I Saw That

Abstract

Abstract. The shooter bias effect reveals that individuals are quicker to “shoot” armed Black (vs. White) men and slower to “not shoot” unarmed Black (vs. White) men in a computer task. In three studies ( N = 386), we examined whether being observed would reduce this effect because of social desirability concerns. Participants completed a “shooting” task with or without a camera/live observer supposedly recording behavior. Cameras were strapped to participants’ heads (Studies 1a/1b) and pointed at them (Study 1b). In Study 2, a researcher observed participants complete the task while “filming” them with a smartphone. We replicated the shooter bias, but observation only reduced the effect in Study 2. These results reveal that being observed can reduce the shooter bias effect.

The Language of Being Alone and Being With Others

“…Past research has demonstrated that this priming procedure can by itself induce effects similar to the effects of actual social presence (e.g., Uziel, 2016;Uziel et al, 2020). In that, the present findings hold the potential to further expand the research paradigm on social presence, which has documented "social presence effects" (as described in the social facilitation literature; Bond & Titus, 1983) even in the absence of actual physical presence of others (examples include video cameras, virtual presence, prospective presence, and even implicit presence; e.g., Erber, Wegner, & Therriault, 1996;Jun et al, 2017;Kramer et al, 2020;Steinmetz et al, 2016). Future research could address the issue of whether the convergence of effects between these different manipulations stems from an activation of internalized working models relating to these basic social conditions (alone/"with others").…”