Implicit bias
Implicit bias refers to unconscious prejudices or attitudes that individuals hold towards certain groups, products, or concepts without their awareness. This bias can manifest in various forms, such as negative perceptions based on race, gender, or religion, and can affect behaviors, such as purchasing decisions or interactions with others. The study of implicit bias gained traction in the 1970s, leading to the creation of the Implicit Association Test (IAT) in 1998, which measures the association between subjects and positive or negative words. While the presence of implicit bias is generally acknowledged by psychologists, the relationship between implicit bias and actual behaviors remains a topic of debate. Critics highlight variability in IAT results and question its reliability in predicting behavior, while proponents emphasize that the unconscious nature of implicit bias can still influence actions without conscious recognition. Strategies to mitigate implicit bias include intergroup contact and other antibias techniques, though some approaches may have unintended consequences. Understanding implicit bias is crucial, as it has potential implications across various sectors such as education, employment, healthcare, and criminal justice.
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Subject Terms
Implicit bias
Implicit bias refers to an unconscious form of prejudice or negative attitude about someone or something. It can be directed toward a range of subjects, including groups of people, products, areas, or concepts. For example, a person can subconsciously have a negative opinion of others based on race, gender, or religion, may avoid purchasing a particular brand of products or visiting a certain neighborhood, or may automatically dismiss ideas from a political party or organization. The person exhibiting implicit bias is unaware of this partiality and likely would deny having this proclivity if challenged.
Overview
While researchers had been aware of and studied overt, or explicit, bias for several decades, the idea of implicit bias arose in the 1970s. Russell Fazio, a social psychologist at the University of Ohio, and others began to realize that many if not most people had biases or prejudicial thoughts toward certain groups of people or other subjects without being aware of them. They conducted experiments that led them to believe that these attitudes developed over time from personal experiences and displayed automatically when a person was exposed to the object of prejudice or a representation of it.
In 1998, a team of researchers—Anthony G. Greenwald, Debbie E. McGhee, and Jordan L. K. Schwartz—developed a means to test these biases. Called the implicit association test (IAT), the assessment tool uses pictures of the subject and lists of positive and negative words to determine the test taker's response. The degree to which the test taker associates negative words with a subject is said to reveal the degree of implicit bias against that subject. The original IAT has become the basis of additional variants that address different demographics, including race, gender, sexuality, age, and weight.
Psychologists generally claim that everyone has some level of implicit bias. They also state that this is not a bad thing and that implicit bias is different from explicit bias, or the type of partiality that leads to negative action toward a person or object. Some have claimed that implicit bias causes people to react to circumstances involving the subject of their bias in a negative way; for instance, a store clerk with an implicit bias against people of a certain race may make customers of that race wait longer for service.
Some researchers, though, have questioned whether implicit bias influences behavior at all. They point out that people can repeat the IAT on different days and have different results, meaning that its test-retest reliability is poor. In early 2017, researchers from Harvard University, the University of Virginia, and the University of Wisconsin–Madison reported that the relationship between a person's implicit bias and how he or she acts is not as strong as once thought. Several other meta-analyses conducted between 2009 and 2015 have also suggested the IAT and its derivatives have weak predictive validity.
Others dispute this. They note that the very fact that the bias is unconscious by definition means that people are not aware their actions are directed by these biases. The concept has frequently been used by one group of people to challenge the validity of the viewpoint of another group.
Researchers suggest that the best way to overcome implicit bias is intergroup contact, or exposure to the subject of the bias. Other recommended antibias strategies have included stereotype replacement, individuation, counterstereotypic thinking, and perspective-taking. Diversity training programs have gained popularity among universities, law-enforcement agencies, Silicon Valley technology firms, and other institutions. Researchers have noted, however, that sometimes strategies like intergroup contact can backfire and increase the bias.
The debates surrounding the measurement of implicit bias, its behaviorial effects, and the effectiveness of its redress are more than academic concerns: if implicit bias does influence discriminatory behavior, it could have impacts on such critical facets of life as education, employment, health care, criminal justice, and politics.
Bibliography
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