Sleep Deprivation and Racial Bias in the Decision to Shoot: A Diffusion Model Analysis. Issue 5 (July 2021)

• Record Type: Journal Article
• Authors: Johnson, David J.; Stepan, Michelle E.; Cesario, Joseph; Fenn, Kimberly M.
• Is Part Of: Social psychological & personality science. Volume 12:Issue 5(2021)
• Page Start: 638
• Page End: 647
• Publication Date: 2021-07
• Subjects: decision to shoot -- racial bias -- sleep deprivation -- caffeine -- diffusion decision model; Personality -- Periodicals; Social psychology -- Periodicals; Electronic journals; 155.2
• DOI: 10.1177/1948550620932723
• Languages: English
• ISSNs: 1948-5506

Abstract

The current study examines the effect of sleep deprivation and caffeine use on racial bias in the decision to shoot. Participants deprived of sleep for 24 hr (vs. rested participants) made more errors in a shooting task and were more likely to shoot unarmed targets. A diffusion decision model analysis revealed sleep deprivation decreased participants' ability to extract information from the stimuli, whereas caffeine impacted the threshold separation, reflecting decreased caution. Neither sleep deprivation nor caffeine moderated anti-Black racial bias in shooting decisions or at the process level. We discuss how our results clarify discrepancies in past work testing the impact of fatigue on racial bias in shooting decisions.