Shooter Bias Research Articles

The civilian's dilemma: Civilians exhibit automatic defensive responses to the police.

Interactions between police officers and civilians incur for both police and civilians the possibility of danger due to a nonzero likelihood of encountering a physical threat. A body of work examining the implications of threat processes during police-civilian interactions focuses almost exclusively on the perspective of police officers, under the auspice that police use-of-force decisions stem from perceptions and misperceptions of threat (e.g., research on the shooter bias). Almost no research has examined these dynamics from the perspective of civilians whose encounter with police involves interacting with an armed and potentially dangerous individual. In the current work, we advance the idea that just as police may respond to civilians as threats, civilians may respond to the police as threats. That is, among civilians, encountering the police may evoke a combination of defensive bodily and behavioral responses. Across three studies (N = 603) each utilizing unique measures of defensive behavioral and physiological responding, we found that people more rapidly avoid police than nonpolice, demonstrate enhanced defensive freeze responses to police than nonpolice, and evince larger defensive physiological preparation toward police than nonpolice. In light of these patterns, we discuss the implications of defensive responses for shaping civilian behavior in real-world encounters with the police. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2024 APA, all rights reserved).

Shooter biases and stereotypes among police and civilians

The present research assesses potential correlates of discriminatory police behavior, comparing police and civilian participants in a first person shooter task (FPST) as well as on various self-report measures of intergroup contact, intergroup attitudes, and ideological beliefs in three preregistered studies. Study 1 (N = 330), using a FPST with a short response window (630 ms), did not observe shooter biases in reaction times, error rates and signal detection parameters in neither police nor civilian participants. Study 2a (N = 290), using a longer response window (850 ms), observed a shooter bias in reaction times, error rates, and response criterion in both civilian and police participants. These shooter biases were largely driven by faster reactions, fewer errors, and more liberal shoot decisions for armed Arab (vs. White) targets. Study 2b (N = 191; 850 ms response window) closely replicated shooter biases in reaction times, error rates, and response criterion in a sample of civilian online participants. Across studies, we observed similar results in the shooter task for police and civilian samples. Furthermore, both police and civilian participants expressed anti-Muslim and anti-Arab attitudes across a variety of self-report measures. However, compared to civilians, police participants reported higher levels of anti-Muslim attitudes on some measures as well as higher levels of social dominance orientation, which might pose additional risk factors for discriminatory behavior. Lastly, while we observed reliable individual differences in self-reported intergroup attitudes, ideologies, and intergroup contact, none of these characteristics correlated with shooter biases.

Can Shooter Bias Be Measured in Immersive Virtual Reality?

This installment of Computer’s series highlighting the work published in IEEE Computer Society journals comes from IEEE Transactions on Visualization and Computer Graphics.

Cognitive processes behind the shooter bias: Dissecting response bias, motor preparation and information accumulation

A rich body of research points to racial biases in so-called police officer dilemma tasks: participants are generally faster and less error-prone to “shoot” (vs. not “shoot”) Black (vs. White) targets. In three experimental (and two supplemental) studies (total N = 914), we aimed at examining the cognitive processes underlying these findings under fully standardized conditions. To be able to dissect a-priori decision bias, biased information processing and motor preparation, we rendered video sequences of virtual avatars that differed in nothing but the tone of their skin. Modeling the data via drift diffusion models revealed that the threat of a social group can be explicitly learned and mapped accordingly on an a-priori response bias within the model (Study 1). Studies 2 and 3 replicated the racial shooter bias as apparent in faster reaction times in stereotype-consistent trials. This, however, appears to result from stereotype-consistent motoric preparations and execution readiness, but not from pre-judicial threat biases. The results have implications especially for automatic stereotypes in the public.

Evidence of Racial Bias Using Immersive Virtual Reality: Analysis of Head and Hand Motions During Shooting Decisions.

Shooter bias is the tendency to more quickly shoot at unarmed Black suspects compared to unarmed White suspects. The primary goal of this research was to investigate the efficacy of shooter bias simulation studies in a more realistic immersive virtual scenario instead of the traditional methodologies using desktop computers. In this paper we present results from a user study (N=99) investigating shooter and racial bias in an immersive virtual environment. Our results highlight how racial bias was observed differently in an immersive virtual environment compared to previous desktop-based simulation studies. Latency to shoot, the standard shooter bias measure, was not found to be significantly different between race or socioeconomic status in our more realistic scenarios where participants chose to raise a weapon and pull a trigger. However, more nuanced head and hand motion analysis was able to predict participants' racial shooting accuracy and implicit racism scores. Discussion of how these nuanced measures can be used for detecting behavior changes for body-swap illusions, and implications of this work related to racial justice and police brutality are discussed.

