ccurs:
(1) when prejudice people perceive what they regard as a negative (undesirable) act by an outgroup member (a member of a group with which they do not affiliate or identify), they will generally attribute it dispositionally, often as genetically determined, in comparison to the same act by an ingroup member (a member of a group with which they do affiliate or identify);
(2) when prejudice people perceive what they regard as a positive act by an outgroup member, they will attribute it to one or more of the following: (a) "The exceptional case," (b) luck or special advantage, (c) high motivation and effort, or (d) manipulable situational context.
Hewstone (1990) further notes that this ethnocentric bias will be greatest when: the groups involved have historical or intense conflict; possess especially negative stereotypes of each other; and when racial and ethnic differences vary with national or international socioeconomic differences. Applying this theory to police harassment, it seems reasonable to state that the discriminatory behavior implicit in constant harassment of minorities may result from the fact that police officers have a set perception in which their ethnocentric bias is rooted in both negative ethnic/racial stereotypes and, since many of the minorities who are subject to harassment are often poor, socioeconomic differences.
The proposed study will use survey methods. Scheaffer, Mendenhall and Lyman (1996) define survey research as a quantitative technique involving systematically asking people about their attitudes, feelings, ideas, opinions, behaviors, or anything else of research interest. Usually, the survey asks people questions from a structured questionnaire. In the proposed research, several data recorders will be hired to contact all people selected via the sampling plan and ask them for their responses to all items on a researcher-designed survey question
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