{"id":2427,"date":"2014-11-29T01:28:00","date_gmt":"2014-11-29T01:28:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.lifeandnews.com\/articles\/?p=2427"},"modified":"2016-08-31T21:28:54","modified_gmt":"2016-08-31T21:28:54","slug":"timing-of-the-ferguson-case-may-have-made-the-riots-worse","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.lifeandnews.com\/articles\/timing-of-the-ferguson-case-may-have-made-the-riots-worse\/","title":{"rendered":"Timing of the Ferguson case may have made the riots worse"},"content":{"rendered":"

By Lisa A Williams<\/a><\/p>\n

The announcement Monday evening in the US that there would be no charges against a policeman over the shooting of a teenager is puzzling and already the target of critique<\/a>.<\/p>\n

It\u2019s not just the decision itself that\u2019s being questioned<\/a>, but the timing<\/a> of the announcement. Why in the evening, at 9pm local time? And did the darkness play any role in the rioting<\/a> in Ferguson<\/a>, Missouri, that followed the announcement?<\/p>\n

Racial tensions<\/h2>\n

Racially-charged violent protests stretched through the months following the August 2014 shooting of unarmed African-American teenager Michael Brown by white police officer Darren Wilson in Ferguson. In fact, at times a curfew<\/a> was put in place \u2013 protests were tolerated during the day, but banned at night.<\/p>\n

So why the decision for an evening announcement on the grand jury ruling not to indict the police officer over Michael Brown\u2019s death?<\/p>\n

Well before the jury\u2019s decision, a plan was apparently in place to give law enforcement 48 hours notice<\/a> \u2013 presumably to prepare. Peaceful protest group Don\u2019t Shoot Coalition<\/a> had requested<\/a> similar advance notice so that they could organise non-violent events.<\/p>\n

Any such plans appear to have been abandoned. The jury made their decision midday local time. So, why announce it at 9pm?<\/p>\n

The rationale, so it seems<\/a>, was to allow time for children to get home, for businesses to close and to alert the media to the announcement.<\/p>\n

It is unclear why the 48-hour delay wasn\u2019t adhered to \u2013 which would have resulted in the decision being announced in the light of day.<\/p>\n

The social psychology of darkness<\/h2>\n

It\u2019s no surprise, yet still deeply sad, that the nighttime announcement of the controversial decision led to violent behaviour. Social psychologists have long known how darkness can serve as a situational cue that quite literally can bring out the worst in us.<\/p>\n

Under the cloak of darkness, individuals tend to see themselves less as themselves \u2013 that is, deindividuated<\/a>. This deindividuated anonymity, in turn, has a host of consequences, including counter-normative<\/a> and antisocial<\/a> behaviour.<\/p>\n

Direct evidence exists regarding how darkness increases dishonesty<\/a>. In a laboratory experiment, participants were given a chance to cheat in order to win money for themselves. Participants cheated more when they were in a dimly lit than a brightly lit room.<\/p>\n

Darkness also boosts aggressive behaviour. In a study modelled after the classic Milgram experiments<\/a> on obedience, individuals were more likely to send presumably painful shocks<\/a> to a victim in a dark compared to a brightly lit room.<\/p>\n

It\u2019s not a far stretch to see how the increased anonymity of darkness facilitated the violent, disinhibited behaviour of the protesters in Ferguson.<\/p>\n

Negative stereotypes<\/h2>\n

Work by social and evolutionary psychologist Mark Schaller suggests that darkness serves as a signal \u2013 specifically, a signal of threat. When threatened, we subsequently come to rely<\/a> more heavily on negative stereotypes about other groups.<\/p>\n

Across two studies<\/a>, Schaller and his colleagues measured participants’ \u201cbelief in a dangerous world\u201d \u2013 the degree to which individuals are inclined to see the world as a dangerous place. They then put those participants in dimly lit or brightly lit rooms and measured negative stereotyping of African Americans.<\/p>\n

For participants who typically saw the world as a dangerous place, the dimly lit room exacerbated negative stereotypes of African Americans: that they are dangerous and aggressive. There was no such effect for individuals low in belief in a dangerous world.<\/p>\n

Similar effects<\/a> were observed among Canadian students\u2019 ratings of Iraqis. Dimly lit rooms increased danger-related stereotyping among individuals high in the belief that the world is a dangerous place \u2013 suggesting that this is a broad intergroup effect.<\/p>\n

In light of such findings, the darkness of the Ferguson protests likely served to aggravate negative stereotypes between groups \u2013 and especially negative stereotypes of African American and other minority protesters.<\/p>\n

Given the racially-charged nature of the original shooting and the ensuing social unrest, such increased stereotyping certainly wouldn\u2019t have helped the situation.<\/p>\n

Hindsight in the light<\/h2>\n

In the case of the announcement of this grand jury decision \u2013 an announcement that was anticipated<\/a> to prompt a negative reaction in the community \u2013 it\u2019s regrettable that it wasn\u2019t made during the daytime.<\/p>\n

I don\u2019t mean to suggest that protests would have been avoided or that the protests aren\u2019t driven by valid feelings of injustice. But it\u2019s clear that the nighttime announcement may have exacerbated a situation that was already teetering on the brink of social turmoil.<\/p>\n

\"The<\/p>\n

Lisa A Williams receives funding from the Australian Research Council (DP130102110, DP130104468, LP140100034).<\/em><\/p>\n

This article was originally published on The Conversation<\/a>.
\nRead the original article<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

By Lisa A Williams The announcement Monday evening in the US that there would be no charges against a policeman over the shooting of a teenager is puzzling and already the target of critique. It\u2019s not just the decision itself that\u2019s being questioned, but the timing of the announcement. Why in the evening, at 9pm […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":39,"featured_media":7649,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[36,4,38],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lifeandnews.com\/articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2427"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lifeandnews.com\/articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lifeandnews.com\/articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lifeandnews.com\/articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/39"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lifeandnews.com\/articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2427"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/www.lifeandnews.com\/articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2427\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":7650,"href":"https:\/\/www.lifeandnews.com\/articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2427\/revisions\/7650"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lifeandnews.com\/articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/7649"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lifeandnews.com\/articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2427"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lifeandnews.com\/articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2427"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lifeandnews.com\/articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2427"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}