Can You Be Immune to Implicit Bias?

Dr. Maya Gordon, Director of Research & Evaluation and Dr. Yvonni Markaki, Director of Research & Strategy

Social science research has demonstrated that many people in the United States have an unconscious negative bias against people of color, and it is this unconscious bias that affects automatic judgments and behaviors. We also know that people can have unconscious beliefs that directly contradict their conscious behaviors. This unconscious or implicit bias shows up when they treat a person of color differently but insist that their reaction is warranted based on some other factor. They do not believe that they are discriminating based on race because they are not aware of how implicit bias affects them.

So, where does negative unconscious bias come from? Implicit bias is a result of being exposed to negative messages about a specific cultural or racial group. Regardless of whether you think you are personally doing something to oppress people of color, U.S. institutions are set up to do just that, and we are a product of these systems. White Privilege refers to a system of privilege in which white people in the United States are afforded certain advantages and rights that people of color are denied because of their race or ethnicity. These privileges may not feel like privileges to white people because they assume these are practices or treatment that all people receive. However, because of racism, everyone does not experience them, which may be both shocking and surprising for white people. Because they themselves often benefit from these practices, there is also not an impetus to examine them more closely. Repeated exposure to these systems has informed our unconscious attitudes about race. For example, our media is largely led by white men and as a result, the dominant images in the media tell stories about white experiences. People of color are seen less frequently and are portrayed in stereotypical or secondary roles. Individuals consume these images multiple times a day. Even when we can recognize that an image is a stereotype, our brain still takes in that message and processes it unconsciously, leading to bias. If white people only see people of color depicted as criminals in popular culture, they inevitably start associating those groups of people with criminal behaviors, particularly if they have limited exposure to contradictory messages.

So much of the potential for harm comes in those automatic actions, particularly in situations where the person has to make a quick decision. These are the moments when they are more likely to take an action that is driven by their unconscious thoughts. Consider the following scenarios:

• The police officer who automatically fears for their life and perceives a Black person to be going for a weapon rather than their wallet or phone.
• The school safety officer who perceives the students of color as a threat so they respond more aggressively to an event (violently tackling the female students, or mistaking a homemade clock for a bomb).
• The hiring committee who consistently passes on resumes that have a name at the top that could be perceived as Hispanic, Muslim, or Black.
• The teacher who assumes a Black student who does well must have cheated.
• The white woman who calls the police on a Black man bird watching or the family having a barbecue.
• The white college students who give low ratings to professors of color or treat them like they don’t know what they are talking about despite being an expert on the topic.

Even if the people in the above examples don’t consciously believe they have been affected by negative messages, their unconscious views are consistent with those messages and this bias informs their automatic reactions.

Now that you know about unconscious bias, you should work to mitigate the impact of your implicit biases in your personal and professional life. You can, for example, discover more about your own implicit biases at Project Implicit, read more about how these biases can shape your behavior, and create space to discuss implicit bias with the people closest to you. You can also attend our training, “Confronting your Unconscious: Addressing Implicit Bias”. Through this type of intentional self-examination, you can stop the cycle of acting on your implicit bias by interrogating your own thoughts and motivations, and making conscious choices about how you treat and perceive people.