Japanese Implicit and Explicit Attitudes toward Juvenile Delinquents

• In Event: Posters I

Abstract

The present study concerned Japanese attitudes toward juvenile delinquents. In 2009, the lay judge system started in Japan. The system has been applied to some of the juvenile cases, which means that the attitudes of the community members have directly affected on juveniles. However, little is known about Japanese attitudes toward them. Because a self-report measure of attitudes might be vulnerable to social desirability, an implicit measure was needed in combination. In this study, the participants from 20 to 69 years old responded to the single target implicit association test (ST-IAT; Bluemke & Friese, 2008) and self-report scales including the Attitudes Toward Juvenile Delinquents (ATJD) scale (Fujiwara & Fujii, 2016) to measure implicit and explicit attitudes toward juvenile delinquents and related variables. The influence of age, gender and other demographic variables was examined. The results suggested that the implicit and the explicit tests reflected different aspects of the people’s attitudes. Limitations of this study and future research directions were discussed.

Authors

• Yuki Fujiwara, National Research Institute of Police Science, Japan

• Tsutomu Fujii, Nagasaki University