Harvard unconscious bias test

[spikepipsqueak]

http://https://implicit.harvard.edu/implicit/research/registration/Register.jsp


I thought this would be interesting, but the design of it gave me real problems.

In the aftermath they say that they compensate for order effects, but I did it twice and both times the order in which the questions were presented would tend to confirm an existing unconscious bias by associating negative concepts with gay people prior to the reverse condition.

I would be interested in your thoughts.

(Just so you know, I came up with a very slight bias towards straight people. I might need to work on that.)

 

[rousseau]

I'd like to help you out, but looks like more work than I'm willing to give on a Monday night. Maybe later in the week.

 

[Loren Pechtel]

It's come up on here more than once. It's bunk. As you have noticed, it's order-dependent. Thus it's not possible to determine if any given taker is racist, only if there is a trend amongst all the test-takers. Furthermore, I have yet to hear from anyone who got the non-racist paring first.

 

[Angry Floof]

http://https://implicit.harvard.edu/implicit/research/registration/Register.jsp


I thought this would be interesting, but the design of it gave me real problems.

In the aftermath they say that they compensate for order effects, but I did it twice and both times the order in which the questions were presented would tend to confirm an existing unconscious bias by associating negative concepts with gay people prior to the reverse condition.

I would be interested in your thoughts.

(Just so you know, I came up with a very slight bias towards straight people. I might need to work on that.)

Bias plays a role in reactions before the frontal lobes have a chance to rationalize a story about the reaction after the fact. I suspect that might have something to do with why certain people wave off such tests. Not that the tests don't have problems, but you can't argue with a reaction that doesn't wait for the socially acceptable story of the ego to smooth it over and stuff it back down.

Accepting this reality would also mean taking a view of the reflexive actions of police without regard to the after-the-fact story we want to believe about police. It's also a lot easier to continue ignoring the cultural and social influences that instill, perpetuate, and reinforce bias in otherwise good people.

 

[rousseau]

Without actually doing the test, I'm of the perspective that bias is deeply ingrained in our instincts. Even before culture our sensory systems have ways to discriminate - this thing stands out among these other things, this object is bright, this object is moving faster than other objects. It's very likely that these neural systems were widespread long before humans evolved, and there was any kind of language for the concept of racism.

So I'd think gravitating towards things that are like us, and avoiding things that aren't like us has real survival value. For instance, if I were to walk through a neighborhood in the Central African Republic as a wealthy, white man, I wouldn't last an hour. So this kind of natural fear that people have tends to keep them safe when they would otherwise be too stupid to avoid a situation that very likely could be dangerous. IOW, there is much more survival benefit to be had from racist attitudes overall, than the converse, which is why racism persists.

So with that in mind I'd assume that literally everyone experiences unconscious bias towards everyone and everything that's different from them. You can try to teach it away, but realistically we're fighting hundreds of million, if not billions of years of evolution.

 

[Politesse]

Without actually doing the test, I'm of the perspective that bias is deeply ingrained in our instincts. Even before culture our sensory systems have ways to discriminate - this thing stands out among these other things, this object is bright, this object is moving faster than other objects. It's very likely that these neural systems were widespread long before humans evolved, and there was any kind of language for the concept of racism.

So I'd think gravitating towards things that are like us, and avoiding things that aren't like us has real survival value. For instance, if I were to walk through a neighborhood in the Central African Republic as a wealthy, white man, I wouldn't last an hour. So this kind of natural fear that people have tends to keep them safe when they would otherwise be too stupid to avoid a situation that very likely could be dangerous. IOW, there is much more survival benefit to be had from racist attitudes overall, than the converse, which is why racism persists.

So with that in mind I'd assume that literally everyone experiences unconscious bias towards everyone and everything that's different from them. You can try to teach it away, but realistically we're fighting hundreds of million, if not billions of years of evolution.

You're ignoring the role of enculturation here. Yes, biased reactions are instinctive, and occur faster than conscious thought. But that doesn't make every biased reaction natural and inevitable; we are applying learned social categories when we, say, immediately assume someone's social class or mental state familiar to us only due to our shared expectations of dress and comportment. In an unfamiliar culture, suddenly all those familiar markers are gone, and you have relearn what it looks like to be poor or rich or crazy or sane or Indian or Malay.

