Premium Essay

Unconscious-Bias And Implicit Associations

Submitted By
Words 362
Pages 2
Next, we’ll discuss the merits of Unconscious-Bias and Implicit Associations. The merits of these two ideas seem pretty obvious to me. Since this theory says that some prejudice is due to these biases and associations, if people are more aware of their own biases and implicit-associations, then maybe that awareness can reduce prejudicial behavior. One way to do this is with The Implicit-Associations Test. The Implicit-Associations Test is a wonderful tool to help people understand their own personal biases. One interesting example of unconscious-bias can be seen in a study done on overweight patients. In this study, the patients were tested on their preference between overweight and thin people. They were also tested on their association to

Similar Documents

Free Essay

Eliminating Bias

...Eliminating Bias People make decisions everyday in favor of one group, and to the detriment of others, without even realizing it. This prejudice or favoritism is bias. Biases affect not only our judgment but also our behavior, beliefs, and perception. Biases are selective, learned, culturally determined and can be inaccurate. Biased thinking leads to misunderstanding, wrong decisions, and to costly consequences. Bias can prove very destructive and is the foundation of stereotypes, prejudice and, ultimately, discrimination. A stereotype is an exaggerated belief, image or distorted truth about a person or group — a generalization that allows for little or no individual differences or social variation. A prejudice is an opinion, prejudgment or attitude about a group or its individual members. Prejudices are often accompanied by ignorance, fear or hatred. Prejudice begins with attachment to a close circle of acquaintances or an "in-group" such as a family and is often aimed at "out-groups." Discrimination is behavior that treats people unequally because of their group memberships and often begins with negative stereotypes and prejudices. Once learned, stereotypes and prejudices resist change, even when evidence fails to support them or points to the contrary. (Willoughby, 2007) When I think of bias I think of blatant ways that it manifests itself, but bias can be so subtle that it is hidden and hard to spot. If I change my conscious attitudes and...

Words: 1378 - Pages: 6

Free Essay

Psy 101

...did she find in the Journal of Personality and Social Psychology? Ms. Kelly found that the channel of Personality and Social Psychology have an article based on implicit association test what show that 70 percent of the people who took this test black and white Harbor and unconscious preference for white over black people 3) What did the University of Washington find out about the IAT test? The University of Washington also found that the IAT showed 70 percent of the people who took the IAT unconsciously preferred white people to black people 4) Explain how the IAT test works and what does it measure? The IAT is given by computer shows pictures of black and white faces and ask you to connect them to positive and or negative words the IAT measures the speed in which you make word association to the pictures 5) What does Ms. Kelly say about racism and unconscious bias? Ms. Kelly states that racism and unconscious bias is amongst African Americans and Caucasian; most of us stereotype and are judgmental by nature. One line that stood out to me personally was Ms. Kelly recognizing that stereotyping was done to the point where it happens not in our conscience mind, but our operating system. We are programmed this way. Is it cultures fault? 6) What does Prof. Anthony Greenwald say about unconscious bias? The lead researcher on the study of (Awareness can help to overcome this unwanted influence) explained how when you are unaware of attitudes or stereotypes, they...

Words: 351 - Pages: 2

Free Essay

How Unethical Are You?

...explains four related sources of unintentional unethical decision making. They are implicit forms of prejudice, bias that favors one's own group, conflict of interest and overclaiming credit. Implicit forms of prejudice is also known as unconscious stereotypes and attitudes towards people. In the mid 1990's professor Tony Greenwald (university of Washington) developed a tool called Implicit Association Test (IAT). This test exposes your decisions making based on race, gender, religion and so on. Bias that favors your group. We have probably all done this. Referred a friend, or relative to get a job. We tend to do favors for those that are similiar to us. Perhaps same race, religion, employer or attend the same school. This is called in group favoritism. While discriminating these who are different from us is consider un-ethical. We tend to judge African Americans, Arabs, poor, gays and lesbians. On the contrary, 75% of testakers (IAT) will choose the young, rich and white. Conflict of interest can lead to intentionally corrupt behavior. Experiments show how powerful such conflicts can unintentionally change decision making. Several examples are a physician accepting payments from clinical trials, lawyers fees based on their clients settlements. Overclaiming credit is when you give yourself too much credit, for example rating yourself above average from intelligence to driving ability. Unconscious overclaiming credit can reduce the performance and logevity of an organization. If...

