RT Article
T1 Implicit bias within public reporting: a virtual reality experiment examining “suspicious” activity
JF Crime & delinquency
VO 67
IS 12
SP 2135
OP 2162
A1 Carson, Jennifer V.
A2 Politte, Hailey
LA English
YR 2021
UL https://krimdok.uni-tuebingen.de/Record/1782122192
AB Campaigns like that of the Department of Homeland Security’s “See Something, Say Something” are intended to increase public reporting of “terrorism-related behaviors.” Yet given prior research on whom the general public considers to be a terrorist, it is likely these types of programs are instead affected by pejorative automatic associations. With this in mind, we inquire: Does implicit bias affect public reporting within a suspicious activity scenario? Through a randomized experiment using virtual reality technology, we find evidence of such bias, as manifested in whether participants indicated they would call the police when presented with a Middle Eastern male. We conclude effective counterterrorism programming should involve an awareness campaign component detailing what terrorism truly looks like in the United States.
K1 bystander intervention
K1 implicit bias
K1 Public reporting
K1 Terrorism
K1 Virtual Reality
DO 10.1177/0011128720981897