 

[rousseau]

Without actually doing the test, I'm of the perspective that bias is deeply ingrained in our instincts. Even before culture our sensory systems have ways to discriminate - this thing stands out among these other things, this object is bright, this object is moving faster than other objects. It's very likely that these neural systems were widespread long before humans evolved, and there was any kind of language for the concept of racism.

So I'd think gravitating towards things that are like us, and avoiding things that aren't like us has real survival value. For instance, if I were to walk through a neighborhood in the Central African Republic as a wealthy, white man, I wouldn't last an hour. So this kind of natural fear that people have tends to keep them safe when they would otherwise be too stupid to avoid a situation that very likely could be dangerous. IOW, there is much more survival benefit to be had from racist attitudes overall, than the converse, which is why racism persists.

So with that in mind I'd assume that literally everyone experiences unconscious bias towards everyone and everything that's different from them. You can try to teach it away, but realistically we're fighting hundreds of million, if not billions of years of evolution.

You're ignoring the role of enculturation here. Yes, biased reactions are instinctive, and occur faster than conscious thought. But that doesn't make every biased reaction natural and inevitable; we are applying learned social categories when we, say, immediately assume someone's social class or mental state familiar to us only due to our shared expectations of dress and comportment. In an unfamiliar culture, suddenly all those familiar markers are gone, and you have relearn what it looks like to be poor or rich or crazy or sane or Indian or Malay.

Perhaps, although I'd argue that enculturation naturally emanates from our inclination to judge and discriminate, and not vice versa. In a new situation we need to understand others in reference to ourselves so we know when there's, e.g. danger, an ally, a potential mate. This means that we're constantly judging and discriminating through everything we come across. So in your example of an unfamiliar culture you do need to re-learn, but you're still doing the same type of discrimination for the same reasons.

This process starts with our ability to discern things as simple as is their skin the same colour as mine, is their face symmetrical, and so on. As for as calling them natural and inevitable, I don't know, specific biases can have a lot of variation, but I do believe that they can be reduced right to our sensory systems, which to me implies that that we're natural discriminators to some extent.

 

[Politesse]

Without actually doing the test, I'm of the perspective that bias is deeply ingrained in our instincts. Even before culture our sensory systems have ways to discriminate - this thing stands out among these other things, this object is bright, this object is moving faster than other objects. It's very likely that these neural systems were widespread long before humans evolved, and there was any kind of language for the concept of racism.

So I'd think gravitating towards things that are like us, and avoiding things that aren't like us has real survival value. For instance, if I were to walk through a neighborhood in the Central African Republic as a wealthy, white man, I wouldn't last an hour. So this kind of natural fear that people have tends to keep them safe when they would otherwise be too stupid to avoid a situation that very likely could be dangerous. IOW, there is much more survival benefit to be had from racist attitudes overall, than the converse, which is why racism persists.

So with that in mind I'd assume that literally everyone experiences unconscious bias towards everyone and everything that's different from them. You can try to teach it away, but realistically we're fighting hundreds of million, if not billions of years of evolution.

You're ignoring the role of enculturation here. Yes, biased reactions are instinctive, and occur faster than conscious thought. But that doesn't make every biased reaction natural and inevitable; we are applying learned social categories when we, say, immediately assume someone's social class or mental state familiar to us only due to our shared expectations of dress and comportment. In an unfamiliar culture, suddenly all those familiar markers are gone, and you have relearn what it looks like to be poor or rich or crazy or sane or Indian or Malay.

Perhaps, although I'd argue that enculturation naturally emanates from our inclination to judge and discriminate, and not vice versa. In a new situation we need to understand others in reference to ourselves so we know when there's, e.g. danger, an ally, a potential mate. This means that we're constantly judging and discriminating through everything we come across. So in your example of an unfamiliar culture you do need to re-learn, but you're still doing the same type of discrimination for the same reasons.

This process starts with our ability to discern things as simple as is their skin the same colour as mine, is their face symmetrical, and so on. As for as calling them natural and inevitable, I don't know, specific biases can have a lot of variation, but I do believe that they can be reduced right to our sensory systems, which to me implies that that we're natural discriminators to some extent.

We're natural discriminators, but the categories we use are arbitrary and acquired through social contact. Twenty years ago, most Americans would have barely noticed someone walking by in a hijab. Today, many people will have a miniature panic attack. That's not because they evolved a new perceptive organ to detect Muslims, it's because they were trained to interpret the perceptive data they already had in a new way. What yesterday was white noise is now information; processed too quickly for conscious thought to check because our amygdala is like that. Trainable but not preventable.

