Implicit Bias
Collins dictionary defines bias this way: Bias is a tendency to prefer one person or thing to another, and to favour that person or thing.
Implicit has a similar meaning as unconscious.
Implicit biases show up when our unconscious thoughts impact our words and actions quite automatically.
The Perception Institute says,
The mind sciences have found that most of our actions occur without our conscious thoughts, allowing us to function in our extraordinarily complex world. This means, however, that our implicit biases often predict how we’ll behave more accurately than our conscious values.
Let’s look at some examples.
Here’s a common riddle that was popular a few years ago:
A father and son get in a car crash and are rushed to the hospital. The father dies. The boy is taken to the operating room and the surgeon says, “I can’t operate on this boy, because he’s my son.” How is this possible?
Where did your mind go when you read this riddle? Did you get it right away, or did it take a second to realize that the surgeon was the boy’s mother? Or what if the surgeon was the boy’s other father, and his parents were in a same sex marriage?
This uncovers some possible implicit biases that we may have. Women today can choose many different careers. However, there is still significant gender imbalance in jobs in medicine, tech, engineering, as well as in leadership positions, etc. In Canada, women have, on average, about 15% of CEO jobs.
Consider a family where the father stays home with the kids. Do you think he might encounter bias if he chooses to get involved in daytime parent groups?
Many people still struggle with unconscious or conscious bias when it comes to same sex partnership and parenting. Consider how schools might speak to guardians and perhaps call them “moms and dads” not considering that some children might have two moms, or two dads, or maybe they are being raised by a grandparent or another family member.
Implicit bias regarding race is also very strong. This bias shows up in so many systemic ways, as we have covered in other parts of this training.
Below are some other examples of implicit bias:
- Many people have a bias that in the field of medicine, men should be doctors and women nurses.
- Another bias is that women are better in the arts and men in the sciences.
- If you see a very tall Black male, does your mind think, “Wow! He must be a great basketball player?” What if he‘s lousy at basketball, and a gifted artist?
- People with a mental health diagnosis can experience bias based on harmful, untrue stereotypes fueled by the media that unconsciously get stuck in people’s heads.
- There can be a bias that people who live in cities are smarter than those who live in suburban or rural areas.
- People in wheelchairs and others who experience physical disabilities face unconscious bias on a regular basis, as do people who are neurodivergent.
BIPOC (black, Indigenous, and people of colour) people and females are also likely t