The Devil You Don’t Know: Implicit Bias Keeps Women in Their Place

While men’s claims of gender bias in the family law system are acknowledged, this article focuses on how bias, whether implicit or explicit under the guise of unconscious attitudes or behavior, continues to place women at a systemic disadvantage. Although implicit bias also impacts outcomes in child abuse and neglect actions involving the state, the focus of this article is the impact of implicit bias in actions between women and men in the family courts, in particular those issues involved in the dissolution of the relationship and the family unit. First, the emergence of implicit social cognition theory will be explored in order to set the stage for understanding how bias continues to effect decision-making in the legal system. Next, this article explores the continued existence of gender bias against women in our society and the external and internal justifications for its persistence. This article will then discuss the persistence of gender bias in the family court system. Existing implicit bias science and research is then applied to the family court environment as a means to explain why and how bias against women continues to affect outcomes in family matters. Finally, although no strategies have been proven to have a long-term impact on eliminating implicit bias against women, this article looks to the findings of existing explicit and implicit bias research and scholarship as a means to discover techniques to eliminate the barrier implicit bias creates for a woman’s ability to obtain a just result in family matters

The Heterogeneity of Implicit Bias

The term 'implicit bias' has very swiftly been incorporated into philosophical discourse. Our aim in this paper is to scrutinise the phenomena that fall under the rubric of implicit bias. The term is often used in a rather broad sense, to capture a range of implicit social cognitions, and this is useful for some purposes. However, we here articulate some of the important differences between phenomena identified as instances of implicit bias. We caution against ignoring these differences: it is likely they have considerable significance, not least for the sorts of normative recommendations being made concerning how to mitigate the bad effects of implicit bias

Epistemic Duty and Implicit Bias

In this chapter, we explore whether agents have an epistemic duty to eradicate implicit bias. Recent research shows that implicit biases are widespread and they have a wide variety of epistemic effects on our doxastic attitudes. First, we offer some examples and features of implicit biases. Second, we clarify what it means to have an epistemic duty, and discuss the kind of epistemic duties we might have regarding implicit bias. Third, we argue that we have an epistemic duty to eradicate implicit biases that have negative epistemic impact. Finally, we defend this view against the objection that we lack the relevant control over implicit bias that’s required for such a duty. We argue that we have a kind of reflective control over the implicit biases that we are duty-bound to eradicate. And since, as we show, we have this control over a wide variety of implicit biases, there are a lot of implicit biases that we have epistemic duties to eradicate

Implicit Racial Biases in Prosecutorial Summations: Proposing an Integrated Response

Racial bias has evolved from the explicit racism of the Jim Crow era to amore subtle and difficult-to-detect form: implicit racial bias. Implicit racial biases exist unconsciously and include negative racial stereotypes andassociations. Everyone, including actors in the criminal justice system who believe themselves to be fair, possess these biases. Although inaccessible through introspection, implicit biases can easily be triggered through language. When trials involve Black defendants, prosecutors’ summations increasingly include racial themes that could trigger jurors’ implicit biases, lead to the perpetuation of unfair stereotypes, and contribute to racial injustice and disparate outcomes. This Note examines and critiques the current approaches that courts and disciplinary authorities use to address implicit racial biases in prosecutorial summations. Recognizing the inadequacy in these current methods, this Note proposes an integrated response, which involves lawyers, jurors, trial courts, and appellate courts. The proposed approach seeks to increase recognition of implicit racial bias use, deter prosecutors from using language that triggers implicit racial biases, and ensure that Black defendants’ equal protection rights are upheld

Bias and Perception

chapter on perception and bias including implicit bias

Interventions designed to reduce implicit prejudices and implicit stereotypes in real world contexts: a systematic review