 

[rousseau]

Perhaps, although I'd argue that enculturation naturally emanates from our inclination to judge and discriminate, and not vice versa. In a new situation we need to understand others in reference to ourselves so we know when there's, e.g. danger, an ally, a potential mate. This means that we're constantly judging and discriminating through everything we come across. So in your example of an unfamiliar culture you do need to re-learn, but you're still doing the same type of discrimination for the same reasons.

This process starts with our ability to discern things as simple as is their skin the same colour as mine, is their face symmetrical, and so on. As for as calling them natural and inevitable, I don't know, specific biases can have a lot of variation, but I do believe that they can be reduced right to our sensory systems, which to me implies that that we're natural discriminators to some extent.

We're natural discriminators, but the categories we use are arbitrary and acquired through social contact. Twenty years ago, most Americans would have barely noticed someone walking by in a hijab. Today, many people will have a miniature panic attack. That's not because they evolved a new perceptive organ to detect Muslims, it's because they were trained to interpret the perceptive data they already had in a new way. What yesterday was white noise is now information; processed too quickly for conscious thought to check because our amygdala is like that. Trainable but not preventable.

That's fair, I definitely wouldn't argue that racism can't be minimized, but I do think that it's ever-present on some level.

 

[spikepipsqueak]

rousseau, I haven't time to argue the "millions of years" proposal properly, but they've pretty well shown that kids don't discriminate on the basis of race until adults model it for them.

 

[rousseau]

rousseau, I haven't time to argue the "millions of years" proposal properly, but they've pretty well shown that kids don't discriminate on the basis of race until adults model it for them.

Up to a certain point people have no concept of self / other, but eventually we all learn 'that person and I aren't the same'. That doesn't necessarily mean discrimination or extreme racism, but is likely going to result in at least a little bias. It's learned, although this learning is what it means to be human, no? And if the difference is intrinsic, the learning is intrinsic.

If I'm in a city in Afghanistan, one pub is full of Canadians I'm familiar with, the other Afghanis I'm not familiar with, I should feel more comfortable going into the pub of Canadians, no? In one light you could call it bias, in another light it's just a smart way to think.

 

[Jolly_Penguin]

rousseau, I haven't time to argue the "millions of years" proposal properly, but they've pretty well shown that kids don't discriminate on the basis of race until adults model it for them.

Up to a certain point people have no concept of self / other, but eventually we all learn 'that person and I aren't the same'. That doesn't necessarily mean discrimination or extreme racism, but is likely going to result in at least a little bias. It's learned, although this learning is what it means to be human, no? And if the difference is intrinsic, the learning is intrinsic.

If I'm in a city in Afghanistan, one pub is full of Canadians I'm familiar with, the other Afghanis I'm not familiar with, I should feel more comfortable going into the pub of Canadians, no? In one light you could call it bias, in another light it's just a smart way to think.

Sure.

Its part learning and also very much part innate, and it isn't unique to any culture or even to humans.

We are pack animals. We feel empathy, which means we feel a bond and see ourselves in others. Its why you can get into a good movie and why you feel pain when you see others suffer. Empathy works on seeing yourself in others, so the less of yourself you see in the other, the less empathy will be drawn from you, until you see so little of yourself in the other that you have dehumanized them. That's sadly a primary core of racism and other prejudices. We also have an innate tendency to group and categorize, and that in combination with lack of empathy makes us see the "others" as threats, bringing on not just hemunanizing, but demonization. Mix in a whole lot of group think and mythic rhetoric and you've build yourself tribal warfare.

A lot of folks like to pretend this could never happen to them, or to their "side", but only to those others that they deplore will act and think with such prejudice. That's part of the trap people fall into, and you can see it to some extent in just about any group you may care to study. In pointing this out, you'll also see plenty of hide behind cries of "false equivolency" as if you've said all groups do this just as much and just as badly and in the same ways (regardless of if you said anything like that). They don't want to accept that we can all do wrong, even if some do more wrong than others, and that the wrong remains wrong, and remains something we can right. And in this case these wrongs build upon and amplify one another in a circular way.

So long as we keep pointing fingers at our chosen others, presuming and grouping them unfairly, putting words into their mouths, accusing them of nasty things they didn't say or didn't do or don't believe, rather than stepping back and seeing the tribalism and othering, including our own contributions to it, we will simply spin the cycle around. It takes somebody who speaks of "WE" instead of "US vs THEM" to break the wheel. It takes somebody who will strong man rather than straw man what the "others" say. It takes somebody who isn't looking to "win" a spitting contest of us vs them, but to actually fix an issue for all of us, addressing all of our actual rather than imagined concerns.

