Development of an explicit bias scale for law enforcement
- WCU Author/Contributor (non-WCU co-authors, if there are any, appear on document)
- Patrick C. Barton (Creator)
- Institution
- Western Carolina University (WCU )
- Web Site: http://library.wcu.edu/
- Advisor
- Alvin Malesky
Abstract: This study investigated the development and utility of the Explicit Bias Scale for Law Enforcement Officers (EBLEO), designed to measure and quantify explicit racial bias in public safety members as part of a pre-employment battery. This measure was derived largely derived from the Symbolic Racism Scale (Henry and Sears, 2002) and featured new questions, restructured content based on research into the intersection of criminal justice and explicit racial bias, and expanded content drawn from other areas of racial prejudice or discriminatory attitudes such as Intercultural Sensitivity. In this study, the EBLEO was subjected to item level scrutiny and broad measures of internal consistency and performance based on data collected from three separate samples (N = 135). The measure was then compared to the original Symbolic Racism Scale, along with secondary yet related measures and constructs such as Social Dominance, Dark Triad personality traits, Five Factor Model (FFM) personality traits, and Social Desirability. The EBLEO rendered an overall Cronbach’s alpha of .942 and correlated highly with the Symbolic Racism scale. Hierarchical regression identified social dominance, conservative political orientation, the FFM trait of openness to experience, and social desirability as key predictors in the model. Exploratory factor analysis rendered a six-factor model that accounted for roughly 60% of the variance, with the first two factors being the largest. Results and relevance to the study of explicit racial bias and how this relates to law enforcement pre-employment screenings are discussed.
Development of an explicit bias scale for law enforcement
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Created on 3/1/2024
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Additional Information
- Publication
- Dissertation
- Language: English
- Date: 2024
- Subjects
- Racism in law enforcement
- Discrimination in law enforcement
- Police
- Employee screening
- Social perception—Testing