On the Role of Police Shootings,Recognition of Systemic Racism,and Empathy on White Americans’ Support for Police Reform

Abstract

The police kill Black Americans at disproportionate rates. Despite this, White Americans remain mixed on support for policing-related policy reform. We examined whether bearing witness to police violence leads to support for policy reforms. Across three studies (N = 943), White participants either viewed a news video about an unarmed Black man killed at the hands of police or in a car accident due to a collision with another driver. Participants lower but not higher in symbolic racism reported more empathy after viewing a police shooting (vs. car accident) news video (Studies 1–3). Empathy predicted policing-related policy reform support (Studies 1–3) and mediated the relationship between condition and policy reform support (Studies 1 and 3), among those lower in symbolic racism (Studies 1–2). Results suggest that empathy for Black victims of police violence predicts policy support but only among those who recognize that such violence is systemic in nature.

Keywords

intergroup empathy violence systemic racism racism

Get full access to this article

View all access options for this article.

References

Alabama Public Radio. (2013, April 25). How the media covered the civil rights movement: The children’s march [Radio broadcast]. https://www.apr.org/arts-life/2013-04-25/how-the-media-covered-the-civil-rights-movement-the-childrens-march

Allen

(2020). On being woke and knowing injustice: Scale development and psychological and political implications [Doctoral dissertations]. https://opencommons.uconn.edu/dissertations/2607

Antony

M. G.

Thomas

R. J.

(2010). “This is citizen journalism at its finest”: YouTube and the public sphere in the Oscar Grant shooting incident. New Media & Society, 12(8), 1280–1296. https://doi.org/10.1177/1461444810362492

Azevedo

R. T.

Macaluso

Avenanti

Santangelo

Cazzato

Aglioti

S. M.

(2013). Their pain is not our pain: Brain and autonomic correlates of empathic resonance with the pain of same and different race individuals. Human Brain Mapping, 34(12), 3168–3181. https://doi.org/10.1002/hbm.22133

Batson

C. D.

Polycarpou

M. P.

Harmon-Jones

Imhoff

H. J.

Mitchener

E. C.

Bednar

L. L.

Klein

T. R.

Highberger

(1997). Empathy and attitudes: Can feeling for a member of a stigmatized group improve feelings toward the group? Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 72(1), 105–118. https://doi.org/10.1037/0022-3514.72.1.105

Bonam

C. M.

Nair Das

Coleman

B. R.

Salter

(2019). Ignoring history, denying racism: Mounting evidence for the Marley hypothesis and epistemologies of ignorance. Social Psychological and Personality Science, 10(2), 257–265. https://doi.org/10.1177/1948550617751583

Braveman

P. A.

Arkin

Proctor

Kauh

Holm

(2022). Systemic and structural racism: Definitions, examples, health damages, and approaches to dismantling. Health Affairs, 41(2), 171–178. https://doi.org/10.1377/hlthaff.2021.01394

Carter

J. S.

Corra

Jenks

D. A.

(2016). In the shadows of Ferguson: The role of racial resentment on white attitudes towards the use of force by police in the United States. International Journal of Criminal Justice Sciences, 11(2), 114–131.

Chao

C.-L.

Wei

Spanierman

Longo

Northart

(2015). White racial attitudes and White empathy: The moderation of openness to diversity. The Counseling Psychologist, 43(1), 94–120. https://doi.org/10.1177/0011000014546871

10.

Cooley

Brown-Iannuzzi

Cottrell

(2019). Liberals perceive more racism than conservatives when police shoot Black men—But, reading about White privilege increases perceived racism, and shifts attributions of guilt, regardless of political ideology. Journal of Experimental Social Psychology, 85, 103885. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jesp.2019.103885

11.

Crabtree

(2020, July 22). Most Americans say policing needs “major changes.” Gallup. https://news.gallup.com/poll/315962/americans-say-policing-needs-major-changes.aspx

12.

Crowston

(2012). Amazon Mechanical Turk: A research tool for organizations and information systems scholars. In Bhattacherjee

Fitzgerald

(Eds.), Shaping the future of ICT research. Methods and approaches. IFIP Advances in information and communication technology (Vo. 389, pp. 210–221). Springer. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-642-35142-6_14

13.

