The Matter of Fit: The Law of Discrimination and the Science of Implicit Bias

This Article examines the fit between the law of discrimination and the science of implicit bias, including consideration of the legal standards that apply and a broad overview of the sociological and psychological literatures that are relevant to those standards. The Authors first set forth the legal framework within which the psychological and sociological research literatures must be considered. Although the legal standard is not entirely unambiguous, scientific research on implicit bias appears relevant to the basic empirical issues put in issue by the law. The Authors then review the general research literature on the phenomenon of implicit biases in order to determine whether it is sufficient to support expert opinion on this subject and, if so, in what ways. This review leads the Authors to conclude that the research available on implicit bias should be admitted in order to inform jurors generally about the existence of implicit bias, so that they might determine whether it was a motivating factor in the decision at issue in the case. The research literature, however, does not support allowing the expert witness to opine regarding whether the particular decision at issue was itself a result of implicit bias

Understanding the nature of status inequality : why is it everywhere? : why does it matter?

Lecture delivered at the European University Institute in Florence on 08 November 2017A video interview with the presenter was recorded on 08 November 2017Status, which is based on differences in esteem and honor, is an ancient and universal form of inequality which nevertheless interpenetrates modern institutions and organizations. Given its ubiquity and significance, we need to better understand the basic nature of status as a form of inequality. I argue that status hierarches are a cultural invention to organize and manage social relations in a fundamental human condition: cooperative interdependence to achieve valued goals with nested competitive interdependence to maximize individual outcomes in the effort. I consider this claim in relation to both evolutionary arguments and empirical evidence. Evidence suggests that the cultural schema of status is two-fold, consisting of a deeply learned basic norm of status allocation and a set of more explicit, variable, and changing common knowledge status beliefs that people draw on to coordinate judgments about who or what is more deserving of higher status. The cultural nature of status allows people to spread it widely to social phenomena (e.g., firms in a business field) well beyond its origins in interpersonal hierarchies. In particular, I argue, the association of status with social difference groups (e.g., race, gender, class-as-culture) gives inequalities based on those difference groups an autonomous, independent capacity to reproduce themselves through interpersonal status processes