Implicit bias surfaces strongest under time pressure but is consciously overridden with adequate time

Evidence

With the participants now often eager to understand the link between this simple exercise and race and ethnicity, trainers explain that implicit biases are not personal but are automatic associations that follow from stereotypes learned from culture, society, and one’s environment. Trainers often emphasize that the fact that biases are implicit does not mean that they dictate our actions, but to prevent them from doing so, we need to be aware that they are operating (Kirwan, 2018). The Stroop test offers an opportunity to show this—by engaging in the exercise a second time and slowing down, participants are able to complete the test successfully and experience themselves overriding their learned behavior. — Joseph Avery, Jim Sidanius, Joel Cooper, Gregory Davis, Amanda N., Bias in the Law, 1362 (#corroborates, via linked claim)

The apparent discrepancies between police officers demonstrating bias in their response times, but not “shooting” decisions, as well as the lack of bias in experimental simulations but evidence of racial disparities in actual use of force can be reconciled when time and other situational factors are taken into account. Because stereotypes can operate implicitly and have automatic components (Greenwald & Banaji, 1995; Greenwald, McGhee, & Schwartz, 1998), they tend to set up a prepotent response, which is akin to a dominant, knee-jerk reaction. These reflexive-like, category-based responses tend to manifest most strongly when time is limited (Pratto & Bargh, 1991; Stepanikova, 2012). This is analogous to being asked to blurt out the first word that comes to mind upon hearing “peanut butter.” Unsurprisingly, contingent upon culture and experience, the dominant response will be “jelly,” but with ample time people could come up with any number of responses. These quick reactions occur at the neural level. For example, when people are subliminally exposed to Black faces, compared to White faces, there is greater activation in the amygdala (Cunningham et al., 2004)—a part of the brain that registers fear and threat. The amount of amygdala activation is associated with the amount of implicit bias. But, present the faces for half a second, which is long enough for conscious awareness, and the heightened amygdala response disappears. People are consciously overriding the stereotypes: relative to White faces, Black faces caused more activity in the prefrontal cortex (Cunningham et al., 2004), which is associated with cognitive and behavior regulation. — Joseph Avery, Jim Sidanius, Joel Cooper, Gregory Davis, Amanda N., Bias in the Law, 409 (#expands, via linked claim)

Most implicit bias trainings move from providing information about what implicit bias is to general strategies that can be used to reduce bias or mitigate its behavioral effects. While the information about implicit bias and identifying strategies that can be used may raise awareness about the issue, research suggests that this awareness is not sufficient to lead to behavior change (Lai et al., 2017). In addition, those who work with Perception Institute hold the concern that concluding a workshop with merely generic interventions may actually exacerbate the effects of race and ethnicity differences. … As noted in the introduction, it is our theory of change that institutions must grapple simultaneously with implicit bias, “identity anxiety,” and stereotype threat and that the interventions must be carefully tailored to the decision points and consequential interactions that are most critical. — Joseph Avery, Jim Sidanius, Joel Cooper, Gregory Davis, Amanda N., Bias in the Law, 1369 (#complicates, via linked claim)

Categorization

• XREF: connects to: Decisions made under time pressure compound stress from feared retrospective judgment — Michael Lipsky, Street-Level Bureaucracy: Dilemmas of…, 271; Time pressure makes everyone rely on intuition and mistake fluency for truth — Sander van der Linden, Foolproof: Why Misinformation Infects…, 76; Implicit cognition theory yields predictions untestable by available measurement tools. — Anthony G. Greenwald and Mahzarin R. Banaji, Implicit Social Cognition: Attitudes,…, 47 (+6 more)

Broader Connections

• Implicit biases can be consciously overridden through deliberate attention #corroborates (0.95) — Joseph Avery, Jim Sidanius, Joel Cooper, Gregory Davis, Amanda N., Bias in the Law, 1362
• Time pressure activates implicit racial bias while conscious awareness enables cognitive override #expands (0.95) — Joseph Avery, Jim Sidanius, Joel Cooper, Gregory Davis, Amanda N., Bias in the Law, 409
• Bias-reduction training shifts awareness and action more than measured implicit bias itself #complicates (0.75) — Joseph Avery, Jim Sidanius, Joel Cooper, Gregory Davis, Amanda N., Bias in the Law, 1369