Prejudice And Racism In 'Project Implicit'

In today’s society, announcing one’s aversion towards people different from them is the fastest way receive ridicule. In general, society has progressed to a point where being xenophobic, racist, and sexist is socially unacceptable. Despite this progress, society still suffers from the effects of racism, xenophobia, and sexism. Why is that? The answer has to do with the fact that while explicit expressions of these behaviors are seen as unacceptable, implicit associations still permeate our society. These associations lead to implicit bias. Implicit bias is readily becoming the most pervasive form of bias in our society. It contributes to both micro and macro-level inequalities, and raising awareness of implicit bias is crucial in order to suppress its effects on society. This paper will start with a discussion of what implicit bias is. This will be followed by a discussion of the effects of implicit bias. It will conclude with a discussion of how implicit bias can be combatted.

We as a society, assume that certain groups of individuals have different characterises compared to others. This is called ‘stereotyping’. When something is out of our conscious and control, this is called ‘implicit stereotype’. Implicit stereotype is when we unknowingly stereotype; for example unintentionally believing that men are stronger than women. When working as a therapist, in order to monitor non- discriminatory practice it’s important that we are all self- aware of our own prejudices and stereotypes. The ‘Harvard Implicit Association Test’ was created to help people be aware of their unconscious drive that influences their day to day decisions. This test was developed by researchers from Harvard University that shows individuals what their prejudices are, which may not be known to self. (Implicit preferences) It would be important for a counsellor to use immediacy when in the counselling room with their clients, to acknowledge any implicit stereotypes that may affect

Implicit bias plays a significant role in today’s society, whether the members realize it or not. The online Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy says,” ‘Implicit bias’ is a term of art referring to a relatively unconscious and relatively automatic features of prejudiced judgement and social behavior” (Brownstein 2015). Implicit biases are often based on stereotypes. Stereotypes, as defined by OpenStax, are “oversimplified ideas about groups of people” (OpenStax College 2015:248). Implicit biases can be problematic for many reasons. One way implicit biases are troublesome is due to the fact that it is unconscious, so it is usually out of a person’s control. People are often unaware of their own and how they use it. A very common way implicit biases are seen in society is through discrimination. Discrimination is defined as “prejudiced action against a group of people” (OpenStax College 2015:248). If a man and a woman are considered as potentials for being hired, the employer may have an implicit bias either towards or against men or women influencing them to hire one over the other based on their gender. This exemplifies a modern concern of gender discrimination as well. Implicit biases can come in many forms from gender, race, weight, sexuality, and many more. These factors can influence an individual’s treatment of others if they have significant bias. In society, these implicit biases can negatively influence minority and other groups and lead to inequality.

discusses the results of a Implicit Association Test which measures a persons automatic association between mental representation of objects in the memory. Nearly 88 percent of the white race who took the Implicit Association Test show inherent racial bias. They have found when white people carry a implicit racial bias that they subconsciously prefer white people over black people in areas such as employment and academic. People don't even realize that they have a subconscious biases against a certain race. Which can affect how they interact with them. America still has a problem with race, The Civil War ended many years ago but the war between races still exist . Once we acknowledge the truth behind inherent racial bias we can move towards

The Implicit Association Test or IAT is a valuable tool that those in the criminal justice system use; often times during the hiring process candidates will be required to complete the IAT so that hiring officials can see if they have any unconscious bias. The IAT is still relatively new in terms of psychological research only being created in the 1990’s by psychologist Anthony Greenwald (Kaufman, 2011). Individuals who take the race portion of the test are shown pictures of Caucasian and African-American males or females, then are given positive or negative words that they associate with each race as fast as possible. After taking the test it measures the unconscious bias that everyone has deep down (Kaufman, 2011).

Research centers for the study of racial bias have developed experimental studies to help understand how race can, for instance, influence a police officer to shoot an unarmed suspect. The Implicit Association Test (IAT) is one of the most commonly used tests for this study. IAT was developed by three scientists, Tony Greenwald (University of Washington), Mahzarin Banaji (Harvard University), and Brian Nosek (University of Virginia) (“ProjectImplicit”). Their “Project Implicit” program was designed to identify our societal biases through the association of faces (black and white) with words (good and bad). This program uses a scoring algorithm that can identify those who are faking the test with approximately 75% accuracy (Cvencek et al.).

