Weapon Bias

8/13/2019 Weapon Bias

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Eliminating the weapon bias effect.


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Introduction

On the night of the 4 th of February 1999 four police officers saw a man that matched the

description of a wanted rapist. The policemen approached the man and asked him to stop and to

put up his hands. However, instead of putting up his hands he reached for something. One

police officer saw the man holding a small square object and screamed gun. The police officers

fired 41 shots and the suspicious man was hit 19 times. The mad died on impact. Upon closer

look the police officers found that the man was not the serial rapist but the 22-year-old

Amadou Diallo. In addition they found out that Amadou was not holding a gun, he was holding

his wallet (Fritsch, 2000). This event raised many question in the media. Such as, how is it

possible for the policemen to mistake a wallet for a gun and had the fact that he was black

something to do with it?

Research (Payne, 2001) has shown that race indeed plays a role in cases like this. When

making a split second decision people are more likely to misidentify a tool for a weapon when it

is hold by a black men then when it is hold by a white men. This concept called weapon bias

does not happen because of intentional stereotyping (Payne, Lambert, & Jacob, 2002) but

because of an automatic impulse containing stereotypes (Payne, 2005). This raises the question

whether specific training can reduce this weapon bias effect and if so what kind of training is

most effective. This paper will look at different possibilities to eliminate weapon bias. In order to

do so I will first explain what weapon bias is and how it is most likely caused.

What is race-bias weapon misidentification?

Keith Payne was the first psychologist to look at the concept of race-based weapon

misidentification also known as weapon bias. In his first experiment (Payne, 2001) Payne used a

weapon identification task. Participants where shown a picture of a white or a black face

followed by a picture of a gun or a tool. Participants where told to ignore the facial picture and to

only look at the second picture witch contained the object. Both images (face and tool) where

only displayed for a short period of time (200 ms). After seeing both pictures the participant had


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two options: shoot or not-shoot. If the participant thought they had seen a gun they had to press

shoot, if the participants thought they had seen a tool they where instructed to press not-shoot.

In this experiment Payne used two groups. The first group was told that there was no time limit.

The second group was told that the decision to shoot or not had to be made under half a second.

In the first group the overall error rate was low (6%) and there was not a significant

difference between the two primed racial groups. Because of the time limit the second group had

a much higher error rate (29%). In this group there was a significant difference between the two

racial groups. The participant misidentified a tool for a gun more often when the first picture

was a picture of a black face then when it was a picture of a white face. The results indicate that

whenever a person has to make a split-second they are more likely to misinterpret a tool for a

gun when this object is linked to an African-American identity.

In another study (Payne, Shimizu, & Jacoby, 2005) participants once again had to

perform a weapon identification task. After participants had made the decision whether to

shoot or not they where asked to rate their confidence level. If they were confident they had

made the right decision they answered with a high confidence rate if they were uncertain about

the decision just made they rated with a low confidence rate.

The participants expressed an overall weapon bias when making the decision to shoot or

not. However, when participants had made the right shoot/not-shoot decision their confidence

was extremely high (5.8 out of 6). Yet when the participants had made the wrong decision there

confidence rate was low (2 out of 6). This illustrates that although participants show weapon

bias they know that the decision was incorrect after just a brief moment. This raises the question

why do they make the wrong decision in the first place?

One possibility was that the weapon bias effect was caused due to intentional use of

stereotyping (Payne, Lambert, & Jacob, 2002). The researches used three groups which all

conducted the weapon identification task (Payne, 2001). The first group (control) was told to

only focus on the second picture (object) and to ignore the first picture (face). The second and

third group where made aware of the concept that race might influence your decision. Both


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groups where given different tasks in the way they should use this information. The second

group was told to actively try to not be influence by the race of the face. The third group was told

to use the race of the face when making the decision to shoot or not.

All groups expressed weapon bias. However there was no significant difference between

the second and third group. This means that the intention of the participants did not impact the

weapon bias effect. Another finding was that the second and third group expressed more bias

then the control group. This implies that being aware of the weapon bias effect only increases its

effect. These findings suggest that weapon bias is not created by a conscious decision and it is

therefore likely that an unconscious process steers the weapon bias.

After looking at the result of the papers described above it can be said that weapon bias

is caused by time pressure, that it is not related to intention and after making the wrong

decision participant show a low confidence level about the accuracy of their decision. Although

these factors say something about the nature of weapon bias it does not explain why participant

have it.

What causes weapon bias?

