Understanding Why Interpersonal Interactions between Police Officers and Civilians Can Go Poorly

American society is raw with racial strife—racially charged incidents between the police and Black civilians have sparked massive protests over disparities in policing. This has led many to stereotype police officers as racists, and officers themselves are aware of this. The primary aim of this research was to explore how police officer emotion, cognition, and interpersonal behavior differ during routine encounters with Black versus White civilians. I also examined the phenomena of stereotype threat among police officers: officers’ fear of confirming or being perceived in a manner consistent with the “racist police officer” stereotype. This research was driven by a novel theoretical model of the various psychological constructs (stereotype threat activation, anxiety, self-regulation, cognitive depletion, empathy) and the pathways among them that might explain when and why police officers display negative interpersonal behavior during routine encounters with Black (vs. White) civilians. The study employed a new experimental paradigm involving a mixed-method approach that consisted of having police officer participants take the role of a police officer in a realistic first-person-perspective video induction depicting a routine traffic stop. Afterwards, police officers responded to a series of open- and closed-ended measures to assess the core paths of the model. Results did not support the theorized mediation model nor did officers’ responses differ significantly as a function of civilian race (with the exception of how similar they felt to the driver), perhaps reflecting a genuine effort on officers’ part to monitor their responses in an attempt to be fair and equitable in their policing. Results did, however, provide preliminary support for the theorized relations among stereotype threat activation, anxiety, self-regulation, and interpersonal behavior.