#implicit bias

[move-slow-and-savor-things]

So far in my professional career, I have never been hired by a male principal. However, I have a 75% success rate when interviewing with a woman.

I have limited data points, obviously. But other experiences working with men in elementary education lead me to suspect that this is less about my skills and expertise and more about their implicit biases.

[papayaskye]

Actually I don’t want to talk about Zak Brown or McLaren. I want to talk about implicit bias for a moment. It’s something that’s been very important to me in my education, my field of work, and my activism.

Conformity bias is a type of implicit bias in which you align your beliefs with those of a group, often without first evaluating them yourself. So if all of your friends hate someone, you’re more likely to hate them yourself, even if you have no idea why or wouldn’t ordinarily find their transgressions to be that bad.

This is obviously super common within fandoms. All your mutuals hate one guy, they tell you consistently about all the things they hate about them, and without realizing what you’re doing, you might just follow suit. We all do it to some extent, because we’re naturally social creatures, and fitting in is one of the ways we connect with people.

And sure. It’s just fandom, it’s just celebrities, it’s just the internet. But making a habit of not examining your implicit biases and not thinking critically about them can have genuine negative impacts on your real life.

All that to say, if you’re ever feeling kind of conflicted about something or someone, it’s good to make an effort to truly think about it outside of the influence of your group.

[pulpchamber]

People seem really sensitive to the idea of moral panic right now, but it's genuinely funny seeing people ascribe it to everything they feel a little sus about while missing the clear ways that moral panics connect across issues through mutual validation of a shared logical form+shared implicit assumptions about humans.

It can sound vague when people make interpretative statements like "All bigotry is rooted in white supremacy" or "All bigotry comes down to cissexism" but we need to understand that with an accurate view of how people proliferate familiar logical forms and carry their assumptions undeclared from one topic to another, that style of interpretation is effectively just true. The bigotries we re-script and defend most often, even through acts of omission and ignorance, proliferate assumptions and logical forms into everything else we talk about.

The systemic biases identified as roots are not idealized forces out there in the aether, they aren't even essential self-entities, they are the virtual body we imagine as emitting the pretend-particles of data and meaning that we tend to use in imagining social forms because we're actually pretty damn bad at it without clumsy physics metaphors! The core cognitive skills we *actually* use to negotiate the world are not precise, not empirical, and do not try to describe what we're looking at -- they aim for the right amount of precision and empiricism to affect purposeful action. Which it turns out is often almost none.

And when things are generally going fine, when we're planning out actions with good prior information and a solid understanding of the rules in the domain we're working in...all that shortcutting works out fine. It's usually fine. But institutionally and societally, we have gone way too far in the direction of just assuming adequate info and understanding for expediency. Which is why it sometimes feels like global society just walks into window panes constantly -- we don't believe the glass can be clear, and then make contrived excuses for why we couldn't have drawn that conclusion from all the dead birds.

[religion-is-a-mental-illness]

(PDF) Gender Differences in Automatic In-Group Bias: Why Do Women Like Women More Than Men Like Men?

PDF | Four experiments confirmed that women's automatic in-group bias is remarkably stronger than men's and investigated explanations for th

Abstract

Four experiments confirmed that women's automatic in-group bias is remarkably stronger than men's and investigated explanations for this sex difference, derived from potential sources of implicit attitudes (L. A. Rudman, 2004). In Experiment 1, only women (not men) showed cognitive balance among in-group bias, identity, and self-esteem (A. G. Greenwald et al., 2002), revealing that men lack a mechanism that bolsters automatic own group preference. Experiments 2 and 3 found pro-female bias to the extent that participants automatically favored their mothers over their fathers or associated male gender with violence, suggesting that maternal bonding and male intimidation influence gender attitudes. Experiment 4 showed that for sexually experienced men, the more positive their attitude was toward sex, the more they implicitly favored women. In concert, the findings help to explain sex differences in automatic in-group bias and underscore the uniqueness of gender for intergroup relations theorists.

––

[spaceshipsandpurpledrank]

[tacc-dump]

Dear Rewriters: Be aware of the TADC's implicit bias in your rewrites.

As someone who's working on their TADC reimagining, I found myself easily falling into the same writing troubles of the show.

Centering the main storylines around the men, a lack of exploration of interpersonal relationships outside of my favorite characters, Queenie and Ribbit still only being angst bait until recently, and prioritizing an overarching plot instead of filler too.

I just point this out because as easy as it is to acknowledge and critique the show's implicit bias towards its female, POC characters, and preference for dramatic themes; it is just as easy to reaffirm that biases in your own work, notably if you aren't as critical and self-aware of your rewrites compared to the show.

It's best to keep yourself informed by having reminders, engaging in objective critical media consistently, and doing research that dismantle and replace them for more inclusive and safer awareness in the real world and online writing space.