It has been suggested (Payne, 2001; Payne, 2005; Payne, Lambert, & Jacob, 2002) that

the so-called dual-process theory could be an explanation for weapon bias. This theory states

that there are two different processes that influence a behavioral response: the automatic

impulse and the intentional response. How they influence the behavioral response is

determined by the cognitive control someone has over their actions. If the cognitive control is

high, people will respond as intended. When the cognitive control is low, the automatic impulse

will control the behavioral response. In the case of the weapon bias it is believed that the

automatic impulse holds unconscious stereotypes that link African-Americans to crime, violence

and weapons.

Research has shown (Payne, 2005) that these two factors indeed play a role in weapon

bias. In his experiment Payne evaluated each individual participant on both cognitive control


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and racial attitude and looked at how these aspects influence weapon bias. By looking at the

individual results he found that people with similar racial attitudes could have different weapon

bias depending on their cognitive control. Participants with a higher cognitive control had a

weaker weapon bias than participants with a low cognitive control. He also found that

participants with a more negative racial attitude towards black people expressed a higher

weapon bias than participants with a positive racial attitude. The results implied that having

more cognitive control declines weapon bias whilst having more negative stereotypes increases

weapon bias. Looking at the outcome of this research the dual-process theory could indeed be a

likely explanation for explaining weapon bias.

Reducing weapon bias

Knowing that the weapon bias effect exists and how it most likely caused raises the

question whether it can be eliminated. Different kind of research has been conducted to see if

specific training can help eliminate this effect. These attempts can be divided into three groups:

general training, training that focuses on the automatic impulse part of the dual-process theory

and training that focuses on the cognitive control part of the dual-process theory.

When looking at general training some factors have been found that decrease the

weapon bias effect. In one research (Plant, Peruche, & Butz, 2005) it was examined whether

extensive training with the shoot/ not-shoot program eliminated the weapon bias effect. The

results suggest that when the presence of a gun is unrelated to the race of the face, extensive

training would eliminate weapon bias even after 24 hours. However, when the presence of a gun

was related to the race of the face in question the weapon bias effect was weakened but not

eliminated.

Another study (Corell, Park, Judd, Wittenbrink, & Sadler, 2007) researched if

professional weapon training such as received by policemen influence the weapon bias effect. In

the study 124 officers and 127 civilians from the area of Denver were tested on weapon-bias

whilst playing a video game called the Shooter Task. In this video game participants had to shoot


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if they saw an armed person and not-shoot if they saw an unarmed person. The groups were

tested on the criterion they used when deciding to shoot or not. A low criterion means that a

person is more likely to shoot and a high criterion means that a person is less likely to shoot.

Both officers and civilians expressed weapon bias when tested. Given that when

presented with a tool the criterion to shoot was significantly lower for black suspects then for

white suspects. However there was also a significant difference between the two groups where

officers showed less bias than civilians. This demonstrates that specialized training does have an

impact on weapon bias.

Some anti weapon bias training focused on changing the nature of the automatic

impulse. This automatic impulse, which contains stereotypes, is believed to cause the behavioral

response in spit-second decision-making. In one research (Stewart, Payne, 2008) it was

investigated if weapon bias would be eliminated when participants were forced to think

counter stereotypical thoughts. The experiment used the weapon-identification task as

discussed in the beginning of this paper (Payne, 2001). The participants were divided into three

groups. In the first group participants were told to think the word safe every time they saw a

black face. Before every trial the participants had to remind themselves that they where just as

safe around a black person as they where around a white person. The second had to think the

word accurate. Before every trial they had to remind themselves to identify the objects as

accurately as possible. The third group was instructed to think the word quick.

When performing the weapon-identification paradigm all groups showed signs of

weapon bias when misidentifying a weapon for a tool. This means that whenever there was a

white face, a gun was more likely to be seen as a tool then when there was a black face. However

for the think accurate and think quick group this effect was highly significant. For the think

safe group this effect was weakly significant. When looking at the weapon bias for false gun

(misidentifying a tool for a gun) different results were seen between the three groups. For the

think accurate and think quick group the weapon bias was significant, showing that they

were more likely to misidentify a tool for a gun with a black face present than with a white face.


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Yet for the think safe group there was no significance for this false gun weapon bias. Therefore,

it can be concluded that when participants are forced to link the word safe to a black face the

false -gun weapon bias will be eliminated.

