Objective: Despite growing national and international attention given to White police officers’ shooting unarmed Black men, there has been minimal empirical focus on the factors that might influence how Whites respond to such violence. Among a sample of White Americans, we assessed whether the influence of trait empathy on responses to a White police officer shooting an unarmed Black male would be moderated by White racial identity. Method: 349 MTurk participants completed measures of racial identity and trait empathy, then read a passage describing a White police officer shooting an unarmed stereotypical or counterstereotypical Black male. The victim's conformity to racial stereotypes was manipulated as a potential moderator. Participants subsequently indicated whether the Black victim was perceived as a threat, whether the White police officer was viewed as racist, and the extent to which the victim should be blamed and compensated. Results: At lower levels of White racial identity, there was less perceived victim threat, greater perceptions of officer racism, and more favorable victim responding for high empathic relative to low empathic participants. Conversely, at higher levels of racial identity, the impact of empathy was significantly diminished. This moderation effect only occurred when the victim conformed to common racial stereotypes. Conclusions: The findings indicate that the empathy and racial identification of White observers, and Black victim characteristics drive reactions to both the victim and White police officer. Thus, these variables have implications for jury selection, investigations of police misconduct, and even how the media portrays victims of interracial violence.

中文翻译：

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如何“消除”关怀：当警察开枪射击没有武装的黑人男性时，强大的种族认同消除了白人参与者的同理心。

目标：尽管国内外越来越重视白人警察开枪射击未武装的黑人，但经验上很少关注可能影响白人如何应对此类暴力的因素。在美国白人样本中，我们评估了特质共情对白人警察开枪打死未武装的黑人男性的反应是否会受到白人种族身份的影响。方法：349名MTurk参与者完成了对种族认同和特质共鸣的测量，然后阅读了一段描述白人警察枪杀手无寸铁的刻板印象或反刻板印象的黑人男性的文章。受害人对种族刻板印象的服从被操纵为潜在的主持人。随后，参与者指出了黑人受害者是否被视为威胁，白人警察是否被视为种族主义者，应在多大程度上责怪和赔偿受害者。结果：在较低的白人种族认同水平下，相对于低共情参与者，人们对受害者的威胁感知更少，对官员种族主义的认识更高，对高共情者的反应更有利。相反，在较高的种族认同度下，同理心的影响大大降低。这种适度的影响只有在受害者遵循共同的种族刻板印象时才会发生。结论：研究结果表明，白人观察员的同情和种族认同，以及黑人受害者的特征推动了对受害者和白人警察的反应。因此，这些变量对陪审团的选择，对警察不当行为的调查，