Pulling away from the trigger: The influence of psychological
interventions on shooting decisions
Abigail Thompson, Anna Huang, Matthew Avila and Kayla Burd
Abstract
Individuals face both small and large threats to the self each day, attempting to cope with
these threats using a number of cognitive strategies, but at times may rely on defensive
mechanisms such as cognitive distortions (Sherman & Cohen, 2006). Two particular constructs
have the potential to promote well-being and to protect individuals from such threats: sense
of purpose in life and self-affirmation. Research suggests that implicit biases and perceptions
of threat can lead to inaccuracies in shooting decisions within high-stakes situations.
Specifically, participants disproportionately and mistakenly shoot unarmed African-American
men at higher rates than Caucasian men (e.g., Correll et al., 2002, 2006; Greenwald et al., 2003).
Furthermore, individuals are faster to shoot African-American targets than Caucasian targets
(e.g., Correll et al., 2002, 2006; Greenwald, Oakes, & Hoffman, 2003). The current study
examines the effects of self-affirmation and sense of purpose in life as cognitive interventions
aimed at improving shooting decision accuracy. Through a writing task, participants either
affirm the self, write about their purpose in life, or complete a control writing task.
Participants then participate in a first-person shooter video game, and are asked to shoot at
targets holding weapons and to not shoot unarmed targets. We hypothesize that participants
primed with either self-affirmation or sense of purpose in life will have increased shooting
decision accuracy compared to individuals in the control group.
Introduction
Claude Steele (1988) first popularized “self-affirmation” to explain
how one adapts and maintains the integrity of their self-concept
when faced with threatening information. More recently, studies
have shown that self-affirmation can reduce racial and ethnic biases
that often permeate the criminal justice system (Adams, Tormala, &
O’Brien, 2005), and reduce reactivity to threatening information
(Sherman & Cohen, 2002). The obvious applications self-affirmation
has on the criminal justice system could have a significant effect on
judgment and decision-making of law enforcement officers.
Moreover, previous research has shown that developing a sense of
purpose increases comfort with ethnic diversity (Burrow & Hill,
2014). The current study utilizes self-affirmation and sense of
purpose in life as interventions aimed at reducing explicit and
implicit racial biases in mock police officers, which may have an
effect on decision accuracy in shooting decisions.
Hypotheses
(H1) Priming participants with self-affirmation and sense of
purpose will result in more accurate shooting decisions
compared to the control group.
(H2) Although the number of overall shootings is not
expected to decrease, the shootings of white targets versus
minority targets are expected to be more equally
distributed.
(H3) We expect that self-affirmation will have a stronger
effect than sense of purpose because it has been shown to
reduce reactivity to race-related threats.
Department of Human Development, Cornell University
Methodology
Sample
Cornell undergraduate students (n= 45) recruited via SONA
Manipulations
Purpose Experimental Condition:
Participants will be asked to write for 10 minutes, thoroughly
answering three questions:
“What does it mean to have a sense of purpose in life?,”“What is
your purpose in life?,”and “Where did your purpose in life come
from?”
Self-Affirmation Conditions:
Participants will be asked to rank the following values in order of
importance, from least important (1) to most important (6):
Business, art-music-theater, social life-relationships, science-pursuit
of knowledge, religion-morality, government-politics.
Self-Affirmation Experimental Condition:
Participants will be asked to write for 10 minutes about their most
important value and why it was important/meaningful to them.
Self-Affirmation Control Condition:
Participants will be asked to write for 10 minutes about their least
important value and why it might be important/meaningful to
others.
Stimuli
• Participants will participate in a computer task.
• Targets will include photos of different male “suspects” who will
vary by ethnicity accompanied by either a weapon (gun) or a
non-weapon (e.g., cell phone, wallet)
• Participants will click one key to “shoot” and one key to “not
shoot” on the computer keyboard.
• Decision accuracy and reaction time will be measured.
Measures
PANAS-X, Moral Foundations Questionnaire, Colorblind Racial
Attitudes Scale, Internal and External Motivation Scale, and the Ryff
Scale of Psychological Well-Being.
Preliminary Results
● Participants had longer reaction time for harmless objects than guns
(~32ms, p<0.0001)
● Participants had longer reaction time for European Americans compared
to African Americans (estimate ~ -9.88, p = 0.0335)
● Participants had greater accuracy for guns than harmless objects (~0.06,
p<0.0001)
● There were no main effects for writing conditions
○ There was a significant interaction between writing condition and race
○ In the purpose condition, the difference in RT for African American vs.
European American targets was greater than in the control condition
when averaging across object type (~65.71ms, p<0.0001)
○ Accuracy was greater for black than white targets (~0.101, p=0.0007).
Discussion
● The aim of this research is to increase decision accuracy during
shooting scenarios.
● If these interventions are effective, they would require minimal time
and funding.
● Additional benefits may include the improvement of police officers’
overall well-being.
● Importantly, this could result in a decrease in the differential harming
of racial and ethnic minorities during police interactions.
References
● Adams, G., Tormala, T.T. & O’Brien, L.T. (2006). The effect of self-affirmation on perception of racism. Journal of
Experimental Social Psychology, 42, 616-626.
● Burrow, A.L. & Hill, P.L. Derailed by diversity? Purpose buffers the relationship between ethnic composition
on trains and passenger negative mood. Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin.
DOI: 10.1177/0146167213499377
● Correll, J., Park, B., Judd, C.M., Wittenbrink, B., Sadler, M.S. & Keesee, T. (2007). Across the thin blue line:
police officers and racial bias in the decision to shoot. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology 92, 1006-1023.
● Nelson, S.K., Fuller, J.A.K., Choi, I. & Lyubomirsky (2014). Beyond self-protection: self-affirmation benefits
hedonic and eudaimonic well-being. Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin, 40, 998-1011.
● McKnight, P.E. & Kashdan, T.B. (2009). Purpose in life as a system that creates and sustains health and
well-being: an integrative, testable theory. Review of General Psychology, 3, 242-251.
● Sherman, D.K. & Cohen, G.L. (2002). Accepting threatening information: self-affirmation and the reduction of
defensive biases. Current Directions in Psychological Science, 11, 119-123.
● Violanti, J.M. & Aron, F. (1993). Sources of police stressors, job attitudes, and psychological distress.
Psychological Reports, 72, 899-904.
Address correspondence to: Abigail Thompson, Matthew Avila,
Anna Huang, and Kayla Burd
att37@cornell.edu; ah665@cornell.edu; ma935@cornell.edu;
kab434@cornell.edu