community policing. Explanatory variables included were contacts with the police, victimisation and background characteristics of the respondents. Questionnaire data were obtained from a sample of 3271 adults (mean age 42) and 986 youngsters (mean age 15.5) in two Finnish cities. Using multi‐sample structural equation modelling, a four‐factor model with two image factors (Friendliness and Closeness) and two visibility factors (Patrol‐Car‐Related and Police‐on‐Foot Activities) was confirmed by the data. As hypothesised, for both adults and youngsters, seeing police‐on‐foot activities was positively correlated with both image factors, while seeing Patrol‐Car‐Related Activities was negatively correlated with police image. Relationships of explanatory variables with image factors were to a large extent but not completely mediated by the visibility factors. Some differences were found between adults and youngsters in factor means and in regression relationships. Quality of police visibility proved to be an important factor from the point of view of community policing, in which one of the main purposes is to improve the relationship between the police and the public. Copyright © 2000 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

The consequences of race for police officers' responses to criminal suspects

The current work examined police officers' decisions to shoot Black and White criminal suspects in a computer simulation. Responses to the simulation revealed that upon initial exposure to the program, the officers were more likely to mistakenly shoot unarmed Black compared with unarmed White suspects. However, after extensive training with the program, in which the race of the suspect was unrelated to the presence of a weapon, the officers were able to eliminate this bias. These findings are discussed in terms of their implications for the elimination of racial biases and the training of police officers.     

The Effect of Name on Pre‐Interview Impressions and Occupational Stereotypes: The Case of Black Sales Job Applicants

Name is an important, yet under‐researched racial cue that can affect evaluators' opinions, attitudes, and beliefs about minority job applicants. This study examined a two‐way ANOVA interaction between name and sales job type on White sales professionals' pre‐interview impressions of Black applicants. Results indicated a significant interaction between applicant name and sales job type on pre‐interview impressions. For outside sales jobs, Anglicized‐named applicants received more favorable pre‐interview impressions than did ethnic‐named applicants. In addition, pre‐interview impressions of Anglicized‐named applicants were more favorable for outside versus inside sales jobs. Findings, implications, limitations, and future research directions are discussed.     

Police endorsement of color‐blind racial beliefs and propensity to interact with youth of color

The beliefs of police, as the point of first contact with the justice system, may help to explain disproportionate minority contact between police and young people. Color‐blind racial beliefs, a form of implicit racism in which racial differences are denied, are more strongly endorsed by police than by laypeople. Using a 2 (youth race) × 3 (offense severity) experimental design, 339 officers participated in an online study examining the influence of youth race, offense severity, and officers' color‐blind racial beliefs on officers' reported likelihood of interacting with young people. Officers with lower levels of color‐blind beliefs reported they would be less likely to interact with Black youth. Additionally, attrition analyses indicated that officers assigned to the Black youth condition were more likely to drop out when asked to complete the measure of color‐blind beliefs. Policy and practice implications are discussed, with a focus on promoting greater discussion of color‐blind ideologies in multicultural trainings for police officers and increasing frank discussions about race and racial issues.     

Across the thin blue line: police officers and racial bias in the decision to shoot

Police officers were compared with community members in terms of the speed and accuracy with which they made simulated decisions to shoot (or not shoot) Black and White targets. Both samples exhibited robust racial bias in response speed. Officers outperformed community members on a number of measures, including overall speed and accuracy. Moreover, although community respondents set the decision criterion lower for Black targets than for White targets (indicating bias), police officers did not. The authors suggest that training may not affect the speed with which stereotype-incongruent targets are processed but that it does affect the ultimate decision (particularly the placement of the decision criterion). Findings from a study in which a college sample received training support this conclusion.     

Policing and the Focal Concerns Framework: Exploring How its Core Components Apply to the Discretionary Enforcement Decisions of Police Officers

This study used a qualitative design to investigate police officer decision-making processes within the context of the focal concerns framework. A sample of 25 metropolitan police officers were interviewed to explore how the constructs of blameworthiness, protecting the community, and practical considerations manifest themselves in a policing context and how those considerations affect officers’ enforcement decisions. The results indicate that police officers share the same broad focal concerns as judges, but the way these concerns manifest themselves is sometimes different in a policing context as compared to a judicial sentencing context. The results, theoretical implications, and directions for future research are presented.     