Words: 495 - Pages: 2

Premium Essay

Nt1310 Unit 2 Test Paper

...test, and I was diagnosed as strongly biased toward European American over African Americans. 2. Finally, the test Science and Liberal Arts was taken, and I received a slight implicit association for male and science. II. What makes this experiment/test reliable? 1. The test’s reliability counts on the scientific approach for the collected data and the statistic correlation used to indicate the implicit bias the tester may possess. Moreover, the double test and randomly allocated initial asymmetry, African decedents and upright words being first 50% of the time, minimize the effects one might have with adaptation during the test, previous knowledge of it, and predispositions for left handed people over right handed. III....

Words: 536 - Pages: 3

Premium Essay

No Paper Haha

...Farhad Manjoo exposes the hidden bias of males over females and other issues at Google, in his article in the New York Times, “Exposing Hidden Bias at Google.” Manjoo informs the reader on the statistics of the company’s employed females and male number, mentioning that nearly 83 percent of Google’s engineering employees are made up of men, and 79 percent of Google’s managers as well, showing the overwhelming majority of employees represented by men compared to women. Gender diversity being only one issue, Google is also has a disunite underrepresentation of Blacks and Hispanics among it’s staff. Google is aware of the poor gender diversity and the company is unhappy about it, trying differed ways to fix the problem. In effort to fix the poor gender diversity, Google proposed a number of workshops that targeted at not only on the issue of gender diversity but also cultural diversity. These workshops, which are based on a field of research in social psychology known as unconscious bias, have been launched and are in effect at Google. The meaning behind “unconscious bias” is that every day, there are hidden judgments or acceptances that shape people’s views and effect the way people welcome or are open to different ideas, diverse backgrounds, or women in the work place. Lazlo Block, one of Google’s executives, in charge of human resources, suspected that there was an unconscious bias amongst Google’s employees and is a much deeper issue than what it seems to be. Dr. Brian Welle...

Words: 426 - Pages: 2

Premium Essay

Exam Study Guide

...reactions does it typically cause in people? 7. Are polygraphs good at detecting lies? What do polygraphs actually measure? 8. According to the James-Lange theory of emotions does feeling an emotion cause our body to physically react, or do physical reactions in the body cause us to feel emotions? What evidence do we have that this is the case? 9. What are basic emotions? What do psychologists look for when they try to identify basic emotions? 10. How do we know facial expressions for basic emotions are not learned through experience? PERSONALITY 11. Important Concepts: Personality, Unconscious, Id, Ego & Superego, Defense Mechanisms, Repression, Denial, Rationalization, Projection, Personality Traits, Myers-Briggs Type Indicator, Big Five 12. What is the difference between a personality trait and a state? 13. Did Freud view the conscious or unconscious mind as having a larger impact on people’s behavior? 14. What are the roles of the Id, Ego, and Superego? How did Freud see these three components in relation to personality disorders? 15. According to Freud, why do people have defense mechanisms? 16. What are the four types of defense...

Words: 859 - Pages: 4

Premium Essay

Moral Reasoning

...as we grow and attempt to increase our understanding of our surroundings. We associate traits and characteristics with Consider the Harvard Implicit tests, a series of tests designed to measure a level of unconscious bias in people. The theory is that we as humans have and innate desire to categorize people based on an unconscious bias we have, either through development or other learning patterns. What is interesting about this study and the comparable research, is that it differentiates between this unconscious bias and our concscious efforts to overcome it. The tests require associations between words and stimuli; one for example is the racism test It is though that we have strong prior association between categories for example Wendy, we consider automatically to be a female name, ad vice versa, Will would be thought of as a guys name. this is applicable to other situations as in the race test, where we seem to automatically associate positive terms, such as successful, good, with white faces and others such as bad, evil and hurt with black faces. The results are even more startling with over 80% of those who took the racism test deemed to have a strong pro-white association with white people. The startling statistic is that almost half of African Americans display the same pro white association. It is said that this association stems from our environment and surroundings; consider televiosn, movies, and video games, where african Americans or other races are conveyed...

Words: 1277 - Pages: 6

Free Essay

Expositorty Essay

...“My name is Khan and I am not a Terrorist.” This quote was taken from a film written by Shibani Bathija that depicted the feelings of a character whom believed to have been given bias and prejudice treatment from his surroundings because he was Muslim. Sadly, this statement has held truth too many feelings held by Muslims in America. Since 9-11, the treatment given to Muslim in American have been worse than it has ever been in years. Being an American Muslim has been a testing task. Post 9-11 has altered the mindset of the American people because of incorrect information. Although there are laws set against certain prejudice and bias acts, they still exist. One question we all as America need to ask ourselves is have we played a part in the way Muslims feel in today’s society. If the answer is yes, will you admit it and will you change? Most Americans will deny it, but as a society, we may fear American Muslims or have acted bias, racist, or even prejudice against them. Not all Muslims are terrorist! The Muslim population was once very small but has increased greatly in the 20th century. In 2005, nearly 96,000 people of Islamic countries have become permanent American citizens. Then in 2009, there was another 115,000 Muslims who became legal residents. Muslims in American are not only Arab descent. They are very racially diverse religious groups and come from various backgrounds. “Native-born American Muslims are mainly African Americans who make up about a quarter of the total...