Culhane

S. E.

Boman

J. H.

Schweitzer

(2016). Public perceptions of the justifiability of police shootings: The role of body cameras in a pre- and post-Ferguson experiment. Police Quarterly, 19(3), 251–274. https://doi.org/10.1177/1098611116651403

14.

Davis

M. H.

(1980). A multidimensional approach to individual differences in empathy. JSAS Catalog of Selected Documents in Psychology, 44(1), 113–126. https://doi.org/10.1037/0022-3514.44.1.113

15.

Davis

M. H.

(1994). Empathy. A social psychological approach. Brown and Benchmark.

16.

Decety

Lamm

(2009). Empathy versus personal distress: Recent evidence from social neuroscience. In Decety

Ickes

(Eds.), The social neuroscience of empathy (199–213). MIT Press. https://doi.org/10.7551/mitpress/9780262012973.003.0016

17.

Diemer

M. A.

Rapa

L. J.

Voight

A. M.

McWhirter

E. H.

(2016). Critical consciousness: A developmental approach to addressing marginalization and oppression. Child Development Perspectives, 10(4), 216–221. https://doi.org/10.1111/cdep.12193

18.

Ding

(2016). Association between empathy and prosocial behavior: A systematic review and meta-analysis. Advances in Psychological Science, 24(8), 1159–1174. https://doi.org/10.3724/SP.J.1042.2016.01159

19.

Edwards

E. R.

Mottarella

K. E.

(2014). Preserving the right to a fair trial: An examination of prejudicial value of visual and auditory evidence. North American Journal of Psychology, 16, 397–414.

20.

Fabi

Weber

L. A.

Leuthold

(2019). Empathic concern and personal distress depend on situational but not dispositional factors. PLOS ONE, 14(11), Article e0225102. https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0225102

21.

Faul

Erdfelder

Buchner

Lang

A.-G.

(2009). Statistical power analyses using G*Power 3.1: Tests for correlation and regression analyses. Behavior Research Methods, 41, 1149–1160.

22.

Feagin

(2006). Systemic racism. In Feagin

(Ed.), Systemic racism: A theory of oppression (pp. 295–324). Taylor & Francis Group.

23.

Finlay

K. A.

Stephan

W. G.

(2000). Improving intergroup relations: The effects of empathy on racial attitudes. Journal of Applied Social Psychology, 30(8), 1720–1737. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1559-1816.2000.tb02464.x

24.

Fishfader

V. L.

Howells

G. N.

Katz

R. C.

Teresi

P. S.

(1996). Evidential and extralegal factors in juror decisions: Presentation mode, retention, and level of emotionality. Law and Human Behavior, 20, 565–572. https://doi.org/10.1007/BF01499042

25.

Forgiarini

Gallucci

Maravita

(2011). Racism and the empathy for pain on our skin. Frontiers in Psychology, 2, Article 108. https://doi.org/10.3389/fpsyg.2011.00108

26.

Fourie

M. M.

Subramoney

Gobodo-Madikizela

(2017). A less attractive feature of empathy: Intergroup empathy bias. In Kondo

(Ed.), Empathy: An evidence based interdisciplinary perspective (pp. 45–61). INTECH.

27.

Freire

(1971). Pedagogy of the oppressed. Seabury Press.

28.

Green

E. G.

Staerklé

Sears

D. O.

(2006). Symbolic racism and Whites’ attitudes towards punitive and preventive crime policies. Law and Human Behavior, 30(4), 435–454. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10979-006-9020-5

29.

Gutsell

J. N.

Inzlicht

(2010). Empathy constrained: Prejudice predicts reduced mental simulation of actions during observation of outgroups. Journal of Experimental Social Psychology, 46(5), 841–845. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jesp.2010.03.011

30.

Hasson

Tamir

Brahms

K. S.

Cohrs

J. C.

Halperin

(2018). Are liberals and conservatives equally motivated to feel empathy toward others? Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin, 44(10), 1449–1459. https://doi.org/10.1177/0146167218769867

31.

Hayes

A. F.

(2013). Introduction to mediation, moderation, and conditional process analysis: A regression-based approach. Guilford Press.

32.

Hein

Silani

Preuschoff

Batson

C. D.

Singer

(2010). Neural responses to ingroup and outgroup members’ suffering predict individual differences in costly helping. Neuron, 68(1), 149–160. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.neuron.2010.09.003

33.

