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Organizational Procedural Justice as a Means to Reduce Stereotype Threat among Police Officers

Wed, Nov 15, 12:30 to 1:50pm, Marriott, Room 306, 3rd Floor

Abstract

Prior work has shown that police officers’ apprehension over appearing racist when interacting with community members—stereotype threat—is associated with greater support and engagement in coercive policing tactics. A key mechanism linking stereotype threat to coercive policing is the degree to which officers are confident in their authority as agents of the law—self-legitimacy. However, little attention has been paid to how to reduce the deleterious effects of stereotype threat. To address this gap, we examined the potential influence of organizational procedural justice, which has been shown to be associated with a variety of positive outcomes among police departments, officers, and the communities. Approximately 500 officers were surveyed. Results showed that organizational procedural justice was associated with lower stereotype threat. Moreover, procedural justice was associated with higher self-legitimacy amongst officers. Taken together, these results suggest that organizational procedural justice may be a viable option to reduce the negative effects of stereotype threat among officers either by directly reducing the experience of threat or indirectly by promoting self-legitimacy which acts as a bulwark against such threats.

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