Implicit Bias Within Public Reporting: A Virtual Reality Experiment Examining “Suspicious” Activity

Abstract

Campaigns like that of the Department of Homeland Security’s “See Something, Say Something” are intended to increase public reporting of “terrorism-related behaviors.” Yet given prior research on whom the general public considers to be a terrorist, it is likely these types of programs are instead affected by pejorative automatic associations. With this in mind, we inquire: Does implicit bias affect public reporting within a suspicious activity scenario? Through a randomized experiment using virtual reality technology, we find evidence of such bias, as manifested in whether participants indicated they would call the police when presented with a Middle Eastern male. We conclude effective counterterrorism programming should involve an awareness campaign component detailing what terrorism truly looks like in the United States.

Assessing and reporting leaking of violent intent: Influences of perpetrator and witness characteristics

“…Contrasting our expectations, laypersons did not primarily select information about the potential perpetrator in line with the current stereotype of a terrorist, but the police students did. Contrasting previous findings (Carson and Politte, 2021), this indicated little bias toward Islamist terrorism among laypersons in the present study. Nevertheless, both groups frequently selected information about previous criminal behavior and leaking.…”

“…As predicted, right-wing political attitude, criminal history, and repetition of leaking increased the seriousness ratings and the likelihood to report leaking among laypersons. Information about the potential perpetrator's Arab ethnicity did not influence the seriousness assessment, but did influence the likelihood of reporting, supporting research suggesting a higher likelihood to report suspects with a migration background than native suspects (Carson and Politte, 2021; Mansel and Albrecht, 2003). Contrary to our expectations, higher age of the potential perpetrator increased laypersons’ likelihood to report leaking.…”

“…The present study focused on basic, statistically more common (Gill et al, 2014) characteristics of the potential perpetrator that are observable or comparably easy to access. We assumed that leaking should be considered as more serious and should rather be reported to the police if characteristics of the potential perpetrator correspond with the stereotype of a terrorist (Biernat et al, 1991;Carson and Politte, 2021;Haner et al, 2021). In this case, witnesses should also be more certain about their assessments.…”

“…The recently increasing number of terrorist offenses by perpetrators with far-right motives, however, may have complemented this stereotype and let to a shift in reporting behavior (Williamson and Murphy, 2020). In line with this view, more recent studies on reporting intentions contingent on the potential perpetrator's ethnicity were inconsistent (Carson and Politte, 2021; Haner et al, 2021).…”

“…Indeed, having friends with a migration background was associated with more positive attitudes toward Muslims (Andersen and Mayerl, 2018). In addition, individuals with a left political attitude were more skeptical toward prevention measures against terrorism, whereas people with a right political orientation were more supportive of these measures (Rykkja et al, 2011) and more concerned about the threat by ISIS (Poushter and Huang, 2019).…”