Timothy J Pleskac, Joseph Cesario, David J Johnson, Glen Gagnon
{"title":"Modeling police officers' deadly force decisions in an immersive shooting simulator.","authors":"Timothy J Pleskac, Joseph Cesario, David J Johnson, Glen Gagnon","doi":"10.1037/xap0000542","DOIUrl":null,"url":null,"abstract":"<p><p>We used an immersive shooting simulator to examine how race, suspect behavior, and policing scenario shape officers' deadly force decisions. Officers (<i>N</i> = 659) from the Milwaukee Police Department responded to dynamic video scenarios using realistic handgun responses. Mistaken shootings of unarmed Black suspects were more likely than of White suspects, but only when the suspects behaved nonantagonistically. Cognitive modeling showed this race effect arose not from an initial bias to shoot but from differences in evidence accumulation once the object was visible. Scenario and suspect behavior had the largest overall influence, shaping decisions by altering initial proclivity to shoot. Further analysis suggested that suspect behavior within specific scenarios may partially explain observed race effects. These findings provide a process-level account of deadly force decisions, integrating real-world complexity with psychological theory, and offer a framework for improving research and training around police use-of-force. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2025 APA, all rights reserved).</p>","PeriodicalId":48003,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Experimental Psychology-Applied","volume":" ","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":2.1000,"publicationDate":"2025-08-04","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":"0","resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":null,"PeriodicalName":"Journal of Experimental Psychology-Applied","FirstCategoryId":"102","ListUrlMain":"https://doi.org/10.1037/xap0000542","RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"心理学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":null,"EPubDate":"","PubModel":"","JCR":"Q2","JCRName":"PSYCHOLOGY, APPLIED","Score":null,"Total":0}
引用次数: 0
Abstract
We used an immersive shooting simulator to examine how race, suspect behavior, and policing scenario shape officers' deadly force decisions. Officers (N = 659) from the Milwaukee Police Department responded to dynamic video scenarios using realistic handgun responses. Mistaken shootings of unarmed Black suspects were more likely than of White suspects, but only when the suspects behaved nonantagonistically. Cognitive modeling showed this race effect arose not from an initial bias to shoot but from differences in evidence accumulation once the object was visible. Scenario and suspect behavior had the largest overall influence, shaping decisions by altering initial proclivity to shoot. Further analysis suggested that suspect behavior within specific scenarios may partially explain observed race effects. These findings provide a process-level account of deadly force decisions, integrating real-world complexity with psychological theory, and offer a framework for improving research and training around police use-of-force. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2025 APA, all rights reserved).
期刊介绍：
The mission of the Journal of Experimental Psychology: Applied® is to publish original empirical investigations in experimental psychology that bridge practically oriented problems and psychological theory. The journal also publishes research aimed at developing and testing of models of cognitive processing or behavior in applied situations, including laboratory and field settings. Occasionally, review articles are considered for publication if they contribute significantly to important topics within applied experimental psychology. Areas of interest include applications of perception, attention, memory, decision making, reasoning, information processing, problem solving, learning, and skill acquisition.
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