I Saw That

Abstract. The shooter bias effect reveals that individuals are quicker to “shoot” armed Black (vs. White) men and slower to “not shoot” unarmed Black (vs. White) men in a computer task. In three studies ( N = 386), we examined whether being observed would reduce this effect because of social desirability concerns. Participants completed a “shooting” task with or without a camera/live observer supposedly recording behavior. Cameras were strapped to participants’ heads (Studies 1a/1b) and pointed at them (Study 1b). In Study 2, a researcher observed participants complete the task while “filming” them with a smartphone. We replicated the shooter bias, but observation only reduced the effect in Study 2. These results reveal that being observed can reduce the shooter bias effect.

Do Robots Have Race?: Race, Social Construction, and HRI

In a paper presented at the 2018 ACM/IEEE International Conference on Human Robot Interaction (HRI 2018), Bartneck and colleagues (myself included) argued that people attribute race to humanoid robots [1]. The experiments we conducted suggested that people are willing to identify robots as being of different races when asked and that, at least when confronted with the shooter bias test [2], people also behave in ways that suggest they attribute race to robots. This article joins a small number of other articles in providing evidence that people attribute racial and/or ethnic identities to robots [3], [4]. While the methods we used in our research have come in for some criticism [5], the article has at least highlighted this question as a topic for future research.

Effects of a companion dog on associations of danger and threat with oriental‐looking targets

AbstractIn the current study we extend previous findings on the shooter bias toward targets with Arab ethnicity. In an adapted shooter task, we presented stereotypically oriental‐looking targets without explicit symbols of Islam (e.g., a turban) and additionally tested if presenting a “harmless” companion dog, together with Arab versus White targets, would affect the shooter bias. Participants responded faster and made fewer errors for armed Arab than for armed White targets. Moreover, compared to the “neutral” no dog condition, the presence of a dog triggered fewer false alarms for White than for Arab targets and slowed down (correct) responses in general. Implications and potential underlying mechanisms are discussed.

The Decision to Shoot Black Suspects in Brazil: The Police Officer’s Dilemma

Reports of Amnesty International (2015) indicate that Brazilian police are among the most violent in the world, and that such violence victimizes, above all, black citizens. Using the “First Person Shooter Task” (FPST), developed by Correll et al. (2002), we analyzed in three studies the impacts of suspect skin color on the Brazilian civilian and military police decision to shoot. The first study involved 97 white college students. The results indicated the presence of racist shooter bias: participants shot a black armed suspect faster than a white one and took longer to shoot an unarmed black suspect than a white one, and also made more mistakes not shooting the armed white man than the armed black man. In the second study, 60 male military police officers (MP) participated, 10 of them were white, 41 brown and 9 black. All police officers had 3 months of police service. The results indicated again the presence of racist shooter bias, but only in the response times. There was no effect of the participant’s skin color. The third study was conducted with 58 male MPs, 11 of them were white, 37 brown and 10 black, all with more than 10 years of police service. The same pattern of study 2 was found. The general results demonstrate that levels of racist shooter bias of police officers are not higher than that of civilians. The data are discussed considering the risk of racism in making extreme life and death decisions.

The Shape of ROC Curves in Shooter Tasks: Implications for Best Practices in Analysis

Four experiments addressed the widely studied issue of the association between racial groups and guns, namely shooter bias, as measured in the first-person shooter task or the weapon identification task, in which participants judge whether a suspect has a weapon or some other item such as a phone (Correll, Park, Judd, & Wittenbrink, 2002; Payne, 2001). Previous studies have employed various analyses that make conflicting, and indeed untested, assumptions about the underlying nature of the data: Analyses of variance and model-based analyses assume linear receiver operating characteristics (ROCs) and signal detection (SDT) analyses assume curved ROCs. The present experiments directly investigated the shape of the ROCs for the weapon identification task, demonstrating that they are curved, and that the majority of previous studies are at risk for inclusion of inappropriate analyses, because they assume linear rather than curved ROCs.

