Lecture 18: Implicit Bias Flashcards
Race Bias
- discrimination against individuals based on their ethnic group, often resulting in inequities in such areas as education, employment, health care, and housing.
Race Bias
Example: Legal Decisions
- Black males are 6 times more likely to
be incarcerated than White males
(Bureau of Justice Statistics) - Likelihood of jail time is higher for
Black Males for equal offenses - Hispanic and Black males receive
longer sentences than White males
for equivalent crimes - Inmates with more Afrocentric
features received harsher sentences
than those with less Afrocentric
features
There is abundant evidence that unintended race bias influences legal decisions
Social psychologists define
two types of attitudes
explicit attitude
implicit attitude
explicit attitude
Explicit attitudes: are consciously, explicitly
expressed
– May reflect beliefs and intentions
implicit attitude
Implicit attitudes: are expressed through our
responses and actions without conscious effort or
control
– May reflect affective or emotional associations associated
with cultural stereotypes
Threat Conditioning in Humans
amygdala
The human amygdala is necessary
for the physical expression of a learned
aversive response in fear conditioning
Measuring Bias and its Neural Representation
Implicit Association Test (IAT)
The Implicit Association Test (IAT) measures the strength of associations between concepts and evaluations or stereotypes to reveal an individual’s hidden or subconscious biases.
Correlations between amygdala activity
and measures of race attitudes
Implicit measures of race attitudes
Measuring Bias and its Neural Representation
Amygdala activation correlates with
strength of implicit race bias
Measuring Bias and its Neural Representation
Towards a neural model of
implicit race bias
What is the role of conscious awareness
in the neural representation of race bias
Greater amygdala activation to Black faces in White participants to subliminal (unconscious) faces
*also correlates more strongly with IAT score
dlPFC- Cognitive Control of Emotion
Regulates implicit attitudes
in a manner consistent
with explicit attitudes
ACC-Conflict Detection
Detects need for regulation
of implicit attitudes
pro white IAT
Pro-White IAT score correlates with activation in ACC DLPFC when viewing Black vs. White Faces
pro white IAT STUDY
DLPFC activity to Black vs. White male faces in White Participants correlates with Stroop interference score following a cross-race, but not same-race, interactions
Richeson, 2003
*Cross-race interactions might ‘deplete’
executive control in White participants with
strong pro-White implicit bias, leading to
worse performance on the Stroop
Learning about others
‘Prepared’ fear learning
‘Prepared’ stimuli also show amygdala activation with
subliminal presentatioN
Can we take advantage of our understanding of
the neural circuitry of implicit race bias to enhance our understanding of race interactions?
– Learning about others
- There may be a ‘preparedness’ to associate negative outcomes with outgroup members, and these negative associations may be harder to change with new information
- Contact with others may alter perceptions of ‘ingroup’ and mediate this effect
Linking Race Bias to Decisions
Economic Decisions
- Amygdala activation is related to both the expression
of implicit race bias and judgments of trust - Is race bias predictive of economic decisions to trust?
Implicit Race Bias & Amygdala Trust & Amygdala
Linking Race Bias to Decisions
Economic Decisions
Measuring trust
* “Trust Game”
in economic games, implicit race bias is related to
decisions to trust
– The higher the pro-white bias, the more you invest with
White partners relative to Black partners
* Will race bias in economics decisions persist if there is a personal cost?
The Ultimatum Game
Fundamental Attribution Error:
The fundamental attribution error is the tendency people have to overemphasize personal characteristics and ignore situational factors in judging others’ behavior. Because of the fundamental attribution error, we tend to believe that others do bad things because they are bad people.
Linking Race Bias to Decisions: Negative actions are more likely to be attributed to dispositional factors for Black vs White actors
Amygdala BOLD activity is greater for negative
behaviors by Black vs White actors
*mirrors attribution ratings
Do culturally acquired amygdala-related
threat associations contribute to this
attribution bias for negative actions?
Linking Race Bias to Decisions:
The stronger the Pro-White implicit bias, the stronger the attribution bias for negative actions by Black actor
Stronger Pro-White implicit Bias also correlates with greater dlPFC BOLD activity when making situation attributions for negative actions by Black actors
situational attribution
while situational attribution is when we perceive an event as caused by an external factor. An example of situational attribution is when we blame the weather for being late to work
Summary For Attribution Decisions About
Responsibility
How might we change race bias in the
brain and behavior?
- Through experience with others
- Approach to a situation
- Social context
- Counterstereotype intervention
How might we change race bias in the
Experience with others
Approach to a situation
Implicit race bias stronger when participants thought about group membership, and not when they thought about individual preferences
Social Context
Counterstereotype
Intervention
implicit Bias Intervention (Lai et al., 2014):
* Story about White assailant and Black
rescuer
* Participant given strategies for response
control and perspective-taking
Control:
* Read about the history of the toaster
Kubota, Dalyrmple, Blackmon, Mojdehbakhsh, Banaji, & Phelps, in progress
Counterstereotype Intervention
Reduces Implicit Bias
Counterstereotype interventions work to
reduce implicit bias, BUT
- These reductions do not last past a day or so (Lai et al., 2016)
- Standard techniques to reduce expression of amygdala-
dependent Pavlovian threat associations (extinction training) also tend to be short-lived
Awareness of implicit race attitudes
We may unconsciously
engage a neural circuitry
to control unintended
implicit bias, with mixed
success
Explicit attitudes:
a belief that we consciously hold and
express
Implicit attitude:
a belief that we have that we may not be
aware of
Explicit attitudes are measured with
the Modern Racism
Scale:
* Questions such as:
* It is easy to understand the anger of Black people in the U.S.
* Discrimination against Black people is no longer a problem in the U.S
- Implicit attitudes are measured with
Eyeblink Startle Response
* Implicit Associations Test (IAT)
Measuring implicit attitudes: the IAT
The IAT measures the strength of associations between concepts (e.g., Black and White) and evaluations (e.g., Good
and Bad).
- Making a response is easier when closely related items
share the same response key
Implicit and explicit attitudes & the brain
Participants: white American participants
* MRI task: view a series of unfamiliar Black and White male
faces
* After-MRI task:
* Modern Racism Scale (Explicit attitudes questionnaire)
* Implicit Associations Test
* Eyeblink startle response
Conscious and unconscious processing of race
- Participants: White young adults
- MRI task: view a series of Black and White faces
- Some are seen too briefly to consciously process
- Some are seen long enough to consciously process
Conclusions:
* More amygdala activity for
Black faces vs White faces
* More activity for Black faces
that are not consciously
processed
Conscious and unconscious processing of race
Implicit Bias and Decision Making
Participants are told they are playing an online game.
* They are shown the face of a partner (Black or White)
* Asked to make decisions in a trust game
IAT scores, measuring implicit bias,
correlate with how much more willing
you are to cooperate with White vs
Black faces
Combatting implicit bias in the brain &
behavior
- Through experience with others
- Amygdala activity does not correlate with implicit bias for familiar
outgroup faces, like it does for unfamiliar outgroup faces - Approach to a situation
- Different neural circuitry is used when thinking about individual traits vs.
group membership - Social context
- IAT scores are less extreme when the experimenter was Black than White
- White juries are more likely to deliberate before a guilty verdict of a Black
man if there was at least one Black man on the jury - Awareness of implicit bias
- Define explicit and implicit bias.
Which brain regions seem to be more involved
during the unconscious processing of race?
Which brain regions are more involved for
conscious processing of race?
How does implicit bias impact decision-making
behavior?
- How can we use research to
combat implicit bias?
