Bias can transmit between agents when threats are ambiguous.

Evidence

Nevertheless, research on this specific phenomenon is currently lacking and makes it difficult to establish exactly what this process entails and whether it is always explicit bias that drives these calls. We propose that the nature of this phenomenon, which involves multiple stages and agents, opens up the possibility for bias to carry over from one person to another, particularly when the source of threat is ambiguous and open to interpretation. — Joseph Avery, Jim Sidanius, Joel Cooper, Gregory Davis, Amanda N., Bias in the Law, 297

Categorization

• XREF: Speaks to the reader’s question about whether professed conviction predicts measured bias: this proposes bias can enter a system (911 calls) without any individual actor holding explicit discriminatory intent, since threat ambiguity allows bias to propagate through interpretation. — connects to: Information warfare can succeed by inducing generic confusion rather than by persuading anyone. — Sander van der Linden, Foolproof: Why Misinformation Infects…, 13
• SEED: Angle: institutional bias as a transmission chain problem — implicit bias in one agent becomes explicit action in another, so no single actor is the ‘racist,’ yet the system discriminates.
• corroborated: 2 independent passages support this claim — Joseph Avery, Jim Sidanius, Joel Cooper, Gregory Davis, Amanda N., Bias in the Law: A Definitive Look at…, 297