Objectives

Test the effects of police compliance with the restrictions on their authority embedded in Social Contract Theory (SCT) on police legitimacy, satisfaction with the police, and willingness to obey police officers.

Methods

A two-stage vignette experiment. In the first, 1356 participants were randomly assigned to one of four study conditions: control, procedural justice (PJ), police performance (PP), and compliance with the social contract (SC). In the follow-up stage, 660 participants were randomly assigned to either a control or proportionality/least restrictive alternative (PL) condition.

Results

Compared to the control condition, the SC manipulation improved evaluations of all three dependent variables. For legitimacy, its effect was no different than that of PJ and PP. For satisfaction, it was similar to that of PP and stronger than the effect of PJ. For willingness to obey, it was no different than the effect of PJ, but stronger than that of PP. The second stage of the experiment revealed that compared to the control condition, the two unique components of the SC model (PL) significantly improved the scores of all three DVs.

Conclusions

Police adherence to the SC, and particularly to its two unique components, is an important determinant of police legitimacy and other outcomes, and should thus be acknowledged by researchers and practitioners. Future research is encouraged to disentangle the relative effects of the “building blocks” making up PJ, PP, and compliance with the SC.

中文翻译：

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警察遵守社会契约是警察合法性、对警察满意和服从意愿的先决条件：两阶段小插曲实验的结果

 目标

测试警察遵守社会契约理论 (SCT) 中对其权力的限制对警察合法性、对警察的满意度以及服从警察的意愿的影响。

 方法

两阶段的小插图实验。第一个实验中，1356 名参与者被随机分配到四个研究条件之一：控制、程序正义 (PJ)、警察表现 (PP) 和遵守社会契约 (SC)。在后续阶段，660 名参与者被随机分配到对照或比例/最少限制性替代 (PL) 条件。

 结果

与控制条件相比，SC 操作改善了所有三个因变量的评估。就合法性而言，其效果与PJ和PP没有什么不同。满意度方面与PP相似，强于PJ的效果。对于服从意愿，与PJ的效果无异，但强于PP。实验的第二阶段表明，与对照条件相比，SC 模型 (PL) 的两个独特组件显着提高了所有三个 DV 的分数。

 结论

警察对《标准》的遵守，特别是对其两个独特组成部分的遵守，是警察合法性和其他结果的重要决定因素，因此应得到研究人员和从业者的认可。鼓励未来的研究阐明构成 PJ、PP 和 SC 合规性的“构件”的相对影响。