Implicit bias and social schema: a transactive memory approach

To what extent should we focus on implicit bias in order to eradicate persistent social injustice? Structural prioritizers argue that we should focus less on individual minds than on unjust social structures, while equal prioritizers think that both are equally important. This article introduces the framework of transactive memory into the debate to defend the equal priority view. The transactive memory framework helps us see how structure can emerge from individual interactions as an irreducibly social product. If this is right, then debiasing interventions are structural interventions. One upshot is that the utility of the individual versus structural distinction is not apparent for the purposes of intervention.

     

Implicit racial bias and epistemic pessimism

Implicit bias results from living in a society structured by race. Tamar Gendler has drawn attention to several epistemic costs of implicit bias and concludes that paying some costs is unavoidable. In this paper, we reconstruct Gendler’s argument and argue that the epistemic costs she highlights can be avoided. Though epistemic agents encode discriminatory information from the environment, not all encoded information is activated. Agents can construct local epistemic environments that do not activate biasing representations, effectively avoiding the consequences of activation. We conclude that changing our local environments provides a way to avoid paying implicit bias’s epistemic costs.     

Implicit memory bias,explicit memory bias,and anxiety

Abstract

Normals high, medium, and low in trait anxiety performed two encoding tasks (one predominantly data-driven and the other conceptually driven) on threat-related and neutral words, followed by tests of word completion, cued recall, and free recall. Memory performance indicated the existence of negative memory biases in the high trait-anxious group, but it was generally not possible to decide whether the biases were associated with trait anxiety rather than with depression. The biases were obtained mainly when there was a match between the processes at encoding and those at the time of test, whether the matching processes were predominantly data-driven or conceptually driven. Implications of these findings for implicit and explicit memory biases associated with high trait anxiety are discussed.     

Implicit and explicit memory bias in anxiety

Previous investigations of recall and recognition for threatening information in clinically anxious subjects have yielded equivocal results. The present study contrasts implicit (word completion) with explicit (cued recall) memory and shows that indices of bias for emotional material derived from the two types of memory are independent of one another. The explicit measure was correlated with trait anxiety scores, but did not clearly distinguish between subjects with clinical anxiety states and normal control subjects. On the implicit memory measure, clinically anxious subjects produced more threat word completions, but only from a set to which they had recently been exposed. These results are taken as evidence that internal representations of threat words are more readily or more persistently activated in anxiety states, although they are not necessarily better elaborated.     

Implicit bias,confabulation, and epistemic innocence

In this paper I explore the nature of confabulatory explanations of action guided by implicit bias. I claim that such explanations can have significant epistemic benefits in spite of their obvious epistemic costs, and that such benefits are not otherwise obtainable by the subject at the time at which the explanation is offered. I start by outlining the kinds of cases I have in mind, before characterising the phenomenon of confabulation by focusing on a few common features. Then I introduce the notion of epistemic innocence to capture the epistemic status of those cognitions which have both obvious epistemic faults and some significant epistemic benefit. A cognition is epistemically innocent if it delivers some epistemic benefit to the subject which would not be attainable otherwise because alternative (less epistemically faulty) cognitions that could deliver the same benefit are unavailable to the subject at that time. I ask whether confabulatory explanations of actions guided by implicit bias have epistemic benefits and whether there are genuine alternatives to forming a confabulatory explanation in the circumstances in which subjects confabulate. On the basis of my analysis of confabulatory explanations of actions guided by implicit bias, I argue that such explanations have the potential for epistemic innocence. I conclude that epistemic evaluation of confabulatory explanations of action guided by implicit bias ought to tell a richer story, one which takes into account the context in which the explanation occurs.     

Oculomotor bias induced by number perception

Previous research with manual response methods has found evidence for an association between numbers and space. The present study investigated whether eye movements also show this association. Eye movement responses were recorded from 15 healthy participants as they categorized the digits 0-9 as odd or even. Responses were initiated faster to the left in response to small digits and faster to the right in response to large digits. Movement amplitudes were not systematically affected by either number magnitude or parity. These results provide further evidence for a spatially oriented "mental number line".     

