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Pulling away from the trigger: the influences of purpose in life and self-affirmation on decisions to shoot
Kayla A Burd1, Anthony L Burrow2, Max Guyll3
1Department of Psychology, University of Wyoming, Laramie, WY, United States.
Introduction:
Recent data suggests significant racial disparities in police killings in the United States: Much research finds that Black men are killed by police officers at higher rates than White men, and many individuals killed by police have been unarmed.
Method:
Toward addressing psychological mechanisms at play in these complicated decision contexts, the current study tested the effectiveness of two writing tasks at reducing the unjustified shooting of unarmed targets using a virtual shooting-decision platform. Participants wrote either about their sense of purpose, self-affirming values, or a control topic and then played a first-person shooter video game, which randomly presented pictures of Black and White armed and unarmed targets. Participants were instructed not to shoot unarmed targets and to shoot armed targets.
Results:
Results indicated that relative to controls, writing about either purpose or self-affirming values reduced the probability of shooting unarmed targets, without negatively impacting shooting decision reaction time.
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