Police officers exceed and public defenders fall below average social-dominance orientation

Evidence

The first empirical evidence supporting the Third Law-of-Law was gathered by Sidanius and colleagues (1994). These researchers found that Los Angeles Police Department officers, a priori theorized as hierarchy-enhancers, had significantly higher levels of SDO than did the average citizen from Los Angeles County, while public defenders (who were theorized as hierarchy attenuators) displayed SDO levels that were significantly lower than those of the average citizen of Los Angeles County. Subsequent experimental evidence showed that mock jury members higher in SDO were significantly more likely to display anti-Black judgments in both the likelihood of a guilty verdict and sentence severity once found guilty (Kemmelmeier, 2005). — Joseph Avery, Jim Sidanius, Joel Cooper, Gregory Davis, Amanda N., Bias in the Law, 79 (#corroborates, via linked claim)

In contrast, studies have found SDO to be associated with low scores on personality measures of empathy, and high scores on Eysenck’s psychoticism scale (Altemeyer, 1998; McFarland, 1998; McFarland & Adelson, 1996), which is indicative of being tough-minded, unempathic, cold, and hostile (Eysenck & Eysenck, 1975). Heaven and Bucci (2001) similarly found that SDO was correlated with low scores on personality measures of sympathy, cooperation, agreeableness, and morality. Duckitt (2001) developed a Tough versus Tender-mindedness trait rating scale to captured this trait pattern, consisting of items such as tough-minded, hard-hearted, uncaring, versus sympathetic, compassionate, forgiving. The Tough-mindedness scale is highly reliable, unidimensional, and correlates strongly with SDO but not with RWA. — John F. Dovidio, Peter Glick, Laurie A. Rudman, On the Nature of Prejudice, 2472 (#complicates, via linked claim)

Categorization

• XREF: connects to: Police score higher and defenders lower on social dominance orientation. — Joseph Avery, Jim Sidanius, Joel Cooper, Gregory Davis, Amanda N., Bias in the Law: A Definitive Look at…, 79; Criminal justice bias reflects universal dominance hierarchies, not US peculiarity; Low-status groups’ lower social dominance orientation means ideology does not block their politicization — John T. Jost and Jim Sidanius, Political Psychology, 4440 (+1 more)

Broader Connections

• Police score higher and defenders lower on social dominance orientation. #corroborates (0.98) — Joseph Avery, Jim Sidanius, Joel Cooper, Gregory Davis, Amanda N., Bias in the Law, 79
• Social dominance orientation reduces to a single Tough-mindedness trait #complicates (0.74) — John F. Dovidio, Peter Glick, Laurie A. Rudman, On the Nature of Prejudice, 2472