Threat is Distinct from Valence as a Source of Biased Shoot Behaviors toward Black Men

在美国，与拉美裔、亚裔或白人相比，黑人面临着更高的被警察枪杀的相对风险。解决对黑人男性的负面看法是一个过于简单的解决方案，因为对许多群体都存在负面看法，但与其他种族和民族的男性相比，警察枪击事件对黑人男性的影响不成比例。这个项目考察了针对黑人男性目标的枪击行为是否快速而频繁地发生，是因为将黑人男性与威胁联系在一起的自动心理联系，而不是因为普遍的负面偏见。这一想法是由一个模型指导的，该模型区分了威胁(伤害风险)和负价(厌恶)在对他人的反应中的作用。威胁性与效价的区别提供了对有助于反黑人射手行为的反应的维护、普及和最终表达的更细微的理解。在最近的事件已经清楚地表明了反黑人偏见的潜在致命后果的情况下，更好地理解基于种族的枪手偏见是至关重要的。该项目包括一系列研究，通过使用最先进的判断任务、生理反应和在沉浸式虚拟现实射击任务中评估的射击行为来评估人们的自动心理联想。一些研究测量了人们对黑人和白人、威胁和消极之间的联系，并测试了这些联系的相对强度如何直接预测射击行为。一项研究依赖于创建关于陌生目标群体的新关联，以确定威胁关联是否会更普遍地驱动枪击行为，而不仅仅是与黑人男性的关联。最后一项研究扰乱了黑人男性与威胁的心理联系(与扰乱一般的黑人-负面联系)，以确定这是否减少了基于种族的枪击行为。警察分局与几个警察局建立了联系，让警官参与研究，并在警察部门之间传播调查结果和反馈。该项目提供了对威胁协会如何促成基于种族的枪手偏见的确切理解，并提出了一种开始纠正这种偏见的负面影响的方法。该奖项反映了NSF的法定使命，并通过使用基金会的智力优势和更广泛的影响审查标准进行评估，被认为值得支持。

Black men confront a higher relative risk of being shot by police officers than do Latinos, Asian-American men, or White men in the US. Addressing negative beliefs about Black men is an overly simplistic solution because negative beliefs exist about many groups, and yet police shootings disproportionally affect Black men relative to men of other races and ethnicities. This project examines whether the act of shooting occurs quickly and frequently against Black male targets because of an automatic mental association linking Black men and threat, rather than because of a general negative bias. This idea is guided by a model that distinguishes the role of threat (risk of harm) from negative valence (disliking) in reactions to others. The threat vs. valence distinction provides a more nuanced understanding of the maintenance, pervasiveness, and ultimate expression of reactions that contribute to anti-Black shooter behavior. A greater understanding of race-based shooter bias is vital in the present where recent events have made clear the potential deadly consequences of anti-Black prejudice.The project includes a series of studies that assess automatic mental associations that people have by using state-of-the-art judgment tasks, physiological responses, and shoot behaviors as assessed in an immersive virtual reality shooting task. Several of the studies measure the associations that people have of Black vs. White with threat vs. negativity and test how the relative strength of these associations directly predict shooting behavior. One study relies on the creation of novel associations about unfamiliar target groups to determine if threat associations drive shooting behavior more generally, beyond associations with Black men. A final study disrupts mental associations of Black men with threat (vs. disrupting general Black-negative associations) to determine whether this reduces race-based shooting behavior. The PI has established connections with several police stations to involve officers as research participants and to disseminate findings and feedback among police departments. The project provides a firm understanding of how threat associations contribute to race-based shooter bias and suggests a means by which to begin to redress the negative repercussions of such biases.This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.