Research Guides: MLK Day: Implicit Bias

What is Implicit Bias?

From the Kirwin Institute for the Study of Race and Ethnicity's page, "Understanding Implicit Bias":

Implicit bias refers to the attitudes or stereotypes that affect our understanding, actions, and decisions in an unconscious manner.

Key Characteristics:

Implicit biases are pervasive. Everyone possesses them, even people with avowed commitments to impartiality such as judges.
Implicit and explicit biases are related but distinct mental constructs. They are not mutually exclusive and may even reinforce each other.
The implicit associations we hold do not necessarily align with our declared beliefs or even reflect stances we would explicitly endorse.
We generally tend to hold implicit biases that favor our own ingroup, though research has shown that we can still hold implicit biases against our ingroup.
Implicit biases are malleable. Our brains are incredibly complex, and the implicit associations that we have formed can be gradually unlearned through a variety of debiasing techniques.

From Look Different:

Common Types of Implicit Bias (note: this list is not exhaustive)

TED Talks on Implicit Bias

Immaculate perception: Jerry Kang at TEDxSanDiego 2013
Do you discriminate? UCLA law professor Jerry Kang exposes the phenomenon of automatic processing and how it relates to explicit and implicit bias.
Can prejudice ever be a good thing?, Paul Bloom
We often think of bias and prejudice as rooted in ignorance. But as psychologist Paul Bloom seeks to show, prejudice is often natural, rational ... even moral.
How to raise a black son in America, Clint Smith
As kids, we all get advice from parents and teachers that seems strange, even confusing. This was crystallized one night for a young Clint Smith, who was playing with water guns in a dark parking lot with his white friends. In a heartfelt piece, the poet paints the scene of his father's furious and fearful response.

Organizations Combatting Bias

American Denial: The Truth is Deeper Than Black and White

In 1938, Swedish researcher and Nobel Laureate Gunnar Myrdal plunges into America's Jim Crow South. His resulting study, An American dilemma (1944), poses a profoundly unsettling question: How can a people devoted to the American creed of equality, justice and opportunity for all continue to erect obstacles to those ends based on race? Through Myrdal's story and contemporary racial dynamics, the film explores how denial, cognitive dissonance, and implicit bias persist and shape all of our lives

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MLK Day: Implicit Bias

What is Implicit Bias?

Recommended Reading

TED Talks on Implicit Bias

Organizations Combatting Bias

American Denial: The Truth is Deeper Than Black and White

The Daily Show, Police Bias Training

How to Overcome our Biases? Walk Boldly Toward Them

Understanding Unconscious Bias by the Royal Society

Understanding Your Own Implicit Bias

Creating an Action Plan

Research on the Impact of Implicit Bias