On the Role of Police Shootings, Recognition of Systemic Racism, and Empathy on White Americans’ Support for Police Reform-Reference-Cited by-同舟云学术

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

Published:2024-03-27 Issue: Volume: Page:
ISSN:0146-1672
Container-title:Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin
language:en
Short-container-title:Pers Soc Psychol Bull

Author:

Bart-Plange Diane-Jo¹^ORCID,Trawalter Sophie²^ORCID

Affiliation:

1. Princeton University, NJ, USA

2. University of Virginia, Charlottesville, USA

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.

Funder

UVA DoubleHoo

Publisher

SAGE Publications

Link

https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/pdf/10.1177/01461672241237286

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