What is Implicit Bias?
Defined by UMass, “Implicit bias is the unconscious stereotyping and formation of attitudes towards groups or ideas that can influence our actions. Individuals may fully support equality, but their cognition could be unknowingly persuading them to react differently.”
Everyone has unconscious bias and it gets in the way of all of our perceptions of the world and others.
Because implicit bias is unconscious, it can be difficult to un-learn, what is most useful is recognizing your own internal biases. Awareness is the first step in how one can un-learn these biases.
Why Do People Have Implicit Biases?
Humans are pattern-associating animals and try to associate what they see into some worldview. The idea of prejudice, to judge someone before knowing them, was probably an evolutionary adaptation when life was much more dangerous tens-of-thousands of years ago where the only time one met someone outside of their ethnic group was during a conflict. These days prejudice does not serve a role and gets in the way of social progress. The good news is research has shown that unconscious biases can be unlearned or ignored. (Dasgupta & Greenwald, 2013)
What Are My Implicit Biases?
The idea of implicit bias was first described in the last century and made measurable in the mid-90s through the development of the implicit association test.
The best online resource to measure implicit bias is Harvard’s Project Implicit. https://implicit.harvard.edu/implicit/takeatest.html
Strategies to Address Implicit Bias
- Be self-aware, recognize your implicit biases and reflect on the social interactions you have and the decisions you make about others in the absence of other information.
- Keeping an open mind when interacting with others, the fewer assumptions you make the better. Let individuals define themselves.
- Learn from others. Have conversations with people from socially dissimilar groups and focus on what you need to learn to grow.
- Evidence suggests that providing unconscious bias training produces better workplace environments.