Understanding Police and Expert Performance

Abstract

In three studies, we examined how training may attenuate (or exacerbate) racial bias in the decision to shoot. In Experiment 1, when novices read a newspaper article about Black criminals, they showed pronounced racial bias in a first-person-shooter task (FPST); when they read about White criminals, bias was eliminated. Experts (who practiced the FPST) and police officers were unaffected by the same stereotype-accessibility manipulation. However, when training itself (base rates of armed vs. unarmed targets in the FPST, Experiment 2a; or special unit officers who routinely deal with minority gang members, Experiment 2b) reinforced the association between Blacks and danger, training did not attenuate bias. When race is unrelated to the presence/absence of a weapon, training may eliminate bias as participants learn to focus on diagnostic object information (gun vs. no gun). But when training actually promotes the utility of racial cues, it may sustain the heuristic use of stereotypes.

Policing and Race: Disparate Treatment, Perceptions, and Policy Responses

“…Some studies find that police, like their fellow citizens, also display shooter bias in error rates upon initial exposure (Plant & Peruche, 2005). However, others find a divergence, such that bias is apparent in response times but not on actual shooting decisions, suggesting that police are better at making correct shooting decisions than nonpolice (Correll et al, 2007;Cox et al, 2014;Sim, Correll, & Sadler, 2013). The inconsistent shooter bias findings may partly reflect the small samples in these studies.…”

“…For example, training individuals to associate "SAFE" with Blacks (compared to "QUICK") reduces racially biased weapon misidentification responses (Stewart & Payne, 2008). Overall, these type of intervention programs work by either reducing the activation of the stereotype itself, providing nonrace-based strategies to complete the task (e.g., focus only on the hand of the person), or by increasing cognitive control (Sim et al, 2013). However, as is evident in the shooter bias literature, there is little testing of these interventions directly with police officers, and more research needs to be conducted and rigorously evaluated on their effectiveness on police behavior, both short and long term (Kahn & McMahon, 2015).…”

How race affects evidence accumulation during the decision to shoot

“…When the response window is increased from 630 ms to 850 ms, the observed race bias tends to shift to response times: Participants are faster to shoot armed Black targets and slower to not shoot unarmed Black targets (Correll et al, 2002 ; Greenwald, Oakes, & Hoffman, 2003 ; Plant & Peruche, 2005 ; Plant et al, 2005 ). This form of bias also tends to be observed in trained police officers (Correll, Park, Judd, Wittenbrink, Sadler, & Keesee, 2007b ; Sim, Correll, & Sadler, 2013 ) and people more familiar with the task (Correll et al, 2007a ).…”

Cardiac afferent activity modulates the expression of racial stereotypes

“…Participants are required to make the time-constrained decision to ‘shoot' or ‘not to shoot' based on whether the person is holding a gun or another object, respectively. Typically, participants are more likely to shoot unarmed Black individuals than unarmed White individuals234. By timing the onset of stimulus presentation to coincide with cardiac systole or diastole, we tested the influence of afferent cardiovascular information on the expression of racial bias (Fig.…”

“…This is a striking example of how implicit stereotypes in physiologically arousing contexts may influence behaviour even among those who do not consciously endorse them. Notably, laboratory research has replicated this pattern among university students2 and police officers34, demonstrating that people are more likely to misidentify harmless objects as weapons when associated with a Black individual5 and are more prone to ‘shoot' unarmed Black targets234.…”