scholarly journals Extended Implicit Bias: When the Metaphysics and Ethics of Implicit Bias Collide

Erkenntnis ◽  
2022 ◽  
Author(s):  
Uwe Peters
Keyword(s):  
Implicit Bias ◽  
Extended Cognition ◽  
Social Structures ◽  
Social Injustice ◽  
Personal Integrity ◽  
Implicit Biases ◽  
Legal Barriers

AbstractIt has recently been argued that to tackle social injustice, implicit biases and unjust social structures should be targeted equally because they sustain and ontologically overlap with each other. Here I develop this thought further by relating it to the hypothesis of extended cognition. I argue that if we accept common conditions for extended cognition then people’s implicit biases are often partly realized by and so extended into unjust social structures. This supports the view that we should counteract psychological and social contributors to injustice equally. But it also has a significant downside. If unjust social structures are part of people’s minds then dismantling these structures becomes more difficult than it currently is, as this will then require us to overcome widely accepted ethical and legal barriers protecting people’s bodily and personal integrity. Thus, while there are good grounds to believe that people’s biases and unjust social structures ontologically overlap, there are also strong ethical reasons to reject this view. Metaphysical and ethical intuitions about implicit bias hence collide in an important way.

scholarly journals Bias, Structure, and Injustice: A Reply to Haslanger

2018 ◽  
Vol 4 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Robin Zheng
Keyword(s):  
Social Structure ◽  
Social Inequalities ◽  
Implicit Bias ◽  
Alternative Conception ◽  
Social Structures ◽  
Individual Responsibility ◽  
Structural Injustice ◽  
Implicit Biases

Sally Haslanger has recently argued that philosophical focus on implicit bias is overly individualist, since social inequalities are best explained in terms of social structures rather than the actions and attitudes of individuals. I argue that questions of individual responsibility and implicit bias, properly understood, do constitute an important part of addressing structural injustice, and I propose an alternative conception of social structure according to which implicit biases are themselves best understood as a special type of structure.

scholarly journals Distinguished Lecture: Social structure, narrative and explanation

2015 ◽  
Vol 45 (1) ◽  
pp. 1-15 ◽  
Author(s):  
Sally Haslanger
Keyword(s):  
Civil Rights ◽  
Social Structure ◽  
Recent Work ◽  
Implicit Bias ◽  
Social Structures ◽  
Social Injustice ◽  
Adequate Account ◽  
Structural Injustice ◽  
Changing Patterns

Recent work on social injustice has focused on implicit bias as an important factor in explaining persistent injustice in spite of achievements on civil rights. In this paper, I argue that because of its individualism, implicit bias explanation, taken alone, is inadequate to explain ongoing injustice; and, more importantly, it fails to call attention to what is morally at stake. An adequate account of how implicit bias functions must situate it within a broader theory of social structures and structural injustice; changing structures is often a precondition for changing patterns of thought and action and is certainly required for durable change.

Reply to Connor and Evers (2020): Critique of the Bias of Crowds Model Simply Restates the Model

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Keith Payne ◽  
Heidi A. Vuletich ◽  
Kristjen B. Lundberg
Keyword(s):  
Implicit Bias ◽  
Group Level ◽  
Systemic Racism ◽  
Individual Level ◽  
The Core ◽  
Psychological Science ◽  
Implicit Biases ◽  
The Individual

The Bias of Crowds model (Payne, Vuletich, & Lundberg, 2017) argues that implicit bias varies across individuals and across contexts. It is unreliable and weakly associated with behavior at the individual level. But when aggregated to measure context-level effects, the scores become stable and predictive of group-level outcomes. We concluded that the statistical benefits of aggregation are so powerful that researchers should reconceptualize implicit bias as a feature of contexts, and ask new questions about how implicit biases relate to systemic racism. Connor and Evers (2020) critiqued the model, but their critique simply restates the core claims of the model. They agreed that implicit bias varies across individuals and across contexts; that it is unreliable and weakly associated with behavior at the individual level; and that aggregating scores to measure context-level effects makes them more stable and predictive of group-level outcomes. Connor and Evers concluded that implicit bias should be considered to really be noisily measured individual construct because the effects of aggregation are merely statistical. We respond to their specific arguments and then discuss what it means to really be a feature of persons versus situations, and multilevel measurement and theory in psychological science more broadly.

scholarly journals Implicit Bias Reflects the Personal and the Social

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Andrew M Rivers ◽  
Heather Rees ◽  
Jimmy Calanchini ◽  
Jeff Sherman
Keyword(s):  
Implicit Bias ◽  
Theoretical Models ◽  
Implicit Measures ◽  
Situational Influences ◽  
Implicit Biases ◽  
Target Article ◽  
The Social ◽  
Intergroup Biases ◽  
And Storage

