The Effects of Viewing a Police Officer on Attitudes Toward The Police: Does Gender and Previous Trouble with the Law Matter?

Abstract

The purpose of this study was to investigate the effect of viewing a police officer on attitudes toward the police and whether gender or previous trouble with the law made a difference in the way participants answered a survey. Participants were 53 undergraduate students in introductory psychology courses. Students were divided into an experimental group and a control group, in which both groups filled out a two surveys. Both groups were given surveys in the same manner; the only difference was that the experimental group had a police officer sitting in the room. Past research indicated that there tends to be a difference in behavior when being observed. Thus, I hypothesized that participants in the experimental group would have more positive attitudes than the participants in the control group; I found this to be significant. Past research has also indicated a difference between gender attitudes toward the police, in which females would report more positive attitudes than males. Focusing on this as one of my hypotheses, I found no significant differences of attitudes between gender. Along with gender and observation research, negative attitudes toward the police have been confirmed when participants have had previous trouble with the law. I came up with a hypothesis stating that participants with previous trouble with the law will have more negative attitudes toward the police then participants without trouble with the law; no significant results were found.