Implicit stereotype

[1] Implicit stereotypes are thought to be shaped by experience and based on learned associations between particular qualities and social categories, including race and/or gender.

[7] Implicit biases can be activated by the environment and operate prior to a person's intentional, conscious endorsement.

Bias is defined as prejudice in favor of or against one thing, person, or group compared with another, usually in a way considered to be unfair.

Bias can be seen as the overarching definition of stereotype and prejudice, because it is how we associate traits (usually negative) to a specific group of people.

Our “implicit attitudes reflect constant exposure to stereotypical portrayals of members of, and items in, all kinds of different categories: racial groups, professions, women, nationalities, members of the LGBTQ community, disabilities, moral and political values, etc.”[8] An attitude is an evaluative judgment of an object, a person, or a social group.

There are many types of stereotypes that exists: racial, cultural, gender, group (i.e. college students), all being very explicit in the lives of many people.

[10] Prejudices can stem from many of the things that people observe in a different social group that include, but are not limited to, gender, sex, race/ethnicity, or religion.

Although implicit biases have been considered unconscious and involuntary attitudes which lie below the surface of consciousness, some people seem to be aware of their influence on their behavior and cognitive processes.

The test claims to do this by capturing the differences in the time it takes respondent to choose between two unassociated but related topics.

This method relies on signal detection theory; participants' accuracy rates reveal endorsement of the implicit stereotype.

[18] In a sentence completion task, subjects may be presented with sentences that contain stereotypic black and white names (Jerome, Adam), positive and negative stereotypic black behaviors (easily made the team, blasted loud music in his car) and counter-stereotypic behaviors (got a job at Microsoft, refused to dance).

Subjects are asked to add to the end of a sentence in any way that is grammatical, e.g. "Jerome got an A on his test..." could be completed with "because it was easy" (stereotypic-congruent) or "because he studied for months" (stereotypic-incongruent) or "and then he went out to celebrate" (non-explanatory).

It involves empirically testing the survey questions with real-life respondents using interviewer moderated or technology-enabled unmoderated techniques.

"The concept of gender also refers to the constantly ongoing social construction of what is considered 'feminine' and 'masculine' and is based on power and sociocultural norms about women and men.

"[21] Gender biases are the ways in which we judge men and women based on their hegemonically feminine and masculine assigned traits.

[22] The strength of this association is not predicted by explicit beliefs, such as responses on a gender stereotype questionnaire (for example, one question asked if subjects endorsed the word feminist).

[24] Implicit-association tests reveal an implicit association for male with science and math, and females with arts and language.

[30] Additionally, for women across cultures, studies have shown individual differences in strength of this implicit stereotype is associated with interest, participation and performance in sciences.

[31] Racial bias can be used synonymously with "stereotyping and prejudice" because "it allows for the inclusion of both positive and negative evaluations related to perceptions of race.

[39] However, this finding is controversial; because the character's race was not specified, it is suggested that the procedure primed the race-unspecified concept of hostility, and did not necessarily represent stereotypes.

In a related study, subjects with a high SEB rated a black individual more negatively in an unstructured laboratory interaction.

[51] Social identity theory and Freudian theorists explain in-group derogation as the result of a negative self-image, which they believe is then extended to the group.

[54] IATs have also revealed implicit stereotypes on the relationship between obese individuals and low work performance.

This can be seen in examples of occupational implicit stereotypes where people perceive preschool teachers as both warm and incompetent, while lawyers are judged as both cold and competent.

In addition to early life experiences, the media and news programming are often-cited origins of implicit associations.

[61] Some evidence suggests that implicit bias can be reduced long-term, but it may require education and consistent effort.

"[73] Heather Mac Donald, writing in The Wall Street Journal, noted that: Few academic ideas have been as eagerly absorbed into public discourse lately as “implicit bias.” Embraced by Barack Obama, Hillary Clinton and most of the press, implicit bias has spawned a multimillion-dollar consulting industry, along with a movement to remove the concept of individual agency from the law.

[76] This is an example of how the debate about implicit bias can involve "talking past one another" based on "different expectations of indirect measures", views of (what) implicit bias (is), assumptions about which evidence is relevant, thresholds for scientific significance, psychometric standards, and even norms of science communication.

Given the relatively small proportion of people who are overtly prejudiced and how clearly it is established that automatic race preference predicts discrimination, it is reasonable to conclude not only that implicit bias is a cause of Black disadvantage but also that it plausibly plays a greater role than does explicit bias.

[74]The evidence presented by their peer researchers led them to concede in correspondence that: However, they also stated, "Regardless of inclusion policy, both meta-analyses estimated aggregate correlational effect sizes that were large enough to explain discriminatory impacts that are societally significant either because they can affect many people simultaneously or because they can repeatedly affect single persons.