I saw some hope there in Obama's early rhetoric when he was running for the Presidency. I see very little of that now. Hillary and Trump were both pushing not for but against it, Trump moreso than Clinton, and Trump won. Will we finally get a prominent voice emerging who speaks to every one of us without all the Trumpist or "baskets of deploreables" stuff?

Empathy and its inverse (implicit bias) are natural parts of human behaviour. People implicitly prefer and protect their child over another child. Brother against brother; Brothers agaisnt Neighbour; Neighnbours against stranger; Countrymen Strangers agaisnt the other nation; Humans against Space Invaders; etc etc etc. Race, gender, sexual orientation, other groupings, and anything else that makes people different from us, that that we are less able to relate to them will get mixed up into that. It is natural and it is something to be on guard for.

We can all start with ourselves. The next a lady tells you she supports "Black Lives Matter" and "AntiFa", or the next time you see a man wearing a MAGA hat, instead of presuming that you know they hold to the worst statements and views that others who have identified the same way have held to, ask them what they actually think. There is a very good chance that you've already mischaracterized them in your mind before either of you speak a word. It is prejudice, and whenever possible, we should avoid it.

MAGA stands for Make America Great Again. The guy wearing it probably isn't violent. It could just mean the guy wearing it likes what Trump was saying in his rallies pror to his election; that he would fight for their jobs, are not deplorable (think we underestimate how many votes Hillary lost with this); and will bring back the economy strong. With CNN over reacting to everything Trump says and does, the truly aggregious of Trump may be lost in the noise, as this guy may not be paying attention to politics 24/7, but sees what those in his bubble point to him in Youtube and on Fox News. He probably views liberals as wanting wide open borders, doesn't understand how the current system works, and envisions people walking across and taking jobs, while he himself is having trouble getting a gob. So he thinks a wall and vetting of applicants to come in would help. He probably has been personally attacked enough times that he feels he and his are persecuted and that may make it harder to reach him with policies he would actually support, even though he voted for Obama twice prior to Trump. He may not be whatseover racist, but be sick of everyone accusing him of being racist becuase he wears a MAGA hat and wants to vet applicants for immigration no matter where they come from. And he probably hears about people getting assaulted for wearing the same hat, and forms a view of those who oppose MAGA as violent. He sees himself as the good guy, and there actually is plenty of good in him.

Likewise, the lady who says she supports "Black Lives Matter" and "Antifa" may be ignorant of the violence Antifa pushes. She may even be a complete pacifist and simply believe "Anti Fascist" to be what the name implies, and she just opposes fascism. She probably lives in a bit of a bubble as well, probably sees on the news many shootings of black people by police, and presumes that happens way more often than anybody else getting shot by police and presumes every black person shot that gets reported on must have been the fault of the police (since otherwise the media wouldn't report it that way). She probably also believes that women are paid 70 cents on the dollar for the same work, assumes that applies to all women in all jobs, so feels cheated, like the world won't give her a fair chance (despite possibly having wealthy parents supporting her). She may come to view white males as over privileged and oppressive, make the mistake of generalizing this to the entire group, and have a resentment for that against white people in trailer parks. She may see the MAGA hat guy and immediately equate him with evil and violencel. But she sees herself as the good girl, and there actually is plenty of good in her.

These two may hate each other on sight. But if the two of them actually manage a conversation without fish shaking and straw manning, and listen to one another, they may both be surprised at how much they actually have in common (empathy forming) and how much the other isn't the monster they thought they were. They both start with implicit bias, but they can both overcome it.

 

[spikepipsqueak]

rousseau, I haven't time to argue the "millions of years" proposal properly, but they've pretty well shown that kids don't discriminate on the basis of race until adults model it for them.

Up to a certain point people have no concept of self / other, but eventually we all learn 'that person and I aren't the same'. That doesn't necessarily mean discrimination or extreme racism, but is likely going to result in at least a little bias. It's learned, although this learning is what it means to be human, no? And if the difference is intrinsic, the learning is intrinsic.

If I'm in a city in Afghanistan, one pub is full of Canadians I'm familiar with, the other Afghanis I'm not familiar with, I should feel more comfortable going into the pub of Canadians, no? In one light you could call it bias, in another light it's just a smart way to think.

