Race and Perceptions of Criminal Injustice: A Social Dominance Theory Perspective
Abstract
This study examined the relationship among ethnicity, prison reform attitudes, social dominance orientations, and perceptions of racial injustice within the criminal justice system. A measure used to identify whether or not individuals believe in whether or not there is racial injustice within the criminal justice system and a measure identifying an individual’s social dominance orientations were used to unearth potential impacts on an individual’s stance on prison reform. Analyses included an examination of a mediating and moderating model for predicting prison reform attitudes from an individual’s stance on social hierarchy values and perceptions of injustice. There were 256 male and female participants over the age of 18 who participated in this study. Measures were collected wholly online via social media platforms. Participants completed online measures investigating prison reform attitudes (PRA), social dominance orientations (SDO), and perceptions of racial injustice within the criminal justice system. A preliminary ANOVA was conducted for the potential impact of an individual’s ethnicity on prison reform attitudes with no statistically significant outcomes. Additional analyses of variance were conducted using an individual’s association to the criminal justice system (personal, relational, none at all) with prison reform attitudes, social dominance orientation, and perceptions of racial injustice as dependent variables. Results indicated prison reform attitudes and criminal justice associations produced statistically significant results, suggesting those who have no affiliation with the criminal justice system have stronger desire for prison reform. Further, hypothesis testing produced a negative correlation, depicting that individuals who are in agreeance that there are instances of racial injustice within the criminal justice system, correlated with beliefs that indicate support for prison reform. For the second hypothesis, results indicated that there may be support for the idea that perceptions of racial injustice can moderate the relationship between social dominance orientation and prison reform attitudes. Finally, the third hypothesis was rejected, suggested that there is no mediating effect of perceptions of injustice on prison reform attitudes.
Subject Area
Counseling Psychology|Criminology|Social psychology|Ethnic studies
Recommended Citation
Lindsay Danielle Ackerman,
"Race and Perceptions of Criminal Injustice: A Social Dominance Theory Perspective"
(2021).
ETD Collection for Tennessee State University.
Paper AAI28498630.
https://digitalscholarship.tnstate.edu/dissertations/AAI28498630