Amadou Diallo Essay Example for Free

Amadou Diallo EssaySocial cognition is the study of how people form attribution or judgments about themselves and the social world from the social information they received from their environment (Chapter Review, 2010). However, it was discovered often marked by apparent errors and biases. People make restless judgment based on their past experiences, wherefore at times leading to tragic endings. The Amadou Diallo case study was an example of the tragic error which was do by quad New York City Police officers.The patrol guess of an un fortify man was an act of automatic inferences which happens when people habit mental shortcuts to change the amount of information they receive from the environment. Automatic thinking is kn bear as the thinking that is unconscious, unintentional, involuntary and effortless (Taylor, Peplau, Sears, 2006). While, schemas are mental structure people call to arrange their information regarding the social world around themes or subjects sche mas affect what information we nonice, think about, and remember (Chapter Review, 2010).During the incident February 4, 1999, Carroll had make a low-effort automatic thinking with schemas when Diallo reached into his jacket to get his handbag by assuming that Diallo was reaching for a gun in his pocket, and shouted Gun to alert his colleagues. constabularyman Carrolls reach was due to his natural instinct or response as most criminal would reach into their pocket for gun during the detection of constabulary officers. He had use schemas to form an expectation of the event in which made him to expect a gun pulling out of Diallos jacket rather than his wallet.As he attends to his schema-consistent knowledge criminals would pull out guns from their jacket when they spotted police officers his schemas filtered out any inconsistent information Diallo reached in his jacket to get his wallet had caused the NYPD officers to harass at Diallo. Besides that, there are similarly a few th eories or concept under automatic thinking with schemas that had shown relevance to the Amadou Diallo case study, such as, accessibility. Accessibility is the stand-in with which schemas can be brought to ones mind (Taylor, Peplau, Sears, 2006).The four police officers had practiced accessibility when they saw Diallo ran up the outside go toward his apartment house doorway at their approach, ignoring their orders to stop and show his hands. When they saw Diallo ran after they claimed to possess identified themselves as NYPD officers, they might attain that Diallo was the ordered raper they were searching for, as logically a serial rapist or a criminal would ran when approached by police officers to avoid getting caught.The ease of the purpose that criminals would run when they spotted police officers, had made the four police officers to identified Diallo as a criminal, although that was not the truth in Diallos case. As a result, a firestorm had unfortunately occurred. Fur thermore, the four police officers had practice priming in this case study. Priming is the process which related to recent experience that made schemas or concept to come to ones mind more readily (Taylor, Peplau, Sears, 2006).For example, when Officer MeMellon fell down the steps, appearing to be spot, the other third officers might assume that Di accord had fire a gunshot towards Officer McMellon hence causing him to fell down those steps because they had linked it to their recent experiences of gunshot and feeling that Officer McMellon had been spot and that Diallo had shot him with his gun. As one would logically fall back when shot. Perseverance aftermath was overly shown in this case study.Perseverance effect is known as the tendency for peoples beliefs about themselves and their world to persist even when those beliefs are discredited (Taylor, Peplau, Sears, 2006). When the four NYDP officers thought Diallo matched the description of a (since-captured) serial rapist, it might be due to the fact that Amadou Diallo was an immigrant to the United States and the four police officers could have the belief that immigrants are the major causal crime increment in the Unites States.Hence resulting the police officers to think the worse out of Diallo when he ran and even though he was reaching into his jacket to get his wallet, the police officers had persisted that the red-blooded object had been of a firearm although in logical terms both wallet and gun do not share the same shape and size. On the other hand, people also tend to use mental strategies and shortcuts to organize and make sense of their social world, especially when they are lack of full affect time, lack of solid information to use for decision devising, information overload, or when the issues are not important to them (Taylor, Peplau, Sears, 2006).Mental strategies and shortcuts help people to make decisions easier and allow them to get on with their lives and not turn every decision into a major hurdle. Four NYDP officers had practise judgmental heuristics when they made judgments about Diallo. Police officers thought Diallo had matched the description of a (since-captured) serial rapist. This might be because that Diallo was a dark skin immigrant which had logically matched the description of the serial rapist leading officers to made a quick decision so that they do not need analyse in detailed and make a major hold-up over the matter.Furthermore, the four police officers also did performed availability heuristic in this case. Availability heuristic is a mental rule of thumb whereby people base a judgment on the ease with which they can bring something to their mind (Taylor, Peplau, Sears, 2006). During the incident, Diallo had been mistaken that he was reaching into his jacket to get his firearm whereas he was actually reaching to get his wallet. Officer Carroll had shouted Gun to his colleagues.His judgment might be due to his ease with which he can brin g to his mind, which in this case, was automatically thinking that Diallos wallet was a gun, hence warned his colleagues about the matter. Attitude heuristic is the determination of what is true based upon an individuals feelings towards or for a matter (Taylor, Peplau, Sears, 2006). The four police officers also had carried out attitude heuristic towards Amadou Diallo. For example, these police officers might dislike Diallo because he was an immigrant or black individual therefore assuming that Diallos intention, plan, or doings would also be bad too.This caused Diallo to be misinterpreted to be a criminal trying to escape from police detention rather than his