Ingroup identification as a moderator of racial bias in a shoot–no shoot decision task

Abstract

At least since the 1999 Bronx shooting (Fritsch, 2000) of unarmed Amadou Diallo by New York City police officers, social psychologists have had an interest in the dynamics of decisions to shoot or not shoot potentially dangerous suspects. Of key theoretical interest in subsequent research has been the confluence of split-second decisionmaking and the effects of racial stereotypes on response bias against Black targets. Our aim in this article is to replicate and extend prior research on this topic by testing the moderation of the Black-White decision bias by ingroup identification.Extant research literature illustrates a pronounced bias in the perception of weapons when participants complete a simulation of the decisions a police officer may be forced to make. In the standard experimental paradigm, participants are presented with images of Black and White targets who are holding either a weapon (e.g., gun or knife) or a benign object (e.g., cell phone, soda can). Their task is to identify, as quickly and as accurately as possible, which type of object the target is holding.

The role of multiple racial stereotypes in simulated shooting decisions

“…An overall score was calculated for each participant by summing all o f the item scores. A higher score indicates a greater sense o f identification with racial in-groups Kenworthy et al (2011). found the reliability o f this scale to be excellent (a = .94) and a similarly strong reliability score was found in this study (a = .92).…”

“…Continuing in the effort to understand Black-White biases in shooting decisions, Kenworthy, Barden, Diamond, and del Carmen (2011) Using signal detection analysis to examine their results they found that c varied significantly as a function of in-group identification, such that those participants who were higher on an in-group identification questionnaire exhibited a larger shoot-bias (i.e., a lower c) when encountering Black targets.…”

“…However, one's motivation to control their prejudiced reactions, as measured by the MCPR, will moderate the relationship between explicit stereotype scores and shooting bias (i.e., significant positive correlations will exist between stereotype scores and shooting bias, but only for those individuals scoring low on the MCPR). Kenworthy, Barden, Diamond, and del Carmen (2011) it is also expected that individuals who exhibit a high in-group identification score will display more racial bias on the shooting task (based on biased indices) against all groups other than their own.…”

“…Like the explicit stereotype measure and the MCPRS, the in-group identification measure was also not significantly correlated with any o f the shooting bias indices. Based on research by Kenworthy et al, (2011) it was hypothesized that individuals who had higher in-group identification scores would display more o f a bias towards targets from other racial groups (i.e. out-group members).…”

When White Feels Right: The Effects of In‐Group Affect and Race of Partner on Negotiation Performance

“…Under threatening circumstances, in-group identifiers do tend to engage in greater prejudice and discrimination (Branscombe & Wann, 1994;Brown, Maras, Masser, Vivian, & Hewstone, 2001;Duckitt & Mphuthing, 1998;Grant & Brown, 1995;Kenworthy, Barden, Diamond & del Carmen, 2011;Lowery et al, 2006;Perreault & Bourhis, 1999;Riek, Mania & Gaertner, 2006;Stephan et al, 2002;Stephan, Ybarra, Martinez, Schwarzwald, & Tur-Kaspa, 1998;Struch & Schwartz, 1989;Voci, 2006), despite the lack of a reliable, cross-situation correlation between in-group identification and out-group antipathy (Brewer & Campbell, 1976;Brown, 2000;Hinkle & Brown, 1990). For example, in field studies among different ethnic groups, in-group identification predicts out-group prejudice only among groups with a history of conflict and oppression (Bombay, Matheson, & Anisman, 2010;Brewer & Campbell, 1976;Duckitt, Callaghan, & Wagner, 2005;Hinkle & Brown, 1990).…”