Day 2: Unconscious or Implicit Bias

Research is replete with studies demonstrating that the social group a person belongs to can dramatically influence the way others respond to that person. This occurs through the stereotypes that we hold (perhaps unknowingly), and the implicit assumptions that we make based on those stereotypes. Couple this reality with another important point, that we human beings are often considered to be of two minds, and many researchers have spent their lives investigating this dichotomy.

This dichotomy is between the Reflective Mind and the Automatic Mind. The Reflective Mind is part of the mind to which we have access. While the Automatic side of our mind is not consciously available to us, our choices are often dramatically and implicitly influenced by the preferences of this part of our mind. The impact of the Automatic Mind is easily demonstrated through gut feelings. When Maggie and her husband were trying to decide between two used-car options, and were finding it difficult to come up with a set of attributes that would allow one to dominate (relying on their Reflective minds), she suggested the following thought experiment. They show up to the dealership the next morning and the sales associate  informs them that Car A has just been sold and is no longer available. How do they feel? Now imagine that the dealer informs them that Car B has been sold and is no longer available. How do they feel? Forget all the lists of pros and cons, those attempts at discerning preferences from the reflective part of their minds. Which outcome made them feel worse? That is a clue to which of the two cars they implicitly preferred (and in this case it turns out they both preferred Car B)!

While different from your explicit behaviors, your implicit attitudes and beliefs have an impact on your behavior. Just as Maggie could not explicitly distinguish between her two used-car options with her Reflective Mind, it was clear what she preferred when she allowed her Automatic Mind to be heard. Oftentimes, the preferences of our Automatic Minds do not reflect the explicit behaviors or perspectives that are consciously available to our Reflective Mind.

One way of getting some insight into the preferences of our Automatic Minds is through the Implicit Associations Test or the IAT. We will start off with something simple.  Do you prefer flowers or insects? The test will measure how long it takes you to pair positive words with flowers and negative words with insects and then how long it takes you to pair positive words with insects and negative words with flowers. The shorter the amount of time it takes you to react – to pair – positive words with either flowers or insects, the greater your preference for that entity. So give it a try.

Now complete this Flower-Insect IAT. This will take about six minutes to complete.

What did you observe (from the Flower-Insect IAT)? If you’re like most people, you found that it was easier, that is you were faster to respond, when you associated flowers with words pleasant in meaning, and insects with words unpleasant in meaning. It was more difficult, that is you were slower, when you were asked to pair insects with pleasant words, and flowers with unpleasant words. The IAT captures your attitudes towards flowers and insects by comparing the speeds with which you can sort pleasant and unpleasant words.

That most of us are more positive about flowers than insects is probably not surprising. But there’s a second type of IAT, the race IAT. Just as with insects and flowers, this IAT matches up Black and white faces with pleasant and unpleasant words. At this point, we’ll ask you to lean further into discomfort by completing the Race IAT Test. Taking the test and processing results can produce feelings including disbelief, distress, disregard, and acceptance. It’s important to go into this experience realizing that others, including IAT researchers themselves, have experienced these same emotions on learning their IAT test results.

Mahazarin Banaji, psychologist and pioneering IAT researcher, told the Washington Post: “I was deeply embarrassed… I was humbled in a way that few experiences in my life have humbled me.” In Blindspot, a book he co-authored with Banaji, social psychologist Anthony Greenwald describes: “It was also a moment of jarring self-insight… I can’t say if I was more personally distressed or scientifically elated to discover something inside my head that I had no previous knowledge of.” And journalist and author Malcolm Gladwell has said: “It was this creepy, dispiriting, devastating moment.” Regardless of what response you have to taking the test, it’s important to know that your reaction is normal and you’re not alone in feeling this way.

When you’re ready, please complete the Race Test by going to this link and selecting theRace IAT. (Again, the test takes about six minutes).

Were You Surprised? If you are like many of us, you have discovered that it was easier to associate white faces with pleasant words and Black faces with unpleasant words. Thus, there is an implicit association between white/pleasant and Black/unpleasant. But that does not mean that you are a racist. What it does mean is that you have a preference or experience with an implicit bias. To understand exactly what this means and the implications of implicit bias, view this video that was produced by the University of Texas.

One of the more interesting points of the video is that the IAT cannot accurately predict an individual’s behavior, but it can predict the behavior of groups. And this is the problem.  Unintentional or implicit bias has a significant impact on our behavior in groups and in organizations that have substantial and meaningful impact on individuals. Consider the work of Jennifer Eberhardt, a Stanford social psychologist, who has conducted a multi-year research effort on policing in America. In fact, she and others have focused on the implicit racial bias of police in a variety of ways. In San Francisco, there is an ongoing field study in which police reports are stripped of racial and gendered information before they are presented to the district attorney’s office who actually determines if the person will be charged. In the throes of the pandemic, Black business owners get a very different reception from bankers than do their white counterparts when applying for loans under the Paycheck Protection Program. Or consider how women physicians are labeled unprofessional for their choice of swimwear or hairstyles in ways that their male colleagues are not.

As troubling as it is, implicit bias is baked into the choices that are made by artificial intelligence. Consider the widely used medical algorithm developed by Optum. This algorithm used health costs to predict and rank which patients would benefit the most from additional care designed to help them stay on medications or out of the hospital. Because of the difference in access to health care, white patients were perceived by the algorithm to be sicker and would benefit more from additional care while Black patients were perceived (by the algorithm) to be healthier because they “spent less” on health care. And there are a number of start-ups  whose mission is to address Black, and other forms, of implicit bias in AI.

The presence of implicit bias is not lost on folks to whom these biases are directed. Whether it is an actor trying to secure roles as a leading man or job candidates “whitening” their resumes, the bias may be implicit but the impact is real.