Cognitive bias and irrational belief as predictors of avoidance

Cognitive bias, i.e. overestimates of subjective probability and cost of catastrophic events, and irrational belief were explored as predictors of avoidance. Three groups-anxiety disordered clients, a mixed group of clinic outpatients, and normals--were administered several self-report inventories. Multiple regression analyses were used to investigate a modified version of the Agoraphobic Cognitions Questionnaire, the Belief Scale, and the Body Sensations Questionnaire as predictors of avoidance, as measured by the Mobility Inventory. It was hypothesized that frequency x probability x cost of catastrophic cognitions (and the occurrence of the events they represent) would be a better predictor of avoidance than frequency alone. It was also hypothesized that irrational thinking would be a significant predictor of avoidance. The results generally supported the hypotheses, with subjective probability emerging as a particularly potent predictor of avoidance. Theoretical and clinical implications are discussed.     

Implicit bias and contact: the role of interethnic friendships

In 2 studies, the authors examined the role of interethnic friendship with African Americans or Latinos in predicting implicit and explicit biases against these groups. White participants completed the Implicit Association Test (IAT; Greenwald, A. G., McGhee, D. E., & Schwartz, J. L. K., 1998), several self-report bias measures, and a friendship questionnaire. Participants with close friends who were members of the target group exhibited less implicit prejudice than participants without close friends from the target group. Friendship influenced only 2 of the 7 explicit measures, a result that likely stems from social desirability bias rather than truly non-prejudiced attitudes. Results support the importance of contact, particularly interethnic friendship, in improving intergroup attitudes.     

Implicit sources of bias in employment interview judgments and decisions

This study empirically examined implicit sources of bias in employment interview judgments and decisions. We examined two ethnic cues, accent and name, as sources of bias that may trigger prejudicial attitudes and decisions. As predicted, there was an interaction between the applicant name and accent that affected participants’ favorable judgments of applicant characteristics. The applicant with the ethnic name, speaking with an accent, was viewed less positively by interviewers than the ethnic named applicant without an accent and non-ethnic named applicants with and without an accent. Furthermore, modern ethnicity bias had a negative association with the favorable judgments of the applicants, which, in turn, affected hiring decisions. Implications of the results, limitations of the study, and directions for future research are discussed.     

Implicit and explicit memory bias in depressed and non depressed subjects

Abstract

Two experiments were carried out to investigate a possible mood-congruent memory bias in explicit memory (free-recall test) and implicit memory (word-stem completion task) for positive and negative words in depressed and non depressed college students. A comparison of implicit and explicit mood-congruent memory bias should help to reveal cognitive processes involved in this effect. The results of both studies indicated that depressed subjects showed a memory bias not only on the traditional explicit memory task, but on the implicit memory task as well. The theoretical implications of these results are discussed.     

Response bias induced in rats by response effects

Two experiments examined whether response choice in rats is affected by the presentation of response-produced stimuli. Rats were first trained to emit two different responses, with each response producing a unique auditory stimulus. Subsequently, the former response-produced stimuli were presented while the two response options were freely available. Presentation of a former response-produced stimulus caused the rats to choose more frequently the response option that had previously produced that specific stimulus over the other response option. However, although statistically significant, this response-biasing effect was numerically weak and was only apparent when the stimuli no longer had a general response-activating effect. Moreover, in the case of relatively short presentations of the stimuli, the response-biasing effect was only present if, during testing, the responses continued to produce the auditory stimuli according to the response-effect mapping used during training. These results were discussed in terms of possible underlying associations and were contrasted with previous results from analogous human studies on action control by response-produced stimuli.     

Response bias induced in rats by response effects

Two experiments examined whether response choice in rats is affected by the presentation of response-produced stimuli. Rats were first trained to emit two different responses, with each response producing a unique auditory stimulus. Subsequently, the former response-produced stimuli were presented while the two response options were freely available. Presentation of a former response-produced stimulus caused the rats to choose more frequently the response option that had previously produced that specific stimulus over the other response option. However, although statistically significant, this response-biasing effect was numerically weak and was only apparent when the stimuli no longer had a general response-activating effect. Moreover, in the case of relatively short presentations of the stimuli, the response-biasing effect was only present if, during testing, the responses continued to produce the auditory stimuli according to the response-effect mapping used during training. These results were discussed in terms of possible underlying associations and were contrasted with previous results from analogous human studies on action control by response-produced stimuli.     

