When people are asked to state their values, most people would indicate that respect, fairness, and non-discrimination are important to them. Yet, both research and individual stories indicate that discrimination and unjust treatment are realities for many members of non-dominant groups, based on their social identity. What explains the difference between our stated values and actual behaviours?

What is Implicit Bias

Researcher Mahzarin Banaji, who developed the term “implicit bias”, explains implicit bias this way:

When we speak of implicit bias, we are talking about decisions that people make that are happening quite outside their conscious awareness but nevertheless have a systematic pattern to them. Those patterns tell us that they are using information about a person’s group membership such as their ethnicity, gender, sexuality, religion, culture, or language—the list goes on (Banaji, 2013, as cited in Choudhury, 2021, p. 36)

Early research on implicit bias focused on these questions understanding whether these implicit, unstated beliefs have an impact on how people treat others. Implicit bias has a small, but noticeable effect on real-world behaviour (Banaji et al., 1993; Project Implicit, 2011). In other words, we may not be fully aware that we hold a negative belief about a group of people – and yet, our unawareness may cause us to make a judgement about someone that may have an impact. For example, in a job interview situation, an interviewer with an implicit bias that disfavours Asian job candidates may hire a candidate of a different race, without being fully aware of how this bias impacted the hiring decision.

Why Do We Hold Implicit Bias?

Implicit bias can be linked to two factors: (1) the tendency of our brains to categorize the world by category, and (2) the biases that we have acquired in our socialization. Let’s take a look at both of these factors:

Brain-Based Processes:

As our brains develop through normal processes, we learn to categorize and organize the world. Learning requires us to make connections between things and to see patterns. As we walk through the world, we are exposed to large amounts of sensory stimuli – smells, sights, tastes, and sounds. We do not consciously focus our attention on each individual stimulus. If we did this, would struggle to do our day-to-day tasks effectively (Choudhury, 2021).

Our brains learn to categorize information. For example, an office chair, a dining chair, and a soft sofa are all very different in their shape, size, and features. Despite these differences, our brains are able to recognize the functional category that these are for sitting. If we needed to make a detailed observation and decision making process every time we encountered a chair, this would become a taxing process. Fortunately, our brains can categorize the world effectively.

Unfortunately, our brains can also process the world this way when we encounter groups of people, particularly when we don’t have relationships with individuals in that social group. This leads us to view people as “all the same”, rather than recognizing individual differences.  This process leads to stereotyping.

Socialization:

The second source of biases is our socialization.  From childhood, we learn to view the world through the eyes of our families, through the material presented to us in school, and through the media we see. This can lead us to form opinions about groups of people that include the biases we have absorbed, even if these opinions are different than those we would explicitly state if we were asked.

The effects of socialization are particularly evident when we observe patterns of bias in society. Naturally, we would expect to have a positive bias towards people in our own social group. However, non-dominant groups may absorb biases towards the dominant social group through socialization (Project Implicit, 2011). This can reflect the way that educational systems and media favour dominant groups.

Why Care About Implicit Bias

While implicit bias may be a natural brain-based process, we should not ignore its impacts. When we become aware that we have implicit bias, our response should lean towards self-compassion (Neff, 2015), recognizing that this is a part of our common human predicament. This does not mean, however, that we can simply ignore the impacts of bias. Focusing on our emotional response to bias is likely unproductive; focusing on the change that is needed is critical. One critique of implicit bias training emphasizes that becoming aware of bias without taking steps to change actions does not promote genuine change or justice (Applebaum, 2019)

Implicit bias has been linked to significant social problems, including:

• Workplace bias in hiring (Choudhury, 2021).
• Policing bias, such as the biases that have led to the deaths George Floyd and Breonna Taylor in the United States, or the police failure to investigate the disappearances of Indigenous women on the Highway of Tears (McDiarmid, 2019).
• Biases that impact educational outcomes, including racial and linguistic discrimination in university campuses that produces feelings of unbelonging and limit academic success (Applebaum, 2019; Dovchin, 2019).

In summary, addressing implicit bias matters because these biases can lead to significant experiences of prejudice, discrimination, and unfair treatment in the real world. Working to reduce implicit bias is critical if we want to see our stated values of fairness and justice implemented in the real world.

