Gibson D. Lewis Library Libguides
Diversity, Equity, & Inclusion (DEI)
What is Implicit Bias?
Implicit bias refers to the ways our behavior might subconsciously "act on the basis of prejudice and stereotypes without intending to do so" (Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy). Bias is in our biology: our brains are inundated with information as we interact with the world and to handle all this data, our brains create shortcuts of associations. These shortcuts that were meant to protect us from threats now encourage us to make assumptions about the people we interact with daily. People may consciously hold beliefs that align with equality, but their backgrounds, the media they have consumed, and their learned behaviors can influence them to favor individuals that look, believe, and behave just like them. Conversely, these biases can influence us to exclude individuals that fit outside of this box.
Implicit Bias and Medicine
Implicit bias can negatively affect every aspect of life, but in the context of medicine, biases result in inferior care and poorer health outcomes. A lot of work is yet to be done in this area, but we do know many instances where implicit bias impacts health disparities. For example:
Black patients with diabetes are 4 times more likely to have a limb amputated compared to white patients (Mizelle, 2021).
Hispanic and Black patients are less likely to be prescribed opioids because of widespread assumption of misuse (Chapman, 2013).
Women are 3 times less likely than men to undergo knee arthroplasty (Chapman, 2013).
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Check your bias with Implicit Association Tests (IAT)
Although not a perfect measure of implicit bias, Harvard's Project Implicit developed online self-assessments called Implicit Association Tests (IAT). These assessments use words and images to highlight the ease of association between positive and negative concepts with groups of people. The assessments are available in many topics, including race, gender, religion, and more. You may notice many studies utilize IAT to measure bias.
Research on mitigating implicit bias is now gaining footing in peer-reviewed literature, but much work and appraisal is yet to be done. Most studies examining the effectiveness of implicit bias interventions contain limited sample sizes and effect sizes and contain no examination of long-term efficacy. In a systematic review conducted by FitzGerald, Martin, Berner and Hurst, the most effective interventions featured exposure to individuals that do not fit commonly held stereotypes, identifying commonalities between oneself and groups experiencing bias, evaluative conditioning, and inducing emotion through music or moral elevation (2019).
Jennifer Eberhardt, author and professor of psychology at Stanford University, suggests that combating implicit bias may come down to interrupting the shortcuts our brain utilizes that lead to assumption.
Biased by ISBN: 0735224935Publication Date: 2019-03-26"Poignant....important and illuminating."--The New York Times Book Review "Groundbreaking."--Bryan Stevenson, New York Times bestselling author of Just Mercy From one of the world's leading experts on unconscious racial bias come stories, science, and strategies to address one of the central controversies of our time How do we talk about bias? How do we address racial disparities and inequities? What role do our institutions play in creating, maintaining, and magnifying those inequities? What role do we play? With a perspective that is at once scientific, investigative, and informed by personal experience, Dr. Jennifer Eberhardt offers us the language and courage we need to face one of the biggest and most troubling issues of our time. She exposes racial bias at all levels of society--in our neighborhoods, schools, workplaces, and criminal justice system. Yet she also offers us tools to address it. Eberhardt shows us how we can be vulnerable to bias but not doomed to live under its grip. Racial bias is a problem that we all have a role to play in solving.
Blindspot by ISBN: 9780553804645Publication Date: 2013-02-12"Accessible and authoritative . . . While we may not have much power to eradicate our own prejudices, we can counteract them. The first step is to turn a hidden bias into a visible one. . . . What if we're not the magnanimous people we think we are?"--The Washington Post I know my own mind. I am able to assess others in a fair and accurate way. These self-perceptions are challenged by leading psychologists Mahzarin R. Banaji and Anthony G. Greenwald as they explore the hidden biases we all carry from a lifetime of exposure to cultural attitudes about age, gender, race, ethnicity, religion, social class, sexuality, disability status, and nationality. "Blindspot" is the authors' metaphor for the portion of the mind that houses hidden biases. Writing with simplicity and verve, Banaji and Greenwald question the extent to which our perceptions of social groups--without our awareness or conscious control--shape our likes and dislikes and our judgments about people's character, abilities, and potential. In Blindspot, the authors reveal hidden biases based on their experience with the Implicit Association Test, a method that has revolutionized the way scientists learn about the human mind and that gives us a glimpse into what lies within the metaphoric blindspot. The title's "good people" are those of us who strive to align our behavior with our intentions. The aim of Blindspot is to explain the science in plain enough language to help well-intentioned people achieve that alignment. By gaining awareness, we can adapt beliefs and behavior and "outsmart the machine" in our heads so we can be fairer to those around us. Venturing into this book is an invitation to understand our own minds. Brilliant, authoritative, and utterly accessible, Blindspot is a book that will challenge and change readers for years to come. Praise for Blindspot "Conversational . . . easy to read, and best of all, it has the potential, at least, to change the way you think about yourself."--Leonard Mlodinow, The New York Review of Books "Banaji and Greenwald deserve a major award for writing such a lively and engaging book that conveys an important message: Mental processes that we are not aware of can affect what we think and what we do. Blindspot is one of the most illuminating books ever written on this topic."--Elizabeth F. Loftus, Ph.D., distinguished professor, University of California, Irvine; past president, Association for Psychological Science; author of Eyewitness Testimony
Everyday Bias by ISBN: 9781442258655Publication Date: 2020-07-30To be human is to be biased. From this simple truth, nationally recognized diversity expert Howard J. Ross explores the biases we each carry within us. Incorporating anecdotes from today's headlines alongside case studies from over 30 years of diversity consulting, Ross helps readers understand how unconscious bias impacts our day-to-day lives and, particularly, our daily work lives. And, he answers the question: "Is there anything we can do about it?" by providing examples of behaviors that the reader can engage in to disengage the impact of their own biases. Originally published in 2014, the updated edition draws new examples from today's headlines such as the #me too Movement, police shootings, and bias in the ever more partisan Trump era.
Masked by Trust by ISBN: 9781634000833Publication Date: 2019-06-01The rise of Google and its integration into nearly every aspect of our lives has pushed libraries to adopt similar "Google-like" search tools, called discovery systems. Because these tools are provided by libraries and search scholarly materials rather than the open web, we often assume they are more "accurate" or "reliable" than their general-purpose peers like Google or Bing. But discovery systems are still software written by people with prejudices and biases, library software vendors are subject to strong commercial pressures that are often hidden behind diffuse collection-development contracts and layers of administration, and they struggle to integrate content from thousands of different vendors and their collective disregard for consistent metadata. Library discovery systems struggle with accuracy, relevance, and human biases, and these shortcomings have the potential to shape the academic research and worldviews of the students and faculty who rely on them. While human bias, commercial interests, and problematic metadata have long affected researchers' access to information, algorithims in library discovery systems increase the scale of the negative effects on users, while libraries continue to promote their "objective" and "neutral" search tools. Matthew Reidsma is the Web Services Librarian at Grand Valley State University in Allendale, Michigan. He was a co-founder and former Editor-in-Chief of Weave: Journal of Library User Experience, a peer-reviewed, open access journal for Library User Experience professionals. He is the author of Responsive Web Design for Libraries published by ALA TechSource, Customizing Vendor Systems for Better User Experiences from Libraries Unlimited, and the forthcoming Masked by Trust: Bias in library discovery from Library Juice Press. He speaks about design ethics, user experience, and usability around the world. Library Journal named him a "Mover and Shaker" in 2013, which led to many unfortunate dance-related jokes in the Reidsma household.
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