Words: 1576 - Pages: 7

Premium Essay

The Effects of Socialization on Attitudes Regarding Homosexuality in Relation to the Implicit Associations Test

...The Effects of Socialization on Attitudes Regarding Homosexuality in Relation to the Implicit Associations Test Elaina Lucido Department of Psychological and Brain Sciences Indiana University Bloomington Abstract In this study, I investigated whether explicit measures of personal attitudes regarding homosexuality are correlated with implicit measures of personal preference between heterosexuality and homosexuality. Participants were first given a self-report survey in order to gauge their explicit attitudes or prejudices in regards to homosexuals in society. Then, a Sexuality IAT was administered in order to test for a suggested implicit preference for Straight over Gay or vice versa. Overall average scores on the Sexuality IAT revealed implicit preferences for heterosexuality over homosexuality. When the explicit and implicit measures were paired together, correlation analysis revealed that there was no statistically significant correlation between the two. The Effects of Socialization on Attitudes Regarding Homosexuality in Relation to the Implicit Associations Test Attitudes and behaviors towards homosexuality are usually attributed to the moral standings, values, upbringing, and personal experiences of an individual. Opinions regarding the acceptance of homosexuality in America have changed drastically within the past decade partly due to an increased population of younger generations and open homosexuals within the United States. Dimock, et al...

Words: 3484 - Pages: 14

Free Essay

Professionalism

...1.0 Exercises on Professionalism 1.3.a. What is your over-all rating? Do you agree or disagree with the rating? Why and why not? Give some supporting answers to your judgment/s. My over-all rating in the Professional Development Assessment was 109 points out of 120. I believe the rating I got was reasonable and just since I pondered over the possibilities of each component. Definitely, I am in agreement with the rating. It is neither too high to the point of being improbable nor too low to being a discredit. The total percentage I got for this evaluation was 90.83%. This means that despite demonstrating the behaviors frequently, it must be taken into account that I am not perfect; I have my flaws and shortcomings. The point of the assessment was to rate how often I exhibit the given traits and to figure out areas that I need to improve on. Even though most of my answers on the subsections of the different professional behaviors fall under the consistently rating scale, I still had items wherein I encircled frequently or “75 to 95% of the time.” This just shows that even though I could rate the behaviors as a whole, I am aware that there are still underlying factors to be considered. For instance, Professional Presentation and Initiative lead me to think that I put them into practice consistently. However, I have realized that I fall short at some aspects under those behaviors. Truly, I should not neglect the smaller details and should consider them important. 1.3.b. List...

Words: 2131 - Pages: 9

Free Essay

Blahblah

...Chapter 5 – Social Cognition Debate: Faith and Social Cognition * Carolyn Briggs: involved in and then rejected. Christian fundamentalism. How can someone believe so intensely and then reject those same beliefs? How are our beleifs shaped by those around us? Consider some cognitive biases and errors you have made. **Social cognition: Study of how people think about people and social relationships. -What is unique about thinking about people as opposed to thinking about something else, like frogs or computers? Why is it important to study how people think about people? -How is argumentative thinking helpful? Why would arguing with others help with human survival? **Thinking Cognitive Miser: Exemplified by having errors in thinking. Reluctance to do much extra thinking. -During free time, why do most people choose to think about a subject such as baseball, but not about a subject such as calculus? **Automatic and deliberate thinking How does the Stroop Effect (colors and words) illustrate automatic versus deliberate thought? How do we know if a thought is automatic? -Requires no awareness -not guided by intention -not subject to deliberate control -effort is low Schemas: information about a concept. Ex/Schema for exams = involves multi paged paper and #2 pencil. Scripts: Schemas about certain events. How an experience and an event will play out. Ex/ For exam… come into class, cram before instructor says put materials away, administered exam...