This issue’s target article by Payne, Vuletich, and Lundberg (PV&L) does exactly what one should, presenting an argument that is thought-provoking and that challenges current orthodoxy. It also addresses an issue that has increasingly confounded attitudes researchers in recent years. The construct of “implicit bias” was initially conceptualized as a latent construct that exists within persons, relatively resistant to situational influences. A plethora of theoretical models converge on the notion that implicit biases, including intergroup biases, are representations that are stored in memory (e.g., Devine,1989; Fazio, Jackson, Dunton, & Williams, 1995; Gawronski & Bodenhausen, 2006; Greenwald et al., 2002; Wilson, Lindsay, & Schooler, 2000). Although some perspectives emphasize the role of culture in contributing to implicit measures of bias, even these perspectives rely on the learning and storage of mental representations (Olson & Fazio, 2004).

scholarly journals Blind Spots in International Law

2018 ◽  
Vol 31 (2) ◽  
pp. 209-218
Author(s):  
MACHIKO KANETAKE
Keyword(s):  
Social Psychology ◽  
International Law ◽  
Implicit Bias ◽  
Decision Makers ◽  
Large Set ◽  
Legal Scholarship ◽  
Good People ◽  
Implicit Biases ◽  
Hidden Biases ◽  
Blind Spots

AbstractThis editorial aims to foster debate on the possible roles of implicit social cognition in international law. The editorial is in part inspired by a book entitled Blindspot: Hidden Biases of Good People, written by Banaji and Greenwald, researchers of social psychology. According to them, a large set of implicit biases reside in our minds, which may influence our behaviour towards ourselves and others. It is safe to argue that international judges, arbitrators, diplomats, domestic officials who apply international law, and international legal scholars are not immune from implicit bias. Within international legal scholarship, some relevant experiments have already been conducted in unveiling decision makers’ intuitive and automatic thinking. While implicit bias is hard to identify and remedy, this editorial encourages international legal practitioners and scholars to diversify their own experiences and engage in the imagination of counter-stereotypes.

Implicit Bias and Multilingual Assessment in School-Based Speech-Language Pathologists

2021 ◽  
pp. 1-15
Author(s):  
Marisa Nelson ◽  
Laura Wilson
Keyword(s):  
Clinical Practice ◽  
Best Practices ◽  
Implicit Association Test ◽  
Implicit Bias ◽  
Demographic Factors ◽  
Speech Language Pathologists ◽  
Attitudes Toward Immigrants ◽  
School Based ◽  
Implicit Biases ◽  
The Impact

Purpose: The purpose of this research was (a) to examine school-based speech-language pathologists' (SLPs') implicit attitudes toward immigrants and how these relate to prioritization and use of best practices when assessing multilingual children and (b) to determine if key demographic factors relate to the use and prioritization of these best practices. Method: Eighty-six certified SLPs ranked how they prioritize and use best practices in multilingual assessments and completed an online immigrant Implicit Association Test. Results: The majority of participants exhibited a strong implicit bias against immigrants (median D-score of 0.84, interquartile range: 0.49), but no significant relationship was found between increasing bias and lower prioritization or use of best practices. Increased years working as an SLP and increasingly distant personal relationships to immigration were related to lower prioritization and use of some best practices. An unexpected association included increased reported use of interpreters with increasing implicit bias against immigrants. Conclusions: This research found a strong implicit bias against immigrants among participating school-based SLPs, consistent with previous work detailing health professionals' preferences for ingroups over outgroups. It adds to the call for further research into the impact of implicit biases on clinical practice, and the methods and merits of addressing implicit biases in targeted populations such as SLPs. This study also identified demographic factors associated with decreased prioritization and use of certain best practices when assessing multilingual children. More work is needed to learn how to mitigate these factors to ensure culturally sensitive clinical practice. Supplemental Material https://doi.org/10.23641/asha.16799638

scholarly journals Stability and Change in Implicit Bias

2019 ◽  
Vol 30 (6) ◽  
pp. 854-862 ◽  
Author(s):  
Heidi A. Vuletich ◽  
B. Keith Payne
Keyword(s):  
Racial Bias ◽  
Implicit Bias ◽  
Social Environments ◽  
Structural Inequality ◽  
Stability And Change ◽  
University Campuses ◽  
Implicit Biases ◽  
The Stability ◽  
Original Interpretation ◽  
Individual Scores

Can implicit bias be changed? In a recent longitudinal study, Lai and colleagues (2016, Study 2) compared nine interventions intended to reduce racial bias across 18 university campuses. Although all interventions changed participants’ bias on an immediate test, none were effective after a delay. This study has been interpreted as strong evidence that implicit biases are difficult to change. We revisited Lai et al.’s study to test whether the stability observed reflected persistent individual attitudes or stable environments. Our reanalysis ( N = 4,842) indicates that individual biases did not return to preexisting levels. Instead, campus means returned to preexisting campus means, whereas individual scores fluctuated mostly randomly. Campus means were predicted by markers of structural inequality. Our results are consistent with the theory that implicit bias reflects biases in the environment rather than individual dispositions. This conclusion is nearly the opposite of the original interpretation: Although social environments are stable, individual implicit biases are ephemeral.

