How your brain makes you a bigot
We’ve actually sat down and studied studied bigotry in psychology quite a lot (I know, right?) and we, largely, have a solid idea of how bigotry gets propagated in a community of any size. And while everyone can say “hatred is taught” and post up a bunch of cute pictures of little children breaking racial/sexual/class divides, I’ve never actually seen anyone break down why and how these things occur or the psychological processes involved.
So, I decided to write out a solid list of processes involved. Why?
Because simply knowing about these issues works to end them.
It’s a cool thing in psychology, but actually recognizing and learning about unconscious biases can actually reduce them in people. It’s kindof amazing that way, but think of it as an inverse placebo effect, where being conscious of the fact that your judgments may be the result of faulty (largely) subconscious processes can give people pause and a reason to re-examine what they think and why they think it.
It’s not going to magically get rid of racism or racist tendencies, but it’ll certainly help if you take time to learn about these and actually care about not being a bigot. It’s akin to being able to recognize a logical strawman once you’ve been taught what it is and means.
I’m providing links to reputable sources and analyses to each of the cognitive biases involved, in case you want further reading, related experiments, and more nuance than what I’m aiming for here.
In-group bias, simply put, is the favorability you show to people who you find similar enough to yourself that you feel a connection to. This also translates into out-group disfavor, where people not of your in-group are worse or less deserving in some fashion than the people you’re like. Do you remember the hubbub about Implicit Association Tests, and how they’re a psychological test for racism? They weren’t, they were actually measuring in-group vs out-group bias.
This is also connected to Illusory Superiority, where we naturally estimate ourselves (and hence our in-group, which we believe to be like us) be be “above average” in terms of character traits and abilities. This is why the phrase “nobody thinks that they’re the dumb one” exists.
Illusory superiority is itself tied to the Bias Blind Spot, where we innately view ourselves as less biased than we view others who have the exact same beliefs and behaviors that we do.
The Fundamental Attribution Error
Ooooh boy, the ink that’s been spilt on this. In the briefest way to explain this, is that your life is defined by external forces but other people lead lives defined by their innate characteristics. This also extends into your in-group. For example, you know that your best friend had an abusive father, so their harsh language and generally unpleasant moods are a result of the abuse and not necessarily your friend’s fault, but if you encountered someone randomly who was a jackass to you you’d judge them immediately.
This is also partially why crimes and tragedies matter so much more to celebrities than when they happen to average people. This is specifically called the identifiable victim effect , because you have a pre-existing connection to that person that helps pull them into your in-group.
Ultimate Attribution Error
What I call the “fuck your anecdotes” of cognitive biases, this error occurs when you attribute the inner characteristics of an individual to the characteristics of the group. Meeting one Spanish man who sells drugs does not mean that Spanish people are criminals anymore than meeting one white gay man means that men are gay.
Individuals within a group exist.
Simply put, this error is when you believe that everyone agrees with something you believe because they haven’t spoken to you in disagreement. It takes the absence of disagreement as consent, even when you’ve never spoken about the topic at all and projects your personal belief or opinion onto your in-group as a whole, similar to the above Ultimate Attribution Error.
Individuals with a group exist.
Do you know how everyone thinks we only use 10% of our brain? Or how a lot of people think that to boil water more quickly you have to start with cold water? It’s complete bullshit but people think that anyway because they just hear it over and over and over again. Even if you encounter the lie only in an incident where someone explicitly debunks the claim its validity slowly grows and grows in your head, a sort of ideological mere exposure effect (the psychological process behind the phrase “they’re only attractive because you work with them”).
Selective Perception Effect
If something bothers you or upsets you deeply you tend to ignore it entirely. You see this every day, in any number of circumstances from people skipping over your points in an argument to people who just broke up with somebody. “When you’re in love all the red flags just seem like flags.”
