Implicit bias training (or unconscious bias training) programs are designed to help individuals become aware of their implicit biases and equip them with tools and strategies to act objectively, limiting the influence of their implicit biases.Fiarman, S. E. (2016). Unconscious bias: When good intentions aren't enough. Educational Leadership, 74(3), 10–15. Some researchers say implicit biases are learned stereotypes that are automatic, seemingly associative, unintentional, deeply ingrained, universal, and can influence behavior.Noon, M. (2018). Pointless diversity training: Unconscious bias, new racism and agency. Work, Employment and Society, 32, 198–209.
A critical component of implicit bias training is creating awareness of implicit bias, and some recent evidence has indicated growth in the understanding of implicit biases. Since 1998, the online Implicit-Association Test (IAT) has provided a platform for the general public to assess their implicit biases. Although the IAT measure has come under severe scrutiny regarding scientific reliability and efficacy,Banks, R. R., & Ford, R. T. (2009). (How) does unconscious bias matter: Law, politics, and racial inequality. Emory Law Journal, 58, 1053–1122. it has also sparked a conversation about implicit bias in both popular media and the scientific community.Hewer, M. (2018). "How scientists are blocking bias in the world at large". APS Observer, 31(2), 21–23.
Many implicit bias training programs have been created in recent years.Smith, R. J. (2015). "Reducing racially disparate policing outcomes: Is implicit bias training the answer". University of Hawai'i Law Review, 37, 295–312. Facebook designed a webpage to make implicit bias training videos widely available. Google has put about 60,000 employees through a 90-minute implicit bias training program. The United States Department of Justice has trained 28,000 employees on techniques to combat implicit bias.Sleek, S. (2018). "The bias beneath: Two decades of measuring implicit associations". APS Observer, 31(2), 11–14.
Training techniques
There are a wide variety of implicit bias training programs, but the programs tend to follow a basic three-step method:
Participants take a pretest to assess baseline implicit bias levels (typically with the IAT). They complete the implicit bias training task. They take a post-test to re-evaluate bias levels after training.
Frequently, follow-up tests of implicit bias are administered days, weeks, or months after the completion of training programs to examine the long-term benefits of these programs.Devine, P. G., Forscher, P. S., Austin, A. J., & Cox, W. T. L. (2012). "Long-term reduction in implicit bias: A prejudice habit-breaking intervention". Journal of Experimental Social Psychology, 48(6), 1267-1278. Hannah, S. D., Carpenter-Song, E. (2013). Patrolling your blind spots: Introspection and public catharsis in a medical school faculty development course to reduce unconscious bias in medicine. Culture, Medicine, and Psychiatry, 37, 314–339. van Ryn, M., Hardeman, R., Phelan, S. M., Burgess, D. J., Dovidio, J. F., Herrin, J., Burke, S. E., Nelson, D. B., Perry, S., Yeazel, M., & Przedworski, J. M. (2015). "Medical school experiences associated change in implicit racial bias among 3547 students: A medical student CHANGES study report". Journal of General Internal Medicine, 30(12), 1748–1756. Nelson, S. C., Prasad, S., & Hackman, H. W. (2015). "Training providers on issues of race and racism improve health care equity". Race, Racism, and Medicine, 62, 915–917. It is still uncertain whether these programs are effective or not as researchers continue to test them.Burns, M. D., Monteith, M. J., & Parker, L. R. (2017). "Training away bias: The differential effects of counterstereotype training and self-regulation on stereotype activation and application". Journal of Experimental Social Psychology, 73, 97–110.
Counterstereotype According to a meta-analysis of 17 implicit bias interventions, counterstereotype training is the most effective way to reduce implicit bias.Lai, C. (2014). "Reducing implicit racial references: I. A comparative investigation of 17 interventions". Journal of experimental psychology, 143(4), 1765–1785. In the area of gender bias, techniques such as imagining powerful women, hearing their stories, and writing essays about them have been shown to reduce levels of implicit gender bias on the IAT.Blair, I. V., Ma, J. E., & Lenton, A. P. (2001). "Imagining stereotypes away: The moderation of implicit stereotypes through mental imagery". Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 81(5), 828–841. Dasgupta and Asagari (2004) found that real-life counterstereotypes, such as going to a women's college or having female professors, can decrease bias because the idea that women are intelligent and hard-working is repeatedly reinforced.Dasgupta, N., & Asgari, S. (2004). "Seeing is believing: Exposure to counterstereotypic women leaders and its effect on the malleability of automatic gender stereotyping." Journal of Experimental Social Psychology, 40, 642–658. Regarding racial bias, several studies have replicated the finding that training participants to pair counterstereotypical traits such as "successful" with images of black individuals is an effective tool for reducing implicit racial bias.Woodcock, A., & Monteith, M. J. (2013). "Forging links with the self to combat implicit bias". Group Processes & Intergroup Relations, 16(4), 445–461. Hu, X., Antony, J. W., Creery, J. D., Varags, I. M., Bodenhausen, G. V., & Paller, K. A. (2015). Unlearning implicit social biases during sleep. Science, 348, 1013–1015. Johnson, I. R., Kopp, B. M., Petty, R. E. (2018). "Just say no! (and mean it): Meaningful negation as a tool to modify automatic racial attitudes". Group Processes & Intergroup Relations, 21(1), 88–110.