Words: 950 - Pages: 4

Premium Essay

Hrpyc81

...THE COGNITIVE NEUROSCIENCE OF MEMORY What is memory? It is often associated with the “thinking of again” or “recalling to the mind” of something learned at an earlier time. Descriptions of this sort imply a conscious awareness in the rememberer that they are recollecting something of the past. For example, we might remember our first day of school or some general knowledge such as who the prime minister is. On closer reflection, this is only really the tip of the iceberg when we look at the full range of human memory capabilities. Much of our memory is submerged from conscious view (e.g., skills such as driving or typewriting). Performance on complex tasks such as playing a musical instrument can even be disrupted when conscious awareness intrudes. We learn and remember how to use language often without having to be conscious of its grammatical rules. A better description of memory could be ‘the ability to retain and utilize acquired information or knowledge’. Memory is an integral part of our existence, yet it is only vaguely understood. Through empirical studies on people, the methods of cognitive psychology have lead to some useful descriptions, distinctions and theoretical advances in our understanding of different types of memory. These approaches have paid little attention to the biological substrate of memory – the brain. This is probably partly because, until recently, the tremendous complexity of the brain has hampered our ability to gain useful insights...

Words: 5828 - Pages: 24

Free Essay

Psychology

...Module 24 Memory Behavioural Perspective * Concentrates on OVERT behavior * Stress S – R relationship and argues that this one “STAMPED IN” Cognitive Perspective O Predict Expect Evaluate Memory Predict Expect Evaluate Memory S R Chimpanzees Experiment: Waiting at the place where the drone went pass to get it down Insight – the sudden understanding of how to solve a problem as a result of re-organizing the problem. Memory – the learning that persists overtime. Measuring Memory * Recall – retrieving information that is not currently in your conscious awareness but that was learned at an earlier time. (i.e. Fill-in-the-blank question) * Recognition – identifying items previously learned. (i.e. Multiple choice question) * Relearning – learning something more quickly when you learn it a second or later time. (i.e. measures the time you save when learning the same thing the second time) Tests of recognition and of time spent relearning demonstrate that we remember more than we can recall. As rehearsal increases, relearning time decreases. Information processing model * Encoding – get information into our brain * Storage – retain that information * Retrieval – later get the information back out Parallel processing – the processing of many aspects...

Words: 1647 - Pages: 7

Free Essay

Veterans, Ptsd, and Employment

...employment. Additionally, organizations fail to successfully acclimate and socialize new veteran employees (who do or may suffer from PTSD) into the organization’s culture. Such failures can lead veteran employees to quit their job. Together, the deficient hiring and employment practices displayed towards former service members have significant ethical implications that serve as the catalyst for high unemployment rates for the veteran population. To minimize these implications and to improve veteran employment opportunities, organizations’ human resources (HR) departments must develop and incorporate new approaches to hiring and employing veterans who do or may suffer from PTSD. Keywords: PTSD, invisible disability, human resources, implicit bias Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder: Unethical Business Practices and their Influence on Veteran Unemployment Since the onset of World War II, United States military veterans have been plagued by high unemployment rates. Prima facie, many may assume that such high rates seem counterintuitive, considering the wide variety of skills and capabilities military veterans have attained during their time in the...

Words: 7652 - Pages: 31

Free Essay

Knowledge Management

...RUNNING HEAD: THE CONCEPT OF KNOWLEDGE IN KM The concept of knowledge in KM: A dimensional model Forthcoming in the Journal of Knowledge Management, Volume 10, No 6, 2006 Bertolt Meyer1 and Kozo Sugiyama2 1 Department of Organizational and Social Psychology, Institute of Psychology, Humboldt University Berlin Unter den Linden 6, 10099 Berlin, Germany bmeyer@psychologie.hu-berlin.de 2 School of Knowledge Science, Japan Advanced Institute of Science and Technology 1-1 Asahidai, Nomi, Ishikawa 923-1292, Japan sugi@jaist.ac.jp Abstract Purpose: To sharpen the concepts of tacit, implicit and explicit knowledge by linking them to findings from cognitive psychology and memory science and thus finding a possibility for measuring non-explicit knowledge. Methodology/Approach: A review of KM and cognitive science literature leads to a dimensional model of knowledge types that links the concepts from KM to more specific concepts from psychology. One central assumption of the model was empirically tested and put into practice in one small-scale KM project. Findings: The concepts in KM can be linked to concepts from psychology and thus receive theoretical support. The developed model enables psychometric access to a part of non-explicit knowledge through structural assessment techniques. Furthermore, the model has proven to be of value in a practical application in KM. Research limitations: The experiment and the practical application are too small in scope to provide full...

Words: 9610 - Pages: 39