What Do We Do About Implicit Bias

As the body of research about implicit bias continues to grow, a common concern and critique is whether programs that are intended to reduce implicit bias are actually effective. We might expect that this critique primarily comes from those critical of DEI; however, those who promote DEI and care about the fair treatment of others are express concerns about whether implicit bias training is effective.  Why is this?  Because simply creating trainings may be used as a solution to give the appearance of effectively addressing discrimination, however, real world behaviours may not change (Applebaum, 2019). Some implicit bias trainings have been shown to have a short-term or limited impact on the biases being addressed (Bursell, 2024). Additionally, implicit bias training that focuses on changing individual thinking may fail to address institutional or social factors that perpetuate bias (Applebaum, 2019).

Cox (2023) suggests that implicit bias trainings may be ineffective if they focus on one specific group bias, and if they fail to address cognitive patterns. Cox suggests that we can draw from the principles of Cognitive Behavioural Therapy (CBT), which focuses on interrupting harmful patterns of thought and forming new thinking pathways.  Cox suggests that simply learning information about bias is ineffective, that instead we need to be empowered with new strategies to align our behaviour with our values. These strategies include:

• Learning vocabulary that helps us to understand what biases might be present.
• Identifying patterns of bias in our own thinking, and then learning to interrupt these thinking patterns and replace them with new thinking strategies.
• Breaking habits of biased thinking and developing new habits.
• Choosing strategies to make meaningful change in our environments – moving from thought to action.

Other strategies that help us to reduce our biases include:

• Choosing role models from different social groups than our own in-group. This helps us to think more positively towards groups where we might have previously held an implicit negative bias.
• Spending intentional time outside of our own cultural or in-groups. This helps us to break the pattern of stereotyping and considering others as “all the same”, as we are more able to see others in their individual uniqueness (Choudhury, 2021)

Emotional Intelligence and Bias

Let’s consider the emotional intelligence skills that can assist us in challenging bias.

• Emotional Self-Awareness: By identifying and naming our emotions, we might become more aware of when an implicit cognitive bias towards others can affect our thoughts and actions.
• Reality testing: The EI skill of reality testing helps us to develop awareness of when our thinking patterns are influenced by bias and supports us in replacing bias with more accurate information about the world.
• Interpersonal relationships: The ability to develop mutually beneficial and long-term relationships with others, particularly those different from ourselves can help us to reduce bias through positive social contact with others.
• Social responsibility: By remembering the values we hold about the good we hope to do in the world, we can remain committed to the hard work of challenging bias.

Chapter References

Applebaum, B. (2019). Remediating campus climate: Implicit bias training is not enough. Studies in Philosophy and Education, 38(2), 129–141. https://doi.org/10.1007/s11217-018-9644-1

Banaji, M. R., Hardin, C., & Rothman, A. J. (1993). Implicit stereotyping in person judgment. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 65(2), 272–281. APA PsycArticles. https://doi.org/10.1037/0022-3514.65.2.272

Bursell, M. (2024). The scope and limits of implicit bias training: An experimental study with Swedish social workers. Social Science Information, 63(1), 92–113. https://doi.org/10.1177/05390184241230397

Choudhury, S. (2021). Deep diversity: A compassionate, scientific approach to achieving racial justice.

Cox, W. T. L. (2023). Developing scientifically validated bias and diversity trainings that work: Empowering agents of change to reduce bias, create inclusion, and promote equity. Management Decision, 61(4), 1038–1061. https://doi.org/10.1108/MD-06-2021-0839

Dovchin, S. (2019). The politics of injustice in translingualism: Linguistic discrimination. In T. A. Barrett & S. Dovchin (Eds.), Critical inquiries in the sociolinguistics of globalization (pp. 84–101). Multilingual Matters.

McDiarmid, J. (2019). Highway of tears: A true story of racism, indifference and the pursuit of justice for missing and murdered indigenous women and girls. Doubleday Canada.

Neff, K. (2015). Self-compassion: Stop beating yourself up and leave insecurity behind. Harper Collins.

Project Implicit. (2011). Frequently Asked Questions. Project Implicit. https://implicit.harvard.edu/implicit/user/demo.canada/ca.static/faqs.html