What do illusions teach us about bias?
Even if we gain knowledge about an illusions trick, we can not unsee it.
The fact that we are aware of implicit bias doesn’t mean we can override it all the time.
Unconscious processes can influence our conscious processes (like color naming) and subjective awareness may not influence unconscious processing (like visual illusions)
What is explicit and implicit bias?
Explicit bias: Bias that is controllable and accessible through conscious thought.
Implicit bias: bias that is automatic, difficult to control, unconscious, less accessibly via thought and trying to override.
Why do humans carve the world in terms of social categories? Is it universal? Give an example of an implication
Humans love to carve the social world up into categories, it’s helpful so we can make fast judgments without thinking too much, you can draw faster judgments without having to learn much about something new, it’s efficient. It seems to be a human universal. Some people think we can shift groups some people think its fixed. We see the world as us vs them.
EX: We are more likely to help strangers that look more similar to us.
What are the main sources of intergroup bias?
- Family, Peers
- Experience
- media
- Biology (Bias may be hardwired into our brain, like language is.)
- Interaction and culture
What did Francis Aboud’s research on intergroup bias find?
He found that in development, explicit ingroup liking occurs before dislike of an outgroup.
He found that ingroup liking occurs at 3-4 yrs old and outgroup dislike occurs after age 7.
What did Bigler, Jones & Lobliner research find regarding intergroup contact? Hint: Minimal group bias
They found that Minimal group bias occurs at age 6.
Minimal group bias is bias that occurs for ones ingroup even when the group are created arbitrarily and lack any real dividing factor other than being a different group. Ingroup bias forms and sometimes even outgroup distain when separated in groups, even when the separation has no history and is brand new.
Explain the “ambiguous picture” study and the results. Hint: Falling off the swing picture. Why is it so important?
This study would show an ambiguous picture of two kids in various circumstance on a swing set. The main example was one child sitting on the ground upset with another child standing behind the swing. The races of the children were swapped while all else remained constant.
Results: The researches asked 3 categories of kids what they thought happened in the photo.
All white school: More likely to make hostile attribution when black child in the uncertain spot/ transgressor spot.
White child, mixed school: Equally likely to make hostile attribution bias for black and white transgressors.
Non white, diverse school: no differentiation between hostile attribution for races.
This study suggests that intergroup contact can make a big difference in explicit bias!
Explain the paradox in the literature of racial bias development.
In development racial bias literature, we see that: Racial bias starts and 3-4yrs old and peaks around age 7, negative attitudes towards other races declines through adolescence.
Problem is, when looking at negative behavior towards outgroup members we see an increase, and continuation into adolescents and adulthood.
Define the Racial bias paradox
The paradox is that, through development we see a decrease in negative attitudes regarding racial bias. However, negative behavior towards other races / racial bias actually increases through development all the way into adulthood. So in childhood development, racial bias seems to be impartial, but in reality adulthood behavior is bias.
What are 2 examples of racial bias in media
News coverage often will attribute negative words to actions of black people (Looting vs finding) and in politics mistakes are linked to minorities more often
What are 2 limitations of explicit measures that could attribute to the Racial Bias Paradox?
Access: maybe we can not introspect on everything that affects behavior. More subconscious influence than we can identify.
Social desirability: we want people to like us, human universal, so they do things that don’t lead to being outcast. So maybe kids are learning to say the right thing. If someone is afraid of judgment for their true thoughts they will change them when questioned.
What is an Implicit Association Test (IAT)?
assessment that measures the strength of unconscious associations between concepts, such as races or genders, and evaluations like “good” or “bad”. It works by measuring the reaction time it takes for a person to sort words or images into categories;
faster and accurate responses indicate a stronger association, revealing hidden or subconscious attitudes and stereotypes.
How might IAT’s help overcome some of the limitations from explicit bias measurement?
We can have better access into the associations that the mind makes.
This test is less susceptible to social desirability concerns, due to the fast nature, no time to think
How does the IAT translate to preferences and behavior ? What are some areas that implicit bias shows in the adult world?
Friendliness, hiring, Voting, medical treatment
Doctor EX: Given hypothetically cases, doctors will treat patients differently based on race, subconsciously.
What are the 2 different ways that researches think Implicit social group preference/bias develops?
The 2 different views on Implicit Social group bias is development:
Learned gradually
or
early and automatic
Explain how implicit group bias is developed according to the “learned gradually view”.
The classical view on implicit group bias development is that it is learned gradually and each experience has an equal weight, age doesn’t matter. New experiences have an equal and incremental change in bias.
How does Andy’s view of implicit group bias development differ/challenge the classic view of gradual implicit bias development. What is the important application of Andy’s view?
Andy suggests that there are potentially sensitive periods that social biases could be learnt much more quickly than other ages. For example like how language needs to be learnt during a critical period.
This matters a lot because it would inform at what point in development do we need to go in and intervene to help reduce implicit bias, if we can intervene during a critical period.
Explain how implicit group bias is developed according to the learned “early and automatic view”.
Bias is almost hardwired into us. The minimal group biases is an example, random assignment to a group is enough to elicit ingroup preference. Babies even like familiarity at birth to sounds, voices, smell etc.
A tendency to like things with minimal experience and like similarity, the first impression is key
The idea that bias is a pre built tendency. At some age, bias is set and unchangeable.
What is the Child IAT that Andy made? Why is it an important test?
The child IAT was made so that we can test children’s implicit bias, traditional tests are too hard for kids to pay attention to.
The child IAT asks kids to hit a yellow or blue button to categorize things (much less hard to track than left or right) and has large visual boxes for yellow and blue as well. It also uses headphones instead of words to tell the kids the word, they then categorize words to a color and a category (like happy or sad, white or black.)
If one association is stronger that would indicate being faster depending on which face and valanced words are paired.
What were the results for the white Americans in Andys study on IAT?
White good / black bad scores
6yr olds:
10yr olds:
adults:
All had the same results, same tendency to be faster at white good and black bad tasks. This means so by the time kids are even 6, they have the same implicit bias as adults.
What is so important about the results from the white Americans test on the child IAT
It shows that all the life experience from age 6 onwards has no impact on implicit bias and that our level of implicit bias is set very early. That life experience does not change the strength of implicit bias over development.
What are the results when measuring white Americans explicit bias?
6 year olds will say they like white black much more, then 10yr olds say that less, adults are egalitarian explicitly.
These 3 groups have the same implicit results! Shows the paradox.
What were the results for the black Americans in Andys study on IAT?
6,10 and adults were given the same test. Measured on black good and white bad association. Research suggests that maybe their bias for their ingroup will counteract the the stereotypes about black being bad. Seems that it does not. kids and adults score the same
Main finding was that when measuring black good and white bad, black participants of any age had no preference / better performance.
What is the main findings when testing any minorities IAT with Andys study?
When comparing the minorities own ingroup to white people, there is no preference / better performance BUT when comparing the ingroup to a different minority we see that they have much more implicit preference for their own group + good, and the other group + bad.
This research shows that cultural norms of white being good, almost counteract preference for ones own ingroup, but when comparing to minorities, the ingroup is favored.
Age is constant in all tests, no difference. The ingroup matters for how strong associations are, but also the status of the outgroup.
