Implicit Bias: from social structure to representational format

In this paper, I argue against the view that the representational structure of the implicit attitudes responsible for implicitly biased behaviour is propositional—as opposed to associationist. The proposal under criticism moves from the claim that implicit biased behaviour can occasionally be modulated by logical and evidential considerations to the view that the structure of the implicit attitudes responsible for such biased behaviour is propositional. I argue, in particular, against the truth of this conditional. Sensitivity to logical and evidential considerations, I contend, proves to be an inadequate criterion for establishing the true representational structure of implicit attitudes. Considerations of a different kind, which emphasize the challenges posed by the structural social injustice that implicit attitudes reflect, offer, I conclude, better support for deciding this issue in favour of an associationist view.

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Distinguished Lecture: Social structure, narrative and explanation

Canadian Journal of Philosophy ◽

10.1080/00455091.2015.1019176 ◽

2015 ◽

Vol 45 (1) ◽

pp. 1-15 ◽

Cited By ~ 42

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.

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(How) Should We Tell Implicit Bias Stories?

Disputatio ◽

10.2478/disp-2018-0014 ◽

2018 ◽

Vol 10 (50) ◽

pp. 217-244 ◽

Cited By ~ 3

Author(s):

Jennifer Saul

Keyword(s):

Implicit Bias ◽

Social Groups ◽

Institutional Factors ◽

The Political ◽

Social Injustice ◽

Broad Term ◽

Wide Range ◽

Highly Effective ◽

Political Left

Abstract As the phenomenon of implicit bias has become increasingly widely known and accepted, a variety of criticisms have similarly gained in prominence. This paper focuses on one particular set of criticisms, generally made from the political left, of what Sally Haslanger calls “implicit bias stories”—a broad term encompassing a wide range of discourses from media discussions to academic papers to implicit bias training. According to this line of thought, implicit bias stories are counterproductive because they serve to distract from the structural and institutional factors that underlie oppression of social groups. This paper argues on the contrary that implicit bias stories, properly told, can help direct attention and concern to structural and institutional factors, and indeed may be especially helpful in motiving action. The key, however, is to tell these stories properly. When implicit bias sto- ries are told in the wrong way, they are indeed counterproductive. This paper looks in detail at several examples of good and bad implicit bias stories, examining what makes some of them counterproductive and others highly effective in motivating action to combat social injustice.

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Implicit social cognition: A brief (and gentle) introduction

10.31234/osf.io/a4pjy ◽

2021 ◽

Author(s):

Benedek Kurdi ◽

Mahzarin R. Banaji

Keyword(s):

Social Cognition ◽

Implicit Attitudes ◽

Implicit Bias ◽

Single Individual ◽

Implicit Social Cognition ◽

Explicit Attitudes ◽

Open Questions ◽

Ongoing Work ◽

Term Change ◽

Neural Underpinnings

Over the past three decades, implicit social cognition research has flourished and has produced myriad novel insights into the automatic operation of social attitudes (evaluations) and stereotypes (beliefs). In this chapter, we provide an overview of what we regard to be significant and settled issues as well as the most pressing open questions that remain. Following a brief historical overview, we address (a) basic findings, such as mean levels of and demographic variation in implicit bias; (b) the relationship of implicit attitudes and stereotypes with other measures, including explicit attitudes and stereotypes and other forms of intergroup behavior; (c) the neural underpinnings of implicit bias; (d) questions of stability and change at different levels of analysis, including developmental stability, situational malleability, the prospect of long-term change within a single individual, and societal-level change; and (e) ongoing work and stimulating new developments, including aggregate-level analyses, the role of language, and questions about the representational format of implicit attitudes and stereotypes.

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Bias, Structure, and Injustice: A Reply to Haslanger

Feminist Philosophy Quarterly ◽

10.5206/fpq/2018.1.4 ◽

2018 ◽

Vol 4 (1) ◽

Cited By ~ 9

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.

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

Erkenntnis ◽

10.1007/s10670-021-00511-9 ◽

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.

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Professionals’ Implicit Attitudes about the Competence of People Who are Blind

Journal of Visual Impairment & Blindness ◽

10.1177/0145482x19865391 ◽

2019 ◽

Vol 113 (4) ◽

pp. 341-354

Author(s):

Michele C. McDonnall ◽

Jennifer L. Cmar ◽

Karla Antonelli ◽

Kasey M. Markoski

Keyword(s):

Role Models ◽

Online Survey ◽

Implicit Attitudes ◽

Implicit Bias ◽

Strong Association ◽

Social Contexts ◽

Blind People ◽

Preparation Programs ◽

Positive Attitudes ◽

Work Tenure

Introduction: The purpose of this study was to measure blindness professionals’ implicit attitudes about the competence of people who are blind, compare implicit attitudes of blindness professionals with those of employers in hiring positions, and examine blindness professionals’ implicit attitudes by type of profession and work tenure. Methods: The study included 322 blindness professionals and 450 employers. Participants completed a brief online survey and the Implicit Association Test–Blind/Visually Impaired, which measures implicit attitudes regarding the competence of blind people. Results: On average, blindness professionals exhibited a slight association, whereas employers exhibited a strong association, for sighted with competence and blind with incompetence. Blindness professionals and employers had large, statistically significant differences in implicit attitudes. Blindness professionals’ implicit attitudes did not differ by type of profession, but they differed slightly by work tenure. Discussion: Employers’ strong implicit bias toward sighted and competence may reflect their limited knowledge about blindness and lack of opportunities to interact with blind people. Compared to employers, blindness professionals exhibited a much smaller implicit bias, which may relate to their knowledge about blindness, exposure to successful blind people, and meaningful interactions with blind people across social contexts. Implications for practitioners: Blindness professionals may benefit from increased exposure to highly successful blind role models throughout their professional preparation programs and their careers. Blindness professionals can promote positive attitudes about blindness to the general public and to consumers and their families. During educational opportunities, they could incorporate information about how blind people perform work tasks, which has the potential to improve attitudes about the competence of blind people.

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Implicit Association Test: Separating Transsituationally Stable and Variable Components of Attitudes toward Gay Men

Experimental Psychology (formerly Zeitschrift für Experimentelle Psychologie) ◽

10.1027//1618-3169.50.1.33 ◽

2003 ◽

Vol 50 (1) ◽

pp. 33-48 ◽

Cited By ~ 60

Author(s):

Melanie C. Steffens ◽

Axel Buchner

Keyword(s):

Gay Men ◽

Implicit Association Test ◽

Structural Equation ◽

Implicit Attitudes ◽

Association Test ◽

Situational Factors ◽

Situational Factor ◽

Equation Modeling ◽

Implicit Attitude ◽

Implicit Association

Implicit attitudes are conceived of as formed in childhood, suggesting extreme stability. At the same time, it has been shown that implicit attitudes are influenced by situational factors, suggesting variability by the moment. In the present article, using structural equation modeling, we decomposed implicit attitudes towards gay men into a person factor and a situational factor. The Implicit Association Test ( Greenwald, McGhee, & Schwartz, 1998 ), introduced as an instrument with which individual differences in implicit attitudes can be measured, was used. Measurement was repeated after one week (Experiment 1) or immediately (Experiment 2). Explicit attitudes towards gay men as assessed by way of questionnaires were positive and stable across situations. Implicit attitudes were relatively negative instead. Internal consistency of the implicit attitude assessment was exemplary. However, the within-situation consistency was accompanied by considerable unexplained between-situation variability. Consequently, it may not be adequate to interpret an individual implicit attitude measured at a given point in time as a person-related, trait-like factor.

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