Examining Racial Profiling from a Cognitive Perspective
Key Sun

Abstract
This paper examines the issue of racial profiling from a cognitive perspective. This approach emphasizes that misunderstanding of probability regarding the correlation between race and crime plays a role in prompting racial profiling. The misunderstanding consists of the confusion of relative frequency and absolute frequency of the correlation and ignoring the probability of committing the statistical Type I error. In addition, it analyzes two cognitive errors that may contribute to the false probability thinking.

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