Racial Bias in Police-Civilian Interactions

Abstract

Examples of police use of force against African-Americans is widely distributed across standard media and media. Attitudes about these interactions are decidedly mixed. The current study was designed to examine the perceptions of the local populace in a response time task. If media reports and scholarly literature are generalize locally, then we may expect that people who are not African-American to be more tolerant of the use of force against African-American, viewing it as more justifiable under the circumstances. We may also expect the opposite result from African-American people who view the same interactions. A computerized task presented via PsyToolKit will present participants with photographs of police interactions with African-Americans and Caucasians in the same scenarios including ordinary activities like getting out of a car or standing in front of a shop. Participants will also see confrontational interactions like traffic stops, pat-downs, and heated verbal exchanges. Participants will indicate how much of a threat to the officer the civilian seems to be and how likely they are to be armed. The results will be analyzed with an analysis of variance on the choice response times.