Toward the use of approach/avoidance tendencies as attitude measures: Individual- and group-level variability of the ingroup bias

Approach/avoidance paradigms could constitute an interesting alternative in measuring intergroup attitudes, notably if they overcome one criticism often addressed toward classic indirect tasks: Measuring attitudes beyond the influence of cultural knowledge. Using intergroup stimuli and a population likely to be exposed to a similar cultural knowledge, we observed two informative results regarding this issue: Approach/avoidance effects measured by the Visual Approach/Avoidance by the Self Task (VAAST) varied across participants (i.e., consistent with the variability of intergroup attitudes; Experiment 1) and both participants of dominant and non-dominant groups produced an ingroup bias (Experiment 2). A last experiment (Experiment 3) showed that compatibility scores in the VAAST predict trustworthiness ratings of the ingroup/outgroup. This experiment also investigated potential differences between the VAAST and the IAT. These results suggest that approach/avoidance tasks (notably the VAAST) could be relevant to assess personal attitudes when it comes to normatively sensitive topics.     

Implicit and explicit memory bias for threat in post-traumatic stress disorder.

We investigated explicit (cued recall) and implicit (word completion) memory in Vietnam combat veterans with (n = 24) and without (n = 24) post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD). Half of the subjects in each group encoded combat, social threat, positive, and neutral words elaboratively, whereas the others encoded these words nonelaboratively. On the cued recall test, under both encoding conditions, both groups recalled more combat words than other words. However, difference scores obtained by subtracting the mean recall for neutral words from the mean recall scores for the other words revealed that PTSD patients exhibited a relative explicit memory bias for combat words. That is, PTSD patients tended to exhibit poor memory for everything but combat words. On the word completion test, only PTSD subjects exhibited an implicit memory bias for combat words. This bias was greater for primed than for unprimed words, thereby ruling out a response bias. Such memory bias may underlie the 'reexperiencing' symptoms characteristic of PTSD (e.g. intrusive thoughts, nightmares).     

Implicit causality bias in English: a corpus of 300 verbs

This study provides implicit verb causality norms for a corpus of 305 English verbs. A web-based sentence completion study was conducted, with 96 respondents completing fragments such as “John liked Mary because...” The resulting bias scores are provided as supplementary material in the Psychonomic Society Archive, where we also present lexical and semantic verb features, such as the frequency, semantic class and emotional valence. Our results replicate those of previous studies with much smaller numbers of verbs and respondents. Novel effects of gender and its interaction with verb valence illustrate the type of issues that can be investigated using stable norms for a large number of verbs. The corpus will facilitate future studies in a range of areas, including psycholinguistics and social psychology.     

Stereotypic explanatory bias: Implicit stereotyping as a predictor of discrimination

Two experiments examined whether a measure of implicit stereotyping based on the tendency to explain Black stereotype-incongruent events more often than Black stereotype-congruent events (Stereotypic Explanatory Bias or SEB) is predictive of behavior toward a partner in an interracial interaction. In Experiment 1 SEB predicted White males’ choice to ask stereotypic questions of a Black female (but not a White male or White female) in an interview. In Experiment 2 the type of explanation (internal or external attribution) made for stereotype-inconsistency was examined. Results showed that White participants who made internal attributions for Black stereotype-incongruent behavior were rated more positively and those who made external attributions were rated more negatively by a Black male confederate. These results point to the potential of implicit stereotyping as an important predictor of behavior in an interracial interaction.     

Implicit affective evaluation of visual symmetry

Symmetry and beauty are strongly linked, but is the positive response to visual symmetry automatic? We used the Implicit Association Test (IAT) to measure the valence of visual regularities in the absence of overt judgments. In our first experiment, participants classified dot patterns as random or having an axis of reflection, and words as positive or negative. When the same button was used to report reflection and positive words, responses were faster than when the same button was used to report reflection and negative words. We take this association to indicate an implicit preference for reflectional patterns. In subsequent experiments, a reflected pattern was preferred to a rotation or translation, and a rotational pattern was preferred to random patterns. In some cases these results were not in agreement with verbally reported preferences, but implicit preferences were always predicted by the speed at which patterns could be identified. We conclude that the IAT can unearth an automatic affective response produced by perceptual fluency. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2012 APA, all rights reserved).