The impact of outcome knowledge, role, and quality of information on the perceived legitimacy of lethal force decisions in counter‐terrorism operations

Goodwill, Alasdair M.; Alison, Laurence; Lehmann, Robert; Francis, Ashley; Eyre, Marie

doi:10.1002/bsl.897

Cited by 6 publications

(5 citation statements)

References 35 publications

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“…However, the investigation of such incidents constitutes a major and high profile task both for police forces and external agencies such as the Independent Police Complaints Commissions (IPCC) established in the U.K. under the Police Reforms Act, 2002. Internationally, such investigations are typically high profile, attracting both public and media attention, and have serious consequences for the officers involved (Goodwill et al, 2010). Thus, the development of evidence-based policy and investigative practice is critical.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Memory and the operational witness: Police officer recall of firearms encounters as a function of active response role.

Hope¹,

Blocksidge²,

Gabbert³

et al. 2016

Law and Human Behavior

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Investigations after critical events often depend on accurate and detailed recall accounts from operational witnesses (e.g., law enforcement officers, military personnel, and emergency responders). However, the challenging, and often stressful, nature of such events, together with the cognitive demands imposed on operational witnesses as a function of their active role, may impair subsequent recall. We compared the recall performance of operational active witnesses with that of nonoperational observer witnesses for a challenging simulated scenario involving an armed perpetrator. Seventy-six police officers participated in pairs. In each pair, 1 officer (active witness) was armed and instructed to respond to the scenario as they would in an operational setting, while the other (observer witness) was instructed to simply observe the scenario. All officers then completed free reports and responded to closed questions. Active witnesses showed a pattern of heart rate activity consistent with an increased stress response during the event, and subsequently reported significantly fewer correct details about the critical phase of the scenario. The level of stress experienced during the scenario mediated the effect of officer role on memory performance. Across the sample, almost one-fifth of officers reported that the perpetrator had pointed a weapon at them although the weapon had remained in the waistband of the perpetrator’s trousers throughout the critical phase of the encounter. These findings highlight the need for investigator awareness of both the impact of operational involvement and stress-related effects on memory for ostensibly salient details, and reflect the importance of careful and ethical information elicitation techniques.

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Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Memory and the operational witness: Police officer recall of firearms encounters as a function of active response role.

Hope¹,

Blocksidge²,

Gabbert³

et al. 2016

Law and Human Behavior

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“…The result may be wariness to accept new initiatives on the chance that an unforeseen event will arise that will produce future (hindsight-driven) blame. More to the point, hindsight bias heightens punitiveness, as demonstrated in numerous studies on hindsight bias in legal decisions, such as those made by jurors (Casper, Benedict, & Perry, 1989; Eberwine, 2005; Goodwill et al, 2010; Harley, 2007; Hastie et al, 1999; Kamin & Rachlinski, 1995; LaBine & LaBine, 1996; Smith & Greene, 2005).…”

Section: Consequences Of Hindsight Biasmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Knowledge that is gathered later, such as from accident scene investigations, forensic tests, or the arbitrary discovery of an oddly misused product, is deemed irrelevant in evaluating the quality of the decisions made in the moment, that is, before a focal mishap occurred. As empirical studies have shown, however, hindsight bias routinely afflicts judgments of a defendant’s past conduct (e.g., Goodwill, Alison, Lehmann, Francis, & Eyre, 2010; Hastie, Schkade, & Payne, 1999; Kamin & Rachlinski, 1995; LaBine & LaBine, 1996; Smith & Greene, 2005; Stallard & Worthington, 1998). 3…”

mentioning

confidence: 99%

Hindsight Bias

Roese

Vohs

2012

Perspect Psychol Sci

392

278

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Hindsight bias occurs when people feel that they "knew it all along," that is, when they believe that an event is more predictable after it becomes known than it was before it became known. Hindsight bias embodies any combination of three aspects: memory distortion, beliefs about events' objective likelihoods, or subjective beliefs about one's own prediction abilities. Hindsight bias stems from (a) cognitive inputs (people selectively recall information consistent with what they now know to be true and engage in sensemaking to impose meaning on their own knowledge), (b) metacognitive inputs (the ease with which a past outcome is understood may be misattributed to its assumed prior likelihood), and (c) motivational inputs (people have a need to see the world as orderly and predictable and to avoid being blamed for problems). Consequences of hindsight bias include myopic attention to a single causal understanding of the past (to the neglect of other reasonable explanations) as well as general overconfidence in the certainty of one's judgments. New technologies for visualizing and understanding data sets may have the unintended consequence of heightening hindsight bias, but an intervention that encourages people to consider alternative causal explanations for a given outcome can reduce hindsight bias.

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“…For example, in some countries, particularly in the UK, the decision to shoot or take lethal force against a suspect must be evaluated by a police commission to determine the reasonableness of the action given the circumstances (in all jurisdictions of which we are aware, an investigation occurs if a reasonable question is raised about an officer’s decision to use force). These evaluations should only concern the circumstances in which the decision was made, rather than the outcome to the officer’s conduct or information about the victim discovered after the fact; however, these evaluations may be influenced by HB (Goodwill, Alison, Lehmann, Francis, & Eyre, 2010; Villejoubert, O’Keeffe, Alison, & Cole, 2006).…”

Section: Resultsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Hindsight Bias and Law

Giroux

Coburn

Harley

et al. 2016

Zeitschrift für Psychologie

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Abstract. Hindsight bias is the tendency to overestimate the foreseeability of an outcome once it is known. This bias has implications for decisions made within the legal system, ranging from judgments made during investigations to those in court proceedings. Legal decision makers should only consider what was known at the time an investigation was conducted or an offense was committed; however, they often review cases with full knowledge of a negative outcome, which can affect their judgments about what was knowable in the past. We conducted a systematic review of the literature on hindsight bias and law. We present five areas of law that hindsight bias affects (medical malpractice, forensic investigation, negligence, patent, criminal), two types of evidence that may lead to hindsight bias (visual and auditory evidence), and hindsight bias in experts and judges. Finally, we discuss strategies for reducing hindsight bias in legal decisions and recommend future research.

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The impact of outcome knowledge, role, and quality of information on the perceived legitimacy of lethal force decisions in counter‐terrorism operations

Cited by 6 publications

References 35 publications

Memory and the operational witness: Police officer recall of firearms encounters as a function of active response role.

Memory and the operational witness: Police officer recall of firearms encounters as a function of active response role.

Hindsight Bias

Hindsight Bias and Law

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