A Study on the Influence of the Public's Implicit Gender Bias Towards Law Enforcement Officers on Law Enforcement Compliance

The compliance degree of grassroots law enforcement is a key indicator for the modernization of grassroots governance. The implicit gender bias of the public towards law enforcement officers, as a potential psychological factor, has not been systematically explored regarding its impact on law enforcement compliance. This study focuses on the implicit gender bias of the public towards law enforcement officers in grassroots law enforcement interactions, aiming to reveal the characteristics of the implicit gender bias of the public towards law enforcement officers of different genders, clarify the effect and characteristics of this bias on the compliance degree and the tendency of compliance nature, and also explore the differences in the influence of the bias in different grassroots law enforcement scenarios. The study adopts an experimental method combining the Implicit Association Test (IAT) and simulated law enforcement scenarios. Through the design of sub-IAT tests in two dimensions of ability and authority, and warmth and affinity, it measures the implicit gender bias of the public towards grassroots law enforcement officers. Three types of high-frequency grassroots law enforcement scenarios, namely, urban management officers regulating street vending, traffic police inspecting illegal parking, and market supervision verifying business licenses, are selected, and scenario materials with only different genders of law enforcement officers are created. Combined with the scale measurement, the comprehensive score of law enforcement compliance and the cooperation-obedience nature tendency of the subjects are measured. The study will verify the existence and dimension characteristics of the public's implicit gender bias through data statistical analysis, and analyze its influence direction, degree, and scene differences on law enforcement compliance. It is expected that the research results will confirm that the public has dual-dimensional implicit gender bias towards grassroots law enforcement officers, that is, they tend to associate male law enforcement officers with ability and authority attributes, and female law enforcement officers with warmth and affinity attributes. This implicit bias will significantly affect law enforcement compliance behavior, that is, the implicit perception of authority of male law enforcement officers is likely to trigger obedient compliance, and the implicit perception of affinity of female law enforcement officers is likely to trigger cooperative compliance.