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.

诸如国土安全部“见识见识”之类的活动旨在增加公众对“恐怖主义相关行为”的报道。然而，鉴于先前的研究（公众认为这是恐怖分子），这些类型的程序很可能会受到贬义性自动联想的影响。考虑到这一点，我们询问：隐性偏见是否会影响可疑活动场景中的公共报告？通过使用虚拟现实技术的随机实验，我们发现了这种偏见的证据，这体现在参与者是否表示与中东男性在一起时会报警。我们得出结论，有效的反恐计划应包括一个宣传运动部分，详细说明恐怖主义在美国的真实面貌。