The Influence of Pre-video Information and Appraisal Time on Judgments of Police Officer Use of Excessive Force.

Confrontations between police officers and civilians are sometimes videoed and made available to the public. In two experiments, we examined emotional regulation of such videos. Participants viewed a video of a confrontation between a police officer and a civilian and were asked if the officer used excessive force. In experiment 1, we investigated whether the information provided to participants prior to watching a police officer-civilian confrontation video (pre-video information: yes, no) might create a context that would allow them to regulate their emotional responses to the video. Additionally, we examined how that context might affect their judgments of excessive force used by the officer in the video. Results of experiment 1 showed that pre-video warnings influenced excessive force judgments. Results also showed that excessive force judgments were related to the amount of time it took participants to make the excessive force judgments: participants took less time to make a "yes" than a "no" excessive force judgment. In experiment 2, we investigated both the influence of pre-video information and appraisal time on excessive force judgments: participants in different groups were required to withhold their excessive force judgments for different periods of time (appraisal times 0 s, 3 s, 8 s, 13 s). Results of experiment 2 revealed an interaction between pre-video information and appraisal time on excessive force judgments. Excessive force judgments decreased with appraisal time but only when participants were given pre-video information. We think our results have implications for how people may process police officer-civilian confrontation videos when viewing them on the news. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]