Sin and Implicit Bias

2018 ◽  
Vol 6 ◽  
pp. 100-111
Author(s):  
Leigh C Vicens
Keyword(s):  
Implicit Bias ◽  
Direct Access ◽  
Implicit Biases ◽  
The Church ◽  
Bias And Discrimination

This paper argues that implicit bias is a form of sin, characterized most fundamentally as an orientation that we may not have direct access to or control over, but that can lead us to act in violation of God’s command. After noting similarities between certain strategies proposed by experimental psychologists for overcoming implicit biases and certain disciplines developed by Christians on the path to sanctification, I suggest some ways in which the Church might offer its resources to a society struggling to overcome bias and discrimination, and ways in which its teaching and ministry might be informed by the latest research on implicit bias.

scholarly journals Project Inclusive Genetics: Exploring the impact of patient-centered counseling training on physical disability bias in the prenatal setting

PLoS ONE ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 16 (8) ◽  
pp. e0255722
Author(s):  
Emma Vaimberg ◽  
Lindsay Demers ◽  
Eric Ford ◽  
Maya Sabatello ◽  
Blair Stevens ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Genetic Testing ◽  
Physical Disability ◽  
Clinical Decision Making ◽  
Implicit Bias ◽  
Implicit Association ◽  
Patient Centered ◽  
Educational Module ◽  
Clinical Recommendations ◽  
Implicit Biases ◽  
The Impact

Purpose There is robust research examining the negative impact of racial and socioeconomic implicit bias on healthcare provider clinical decision-making. However, other under-studied important biases are likely to impact clinical care as well. The goal of this study was to explore the presence of bias against people with physical disability among a heterogeneous group of healthcare workers and trainees and to evaluate the effect of implicit association testing and an educational module on this bias. Method The study was composed of a one-hour web-based survey and educational module. The survey included an explicit disability bias assessment, disability Implicit Association Tests (IATs), demographic collection, and pre- and post- module clinical vignettes of prenatal patient scenarios. In addition to providing counseling to hypothetical patients, participants also indicated their personal preferences on genetic testing and termination. The educational module focused on the principles of patient-centered counseling. Results The collected data reflects responses from 335 participants. Within this sample, there were both explicit and implicit biases towards individuals with physical disabilities. Prior to the IAT and educational module, when respondents were tasked with providing genetic testing recommendations, implicit biases and personal preferences for genetic testing and termination influenced respondents’ clinical recommendations. Importantly, having previous professional experience with individuals with disabilities diminished biased clinical recommendations prior to the intervention. In response to the IAT and educational intervention, the effect of implicit bias and personal preferences on clinical recommendations decreased. Conclusions This study demonstrates how bias against a marginalized group exists within the medical community and that personal opinions can impact clinical counseling. Importantly, our findings suggest that there are strategies that can be easily implemented into curricula to address disability bias, including formal educational interventions and the addition of professional experiences into healthcare professional training programs.

scholarly journals Facing One’s Implicit Biases: From Awareness to Acknowledgment

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Adam Hahn ◽  
Bertram Gawronski
Keyword(s):  
Minority Groups ◽  
Minority Group ◽  
Implicit Bias ◽  
Affective Reactions ◽  
Implicit Biases ◽  
Explicit Bias ◽  
Group Members ◽  
Implicit And Explicit

Expanding on conflicting theoretical conceptualizations of implicit bias, six studies tested the effectiveness of different procedures to increase acknowledgment of harboring biases against minorities. Participants who predicted their responses towards pictures of various minority groups on future IATs showed increased alignment between implicit and explicit preferences (Studies 1-3), greater levels of explicit bias (Studies 1-3), and increased self-reported acknowledgment of being racially biased (Studies 4-6). In all studies, effects of IAT score prediction on acknowledgment were significant even when participants did not actually complete IATs. Effects of predicting IAT scores were moderated by non-prejudicial goals, in that IAT score prediction increased acknowledgment of bias for participants with strong non-prejudicial goals, but not for participants with weak non-prejudicial goals (Study 4). Mere completion of IATs and feedback on IAT performance had inconsistent effects across studies and criterion measures. Instructions to attend to one’s spontaneous affective reactions toward minority group members increased acknowledgment of bias to the same extent as IAT score prediction (Study 6). The findings are consistent with conceptualizations suggesting that (1) implicit evaluations are consciously experienced as spontaneous affective reactions and (2) directing people’s attention to their spontaneous affective reactions can increase acknowledgment of bias. Implications for theoretical conceptualizations of implicit bias and interventions that aim to reduce discrimination via increased acknowledgment of bias are discussed.

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