Henry

P. J.

Sears

(2002). The symbolic racism 2000 scale. Political Psychology, 23(2), 253–283. https://doi.org/10.1111/0162-895X.00281

34.

Hothorn

Bretz

Westfall

(2008). Simultaneous inference in general parametric models. Biometrical Journal, 50(3), 346. https://doi.org/10.1002/bimj.200810425

35.

Inzlicht

Gutsell

J. N.

Legault

(2012). Mimicry reduces racial prejudice. Journal of Experimental Social Psychology, 48(1), 361–365. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jesp.2011.06.007

36.

Johnson

(2007). Martin Luther King Jr.’s 1963 Birmingham Campaign as Image Event. Rhetoric and Public Affairs, 10(1), 1–25.https://doi.org/10.1353/rap.2007.0023.

37.

Jenkins

Mathur

Muyskens

Nakhlawi

Rich

Tran

A. B.

(2022, December 5). Fatal force. The Washington Post. https://www.washingtonpost.com/graphics/investigations/police-shootings-database/

38.

Johnson

Lecci

(2020). How caring is “nullified”: Strong racial identity eliminates White participant empathy effects when police shoot an unarmed Black male. Psychology of Violence, 10(1), 58–67. https://doi.org/10.1037/vio0000228

39.

Kam

C. D.

Burge

C. D.

(2018). Uncovering reactions to the racial resentment scale across the racial divide. The Journal of Politics, 80(1), 314–320. https://doi.org/10.1086/693907

40.

Kohut

(2020, January 16). From the archives: 50 years ago: Mixed views about civil rights but support for Selma demonstrators. Pew Research Center. https://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2020/01/16/50-years-ago-mixed-views-about-civil-rights-but-support-for-selma-demonstrators/

41.

Lebowitz

M. S.

Dovidio

J. F.

(2015). Implications of emotion regulation strategies for empathic concern, social attitudes, and helping behavior. Emotion, 15(2), 187–194. https://doi.org/10.1037/a0038820

42.

Lenth

(2020). emmeans: Estimated marginal means, aka least-squares means (R Package Version 1.5.0). https://CRAN.R-project.org/package=emmeans

43.

Levin

M. E.

Luoma

J. B.

Vilardaga

Lillis

Nobles

Hayes

S. C.

(2016). Examining the role of psychological inflexibility, perspective taking, and empathic concern in generalized prejudice. Journal of Applied Social Psychology, 46(3), 180–191. https://doi.org/10.1111/jasp.12355

44.

Light

Thomas

J. E.

(2022, February 26). How Trayvon Martin’s killing ushered in a new era of vigilante violence. Slate. https://slate.com/news-and-politics/2022/02/black-lives-matter-trayvon-martin-and-the-rise-of-vigilante-violence.html

45.

Martín

M. E.

De la Fuente Sánchez

M. L.

Fuente

García

(2007). The influence of sample type, presentation format and strength of evidence on juror simulation research. Psychology Crime & Law, 13, 139–153. https://doi.org/10.1080/10683160500537431

46.

Matsueda

R. L.

Drakulich

(2009). Perceptions of criminal injustice, symbolic racism, and racial politics. Annals of the American Academy of Political and Social Science, 623(1), 163–178. https://doi.org/10.1177/0002716208330500

47.

McDowell

M. G.

Fernandez

L. A.

(2018). “Disband, disempower, and disarm”: Amplifying the theory and practice of police abolition. Critical Criminology, 26, 373–391. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10612-018-9400-4

48.

McGowen

E. B.

Wylie

K. N.

(2020). Racialized differences in perceptions of and emotional responses to police killings of unarmed African Americans. Politics, Groups, and Identities, 8(2), 396–406. https://doi.org/10.1080/21565503.2020.1757805

49.

McKesson

Sinyangwe

Elzie

Packnett

(2016). Police use of force policy analysis. Campaign Zero. https://static1.squarespace.com/static/56996151cbced68b170389f4/t/57e1b5cc2994ca4ac1d97700/1474409936835/Police+Use+of+Force+Report.pdf

50.

