Shoot bias targets Black men but not Black women

Evidence

Further evidence in support of the Seventh Law-of-Law can be found in Plant, Goplen, and Kunstman’s (2011) deployment of the shoot/don’t shoot experimental paradigm. In this experimental setup, an image of a criminal suspect was paired with either a neutral object (e.g., cell phone, wallet) or a lethal object (e.g., gun). The decision to shoot or not to shoot the suspect was examined as a function of the suspect’s race and gender. The results showed that White participants displayed a bias toward shooting Black male targets, but no bias toward shooting Black female targets. Consistent with the TGP and the Seventh Law-of-Law, there was an interaction between arbitraryset membership and gender. Thus, while the arbitrary-set category of race appeared to be a powerful determinant of the decisions to shoot Black male targets, the arbitrary-set category of race appeared to be an irrelevant categorization with respect to Black female targets. — Joseph Avery, Jim Sidanius, Joel Cooper, Gregory Davis, Amanda N., Bias in the Law, 105

Categorization

• QUESTION: Worth chasing: does this sex-differentiated racial bias in shooting decisions replicate across other experimental paradigms and demographics of participants, or is it specific to this design?
• XREF: Connects to Correll’s earlier shoot/don’t-shoot literature and to the broader literature on who counts as ‘criminal’ by default.
• corroborated: 3 independent passages support this claim — Joseph Avery, Jim Sidanius, Joel Cooper, Gregory Davis, Amanda N., Bias in the Law: A Definitive Look at…, 105