With Video Games, Researchers Link Guns to Stereotypes
By ERICA GOODE
sked to make split-second decisions about whether black or white male figures in a video game were holding guns, people were more likely to conclude mistakenly that the black men were armed and to shoot them, a series of new studies reports.
The subjects in the studies, who were instructed to shoot only when the human targets in the game were armed, made more errors when confronted by images of black men carrying objects like cellphones or cameras than when faced with similarly unarmed white men. The participants, who in all but one study were primarily white, were also quicker to fire on black men with guns than on white men with guns.
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"The threshold to decide to shoot is set lower for African-Americans than for whites," said Dr. Bernadette Park, a professor of psychology at the University of Colorado at Boulder and an author of a report on the studies to be published today in The Journal of Personality and Social Psychology.
The difference was not large. But the findings mesh with other research indicating that unconscious biases, possibly instilled by the news media, advertising or other cultural influences, can shape behavior, even when people do not consciously endorse such biases. Studies suggest that those hidden stereotypes or attitudes are often activated in situations where people are forced to respond quickly and automatically.
In the video game, photographs of men standing or crouching against a variety of backgrounds appeared suddenly on the screen. Some men held guns. Others held objects like cellphones, cameras, wallets and aluminum cans. The participants had to press one button quickly to "shoot" or another button if they decided that the man was not dangerous.
"We wanted to ask a very basic question," Dr. Park said. "Does the normal public show a differential association of violence with blacks as opposed to whites?"
The study involved college students and adults recruited at shopping malls, bus stations and food courts in Denver.
Dr. Park said she and her colleagues had decided to undertake the study because of the 1999 shooting of Amadou Diallo, an unarmed West African immigrant who was killed in the doorway of his apartment building in the Bronx by police officers who mistook his wallet for a gun.
But Dr. Park said that it was not possible to conclude from the studies' findings that unconscious bias was at play in the Diallo shooting or other cases like it.
Research inspired by controversial events has a long history in social psychology. For example, the murder in 1964 of Kitty Genovese, stabbed to death in Queens while 38 witnesses disregarded her cries, gave rise to many studies of behavior by bystanders.
Dr. Park said police officers might be less likely than the studies' subjects to show unconscious bias, because of their training. But it may also be true, she added, that police officers are no less vulnerable than the population at large.
Dr. Anthony G. Greenwald, a professor of psychology at the University of Washington, and two colleagues will publish findings next year in The Journal of Experimental Social Psychology that confirm and extend the findings of Dr. Park and her colleagues.
In that study, college students took the role of police officers in a virtual reality game in which armed or unarmed men emerged from behind a trash bin. The students were told that some of the men were "criminals," that others were fellow officers and that still others were "citizens." They were instructed to shoot the armed criminals, to press a button to "save" the officers and to do nothing when they saw citizens, who held harmless objects like flashlights or beer bottles. The study imposed a strict time limit.
As in the Colorado study, the subjects were more likely to shoot black men incorrectly than white men and less likely to distinguish guns from other objects when held by blacks rather than whites.
Numerous studies over the last 30 years have found that in ambiguous situations, blacks are more likely to be perceived as violent than whites performing the same actions. In one study, the subjects saw two men engaged in a discussion in the course of which one man lightly pushed the other's shoulder. When a black man pushed a white man, the action was described by the subjects as violent. When the situation was reversed, the push was perceived as "playing."
Dr. Greenwald and Dr. Park said their findings did not necessarily reflect conscious prejudice.
By ERICA GOODE
sked to make split-second decisions about whether black or white male figures in a video game were holding guns, people were more likely to conclude mistakenly that the black men were armed and to shoot them, a series of new studies reports.
The subjects in the studies, who were instructed to shoot only when the human targets in the game were armed, made more errors when confronted by images of black men carrying objects like cellphones or cameras than when faced with similarly unarmed white men. The participants, who in all but one study were primarily white, were also quicker to fire on black men with guns than on white men with guns.
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"The threshold to decide to shoot is set lower for African-Americans than for whites," said Dr. Bernadette Park, a professor of psychology at the University of Colorado at Boulder and an author of a report on the studies to be published today in The Journal of Personality and Social Psychology.
The difference was not large. But the findings mesh with other research indicating that unconscious biases, possibly instilled by the news media, advertising or other cultural influences, can shape behavior, even when people do not consciously endorse such biases. Studies suggest that those hidden stereotypes or attitudes are often activated in situations where people are forced to respond quickly and automatically.
In the video game, photographs of men standing or crouching against a variety of backgrounds appeared suddenly on the screen. Some men held guns. Others held objects like cellphones, cameras, wallets and aluminum cans. The participants had to press one button quickly to "shoot" or another button if they decided that the man was not dangerous.
"We wanted to ask a very basic question," Dr. Park said. "Does the normal public show a differential association of violence with blacks as opposed to whites?"
The study involved college students and adults recruited at shopping malls, bus stations and food courts in Denver.
Dr. Park said she and her colleagues had decided to undertake the study because of the 1999 shooting of Amadou Diallo, an unarmed West African immigrant who was killed in the doorway of his apartment building in the Bronx by police officers who mistook his wallet for a gun.
But Dr. Park said that it was not possible to conclude from the studies' findings that unconscious bias was at play in the Diallo shooting or other cases like it.
Research inspired by controversial events has a long history in social psychology. For example, the murder in 1964 of Kitty Genovese, stabbed to death in Queens while 38 witnesses disregarded her cries, gave rise to many studies of behavior by bystanders.
Dr. Park said police officers might be less likely than the studies' subjects to show unconscious bias, because of their training. But it may also be true, she added, that police officers are no less vulnerable than the population at large.
Dr. Anthony G. Greenwald, a professor of psychology at the University of Washington, and two colleagues will publish findings next year in The Journal of Experimental Social Psychology that confirm and extend the findings of Dr. Park and her colleagues.
In that study, college students took the role of police officers in a virtual reality game in which armed or unarmed men emerged from behind a trash bin. The students were told that some of the men were "criminals," that others were fellow officers and that still others were "citizens." They were instructed to shoot the armed criminals, to press a button to "save" the officers and to do nothing when they saw citizens, who held harmless objects like flashlights or beer bottles. The study imposed a strict time limit.
As in the Colorado study, the subjects were more likely to shoot black men incorrectly than white men and less likely to distinguish guns from other objects when held by blacks rather than whites.
Numerous studies over the last 30 years have found that in ambiguous situations, blacks are more likely to be perceived as violent than whites performing the same actions. In one study, the subjects saw two men engaged in a discussion in the course of which one man lightly pushed the other's shoulder. When a black man pushed a white man, the action was described by the subjects as violent. When the situation was reversed, the push was perceived as "playing."
Dr. Greenwald and Dr. Park said their findings did not necessarily reflect conscious prejudice.
