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

在美国，与拉丁裔、亚裔或白人男性相比，黑人男性被警察射杀的相对风险更高。解决对黑人男性的负面看法是一种过于简单化的解决方案，因为对许多群体都存在负面看法，但相对于其他种族和族裔的男性，警察枪击对黑人男性的影响不成比例。这个项目研究了针对黑人男性目标的射击行为是否因为将黑人男性与威胁联系起来的自动心理联想而迅速频繁地发生，而不是因为普遍的负面偏见。这个想法是由一个模型指导的，该模型区分了对他人反应中的威胁（伤害风险）和消极效价（不喜欢）的作用。威胁vs效价的区别让我们更细致地理解了导致反黑人枪手行为的反应的维持、普遍性和最终表达。在最近的事件清楚地表明反黑人偏见可能造成致命后果的今天，更好地理解基于种族的枪手偏见至关重要。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。其中一些研究测量了人们对黑与白与威胁与消极的联系，并测试了这些联系的相对强度如何直接预测射击行为。一项研究依赖于对不熟悉的目标群体产生新的联想，以确定威胁联想是否会更普遍地推动射击行为，而不仅仅是与黑人男性的联系。最后一项研究破坏了黑人男性与威胁的心理联系（与破坏一般黑人负面联系相比），以确定这是否会减少基于种族的枪击行为。PI与几个警察局建立了联系，使警官参与研究，并在警察部门之间传播调查结果和反馈意见。该项目提供了对威胁关联如何导致基于种族的枪手偏见的坚定理解，并提出了一种开始纠正这种偏见的负面影响的方法。该奖项反映了美国国家科学基金会的法定使命，并通过使用基金会的知识价值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.