The Police officers Dilemma:using ethnicity to disambiguate potentially threatening individuals

Running Head : THE POLICE OFFICER 'S DILEMMA

The Police Officer 's Dilemma

Using Ethnicity to Disambiguate Potentially Threatening Individuals

Abstract

Cultural stereotypes can influence perceptions , judgments , and behavior , even if these stereotypes do not necessarily reflect personal beliefs .1

Our everyday lives have been penetrated by different beliefs regarding gender , race , religion , background , upbringing and many more . These may have reached us through the media , cultural influences or by mere social interaction . T it may not be a conscious decision or effort for people to believe or to be

weary of some things because it is simply etched into their minds

This is exactly Joshua Correll , Bernadette Park , and Charles M . Judd (University of Colorado at Boulder ) and Bernd Wittenbrink (University of Chicago ) talked about in their research The Police Officer 's Dilemma Using Ethnicity to Disambiguate Potentially Threatening Individuals

The study , which came from the incident regarding a 22-year-old African immigrant named Amadou Diallo , went into the depths of finding the reason why this person was shot just by appearances alone . It was in February 1999 that four plain clothes police officers , while in pursuit of a rape suspect , encountered Diallo . The police instructed him not to move but when he did , he was shot 41 times , 19 of which got him and sent him to rest

It is with this kind of behavior that the authors questioned the pre-existing notions that people have against each other because of skin color . Throughout the study , they explored the extent to how much the psyche has absorbed from these notions . And it is of prime importance that people understand this , because people do not deserve the treatment that they receive on the basis of their color

Hypothesis and Research Method

The researchers used a simple videogame to simulate the scene that Diallo and the four policemen encountered back in 1999 . The players would be in the shoes or place of the policemen who were facing a target with unknown intentions and actions

The models in the simulated videogame would appear four times , twice both having a gun and not . When they are not carrying a gun , they would carry another object , either a silver-colored aluminum can , a silver camera , a black cell phone , and or a black wallet

Figures 1 and 2 . Sample screenshots from the videogame .2

The backgrounds behind the models would also vary , these included train station terminals , parks , hotel entrances , restaurant facades and city sidewalks

The players were then instructed to take a shot at armed targets while doing nothing to unarmed ones . The participants ' speed at responding and deciding when they were engaged in the situation were recorded in the experiment . A player is given bonus points if he /she is able to shoot an armed target and shaved of points when he /she harms an unarmed one . With the aim of finding out whether the race of the target would affect his being shot by the player , the researchers analyzed the speed by which the...