SBP: Implicit Bias: Separating Person and Context

Implicit bias refers to mental associations linking social groups with evaluations or stereotypes. Research suggests that implicit race biases are widespread, difficult to change, and that these associations may contribute to unintended discrimination. There is no consensus, however, on whether implicit bias is best understood as a feature of a person, or as a consequence of inequalities and stereotypes cued by the social environment.

Does implicit bias operate as an individual attitude, so that a person's behavior can be predicted from their implicit bias score? Or does it operate like a feature of the context, such that any individual would have greater implicit bias when passing through some contexts than others? Addressing these issues can help organizations make more informed decisions about how best to reduce unwanted disparities.

This project consists of three longitudinal studies to measure stability and change in implicit bias over time, and across different contexts. It measures implicit bias across twenty cities to understand how much scores depend on the city-wide context, as opposed to the individuals who compose that context. The project measures city-level changes, such as protests against racial discrimination and changes in local ordinances and monuments, to understand whether such changes are followed by changes in implicit bias.

And it examines whether individuals' level of implicit bias changes when they move from one social context to another. It is unlikely that the answers to these questions are that implicit bias entirely reflects the person or the context. Instead, the project aims to quantify the contributions of each, and how person and context interact with each other.

This research contributes knowledge about the fundamental nature of implicit bias and the most promising directions for reducing unintended discrimination.

This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.