#HandsUpDon’tShoot:The Psychology of “Shooter Bias”

Prof. Stephenie Chaudoir & Tyler Zeoli ‘15Psychology Department

12.11.14

Caption 2 under the light skinned person:

"Two residents wade through chest-deep water

after finding bread and soda from a local grocery

store..."

Caption 1 under the dark skinned person:

" A young man walks through chest deep flood water after looting a grocery store in New Orleans"

Implicit Stereotypes as Cognitive Residue

Black Bad=

Automatic vs. Controlled Processing

Implicit

AutomaticProcess

Behavior

Explicit

ControlledProcess

Inhibit Initial Bias

“Shooter Bias”

Hypothesis: Unarmed Black Men will be shot at more often than Unarmed White Men.

Plant & Peruche, 2005

Gun Neutral0

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Plant & Peruche, 2005

Gun Neutral0

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The “Take-Aways”

1. Shooter bias is a real behavioral phenomenon that can be overcome with training

2. We are ALL vulnerable to _____ bias when operating on “auto-pilot”

#factivismReferences and Further ReadingCorrell, J., Park, B., Judd, C.M., & Wittenbrink, B. (2002). The police officer’s dilemma: Using

ethnicity to disambiguate potentially threatening individuals. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 83, 1314-1329. [pdf]

Correll, J., Park, B., Judd, C.M., Wittenbrink, B., & Sadler, M.S. (2007). Across the thin blue line: Police officers and racial bias in the decision to shoot. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 92, 1006-1023. [pdf]

Eberhardt, J.L., Goff, P.A., Purdie, V.J. & Davies, P.G. (2004). Seeing Black: Race, crime, and visual processing. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 87, 876-893. [pdf]

Payne, B. K. (2005). Conceptualizing control in social cognition: How executive functioning modulates the expression of automatic stereotyping. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 89, 488-503. [citation]

Plant, E. A., & Peruche, B. M. (2005). The consequences of race for police officer’s responses to criminal suspects. Psychological Science, 16, 180-183. [pdf]

See also: www.fairandimpartialpolicing.com

You can find this powerpoint on Prof. Chaudoir’s website, or email for more details: schaudoi@holycross.edu! Thanks!

Additional Questions

• Does shooter race affect bias?– No. Black and White participants are equally likely

to exhibit shooter bias (Correll et al., 2002; Study 4).

• Are law enforcement more biased than community members? – No. Community members make more errors than

police officers (Correll et al., 2007).

Implicit Association Test (IAT)