Unconscious Biases

Implicit biases are “‘habits of mind,’ learned over time through repeated personal experiences and cultural socialization, which can be activated unintentionally, often outside of one’s own awareness, and are difficult to control” (Burgess, Beach & Saha, 2017, p. 372). Implicit bias is seen in the medical field partly because of the time pressure of medical visits, and the reliance on stereotypes in situations of high stress. It is difficult to study implicit bias because of social desirability. No doctor wants to admit that they are biased and, as a result, they are going to do their best to demonstrate the socially desirable response of being non-biased. However, research shows that bias and prejudice from health care providers toward patients exists, and leads to poorer care related to the assessment of cardiovascular risk and whether or not a patient is referred for additional treatment (Stepanikova, I., 2012). Even health care providers from one of the best health care organizations in the world, Mayo Clinic, struggle with

I have heard of implicit bias from my high school AP Psychology class. Implicit bias is bias against a certain group of people based on race, ethnicity, sex, gender, or any other feature. It is bias that is unconscious and may not be known to that individual may not be aware of. Explicit bias is discrimination that someone is consciously aware of. I took the IAT test relating to gender and STEM. I choose that one because am a female in a male dominated STEM career. The results found that I had no preferences with gender and science. I was not surprised by the results of my test. I do not think I associate one gender with science because I see many males and females in my chemistry and calculus class. I will use my knowledge of implicit bias

Bias is commonly known as being stubborn when it comes to one’s views; however, bias can announce itself in smaller, more innate ways. In this film, one’s implicit bias is an important factor in how the film and its characters will be interpreted by the viewer. Bias is based on neurological pathways that have been formed around one’s opinion. Any new information or evidence that supports one’s idea, whether it’s correct or incorrect, strengthens this bond, or pathway. The brain does everything it can to protect itself from being wrong. A brain can base a conclusion on zero evidence, it can twist information to fit its own bias, and it can stereotype an entire group of people off of an interaction with one person. These are pitfalls in critical thinking, which can make it difficult to break one’s bias. In order to think differently or break away from pitfalls in critical thinking, one must literally deconstruct and reconstruct neurological pathways, physically changing one’s brain.

Mike Rognlien - Manage the Learning and Development Team for the Americas out in New York

First, did your team decide to race or not to race? Explain your how your group arrived at that decision.

Information bias is a type of cognitive bias that describes the tendency to seek information when it does not affect action. People can often make better predictions or choices with less information: more information is not always better. An example of information bias is believing that the more information that can be acquired to make a decision, the better, even if that extra information is irrelevant for the decision. I find myself always trying to collect the most information possible and a majority of the time it is irrelevant to the final decision. One specific example of me using information bias, is when I was trying to decide which cough medication I should purchase. I read all the bottles and googled which product other people had like, but when it came down to finally making the decision I bought the cheapest one. All the research and reading were for nothing because ultimately, I didn’t use the knowledge to make the decision.

Tennis superstar Serena Williams faced doubt from her healthcare team when she informed them that she believed she was experiencing a postnatal pulmonary embolism(Haskell 2018). She had a history of attaining life-threatening blood-clots yet, according to her cover story in Vogue, her nurse believed her pain medicine was causing her confusion. Williams knew she needed a cat scan and a heparin drip and it wasn’t until her doctor was finally called that she received the treatment she needed. Unfortunately, her story is not the only one. In a BuzzFeed video titled My Doctor Didn’t Believe My Pain, women narrate experiences in which they struggled to receive proper healthcare all due to doctors’ disbelieve in their symptoms. These women fought,

I actually watched "Hidden Prejudice" in a previous class but never took any of the tests. Additionally, I do believe unconscious bias plays a huge role in shifting the way we perceive certain things even if we do not intend to do so. It is extremely difficult to ignore something that has been reinforced in our society for decades even if we have different beliefs or see things from a different perspective. As the video discussed, an important step to move forward is to acknowledge that a hidden prejudice might exist and that regardless of what we might think, that bias might be there. Definitely, an important factor in order to try and stay truthful is to be aware of that unconscious bias. Furthermore, I did not find the result in the video

The article I chose was “What’s not being said about implicit bias and how it shapes our reality” by John A. Powell. I chose this article because it offered me more information on how biases affect society, for example, it mentions an occasion where biases affected policymaking. It also provided me an insight on what well-known members of society think about biases. Moreover, it mentioned a few techniques one can implement in order to diminish unconscious biases. It provided me with more scientific evidence than Verna Myers’s TED Talk on the subject of biases. Now, thanks to this information I will be able to expand on the ideas stated in the previous essay regarding biases.

Being tilted towards on side of thinking. We are all a little biased on one or more subjects. I don’t believe that bias has to do with race. Bias is to lean heavy on one side or another side of an argument.

For years now, understanding prejudice has been one of human’s greatest challenges. Prejudice can be described as an unfavourable, negative attitude towards a social group and its individual members. On the surface this may not seem like a significant issue, however, it can become associated with dehumanisation and violence. It is suggested that every human is prejudice; people make assumptions based on characteristics such as age, sex, and ethnicity. There are many explanations of prejudice, however, there has never been an internationally accepted theory. In early 20th Century, Prejudice was considered an innate quality of humans, and instinctive response to certain characteristics of a person. Other psychologists may argue that prejudice is an attitude that is acquired over time, catalysed by social agents.

In the research article “Wealth, Health, and the Moderating Role of Implicit Social Class Bias” by Dr. Neha John-Henderson, researchers looked to identify the role that implicit beliefs about social class had on the relationship between subjective social status and inflammation. When first reading this research, I didn't quite understand the correlation between these different factors. This was the first time that I heard about research that not only dealt with socioeconomic status and health, or socioeconomic status and implicit biases, but all three together. I was definitely interested to see how others perceived their economic status compared to others, and I wondered how many of those participants felt that they were in a different SES

In our daily life we often face with various cognitive biases. Today, there are about 166 types of cognitive biases. Even though we are rarely able to recognize them, cognitive biases have a great effect on our way of living. Personally, by analyzing my daily behaviour, as well as people around me, I can identify four cognitive biases, that occur more often than other. One of them is Law of the instrument,or in other words an over-reliance on a familiar tool or methods, ignoring or under-valuing alternative approaches. This cognitive bias I experience very often, since one of the weak sides of my character is stubbornness and risk aversion, so in my daily behaviour while making any decision, I tend to rely on a “familiar tool” rather than

During multiple instances I have witnessed people minimizing individuals of darker complexion. I have heard things along the lines of “Oh I wish I was your skin color and not so dark.”, or “I wish I were mixed, I would look better if I were mixed, right?” and even comments such as “my parents told me if I ever brought home a dark-skinned girlfriend or boyfriend, I’d be in trouble!” Not only have I witnessed it, but I have too been a victim of internalized racism. One evening, a group of boys surrounded me and became compelled to use the term “light-skinned” to ridicule me. Previously they admitted they longed to be somewhat my skin color, and since they were not they teased me instead. Becoming frustrated by their “jokes”, I probed them asking,

Another explanation for cognitive biases is that essentially, life is hard. We’re faced with increasingly more situations and questions to face, and our brains struggle to make complex choices. Cognitive biases allow the brain to make mental shortcuts, effectively saving time and energy and helping us make the world just a little bit simpler. For confirmation bias, it requires far less mental energy to absorb a piece of information that confirms what we already know, compared to having to absorb an entirely new piece of information that challenges our thoughts and ideas..