Activated stereotypes in Philippine law enforcement

• Main Authors: Padilla, Jamina Anne T., Quijano, Angelica B., Robles, Paula Micah N.
• Format: text
• Language: English
• Published: Animo Repository 2013
• Subjects: Police-community relations > Philippines; Law enforcement > Philippines; Criminal behavior, Prediction of; Psychology
• Online Access: https://animorepository.dlsu.edu.ph/etd_bachelors/11288
• Institution: De La Salle University

Previous research has shown that factors, such as uncontrolled biases as well as automatic and controlled cognition, affect how Law Enforcers profile suspects. Studies also show that, because of this, it can lead to the activation of certain group stereotypes. This study contextualized how Stereotyping, Priming and Heuristics were seen and practiced in the Philippine setting. A between- and within-subjects experiment was conducted with criminology students, wherein the experimental group was primed and then tested for stereotype activation. Data was analyzed using Factorial ANOVA. Results of the study show that the priming used to manipulate the participants' representativeness heuristics did not have any significant effect on their stereotype activation and prejudice-like response. Thus law enforcement in the Philippines had not been concluded as one that may be driven by stereotypes. Recommendations to improve this study, such as better-suited primes for a Philippine, setting and considering criminal behavior and pathology as better primes than appearance, were discussed in detail.