true intention, which was believed to initially intend to show the NYPD officers his identification card in his wallet before he wrongly shot. Besides theories and concept of automatic thinking with schemas, the Amadou Diallo case had also displayed a few relevant theories of social perception. During the incident, the four police officers had displayed the attribution theory. Attribution theory is a description of the way which people explain the causes of their own and other peoples behavior (Taylor, Peplau, Sears, 2006).It is because that Diallo had run up the outside steps of his apartment after they claimed to identified themselves as NYPD officers, and that he had reached into his jacket, the police officers have made a cause and effect explanation towards Diallos behavior hence assuming that he was a criminal or the serial rapist they were searching for, therefore Diallo had run up in the attempt to escape and when he reached into his jacket for his wallet, they thought that he was reaching for his gun to defend himself. repayable to this theory, it made sense of he reason four police officers have assumed that Diallo was a criminal and they had to fire back Diallo. All this might be due to the attachment of meaning they decode from Diallos nonverbal behavior. In addition, the fundamental att ribution error was also shown in the incident when the four police officers have focus on Diallos action to run and reached into his jacket, rather than the situation causes of his action, which was intending to reached into his jacket to get his wallet to show the police officers that he was innocent when he was approached by the police officers and asked to show his hands.Fundamental attribution error is known as the tendency to overappraisal the extent to which a persons behavior is due to internal, dispositional factors and to underestimate the role of situational factors, one reason people make fundamental attribution error is because the observer only retch their attention on the actor, while ignoring the situational causes of the actors behavior (Taylor, Peplau, Sears, 2006). Furthermore, Diallo had also displayed the spotlight effect in this case study.The spotlight effect is the tendency to overestimate the extent to which our actions and appearance are salient or clear t o others (Taylor, Peplau, Sears, 2006). When Diallo had reached into his jacket to get his wallet, he might had assumed that the NYPD officers know or understand what he was doing, which in his case, was the probability to take out his wallet and show them he was not the criminal or man they were searching for. However, the four police officers were not aware of his action hence assumed that he has a gun, hence fired at Diallo.Moreover, police officers had also displayed the intrusion objects as cues concept during the shooting event. Aggression objects as cue is an aggressive foreplay that act as an object that is associated with aggressive response, and whose mere presence can increase the probability of aggression (Taylor, Peplau, Sears, 2006). The aggressive stimulus in this Diallo case is the guns that the police officers possessed. When the police officers had encountered a threatening or violent stimulus, they were more likely to shoot regardless of what stimulus actually appeared (Baumann Desteno, 2010).Due to the possession of firearms, the four police officers had the higher possibilities to response aggressively towards Diallo, hence the gun act as the object that associated with their aggressive response. Without the firearms that the four police officers possessed, the act of aggression towards Diallo would decrease therefore the firestorm would not have happened. According to Correll et al. (2002), it was found that participants performance shown difference regarding race of the targeted person.When a decision making process was time limited, participants had made more errors shooting unarmed African American targets than unarmed White targets. Whereas, participants had made more errors not shooting armed White targets than armed African American targets. In other words, participants were more likely made errors evaluating African American targets as threatening compared to White targets. This federal agency that because Diallo was a black immigrant, it increases his rate of being shot.This is an act of stereotype as because Diallo was a black immigrant, they assumed that he might be a criminal, hence the police officers thereby increasing the likelihoods for certain interpretations and ensuing actions during the crucial moment, resulting them to mistaken Diallos wallet as a gun, hence shot him. In other words, it is like the Arabs possess guns, resulting in more frequent mistaken shootings of Arab men within the context of the shooter bias paradigm (Unkelbach, Forgas, Denson, 2008).There are also group prejudices that had been displayed in the Amadou Diallo case study. The four police officers had shown prejudice against Diallo because he was a dark-skin immigrant, hence they have ordered him to stop and show his hands without overconfident whether he was the serial rapist they were searching for. Seeing the suspect holding a small square object, Officer Carroll yelled Gun to alert his colleagues, believe that D iallo had aimed a gun at them at close range, the officers opened fire on Diallo. Diallo was a westerly African immigrant with no criminal record (Cooper, 1999).It was all the way shown the act of prejudice towards Diallo, whom was misunderstood or misinterpreted just because of his race. Furthermore, discrimination was shown in the Amadou Diallo case when the four NYPD officers had opened fire to shoot Diallo without proper investigation on his identity and the square object that he was holding during the incident. The action carried out by the four police officers was unjustified and harmful towards Diallo because he was a westmost American immigrant in the United States. Finally, illusory correlation was also shown in the Amadou Diallo case.An illusory correlation is the tendency to see relationships, or correlations, between events that are actually unrelated (Taylor, Peplau, Sears, 2006). When Diallo ran up the outside steps of his apartment and pulled out his wallet, the p olice officers had correlated his action to a criminals doing hence leading them to assume that he was a criminal ready to open fire at them in short range. These two events are distinctive and hardly correlated. Because Diallo was a West African immigrant, therefore the police officers correlated the two events together, causing Diallo his innocent life.