The Early Development of Racial Bias in Infants and Childhood

Psychologists are interested in how humans process faces of their own-race and Other-races, and there are plenty of previous research on this topic. This paper will summarize previous paper about Other-race Effect (ORE), and how do ORE develop racial bias in children. Researchers used Implicit Association Test (IAT) to assess implicit racial bias and found that implicit racial bias are different in different cultures and counties.

Do Implicit Racial Biases Have Significant Discriminatory Effects?

This article investigates whether implicit racial biases have significant discriminatory effects. To this end, it evaluates meta-analyses of studies on measures of implicit bias and behavioral effects to which they are correlated. On balance, I maintain, the best interpretation of these meta-analyses and relevant surrounding research supports the conclusion that implicit racial biases are significantly correlated to racially biased behaviors, with effects that are consequential at both the individual and group levels. This conclusion is compatible with, but does not entail, the proposition that implicit racial biases in fact cause such effects. In consequence, I consider the contribution implicit bias research might make to our best accounts of racial discrimination and inequality on both a casual and non-causal construal. I argue it is plausible that research on implicit racial bias, on either construal, will play a substantive role in such accounts.

Understanding Healthcare Students’ Experiences of Racial Bias: A Narrative Review of the Role of Implicit Bias and Potential Interventions in Educational Settings

Implicit racial bias is a persistent and pervasive challenge within healthcare education and training settings. A recent systematic review reported that 84% of included studies (31 out of 37) showed evidence of slight to strong pro-white or light skin tone bias amongst healthcare students and professionals. However, there remains a need to improve understanding about its impact on healthcare students and how they can be better supported. This narrative review provides an overview of current evidence regarding the role of implicit racial bias within healthcare education, considering trends, factors that contribute to bias, and possible interventions. Current evidence suggests that biases held by students remain consistent and may increase during healthcare education. Sources that contribute to the formation and maintenance of implicit racial bias include peers, educators, the curriculum, and placements within healthcare settings. Experiences of implicit racial bias can lead to psychosomatic symptoms, high attrition rates, and reduced diversity within the healthcare workforce. Interventions to address implicit racial bias include an organizational commitment to reducing bias in hiring, retention, and promotion processes, and by addressing misrepresentation of race in the curriculum. We conclude that future research should identify, discuss, and critically reflect on how implicit racial biases are enacted and sustained through the hidden curriculum and can have detrimental consequences for racial and ethnic minority healthcare students.

Mitigating Implicit Racial Bias in the Clinical Setting: A Qualitative Study of Family Medicine Residents

Implicit racial bias (IB) in physicians contributes to racial health inequities. Health profession trainees are not consistently trained to address IB. This phenomenological study explored Family Medicine (FM) residents’ experience of applying strategies to mitigate IB during home visits (HVs) to homebound older adults. FM residents completed pre-work related to IB, applied strategies to mitigate IB during HVs, then completed written reflections and commitments-to-change (CTC). A two-month survey assessed completion of targeted changes and barriers faced. Researchers completed a thematic analysis identifying five themes: Response to IAT, barriers, strategies, value of HVs and mindfulness. All residents’ stated level of CTC remained the same (9/9, 100%) and 8/9 residents (89%) had partially or fully implemented their intended change at 2 months. Residents continued applying newly-learned strategies two months after training with transference to other clinical settings and bias types. These findings can facilitate development of clinically-based IB curricula with lasting impacts.

The effect of implicit racial bias on recognition of other-race faces

Previous research has established a possible link between recognition performance, individuation experience, and implicit racial bias of other-race faces. However, it remains unclear how implicit racial bias might influence other-race face processing in observers with relatively extensive experience with the other race. Here we examined how recognition of other-race faces might be modulated by observers’ implicit racial bias, in addition to the effects of experience and face recognition ability. Caucasian participants in a culturally diverse city completed a memory task for Asian and Caucasian faces, an implicit association test, a questionnaire assessing experience with Asians and Caucasians, and a face recognition ability test. As expected, recognition performance for Asian faces was positively predicted by increased face recognition ability, and experience with Asians. More importantly, it was also negatively predicted by increased positive bias towards Asians, which was modulated by an interaction between face recognition ability and implicit bias, with the effect of implicit bias observed predominantly in observers with high face recognition ability. Moreover, the positions of the first two fixations when participants learned the other-race faces were affected by different factors, with the first fixation modulated by the effect of experience and the second fixation modulated by the interaction between implicit bias and face recognition ability. Taken together, these findings suggest the complexity in understanding the perceptual and socio-cognitive influences on the other-race effect, and that observers with high face recognition ability may more likely evaluate racial features involuntarily when recognizing other-race faces.

Is physician implicit bias associated with differences in care by patient race for metastatic cancer-related pain?

Rationale Implicit racial bias affects many human interactions including patient-physician encounters. Its impact, however, varies between studies. We assessed the effects of physician implicit, racial bias on their management of cancer-related pain using a randomized field experiment. Methods We conducted an analysis of a randomized field experiment between 2012 and 2016 with 96 primary care physicians and oncologists using unannounced, Black and White standardized patients (SPs)who reported uncontrolled bone pain from metastatic lung cancer. We assessed implicit bias using a pain-adaptation of the race Implicit Association Test. We assessed clinical care by reviewing medical records and prescriptions, and we assessed communication from coded transcripts and covert audiotapes of the unannounced standardized patient office visits. We assessed effects of interactions of physicians’ implicit bias and SP race with clinical care and communication outcomes. We conducted a slopes analysis to examine the nature of significant interactions. Results As hypothesized, physicians with greater implicit bias provided lower quality care to Black SPs, including fewer renewals for an indicated opioid prescription and less patient-centered pain communication, but similar routine pain assessment. In contrast to our other hypotheses, physician implicit bias did not interact with SP race for prognostic communication or verbal dominance. Analysis of the slopes for the cross-over interactions showed that greater physician bias was manifested by more frequent opioid prescribing and greater discussion of pain for White SPs and slightly less frequent prescribing and pain talk for Black SPs with the opposite effect among physicians with lower implicit bias. Findings are limited by use of an unvalidated, pain-adapted IAT. Conclusion Using SP methodology, physicians’ implicit bias was associated with clinically meaningful, racial differences in management of uncontrolled pain related to metastatic lung cancer. There is favorable treatment of White or Black SPs, depending on the level of implicit bias.

Positive Exemplar Exposure

In adults, implicit racial bias has been linked to prejudiced and discriminatory behavior. However, implicit racial biases emerge well before adulthood; as young as age six, children have already internalized the racial attitudes of their culture. Thus, it is critical for researchers to understand how to change implicit racial bias early in development, before its negative effects compound across the lifespan. The following chapter highlights one potential method of bias reduction in childhood: exposure to positive exemplars. As this method is both scalable and child-friendly, it has the potential to be used with young children on a broader cultural level. This chapter details child-friendly methods for measuring bias change and provides two examples of studies that have successfully employed positive exemplar exposure to reduce children’s implicit racial bias. I conclude the chapter with recommendations for future use of this intervention cross-culturally, as well as broader cultural applications.