Other research focuses on the training of cognitive control (Mendoza, Gollwitzer, &

Amodio, 2010). It is believed that participants with stronger cognitive control show less weapon

bias (Payne, 2005). To test the weapon bias effect Mendoza used the Shooter Task as mentioned

above (Corell, Park, Judd, Wittenbrink, & Sadler, 2006). The strategy that was used to increase

cognitive control was the if-then strategy, which will be explained later on.

Three different groups had to play the Shooter Task game: the no strategy group

(control), the simple -goal strategy group and the implementation intention strategy group.

Participants in the simple-goal strategy were given the following strategy: I will always shoot a

person I see with a gun! and I will never shoot a person I see with an object!. Participants in

the implementation intention strategy were given the if- then strategy: If I see a person with a

gun, then I will shoot! and If I see a person with an object, then I will not shoot!. In former

research an if-then strategy has proved to increase cognitive control (Mendoza, Gollwitzer, &

Amodio, 2010).

First Mendoza tested if the different strategies had the intended effect by looking at how

the strategies affected both the cognitive control and the automatic impulse. The results showed

that none of the strategies had an effect on the automatic impulse. The implementation

intention strategy (if -then strategy) was the only strategy that increased cognitive control. This

means that the participants who used the if-then strategy had a higher cognitive control then the

no -strategy and simple -goal strategy group.

The effect of the strategy on the weapon bias effect was as follows; the simple-plan

strategy was not significantly different from the no strategy group. The if -then strategy on

the other hand did reveal a significant difference from both the control and the simp le-plan

strategy group. T he participants in the if -strategy group demonstrated less weapon bias than


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the other groups. The results confirmed the hypothesis that when participants use strategies to

improved cognitive control the weapon bias effect will decrease.

Conclusion

When looking at the particular trainings that can eliminate weapon bias there is one

training that completely eliminated weapon bias. This is the training that focuses on the

automatic impulse part of the dual-process theory. This type of training (Stewart, Payne, 2008)

changes automatic stereotypes like black and violence by forcing people to link a black face with

the word safe. However this type of training could be difficult to use on a daily basis. The sort of

circumstances in which weapon bias normally happens is often situations like the one of

Amadou Diallo. In these situations the police or other individuals are under high stress and

might consider themselves to be in direct danger. Therefore applying the strategy whenever I

see a black person I feel safe , right before someone has to make a decision to shoot or not

would be difficult. On the other hand the findings of this research should not be ignored. The key

finding of this research is that in order to eliminate weapon bias automatic stereotypes should

be manipulated. Knowing this there might be a possibility for police officers to have weekly

sessions in which they reinforce these anti-stereotypical thoughts.

In addition, it could be possible to combine these anti-stereotype trainings with trainings

that reinforce cognitive control. Police officers could be trained to use the strategy (Mendoza,

Gollwit zer, & Amodio, 2010) I will always shoot a person I see with a gun! and I will never

shoot a person I see with an object! . I personally think that further research should be

conducted if using these strategies could be a real possibility for a solution or if they have

unintended side effects. However one thing is clear; the police and psychologists should work

together to try to prevent cases like Amadou Diallo as much as possible.


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References

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.

Fritsch, J., (2000, February 26). The Diallo verdict: the overview; 4 officers in the Diallo shooting

are acquitted of all charges. New York Times. Retrieved November 29, 2012, from

http://www.nytimes.com

Mendoza, S. A., Gollwitzer, P. M., & Amodio, D. A. (2010). Reducing the expression of implicit

stereotypes: Reflexive control through implementation intentions. Personality Social

Psychology Bulletin, 36 , 512-523.

Payne, B. K., Shimizu, Y., & Jacoby, L. L. (2005). Mental control and visual illusions: Toward

explaining race-biased weapon identifications. Journal of Experimental Social Psychology,

41 , 36-47.

Payne, B. K. (2001). Prejudice and perception: The role of automatic and controlled processes in

misperceiving a weapon. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 81 , 181-192.

Payne, B. K., Lambert, A. J., & Jacoby, L. L. (2002). Best laid plans: Effects of goals on accessibility

bias and cognitive control in race-based misperceptions of weapons. Journal of

Experimental Social Psychology, 38 , 384-396.

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.


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Plant, E. A., Peruche, B. M., & Butz, D. A. (2005). Eliminating automatic racial bias: Making race

non-diagnostic for responses to criminal suspects. Journal of Experimental Social

Psychology, 41 , 141-156.

Stewart, B. D., & Payne, B. K. (2008). Bringing automatic stereotyping under control:

Implementation intentions as efficient means of thought control. Personality and Social

Psychology Bulletin, 34 , 1332-1345.

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