OBJECTIVE A large body of cross-sectional research has identified a positive relationship between perceptions of police procedural justice and legitimacy. Following Tyler's theoretical framework, studies have often interpreted the observed relationship as evidence of an unequivocal causal connection from procedural justice to legitimacy. Here we reexamined the validity of this conclusion by considering the temporal order of that association and the potential biasing effect of time-invariant third common causes. HYPOTHESES (a) Past perceptions of police procedural justice would predict future perceptions of legitimacy; (b) Past perceptions of police legitimacy would predict future perceptions of procedural justice; and (c) Perceptions of police procedural justice and legitimacy would be associated as a result of 3rd common causes. METHOD We fitted random intercepts cross-lagged panel models to 7 waves of a longitudinal sample of 1,354 young offenders (M = 16 years) from the "Pathways to Desistance" study. This allowed us to explore the directional paths between perceptions of police procedural justice and legitimacy, while controlling for time-invariant participant heterogeneity. RESULTS We did not find evidence of the assumed temporal association; lagged within-participant perceptions of procedural justice rarely predicted within-participant perceptions of legitimacy. We did not find evidence of a reciprocal relationship either. Instead, we detected substantial time-invariant participant heterogeneity, and evidence of legitimacy perceptions being self-reproduced. CONCLUSIONS Our findings challenge the internal validity of the commonly reported positive associations between procedural justice and legitimacy reported in studies using cross-sectional data. Most of such association is explained away after considering time-invariant participant heterogeneity and previous perceptions of legitimacy. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2020 APA, all rights reserved).

中文翻译：

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重新评估程序正义与警察合法性之间的关系。

目的大量的横断面研究已经确定了对警察程序正义的看法与合法性之间的积极关系。遵循泰勒的理论框架，研究通常将观察到的关系解释为从程序正义到合法性的明确因果关系的证据。在这里，我们通过考虑该关联的时间顺序以及时不变的第三种常见原因的潜在偏见效应，重新检验了该结论的有效性。假设（a）过去对警察程序正义的看法将预测未来对合法性的看法；（b）过去对警察合法性的看法将预测未来对程序正义的看法；（c）由于第三个共同原因，人们对警察的程序正义和合法性的认识会有所关联。方法我们从“通往疾病的道路”研究中，对1354名年轻犯罪者（M = 16岁）的纵向样本的7个波进行了随机截距交叉滞后面板模型的拟合。这使我们能够探索对警察程序正义和合法性的理解之间的方向路径，同时控制参与者的时不变性异质性。结果我们没有发现假设的时间关联的证据；参与者内部对程序正义的看法很少能预测参与者内部对合法性的看法。我们也没有找到互惠关系的证据。取而代之的是，我们检测到了参与者时变性的实质性异质性，并证明了合法性观念是自我复制的。结论我们的发现挑战了使用横断面数据进行的研究中报告的程序公正性与合法性之间的正向正相关性的内部有效性。在考虑了时不变的参与者异质性和先前对合法性的看法之后，大部分此类关联将被解释掉。（PsycInfo数据库记录（c）2020 APA，保留所有权利）。