Implicit Bias | Lesson 4: Explicit v. Implicit Bias

Biases are attitudes and stereotypes that affect our behavior. To promote fairness, it's important to understand and check our own biases. We can try to uncover biases by directly asking individuals, for example, about their preferences for different groups.

Explicit biases are those that are consciously accessible through introspection. Individuals can identify and report these biases, such as admitting a preference for one group over another or recognizing certain stereotypes they hold. However, there are limitations to this direct questioning approach.

While people might acknowledge their explicit biases to themselves, they may be unwilling to share them with others due to embarrassment, social unacceptability, or political incorrectness. This makes self-reporting an unreliable method for a complete understanding of biases.

Many biases exist beyond our conscious awareness; these are known as implicit biases. Unlike explicit biases, we cannot identify implicit biases through direct introspection. We are unable to look within ourselves and pinpoint these unconscious attitudes and stereotypes.

Scientists have developed innovative tools to measure implicit biases without relying on self-reports. These include priming instruments, linguistic tests, and neuroimaging. The most widely used and popular tool is the Implicit Association Test (IAT), developed by Project Implicit nearly 20 years ago. The next lesson will delve deeper into the IAT.