“To serve and protect” when expecting to be seen negatively: The relation between police officers' contact with citizens,meta‐stereotyping,and work‐related well‐being

We examined the relationship between contact of police officers with citizens, their (meta‐)stereotypes about citizens, and their work‐related well‐being. Ninety‐three police officers from 4 police stations in low‐ and high‐crime regions in France completed the questionnaire. As expected, negative well‐being of police officers is predicted by negative contact with citizens and their belief that police officers are stereotyped negatively by citizens. Moreover, the relationship between negative contact and negative well‐being was mediated by police officers' beliefs that police officers are perceived negatively by citizens, whereas their perceptions of citizens did not mediate this relationship. Interestingly, level of crime did not influence these relationships. Together, this research shows the important role of beliefs about how one's group is stereotyped when in contact with another group as it may have consequences for people's well‐being.     

On being mindful,emotionally aware,and more resilient: Longitudinal pilot study of police recruits

Police officers are at particular risk of stress when compared to people in other occupational groups. A compounding factor is that police are prone to the use of avoidant coping strategies when attempting to deal with this stress. Evidence suggests that “anti‐avoidance” strategies, of acceptance, mindfulness and emotional awareness, are more effective ways of coping, and are linked to both mental health and personal effectiveness. This study followed 60 trainee police officers from the recruit phase into the workplace to determine if these processes predicted more positive mental health and wellbeing in police recruits after 1 year of service. Mindfulness predicted depression at follow‐up, while emotion identification skill predicted general mental health. These results suggest that police officers and police organisations may benefit from interventions aimed at developing and promoting mindfulness and emotion identification.     

Work-family conflict, and psychological distress in men and women among Canadian police officers

The present study examined the relations among sex, work-family conflict, and psychological distress in 78 Canadian police officers (50 men and 28 women). The average age of the officers was 36.1 yr. (SD=8.0), and nearly one-third of the respondents had been in policing 16 years or more. Ordinary least-squares regression was conducted to examine the association of Psychological Distress scores, as measured by the K6, with four types of work-family conflict: Time-based Work-to-Family Conflict, Time-based Family-to-Work Conflict, Strain-based Work-to-Family Conflict, and Strain-based Family-to-Work Conflict. Being single and having higher perceived Strain-based Work-to-Family Conflict were associated with greater scores on Psychological Distress. No statistically significant sex differences emerged in the self-reported type or direction of work-family conflict or in the factors associated with Psychological Distress.     

Examining Applicants' Attributions for Withdrawal From a Selection Procedure

This study applied the attribution framework described by Weiner (1986) to understand the psychological reasons applicants withdrew from a police officer selection process, as well as the consequences of their attributions for withdrawal. Individuals ( n = 196) who withdrew from the selection process were contacted and were asked to indicate their primary reason for withdrawal; and then rated this reason on locus, stability, and controllability dimensions. They also reported future application expectancies. Results indicate minority and female applicants appeared to indicate different reasons for withdrawing than did White and male applicants. Finally, race and controllability interacted in the prediction of reapplication expectancies, such that the relationship between expectancies and controllability was negative for White applicants and positive for minority applicants.     

Racial Prototypicality,Affirmative Action,and Hiring Decisions in a Multiracial World

This research examined how the racial prototypicality of minority job applicants' faces influenced hiring decisions under different affirmative action (AA) policies: no AA, soft AA (recruitment of minorities with merit‐based hiring), and hard AA (race as a tie‐break factor in hiring). Participants (N=252) evaluated resume/photograph pairs, each containing a Caucasian and a Black applicant, with minority applicants representing three levels of racial prototypicality. The number of jobs awarded to minorities increased as Black racial prototypicality increased. Each level of AA policy strength increased the number of minority hires, but these increases came with a price: AA directives decreased the percentage of minority hires attributed to higher qualifications and increased perceptions that hires were due to AA more than was actually the case.     

The Police Officer's Dilemma: A Decade of Research on Racial Bias in the Decision to Shoot

We review sociological, correlational, and experimental research that examines the effect of a target's race on the decision to shoot. Much of this work involves computer‐based simulations of a police encounter, in which a participant must decide whether or not to shoot a potentially hostile target who is either Black or White. Experimental work with undergraduate participants reveals a clear pattern of bias (a tendency to shoot Black targets but not Whites), which is associated with stereotypes linking Blacks with the concept of danger. Subsequent work with police officers presents a more complex pattern. Although police are affected by target race in some respects, they generally do not show a biased pattern of shooting. We suggest that police performance depends on the exercise of cognitive control, which allows officers to overcome the influence of stereotypes, and we conclude with potential implications of this research for law enforcement.