Where you draw your lines on ingroup/outgroup is learned.

Some people can see the suffering of other people as similar to their own, some people rationalise that others are different in ways that justify different treatment. When the aliens appear on the horizon the human race will be tighter, as those who require an outgroup to resent will move their goal posts.

Most people learn as kids who to identify as "like me". Some learn that those who have some differences are still valuable as persons.

 

[Jolly_Penguin]

It would indeed be fascinating to see how intra-human relations and bigotries would change if we met a truly alien species completely from another planet. That species may also have bigotries against humans, and may not be able to tell us apart, thinking a human is a human is a human.

 

[Toni]

rousseau, I haven't time to argue the "millions of years" proposal properly, but they've pretty well shown that kids don't discriminate on the basis of race until adults model it for them.

Up to a certain point people have no concept of self / other, but eventually we all learn 'that person and I aren't the same'. That doesn't necessarily mean discrimination or extreme racism, but is likely going to result in at least a little bias. It's learned, although this learning is what it means to be human, no? And if the difference is intrinsic, the learning is intrinsic.

If I'm in a city in Afghanistan, one pub is full of Canadians I'm familiar with, the other Afghanis I'm not familiar with, I should feel more comfortable going into the pub of Canadians, no? In one light you could call it bias, in another light it's just a smart way to think.

Where you draw your lines on ingroup/outgroup is learned.

Some people can see the suffering of other people as similar to their own, some people rationalise that others are different in ways that justify different treatment. When the aliens appear on the horizon the human race will be tighter, as those who require an outgroup to resent will move their goal posts.

Most people learn as kids who to identify as "like me". Some learn that those who have some differences are still valuable as persons.

And some learn that at least some of those differences are valuable because they are differences.

One of the things I figured out when I first began to learn even a tiny smattering of a foreign language is that languages tell a lot about how the culture/speakers view the world and themselves and others. It gives a a snapshot of the native language speakers' point of view.

That was one big lesson I learned early on, growing up in a very homogeneous environment, where almost everybody looked like me, was from the same socioeconomic background and had virtually identical cultural references, with the big differences being between Baptists (majority) and Methodists (much smaller group). Catholics were exotic.

As a young adult, my first real grown up job was working in a city with a large international and black population, in a very international job setting where native English speakers and and Americans were a small minority. Most of my co-workers were Arabic (multiple nationalities) and the next group was Filipino, with a few from India and a couple from countries in Northern Africa. Growing up for most of my childhood in a nearly 100% all white community, attending university where the overwhelming majority of the students were white and American, this was my first 'immersion' into an environment where I was not the majority. English was the common language we all spoke but only the Americans were actually native speakers, although those from India and the Philippines were, as one might guess, quite proficient. But everybody spoke to their fellow countrymen in their respective native tongues often.

At first, I was overwhelmed by how different everybody seemed. As time went on, I noticed more and more similarities in cultures, ideas, beliefs. And later still, I saw how people wee shaped by the cultures they grew up in and how their culture was reflected in each individual. I also was aware of how my attitudes and beliefs changed, and how others were solidified and made stronger and deeper as I got to know how other peoples looked at the world. It was fascinating and intriguing and often frustrating and aggravating but mostly a really wonderful experience.

To respond to rousseau's comments above about how natural it is for people in a strange land to gravitate towards fellow countrymen or those who seem most familiar, I will say that I have noticed this to be true.

But some run instead towards what is different, novel, foreign.

I think that is both an inborn and a learned mindset. Culture and experience and family/friends can reinforce--or tamper down either belief and personality type. But individuals do have the ability to go beyond what they are taught and to embrace what is new.

 

[rousseau]

Think about how dumb the average person is, then realize that half of everyone you know is dumber than that.

Yes, social boundaries are learned, but it'd be naive to believe that there's a sharp delineation between the environmental and biological reality of the situation. The learning happens because the differences are real, even if at a superficial level. If there are no major, phenotypic or cultural differences there is no learning. And because the overwhelming amount of us are unable to see beyond that superficial level - at best we have a touch of bias, at worse we have overt racism.

Maybe that sounds pessimistic, but I don't know that platitudes like 'we're all the same inside' have been very helpful either. So maybe to address racism we have to understand and accept what it is first, rather than pretending we can teach it away. So instead of assuming a best case scenario that 'we're all going to get along' eventually, we assume a worst case scenario and build policy to mitigate the impact of bias.