Body camera video may be impartial, but people fall short even when they make a conscious effort to be fair. We have amassed unique life experiences that foster assumptions, motivations and ideologies which affect our perception of reality. Below are examples of two studies that illustrate this concept.
Selective perception
Researchers asked football fans from rival schools to watch video from a game between the two schools’ teams. The home team saw the rival team make twice as many rule infractions as the rival team saw.
The reactions of the two groups were shaped by their school loyalty, but are fans aware of this bias? Probably not. They weren’t likely thinking, “I’d better interpret that tackle as vicious or my school mates will reject me.”
Our influenced perceptions are our reality. We’re seldom aware of the impact of our biases.
In another study, two groups watched a video of political protests. One group was told the protestors were demonstrating against abortion rights. The other group was told the protestors were demonstrating against the military’s “Don’t ask, don’t tell” policy. The degree to which viewers perceived the protests to be obstructing, intimidating and threatening depended on whether the position the protestors represented to be taking was in accord or discord with the viewers’ own cultural outlooks.
“My perceptions are accurate”
Many of us think our perception is more objective than everyone else’s perception so we conclude anyone who disagrees with us is unreasonable. Researchers call this the illusion of objectivity. It’s an illusion even our Supreme Court experiences.
In Scott v. Harris (2007), the U.S. Supreme Court addressed a police officer’s use of deadly force against a high speed driver. Ruling in favor of the officer, the Supreme Court held “the video tape … speak[s] for itself” -- “no reasonable jury” could conclude the driver did not pose a deadly risk to the public.
Researchers subsequently showed the video to over a thousand members of the public and found a sizable minority disagreed with the Supreme Court’s assertions.
The bias blind spot
Researchers have also found that a bias blind spot compounds our illusion of objectivity. We generally think we are less biased than others. We also think our views are informed more by objective, rational factors and less by political ideology. This bias blind spot adds to our view that people who disagree with us are unreasonable, ignorant, incompetent or misinformed.
Our beliefs become self-fulfilling
The stronger our beliefs, the more they filter evidence to the contrary out and give evidence that support them more credence.
Participants in a study were presented with negative and positive scientific evidence about the deterrent effect of capital punishment. They selectively credited the evidence that confirmed their pre-existing belief and gave less or no credence to the contradictory evidence. And they doubled down on their beliefs – becoming more certain because science backed them up.
It isn’t a leap to think that body camera video, like scientific evidence, may actually deepen previously formed opinions, biases and polarization.
Body cameras are not a panacea
Maybe selective perception, bias blind spots, the illusion of objectivity and self-fulfilling beliefs explain why different news stations report the news so differently and how their viewers react to those reports.
Let me be clear, I’m not opposed to body cameras, in light of the fact that both police and citizens favor the transparency they add to police-citizen contacts. But body camera video won’t cleanse people of their life experiences or the subjective expectations, biases and perceptions their experiences engender.
Only police legitimacy will do that. Officers will have to be perceived as fair and impartial for their body camera video to be viewed similarly.
How can officers shape how people view body camera video?
There’s plenty of research that establishes people care more about how police treat them than the end result of the encounter. Officers who give citizens a chance to voice their views, who are respectful, who make decisions fairly and give explanations for their actions are seen as wielding more legitimate authority.
Of course, not every police-citizen encounter permits officers to explain their actions or let citizens voice their views. But many do. Deputy Sheriff Elton Simmons has had 25,000 such encounters.
As a wise Alaska DPS Academy Commander explained to me, it’s not if there’s going to be a UOF incident that gets a lot of scrutiny, it’s when. He tries to get recruits to see most police-citizen encounters as a chance to make a deposit or withdrawal toward the day they will be judged in a UOF incident.
Perhaps officers might also be well-served to examine their own beliefs, biases and opinions -- and how their work experiences might be inviting them at each police-citizen to double down on making a deposit or a withdrawal.
Note: For a lengthier, scholarly treatment of these concepts and others, and discussion of their implications for police body camera video, read Roseanne Sommers’ article on the topic.