What Influences Shooter Bias? The Effects of Suspect Race, Neighborhood, and Clothing on Decisions to Shoot

AbstractPolice shooting deaths of unarmed Blacks and African Americans led to psychological research on the influence of racial stereotypes on decisions to shoot, an effect called shooter bias. This article investigates how contextual cues signaling threat or safety interact with the race of the target to moderate shooter bias. Across two experimental studies using a first person shooter task, participants viewed Black or White male targets who held either a neutral (wallet or cellphone) or dangerous (gun) object. Study 1 manipulated the perceived safety or threat associated with the neighborhood context these shooting decisions occurred in, and Study 2 manipulated the perceived safety or threat associated with the targets’ clothing. Participants made quick decisions to “shoot” or “not shoot” the presented target, with error rates serving as the dependent variable. Across both studies, results confirmed that racial bias in shooting decisions against Blacks was present in perceived threatening neighborhoods and in perceived threatening clothing, and it was reduced in perceived safe neighborhoods and when wearing perceived safe clothing. Results help to identify contextual factors that may lead to mistaken shooting decisions, which can be used to improve police training and decision making to reduce bias.

Dangerous Ambiguity: Capturing Shooter Bias with an Eye Tracker

Dangerous Ambiguity: Capturing Shooter Bias with an Eye Tracker

Experimental Research on Shooter Bias: Ready (or Relevant) for Application in the Courtroom?

Police officers are charged with protecting the public, and they must make difficult life-or-death decisions in tense circumstances. High-profile instances of officers shooting innocent Black people led to a flurry of shooter bias research, which examines how race influences split-second shooting decisions. We give an overview of the evidence in this literature to date, to evaluate the robustness of the evidence related to shooter bias and police officers. The extant experimental evidence from police officer samples is mixed, and does not allow us to make any strong inferences about the role of race in officers’ shooting decisions. We then discuss whether the questions asked by shooter bias research are even relevant to the decisions jurors must during cases of officer-involved shootings.

Alcohol consumption increases bias to shoot at Middle Eastern but not White targets

Alcohol has been implicated in intergroup aggression and hostility. The effect of consuming alcohol relative to a placebo on hostile cognitive biases toward a social category typically stereotyped as threatening and hostile (i.e., Middle Eastern men) was tested. Undergraduates ( N = 81) consumed either an intoxicating dose of alcohol (BrAC = .05% by vol.) or placebo. Then, they played a shooter game in which they were asked to shoot at targets holding guns, but not at targets holding harmless objects. Half of the targets were White and half were Middle Eastern. As predicted, alcohol consumption, relative to a placebo, increased participants’ bias to shoot Middle Eastern targets, but did not affect the shooter bias against White targets. Findings suggest that alcohol may heighten aggressive biases toward outgroups stereotyped as threatening and hostile.

Do I Shoot Faster Because I Am Thinking about an Outgroup or a Threatening Outgroup?

Abstract. This research examines if aggressive responses through a shooter bias are systematically generated by priming outgroups or if a threat stereotypically associated with the primed outgroup is required. First, a pilot study identified outgroups stereotypically associated and not associated with threat. Afterwards, the main study included a manipulation of target group accessibility – ingroup versus nonthreatening outgroup versus threatening outgroup. Following exposure to primes of the group categories, the participants in all conditions played a shooter game in which the targets were males and females with ambiguous ethnicity and religion. Results demonstrated that while only priming of an outgroup stereotypically associated with threat elicits aggressive responses, priming of both nonthreatening and threatening outgroups leads to an increase in the ability to distinguish between stimuli compared to ingroup priming. These effects are discussed in terms of priming effects, dimensions of threat, and possible interpretations of this ability increase.