Background Implicit biases are present in the general population and among professionals in various domains, where they can lead to discrimination. Many interventions are used to reduce implicit bias. However, uncertainties remain as to their effectiveness. Methods We conducted a systematic review by searching ERIC, PUBMED and PSYCHINFO for peer-reviewed studies conducted on adults between May 2005 and April 2015, testing interventions designed to reduce implicit bias, with results measured using the Implicit Association Test (IAT) or sufficiently similar methods. Results 30 articles were identified as eligible. Some techniques, such as engaging with others’ perspective, appear unfruitful, at least in short term implicit bias reduction, while other techniques, such as exposure to counterstereotypical exemplars, are more promising. Robust data is lacking for many of these interventions. Conclusions Caution is thus advised when it comes to programs aiming at reducing biases. This does not weaken the case for implementing widespread structural and institutional changes that are multiply justified

Revitalizing the Meaning of Diversity for Racial Justice in Education

The concept of diversity undermines the true spirit of any affirmative action policy, which is to remedy society\u27s racism and promote racial justice and equality. This is because “diversity” detached from racial justice can signify any human difference unrelated to social inequality. Infusing the notion of “diversity” with the insights from implicit bias research would mean instead considering the goal of “diversity” as a device for making admissions procedures more equitable and justified amidst the continuing implicit bias that can be actually measured. Furthermore, connecting the diversity goal as a device for procedurally addressing implicit bias in admissions decisions and standards also repositions affirmative action as a racial justice project

Controlling the influence of stereotypes on one’s thoughts (Preprint title: Controlling implicit bias: Insights from a public health perspective)

Research on reducing or controlling implicit bias has been characterized by a tension between the two goals of reducing lingering intergroup disparities and gaining insight into human cognition. The tension between these two goals has created two distinct research traditions, each of which is characterized by different research questions, methods, and ultimate goals. We argue that the divisions between these research traditions are more apparent than real and that the two research traditions could be synergistic. We attempt to integrate the two traditions by arguing that implicit bias, and the disparities it is presumed to cause, is a public health problem. Based on this perspective, we identify shortcomings in our current knowledge of controlling implicit bias and provide a set of recommendations for future research

Post-Racial Ideology and Implicit Racial Bias

This study assesses college students from the University of New Hampshire (UNH) and their attitudes and opinions toward people of color, specifically looking at racial/ethnic identity and campus social climate. With 362 respondents from the University of New Hampshire who answered our online survey, it looked at the participants’ post-racial ideologies and the participant’s racial/ethnic identity. This study finds that there is a correlation between racial identity and post-racial beliefs. The study found that 82 percent of the student respondents did not believe that we, as a society, lived in a post-racial America. It was also discovered that the student respondents who did believe we live in a post-racial society (eighteen percent) were almost primarily White participants. The research also shows that in comparison to students of color, White students are more likely to believe that there is little to no racial prejudice or discrimination on UNH’s campus. While this data gives important insight into the racial attitudes at UNH, having a more diverse demographic and a larger sample size would improve the research

Responsibility for implicit bias

Research programs in empirical psychology from the past two decades have revealed implicit biases. Although implicit processes are pervasive, unavoidable, and often useful aspects of our cognitions, they may also lead us into error. The most problematic forms of implicit cognition are those which target social groups, encoding stereotypes or reflecting prejudicial evaluative hierarchies. Despite intentions to the contrary, implicit biases can influence our behaviours and judgements, contributing to patterns of discriminatory behaviour. These patterns of discrimination are obviously wrong and unjust. But in remedying such wrongs, one question to be addressed concerns responsibility for implicit bias. Unlike some paradigmatic forms of wrongdoing, such discrimination is often unintentional, unendorsed, and perpetrated without awareness; and the harms are particularly damaging because they are cumulative and collectively perpetrated. So, what are we to make of questions of responsibility? In this article, we outline some of the main lines of recent philosophical thought, which address questions of responsibility for implicit bias. We focus on (a) the kind of responsibility at issue; (b) revisionist versus nonrevisionist conceptions of responsibility as applied to implicit bias; and (c) individual, institutional, and collective responsibility for implicit bias