Implicit Bias

Consider the following scenario: Mr. J is an English literature teacher. He explicitly expresses the idea that all of his students can succeed and does his best to view his students equally. Moreover, he recognizes the importance of diversity, and consistently infuses his curriculum with multicultural literature. However, Mr. J also knows that he holds negative implicit biases toward identities that some of his students possess. In his attempt to reduce the effects of bias in his work, Mr. J rea

1, 3, & 4 Research shows that seemingly objective ratings of someone's work can be skewed based on negative implicit associations most people have about students with marginalized identities aspects of that person's identity, such as race or gender. As such, by removing students' names from homework and test submissions, teachers can greatly reduce the possibility that their biases influenced their grading. Our implicit biases can cause us to unfairly associate certain skills and abilities with different social groups, such as girls being better at language arts and boys being better at hard sciences. Mr. J is already including a diverse range of backgrounds into his teaching material. Yet, it is impossible to highlight every perspective equally. Thus, Mr. J could survey his students to see what cultural perspectives are most interesting to them as a way to supplement his current practices.

Teachers' implicit biases have been shown to impact which of the following: 1. Who they determine needs discipline 2. Racial patterns in school discipline practices 3. Who they determine is a "problem child" 4. All of the above

A teacher's implicit biases inform how he/she/they views and treats each student. Implicit associations inform who a teacher views as problematic and who needs to be disciplined. The negative implicit associations most people have about students with marginalized identities can affect perceptions of the frequency and severity of the punishment needed to address a student's behavior. These implicitly biased perceptions have been shown to create unequal discipline outcomes between Black and White students, even if their behaviors are identical.

Ascertainment bias

Bias that occurs due to differences in assessing or analyzing outcomes by the researcher due to awareness of which participants received the active versus control interventions.

four levels of oppression

INDIVIDUAL teacher holds an unconscious mental model that her students of color are not "college material."This belief, left unchecked, leads to lower expectations of work quality, which allows for lessrigorous teaching methods, and finally produces a gap in the actual skills and preparation of thesevery students. Similarly, a college counselor might push lower-income students toward communitycolleges or job training programs while counseling more privileged students to apply to four-yearuniversities. These scenarios are all too real and, we would argue, a result of unexamined beliefsystems nurtured by an oppressive system. INTERPERSONAL By interpersonal, we mean the interactions between individuals that play out, both within andacross difference. These are where the individual and the systemic levels of oppression intersect.These interactions are playing out constantly, within institutions and in the private spheres of life.Much of the interpersonal level manifests through disco

implicit vs explicit bias

Implicit - Unconscious stereotypes/attitudes includes favorable and unfavorable evaluations towards a group of people Explicit - Conscious stereotypes/ attitudes

Only negative biases can have negative outcomes. True False

false Correct! You seem to have a great handle on how bias works! Importantly, both positive and negative biases can be constructive or destructive. Positive biases, if they do not align with reality, can have unintended harmful effects. You will see examples of this in Module 2.

affinity group

A group of people linked by a common interest or purpose

People know all their own biases; they just know they cannot or should not say those beliefs aloud, so they hide them. True False

FALSE! Implicit bias differs from suppressed explicit biases that individuals may conceal for social desirability purposes. Implicit biases are activated involuntarily and beyond our awareness or intentional control. Implicit bias is concerned with unconscious cognition that influences understanding, actions, and decisions, whereas individuals who may choose not to share their explicit beliefs due to social desirability inclinations are consciously making this determination.

Which of the following is NOT a type of implicit bias? 1. An automatic preference or disposition 2. A negative belief that you suppress 3. A non-conscious attitude, whether positive or negative 4. A bias that you know you possess

2. A negative belief that you suppress Correct! Implicit biases can be both positive or negative, and result from our automatic processing, not deliberate suppression.

What is the main distinction between our implicit and explicit biases? 1. Our implicit biases are more likely to be negative than our explicit biases 2. Explicit bias is more harmful than implicit bias 3. Our implicit preferences tend to engage our automatic processing while our explicit preferences involve more deliberate processing 4. People are able to recognize when you act on your explicit biases, whereas your implicit biases are too subtle for others to notice when you act on them

3. Our implicit preferences tend to engage our automatic processing while our explicit preferences involve more deliberate processing The main distinction between implicit and explicit bias are related to the automaticity of how we encode and access our preferences and associations. Our implicit biases reflect our thinking patterns on "auto- pilot" whereas our explicit biases are more deliberative and related to our conscious system of beliefs. The extent to which these types of bias impact our actions, cause negative outcomes, and are apparent to others is going to depend much more on the context or expression of bias.

Bias

A particular preference or point of view that is personal, rather than scientific.