Mekawi

Bresin

Hunter

C. D.

(2016). White fear, dehumanization, and low empathy: Lethal combinations for shooting biases. Cultural Diversity and Ethnic Minority Psychology, 22(3), 322–332. https://doi.org/10.1037/cdp0000067

51.

Nelson

J. C.

Adams

Salter

P. S.

(2013). The marley hypothesis: Denial of racism reflects ignorance of history. Psychological Science, 24(2), 213–218. https://doi.org/10.1177/0956797612451466

52.

Rabinowitz

J. L.

Sears

D. O.

Sidanius

Krosnick

J. A.

(2009). Why do White Americans oppose race-targeted policies? Clarifying the impact of symbolic racism. Political Psychology, 30(5), 805–828. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1467-9221.2009.00726.x

53.

Rapa

L. J.

Bolding

C. W.

Jamil

F. M.

(2020). Development and initial validation of the short Critical Consciousness Scale (CCS-S). Journal of Applied Developmental Psychology, 70, Article 101164. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.appdev.2020.101164

54.

Reinka

M. A.

Leach

C. W.

(2017). Race and reaction: Divergent views of police violence and protest against. Journal of Social Issues, 73(4), 768–788. https://doi.org/10.1111/josi.12247

55.

Romano

(2020, October). A history of “woke-ness.” Vox. https://www.vox.com/culture/21437879/stay-woke-wokeness-history-origin-evolution-controversy.

56.

Sears

D. O.

Henry

P. J.

(2003). The origins of symbolic racism. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 85(2), 259–275. https://doi.org/10.1037/0022-3514.85.2.259

57.

Sears

D. O.

Henry

P. J.

(2005). Over thirty years later: A contemporary look at symbolic racism. In Zanna

M. P.

(Ed.), Advances in experimental social psychology (Vol. 37, pp. 95–150). Elsevier Academic Press. https://doi.org/10.1016/S0065-2601(05)37002-X

58.

Selvanathan

H. P.

Techakesari

Tropp

Barlow

(2017). Whites for racial justice: How contact with Black Americans predicts support for collective action among White Americans. Group Processes & Intergroup Relations, 21(6), 893–912. https://doi.org/10.1177/1368430217690908

59.

Spanierman

L. B.

Heppner

M. J.

(2004). Psychosocial Costs of Racism to Whites Scale (PCRW): Construction and initial validation. Journal of Counseling Psychology, 51(2), 249–262. https://doi.org/10.1037/0022-0167.51.2.249

60.

Stephan

W. G.

Finlay

(1999). The role of empathy in improving intergroup relations. Journal of Social Issues, 55(4), 729–743. https://doi.org/10.1111/0022-4537.00144

61.

Taylor

(2021, November 5). George Floyd protests: A timeline. The New York Times. https://www.nytimes.com/article/george-floyd-protests-timeline.html?searchResultPosition=16

62.

Tettegah

S. Y.

(2016). The good, the bad, and the ugly: Color-blind racial ideology and lack of empathy. In The myth of racial color blindness: Manifestations, dynamics, and impact (pp. 175–190). https://doi.org/10.1037/14754-011

63.

Thomas

E. F.

McGarty

Mavor

K. I.

(2009). Transforming “apathy into movement”: The role of prosocial emotions in motivating action for social change. Personality and Social Psychology Review, 13(4), 310–333. https://doi.org/10.1177/1088868309343290

64.

Venables

W. N.

Ripley

B. D.

(2002). Modern applied statistics with S (4th ed.). Springer.

65.

Weitzer

(2002). Incidents of police misconduct and public opinion. Journal of Criminal Justice, 30, 397–408. https://doi.org/10.1016/S0047-2352(02)00150-2

66.

Williams

S. N.

Clarke

A. V.

(2019). How the desensitization of police violence, stereotyped language, and racial bias impact Black communities. Psychology and Cognitive Sciences Open Journal, 5(2), 62–67. https://doi.org/10.17140/PCSOJ-5-151

Supplementary Material

Please find the following supplemental material available below.

For Open Access articles published under a Creative Commons License, all supplemental material carries the same license as the article it is associated with.

For non-Open Access articles published, all supplemental material carries a non-exclusive license, and permission requests for re-use of supplemental material or any part of supplemental material shall be sent directly to the copyright owner as specified in the copyright notice associated with the article.

0.00 MB

2.59 MB