Anti-bias training mostly changes knowledge, not behavior, and only when sustained.

Evidence

From this set of contrasting findings, the clearest lesson is that evaluative methods should align with the goals of the trainings, and participant selfreport is an inadequate measure of efficacy. Often, self-reports of success are the primary metric—even though the goals of the work are behavioral (Kalinoski et al., 2013). A related pitfall is for trainings to focus on cognitive learning when the goal is attitudinal and behavioral change. Bezrukova and colleagues’ (2016) meta-analytic analysis of over 260 studies across a 40-year period found primarily cognitive learning effects, with less impact on behavioral and attitudinal domains, and those gains decreased or disappeared over time while participants were more likely to maintain the cognitive gains. — Joseph Avery, Jim Sidanius, Joel Cooper, Gregory Davis, Amanda N., Bias in the Law, 1415 (#corroborates, via linked claim)

From this set of contrasting findings, the clearest lesson is that evaluative methods should align with the goals of the trainings, and participant selfreport is an inadequate measure of efficacy. Often, self-reports of success are the primary metric—even though the goals of the work are behavioral (Kalinoski et al., 2013). A related pitfall is for trainings to focus on cognitive learning when the goal is attitudinal and behavioral change. Bezrukova and colleagues’ (2016) meta-analytic analysis of over 260 studies across a 40-year period found primarily cognitive learning effects, with less impact on behavioral and attitudinal domains, and those gains decreased or disappeared over time while participants were more likely to maintain the cognitive gains. Not surprisingly, differences were found between trainings that occurred as onetime, stand-alone offerings, in contrast to ongoing professional learning plans integrated into other development efforts with follow up and jobembedded support (Godsil & Friedman, 2018). Integrated, long-term learning engagements showed greater impact, yet the vast majority of trainings continue to be short-term, isolated experiences (Bezrukova et al., 2012; Kulik & Roberson, 2008). — Joseph Avery, Jim Sidanius, Joel Cooper, Gregory Davis, Amanda N., Bias in the Law, 1415 (#expands, via linked claim)

There are potentially wider parallels to be made, since inattentional blindness is basically a form of visual bias, and something like inattentional blindness seems to be at work in broader forms of bias. In her Atlantic piece “Is This How Discrimination Ends?” the author Jessica Nordell takes part in a session of the Prejudice Lab, a project run by psychology professor Patricia Devine. As a graduate student, Devine had done experiments around the psychological aspects of implicit racial bias: “She demonstrated that even if people don’t believe racist stereotypes are true, those stereotypes, once absorbed, can influence people’s behavior without their awareness or intent.” The Prejudice Lab runs workshops at businesses and schools with the aim of showing people their own biases—in effect, to help learn how to see what they’re not seeing. … In the two-hour workshop that Nordell attended, Devine and her colleague Will Cox explained the science of bias, “barreled through mountains of evidence,” and invited students to share stories of how bias had played out in their own lives—stories none of them had a hard time coming up with. Nordell writes that while many other psychology experiments treat bias as a condition to be adjusted, Devine’s treats it as a behavior, aiming simply to “make unconscious patterns conscious and intentional.” In effect, the Prejudice Lab was the “attentional key” that brought racist thought and behavior to consciousness. — Jenny Odell, How to Do Nothing, 394 (#complicates, via linked claim)

Categorization

• XREF: connects to: Anti-bias training works only when it solves frontline work problems — Michael Lipsky, Street-Level Bureaucracy: Dilemmas of…, 845; Long-term integrated bias training changes behavior; short standalone workshops only shift knowledge. — Joseph Avery, Jim Sidanius, Joel Cooper, Gregory Davis, Amanda N., Bias in the Law: A Definitive Look at…, 1415; Evidence is mixed on whether anti-bias trainings change behavior at all — Joseph Avery, Jim Sidanius, Joel Cooper, Gregory Davis, Amanda N., Bias in the Law: A Definitive Look at…, 1414 (+10 more)

Broader Connections

• Bias trainings change self-reported knowledge but rarely alter behavior #corroborates (0.98) — Joseph Avery, Jim Sidanius, Joel Cooper, Gregory Davis, Amanda N., Bias in the Law, 1415
• Long-term integrated bias training changes behavior; short standalone workshops only shift knowledge. #expands (0.95) — Joseph Avery, Jim Sidanius, Joel Cooper, Gregory Davis, Amanda N., Bias in the Law, 1415
• Hidden biases can be corrected by training attention, not by adjusting conditions #complicates (0.78) — Jenny Odell, How to Do Nothing, 394