Which one of the following statements are true about the Implicit Association Test (IAT) with respect to the different sets of trials? 1. Any differences in response speed between sets of trials matter. Fast response times on some sets of trials indicate those trials suggest weaker associations. 2. Any differences in response speeds between different sets of trials don't matter. The IAT is designed to uncover implicit associations regardless of how quickly the participant answers in each set of

Any differences in response speed between different sets of trials matter. Faster response times in some trials reflect stronger associations for those specific concept pairings. Correct! Response times to the IAT are measured down to the millisecond, so response times matter within and across trials. Moreover, part of the underlying logic of the IAT is that associations that are stronger will be easier to make and thus take less time than those that are unfamiliar.

What is NOT a benefit of becoming aware of your biases? 1. If you become aware of an unconscious bias and know when you are most likely to act on them, you can actively take steps to prevent it from influencing your decision-making. 2. By bringing awareness of your automatic attitudes to the surface, you can work to suppress them. 3. You can begin to reflect and make connections to how your attitudes influence your interactions. 4. You can seek out experiences and resources to help educate y

By bringing awareness of your automatic attitudes to the surface you can work to suppress them. Correct! Suppressing one's implicit attitudes doesn't make you any less likely to make decisions and actions based on this bias. In fact, working to actively suppress your bias may backfire. Awareness of our biases is only as beneficial as our commitment to taking actions to challenge them.

Although implicit bias can affect a wide range of discipline decisions, which of the following instances is most likely to reflect a biased decision? 1. Disciplining a student for harming another student, such as punching or hitting 2. Disciplining a student for being disruptive, such as talking too loudly or being insubordinate 3. Discipling a student for being tardy to class more than 3 times 4. Disciplining a student for not completing a homework assignment

Disciplining a student for being disruptive, such as talking too loudly or being insubordinate Correct! Implicit biases can impact perceptions of student behavior, especially when we are making decisions based on subjective or ambiguous information. Our personal biases and experiences are much more likely to manifest in our determinations of what is deemed acceptable behavior rather than a concrete deliverable or policy such as homework being incomplete or violating a specific policy against fighting.

Of the following, which is NOT the best metaphor for how our minds learn and unlearn biases: 1. Our mental processes are like a river; like water expanding a riverbed, the more often we rely on certain patterns of thinking or judgments, the more they will be carved out in our mind. Also like a river, there is the potential for these patterns to adapt and change direction over time. 2. Our brain is like a computer. We internalize incoming messages (similar to how a computer uses commands), and

Our brain is like a statue. It is artfully complex and static. No matter now much new information and experiences we acquire, our mind remains unchanged. There are aspects of each description that relay the way our brains learn and unlearn implicit biases. Like the computer, our brains internalize incoming messages and subconsciously produce a specific behavioral output. Like the mirror, our minds reflect the external environment, and thus are subject to constant change. Like the river, our minds are always expanding with information and we often must rely on those deeply-carved patterns to make decisions or judgments. However, as these other examples illustrate, our mental processing is malleable. Therefore, the statue metaphor does not apply.

Mx. D is a middle school teacher. They were called in during their lunch break to make a disciplinary decision regarding a student in their class. The student was walking around in the hallway during the lunch hour. While the explicit discipline policy is very lenient and consists of a verbal warning, teachers will sometimes recommend a detention if they believe the student demonstrates a pattern of this behavior. While Mx. D knows their decision-making capabilities contain bias, they are poised

The answer is "compromised cognitive control - high cognitive load". Because they have a lot on their plate, Mx. D will have decreased capacity to make decisions in a logical, deliberate fashion. Instead, they may be defaulting to their automatic processing.

True or False, In order to accurately measure implicit biases, you must become consciously aware of the associations you hold. True False

The answer is False. Because implicit biases are unconscious by definition, the measurement of these biases must assess elements of our automatic cognitive processing, such as assessing brain activity during fMRIs.

True or False, the IAT is the only way to assess implicit attitudes. True False

The answer is False. While the Implicit Association Test (IAT), as a free and publicly available resource, is the most accessible way for individuals to assess implicit biases, it is not necessarily the only way to accurately measure what is going on in our brain. Like any psychometric, there are inherent tradeoffs in terms of the validity and reliability. While no one tool is perfect, there are many tools at our disposal--whether as individuals or researchers--to understand our unconscious beliefs, such as The Affect Misattribution Procedure (AMP) and FMRI scans.

Which of the following is an example of the ways that implicit bias affects systemic inequities beyond the classroom? 1. Implicit bias can interrupt pipelines to higher education. 2. Implicit bias can lead to inequitable evaluations of work samples or job qualifications. 3. Implicit bias is a contributing factor for diverting students toward the school-to-prison pipeline. 4. Implicit bias impacts who is considered for mentorship or leadership opportunities. 5. All of the above

all of the above The implicit biases of teachers and authority figures has been shown to correlate with a variety of negative outcomes for students, whether in the K-12 education setting or as students pursue opportunities toward careers and/or higher education.

systemic oppression types:

how racism is embedded in the sociocultural legacy of historical oppression that continues to exert hidden influence on present-day experience individual interpersonal institutional structural