Date of Award

Spring 2026

Language

English

Embargo Period

4-16-2026

Document Type

Master's Thesis

Degree Name

Master of Arts (MA)

College/School/Department

Department of Psychology

Program

Psychology (Master's)

First Advisor

Dr. Cynthia Najdowski

Committee Members

Dr. Cynthia Najdowski, Dr. Anna Reiman

Keywords

Fourth Amendment Rights, Constitutional Rights, Race, Citizenship status, Perceived Freedom

Subject Categories

Social Psychology

Abstract

Consent searches—police searches conducted with an individual’s permission—constitute the majority of warrantless searches in the United States. Although these encounters are legally described as voluntary, scholars have long questioned whether civilians truly feel free to refuse an officer’s request to conduct a search. The present study examined how race and ethnicity and citizenship status influence civilians’ consent decisions and perceived freedom to deny consent in a hypothetical police encounter. A community sample of 191 adults from New York State read a vignette in which a police officer requested to search their backpack. Then, participants reported their ideal and anticipated consent decisions as well as their perceived freedom to refuse. Regression analyses revealed that non-U.S. citizens were less likely than citizens to anticipate refusing a search request but more likely to yield consent even when they ideally preferred not to. Race and ethnicity and citizenship interacted such that Hispanic/Latino non-U.S. citizens were less likely than their U.S. citizen counterparts to ideally consent to a search, yet their anticipated consent decisions did not differ. In contrast, White participants exhibited the opposite trend such that citizenship was not a predictor of their ideal consent decisions, but White non-U.S. citizens were more likely to anticipate refusing consent that their U.S. citizen counterparts. Perceived freedom did not differ significantly by group, suggesting that self-reported autonomy may not fully capture the psychological processes that shape civilians’ compliance with police officers’ search requests. Hispanic/Latino U.S. citizens were more aware of their legal rights than their U.S. counterparts, but no other group differences emerged. Non-U.S. citizens and White participants perceived the police as more legitimate than their U.S. citizen and Black counterparts respectively. Taken together, these findings highlight that citizenship and racial and ethnic identity jointly condition the voluntariness of consent searches as well as the need for greater attention to these factors in legal determinations under the Fourth Amendment.

License

This work is licensed under the University at Albany Standard Author Agreement.

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