Assuming the Role of a Racist and an Egalitarian Both Decreases Spontaneous Discriminatory Behavior

This study employed the first-person shooter task(FPST: Correll, Park, Judd, & Wittenbrink, 2002) paradigm to examine racial bias toward Blacks in a population unrelated to the Black-White racial context. We tested whether having Korean participants play the role of a White police officer portrayed as nonracist (vs. racist) would attenuate the bias to shoot Black suspects. Participants were told that they would perform a police simulation task as a White police officer, who was described as racist or nonracist, or was presented without a description. They then performed the FPST. Although nonracist description lowered shooter bias, racist description weakened it even more, contrary to our prediction. The latter result is interpreted as due to activation of an egalitarian goal after reading about racism-related description, especially as the description was about someone who was to be incorporated to the self. Supporting this interpretation, a mediation analysis involving Racist and Control conditions revealed that the racist description was associated with stronger perception of the officer’s racial bias, which in turn was correlated with weaker shooter bias.

Implicit Motivation to Control Prejudice and Exposure to Counterstereotypic Instances Reduce Spontaneous Discriminatory Behavior

We examined joint influences of Implicit Motivation to Control Prejudice (IMCP) and exposure to counterstereotypic stimuli on spontaneous racial bias. Participants performed a Shooter Task (Correll, Park, Judd, & Wittenbrink, 2002) wherein the ratios of stereotypic (i.e., armed Black) and counterstereotypic targets were manipulated. Then all participants performed the standard Shooter Task with equal ratios of targets. Those higher in IMCP showed less bias, as did participants in the Counterstereotypic condition. The pattern of results also suggests that the counterstereotypic exemplar effect on Shooter Bias was larger for those relatively high in IMCP.

Not all automatic associations are created equal: How implicit normative evaluations are distinct from implicit attitudes and uniquely predict meaningful behavior

We propose a new construct (implicit normative evaluations) that purports to measure automatic associations about societal evaluations. We develop a new measure of this construct based on a modification of the Implicit Association Test (IAT) and describe how it is related to but not redundant with implicit attitudes and explicit normative evaluations. Study 1 provided evidence that implicit normative evaluations and implicit attitudes uniquely predicted evaluations measured by the traditional IAT. Study 2 demonstrated that Asian-Canadian immigrants' implicit normative evaluations toward older people became more negative the longer they were in Canada. Study 3 found that engineering students' (both men and women) implicit normative evaluations toward female engineers became more negative as they were exposed to engineering and that for women these negative normative evaluations predicted their intention to drop out of engineering. Study 4 demonstrated that implicit normative evaluations predicted the speed at which participants decide to “shoot” an African Canadian target on a shooter bias task (Correll, Park, Judd, & Wittenbrink, 2002). Finally, in Study 5, an experimental manipulation of an audience's reaction to racist jokes targeting people from the Middle East affected implicit normative evaluations about this group and that these implicit normative evaluations in turn affected discrimination. The implications of these results for the importance of social influence and culture in shaping thoughts and behavior are discussed.

The turban effect: The influence of Muslim headgear and induced affect on aggressive responses in the shooter bias paradigm

Does Islamic appearance increase aggressive tendencies, and what role does affect play in such responses? In a computer game, participants made rapid decisions to shoot at armed people, some of whom wore Islamic head dress. We predicted and found a significant bias for participants to shoot more at Muslim targets. We also predicted and found that positive mood selectively increased aggressive tendencies towards Muslims, consistent with affect-cognition theories that predict a more top-down, stereotypical processing style in positive mood. In contrast, induced anger increased the propensity to shoot at all targets. The relevance of these results for our understanding of real-life negative reactions towards Muslims is discussed, and the influence of affective states on rapid aggressive responses is considered.

Implicit motivation to control prejudice

This research examines whether spontaneous, unintentional discriminatory behavior can be moderated by an implicit (nonconscious) motivation to control prejudice. We operationalize implicit motivation to control prejudice (IMCP) in terms of an implicit negative attitude toward prejudice (NAP) and an implicit belief that oneself is prejudiced (BOP). In the present experiment, an implicit stereotypic association of Blacks (vs. Whites) with weapons was positively correlated with the tendency to “shoot” armed Black men faster than armed White men (the “Shooter Bias”) in a computer simulation. However, participants relatively high in implicit negative attitude toward prejudice showed no relation between the race-weapons stereotype and the shooter bias. Implicit belief that oneself is prejudiced had no direct effect on this relation, but the interaction of NAP and BOP did. Participants who had a strong association between self and prejudice (high BOP) but a weak association between prejudice and bad (low NAP) showed the strongest relation between the implicit race-weapons stereotype and the Shooter Bias, suggesting that these individuals freely employed their stereotypes in their behavior.