[sionnualanicheallachain]

This is your periodic friendly reminder that I think some of y'all are using (variations on the phrase) internalized bias when what you actually mean is (variations on the phrase) implicit bias.

You know that post going around about fathers and daughters making fun of mothers, but it won't save the daughter from the mother's fate, with pictures of Robby and Santos and Al-Hashimi? In that context/framing, you could argue that Santos has internalized misogyny and that is why she favors Robby over Al-Hashimi — she has internalized a negative view of her own gender.

If you're trying to make the distinction that Robby is unintentionally/unconsciously sexist/racist/etc. even though he would oppose those views if you asked him, that is implicit misogyny/racism/etc. — it's the opposite of explicit bias, which is what we see/hear from Monica.

The two internalized things I can think of that could theoretically apply to Robby — but I only think one of them does — would be internalized antisemitism and internalized ableism. I think it's pretty clear that Robby does not experience internalized antisemitism, but I think it's equally pretty clear that Robby does experience internalized ableism when it comes to his PTSD and burnout. And I would argue that he's implicitly racist and sexist in season 1, but that both of those tendencies become more explicit in season 2 than in season 1 and in the later parts of each season relative to the earlier parts of the same season.

Fiona Dourif thinking that Robby is harder on Langdon than the other residents reads to me as internalized misogyny and maybe implicit racism. Noah Wyle insisting that Robby yelling at Samira is less intense/layered than it is reads to me as cognitive dissonance around having his implicit sexism/racism made explicit by the reaction to it.

[penwrythe]

Still gonna say it's weird to treat a slur like a joke, tbh, when it is not yours to reclaim

Even weirder to imply those who are concerned are too sensitive when those same people are also of the same minority demographic often targeted by the slur.

And, idk, when you look into why, historically, that slur is offensive, it stops being about "not touching you word" and more about "I see your freedom as that minority group as disgusting".

This is more for certain fans who did not want to take *recent event* seriously. I have no more quarrel against the voice actors involved since they apologized.

Some fans are acting like this starts and ends at terminally online users, but like, there were discussions beyond internet/social media circles on how microaggressions, implicit bias, and other forms of how "not offensive but still kinda offensive" actions still affect minorities. These discussions have always existed before the era of the internet and the current social media landscape.

And I tried to "just let it go" but another recent thing happened were a troll tried something stupid and rile up people again and so on. Glitch responded that this behavior is not welcomed, admittedly as overreaction (bare with me, I'll explain in a minute). Seeing the comments under the video I watched about it did feel discouraging because of how many don't get it. Yeah, the troll was saying the slur in a vague way at a cardboard cutout of a certain character, whatever. Glitch should have done simple "please don't take advantage of this current situation by behaving in this matter, here is why slur bad" would be better.

Note: this is not against Glitch, its just current times we are in for this stuff to crop up. At least they made a response.

I'll allow myself to say this, I rather have an overreaction than an under reaction (bare with me again, please, I'm aware of the issues with this). I'll weather through the overreaction because at least there is an awareness of "this is not good and we need to make a stand", even if its a mid nothingburger. An underreaction is worst. When it is appropriate for people to take slurs seriously? No seriously, when?

Let's say, hypothetically, the next incident is when a Black creator gets called the slur at an important event. The Black creator did not welcome it and did not expect it. It hurt them seriously in that instance, causing them to be visibly upset, angry, saddened, and pained. They clearly state in that moment that they do not consent to such treatment, admitting that they do not feel safe in that moment because their existence as a Black person is being used as a punchline. But everyone is laughing at them and their reaction, despite the fact it is clear in this instance, the slur's utterance is meant to cause harm at the expense of the Black creator. But, the slur was never taken seriously before all this. And this instance affected this Black creator adversely both publicly and privately afterwards.

Is this the appropriate situation for people to take slurs seriously? Obviously, yes, we should take this seriously. No argument. But it should never come to this.

I do not want to wait for people to get it.

I rather the overreaction against the "unintentionally offensive" over the under reaction for the "actually meant it offensive".

And I know, for some, this sounds like this would allow some people to harass others for small instances where a mistake or it happened long ago but apologies were said but for some its not enough. I do not want harassment. I do not want people fighting in my or other Black people's name over stuff that can be easily learned.

Just feels like we keep bouncing between extremes of "lol offensive humor (that has an ever increasing chance of going tooo far)" and "hey you can't say that you are a horrible person forever (over clearly small mistake/social faux pas that can be easily apologized for or clarified)".

I just want people to be normal about Black people and Black existence.

Anyway, not tagging the fandom tags this time for this. The situation had come and gone, responses made, and so on. I felt I needed to get this off my chest. Keeping it in sucked ass.