Summary
In the United States there is a negative bias towards Black targets compared to White targets in simulated shooting decisions. The opposite trend has been found in unpublished research within Canada, but this may be because the purpose of these studies was clear to participants and thus, they overcorrected for their Black biases. To determine if this issue explains the White shooting bias sometimes found in Canada, and to make simulated shooting research more realistic, this study presented targets with multiple racial groups in a simulated shooting task. More specifically, 89 undergraduate student participants were presented with armed or unarmed Black, White, Middle Eastern and Asian targets and were instructed to shoot all armed targets, but to refrain from shooting all unarmed targets (in a 630 ms response window). It was anticipated that participants would present a negative shooting bias towards Black and Middle Eastern targets based on previous research that has found these groups to be associated with danger stereotypes. The results of the study were mixed, but the clearest findings related to a positive bias toward Asian targets. For example, participants set the highest shooting criteria for Asian targets (i.e.,were reluctant to shoot) and made significantly more errors when Asian targets were armed (the opposite was found for all the other races). Interestingly, no strong pattern of relationships were found between an index of shooting bias for each of the races and explicit measures of racial stereotypes, in-group identification, and motivation to control prejudiced reactions. Limitations of this study are discussed along with lines of future research.