HBCU: EAGER: Racial Biases and Physiological Responses

Jackson State University, Jackson MS

Investigators

Abstract

General Summary The goal of this proposed research is to create an interdisciplinary model for understanding intragroup racial biases among African Americans and to offer an explanation for black intragroup-racial police behavior. The specific aims of the project are: (1) to examine whether criminal justice students possess negative implicit or explicit intra-racial biases;(2) examine whether the racial identity is a mitigating factor that may reduce explicit and implicit racial-bias; 3) whether these biases will increase the likelihood of blacks shooting innocent blacks when compared to whites; and 4) examine the physiological responses of future law enforcers when they confront black suspects. The project contributes to knowledge in the important area of police/citizen interactions. This research will influence and challenge research has posited police/African-American citizen interactions as a static phenomenon. This study uses survey research, implicit association tests and physiological responses to examine intragroup racial bias. The central hypothesis is that an increase in implicit and explicit racial biases among blacks increases the likelihood of negative police/African-American citizen interactions. Technical Summary Research describing black law enforcement officers who kill other blacks is almost non-existent, thus creating a gap in our full understanding of police treatment of unarmed African-American citizens. One of the weaknesses in the current research is the small sample of black subjects preclude the development of valid inferences about this population. Methodologically, the PIs employ an experimental research design that includes two groups of criminal justice students enrolled in an introduction to criminal justice course: (1) one group exposed to cultural competency training and (2) a control group not exposed to any topics related to race. The treatment group will be primed using a Racial Traumatic Stressful Event (RTSE) to explore whether such exposure will reduce the errors associated with shooter bias in the shooting of unarmed blacks when compared to whites. Each group will be administered an implicit association test based on race (blacks and whites) before the experiment and after the experiment. Both groups will then be trained for one week on active shooter simulation. Subjects will be coded based on whether they correctly or incorrectly shot a suspect and whether there was a difference in the two groups' physiological responses when they are confronted with a black suspect and a white suspect using electrodermal, respiratory, electromyography and electrocardiogram. Findings from this study should inform the recruitment of police and policies that relate to community policing tactics.