Racial stereotypes more or less affect our perceptions toward race, and judge people in a certain frame unconsciously, as Omi set forth in In Living Color: Race and American Culture. It greatly impact the images of minorities on the visual media, which the most direct medium to reflect the popular beliefs. Even though the “racist beliefs” have “just recently being reversed”, the portrayal of minorities on visual media is still not exemplary (Horton, et al “PORTRAYAL OF MINORITIES IN THE FILM, MEDIA AND ENTERTAINMENT INDUSTRIES”).

An Implicit Bias is an unconscious reaction to another person because of their race, age, gender, appearance, or sexual orientation based off of stereotypes. Staples uses this in his article to explain each situation as it progresses. An example of this is shown when he explains how his appearance was enough to scare a woman at night. “To her, the youngish black man-a broad six feet two inches with a beard and billowing hair, both hands shoved into the pockets of a bulky military jacket-seemed menacingly close” (Staples 1). This is an example of an implicit bias by showing how intimidating African Americans are to other people. Staples wants to change the biased perspective of how people view all African Americans as being a thug.

The proposed study aims to investigate the relationship between implicit prejudices and their effect on perception and judgment of others. Individuals generally hold specific prejudices towards their ingroups and outgroups and these can be deliberately or subconsciously expressed through explicit or implicit attitudes, respectively. Learning more about the relationship between the subconscious prejudicial attitudes people hold and how these affect perceptions of others is important if a better understanding of intergroup relations is to be made. More specifically, and relevant to the study at hand, investigating implicit prejudices White individuals have and how these affect their

One such scenario is the candidate hiring process where candidates with white sounding names received up to 50% more callbacks than candidates with black sounding names. The paper goes on to explain how the Implicit Association Test, IAT, demonstrates the subtle racial biases that many people have. Since individuals are often unaware of their implicit biases, the paper suggests that self-awareness is necessary to correct for the hidden factors in one’s own environment. One way they suggest fixing this problem is by simply being aware that one has these racial biases, also known as self-awareness. They provide an example where a person had read a psychology paper reporting that people in their profession are subject to certain kinds of racially biased behavior. The person was then inserted in the same scenario a few days later, and adjusted their behavior or actions to compensate for the racial bias they read about. When the person corrects his or her actions to incorporate the racial bias, he or she is more likely to give a more accurate assessment of the situation. This is because they are now self-aware of hidden biases that could negatively influence their

Knowing, understanding, and being aware of personal biases is the first step in the development of plans or strategies overcoming biases. As nurses we must recognize and be more sensitive to the care provided to patients and understand that differences do exist in and between the differing races, cultures, and ethnic groups (Giger, 2013, p. 3). The Implicit Association Test (IAT) is used to identify and provide an awareness to biases that are consciously or unconsciously present in an individuals actions and beliefs (Project Implicit, 2011). After completing the Race IAT, Gender-Career IAT and Religion IAT, I will discuss the prejudices, biases, and stereotypical thinking present in my life and share what steps can be taken to reduce or eliminate

No matter who you are or what part of the world you are from implicit bias are a constant issue in society. These tendencies typically stem from structural injustice, implicit bias, and personal discretion. Structural injustice is when a category of people are associated with an insufficient status when comparing to other groups of people engaging in the same actions. Implicit bias are stances and stereotypes that affect our comprehension, actions and decisions held by our unconscious manner. These bias are involuntarily and are done without individuals awareness or intentional control. Everyone is exposed to these biases at a young age through the media, parents, and teachers. Each individual holds possession of implicit bias whether they

The environment in which one is born in has a way of embedded certain ideas into one’s head. Through socialization and personal experience, these ideas are formed and many people are never consciously aware of where these ideas stemmed from. Implicit bias is an unconscious thought process that many individuals are never aware of due to its intrinsic nature. The United States of America, which may be a country rich in diversity and culture, is also a place that is struggling to overcome a history of racism, oppression, and prejudice that has been prevalent since its founding. Over time, we have experienced less explicit racial discrimination and bias but implicit racial biases seems to be a vast concern worth exploring in the

For this assignment, I’ve decided to complete the Race Implicit Bias Test. I decided to take that test because I wanted to see which race I had an automatic preference toward. I expected my results to be either be neutral or have a slight preference to White people to Black people.

Part of the presentation that described what implicit racial bias is, how it is measured, and how it influences everyday interactions. All participants viewed this presentation but only intervention group participants were provided with strategies and group sessions aimed to help minimize implicit racial bias.