Join us for our first Claremont Discourse* lecture of the Spring 2024 semester where Pitzer College Professor Steffanie Guillermo will present her research in a talk entitled Unraveling Racial Bias in Attitudes Towards Police Use of Force.

An Associate Professor of Psychology, Dr. Guillermo utilized vignette-based experiments where suspect race (Black or White) was manipulated in order to examine attitudes on the following defined aggressive forms of officer force: verbal force, pain compliance techniques, and the use of a baton. Her experiments also measured beliefs about how seemingly “justified” the suspect was for showing acts of resistance toward the officer.

After a couple of these studies, Dr. Guillermo’s results showed that when a White suspect’s resistance was perceived as increasingly justified there was a tendency to endorse a milder form of verbal force over a more aggressive pain compliance technique; however, for a Black suspect, the opposite pattern occurred. That is, despite similarly viewing the Black suspect as increasingly justified for resisting the officer, participants viewed pain compliance and verbal force as similarly justifiable in those instances. Additionally, findings pertaining to racial bias with regard to justification of baton usage revealed key differences based on characteristics of the participants in the studies.

In addition to detailing these findings from her research, Dr. Guillermo will conclude her talk with her thoughts about the implications for social scientific research on racial bias in police-civilian encounters and efforts to combat police brutality.

Claremont Discourse lectures are free and open to the public. Light refreshments will be provided starting at 4 p.m.

* Established in 1998, the Claremont Discourse lecture series is a forum for faculty at The Claremont Colleges to present their current research, publications, and creative projects from a wide variety of disciplines. Please note that any views or opinions expressed by presenters in the course of a Claremont Discourse lecture do not necessarily reflect the opinions, beliefs, or values of The Claremont Colleges Services or The Claremont Colleges as a consortium or as individual institutions. For more information or if you would like to suggest a topic for a future Claremont Discourse lecture, please reach out to discourse@claremont.edu.