Kawakami, Dovido, and Van Kamp (2005) challenged the effectiveness of counterstereotype training when they found that participants actually showed an increase in gender bias after training. Rather than using the IAT to assess levels of implicit bias, the researchers asked participants to read a resume and decide if the applicant was qualified for a leadership job because "when ambiguity exists in an individual's qualifications or competence, evaluators will fill the void with assumptions drawn from gender stereotypes".Isaac, C., Lee, B., & Carnes, M. (2009). "Interventions that affect gender bias in hiring: A systematic review". Aca Med, 84(10), 1440-1446. The participants received one of four resumes describing equally qualified candidates. The only difference between the four resumes was the applicant's name—two had female names and two had male names. When participants were administered the job application task immediately following counterstereotype training, they were more likely to pick the male candidates over the female candidates, making it appear that the counterstereotype training was ineffective. However, when the researchers added a distractor task between the counterstereotype training and the job application task, participants selected male and female candidates at an equal rate. When participants had to engage in a cognitive task while simultaneously selecting a candidate, they were more likely to select female applicants.Kawakami, K., Dovido, J. F., & van Kamp, S. (2005). "Kicking the habit: Effects of nonstereotypic association training and correction processes on hiring decisions". Journal of Experimental Social Psychology, 41, 68–75.
The researchers did a follow-up study with a slightly different procedure to determine why bias was increased in some conditions and decreased in others. They followed the same counterstereotype training procedure but divided the job application task into two distinct parts. Participants were either asked to first pick the best candidate for the job and then rank each candidate on sixteen traits (half were female stereotypes and the other half were male stereotypes) or they were asked to complete the tasks in the opposite order. Regardless of the order, participants consistently were biased against women in the first task, but not in the second task. The researchers hypothesized that the participants were able to discern that the purpose of the study was to reduce gender bias, so they showed an increased bias in the first task to compensate for the researcher's attempt to influence their behaviors.Kawakami, K., Dovido, J. F., & van Kamp, S. (2007). "The impact of counterstereotypic training and related correction processes on the application of stereotypes". Group Processes & Intergroup Relations, 10(2), 139–156. Further research is necessary to determine why participants showed decreased bias on the second task and if the decrease has an enduring effect.
Hu and colleagues (2015) created a form of counterstereotype training to unlearn implicit bias while sleeping. Participants completed the typical counterstereotype training task of pairing images of people of different genders and races with counterstereotypical traits. However, their study differed from previous research because two unique sounds were played after each successful pairing of either a gender or race counterstereotype. After the training task, participants were asked to take a 90-minute nap, and their sleep patterns were monitored with EEG. Once participants entered into slow-wave sleep, the researchers played either the sound that followed correct gender counterstereotypes or racial counterstereotypes in the training task. After follow-up assessments, the results showed that bias was successfully reduced depending on the sound played during sleep, meaning the people who listened to the sound associated with gender counterstereotypes showed reduced gender bias, but not racial bias, and vice versa. The specific reduced bias remained when the participants returned to the lab a week after initial training and testing.
Negation Negation training decreases implicit bias through actively rejecting information that reinforces stereotypes, therefore breaking the habit of stereotyping. Kawakami, Dovido, Moll, Hermsen, and Russin (2000) conducted one of the first studies to test the effects of negation training on reducing implicit bias. In their study, participants were presented with pictures of Black and White individuals along with a word that represented a stereotype. The participants were instructed to press "NO" during stereotype-consistent trials (for example, a Black person and the word "lazy"), and "YES" during stereotype-inconsistent trials (a Black person paired with "successful"). Participants showed significant decreases in automatic bias from the pretest to the posttest.Kawakami, K., Dovido, J. F., Moll, J., Hermsen, S., & Russin, A. (2000). "Just say no (to stereotyping): Effects of training in the negation of stereotypic associations on stereotype activation". Journal of Personality and Psychology, 78(5), 871–888.