Psychologists have posited hundreds of cognitive biases over the years. A new paper argues that they all boil down to one of a handful of fundamental beliefs coupled with confirmation bias. doi.org/10.1177/174569
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PGupqNaUTnQ
Unconscious bias basics
Listen Closely At 0:15, 1:37, 2:47, 3:45
https://www.slideshare.net/wtidwell/week-5-unconsious-prejudice
https://twitter.com/jayman471/status/650120738108776454
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u1549NDbP08
https://twitter.com/AntBolt_3/status/1200234113266896896
Unconscious bias basics
Listen Closely At 0:15, 1:37, 2:47, 3:45
https://www.slideshare.net/wtidwell/week-5-unconsious-prejudice
https://twitter.com/jayman471/status/650120738108776454
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u1549NDbP08
EXAMPLES OF COGNITIVE BIASES YOU MIGHT FALL PREY TO
http://www.bbc.com/news/magazine-40124781
Over the past few decades, measures of explicit bias have been falling rapidly. For example, in Britain in the 1980s about 50% of the population stated that they opposed interracial marriages. That figure had fallen to 15% by 2011. The US has experienced a similarly dramatic shift. Going back to 1958, 94% of Americans said they disapproved of black-white marriage. That had fallen to just 11% by 2013.
But implicit bias - bias that we harbour unintentionally - is much stickier, much more difficult to eradicate. At least that's the claim. The IAT, first introduced two decades ago as a means of measuring implicit bias, is now used in laboratories all across the world. From Harvard's Project Implicit site alone, it has been taken nearly 18 million times. And there's a pattern. My result was far from unique. On the race test, most people show some kind of pro-white, anti-black bias. They are speedier connecting black faces to bad concepts than white faces. (Black people are not immune to this phenomenon themselves.)
But implicit bias is not about bigotry per se. As new research from our laboratory suggests, implicit bias is grounded in a basic human tendency to divide the social world into groups. In other words, what may appear as an example of tacit racism may actually be a manifestation of a broader propensity to think in terms of “us versus them” — a prejudice that can apply, say, to fans of a different sports team. This doesn’t make the effects of implicit bias any less worrisome, but it does mean people should be less defensive about it.
Furthermore, our research gives cause for optimism: Implicit bias can be overcome with rational deliberation.
In a series of experiments whose results were published in The Journal of Experimental Psychology: General, we set out to determine how severely people would punish someone for stealing. Our interest was in whether a perpetrator’s membership in a particular group would influence the severity of the punishment he or she received.
We recruited several hundred volunteers to play an online game that involved giving and receiving small sums of money, and created a situation in which people witnessed one player stealing another player’s money. We then presented volunteers with the opportunity to punish the perpetrator by confiscating some or all of the perpetrator’s money and removing it from the game.
The experiments were manipulated so that the perpetrator appeared to be a member of either the same group as the punisher or a different one. In one experiment, for instance, we led football fans to believe the perpetrator was either a supporter of the same team as they were or a supporter of a rival team. In another, we told them the perpetrator was a citizen of their own country or of a different one.
When people made their decisions swiftly — in a few seconds or less — they were biased in their punishment decisions. Not only did they punish out-group members more harshly, they also treated members of their own group more leniently. The same pattern of bias emerged in a pair of follow-up experiments in which we distracted half of the punishers. (We increased their “cognitive load” by asking them to retain a string of seven letters and numbers in their memory.)
But we also found that people could overcome these biased instincts if they engaged in rational deliberation. When people had the chance to reflect on their decision, they were largely unbiased, handing out equal punishments to in-group and out-group members.
This finding — that people are reflexively prone to “intergroup bias” in punishment — is consistent with what many scientists believe about humans’ evolutionary heritage. Homo sapiens spent thousands of years in close-knit communities competing for scarce resources on the African savanna. Members of the in-group were presumably sources of help, comfort and cooperation; members of opposing groups, by contrast, were sources of threat and violence. As a result, the tendency to instinctively treat in-group members with care and foreigners with caution may be etched into our DNA.
Our finding sheds some light on the nature of implicit racial bias. Because people frequently form group memberships on the basis of race, the same biases that emerge along group lines may underlie many instances of racial discrimination. This human tendency is almost certainly inflamed when different racial groups are exposed to racial stereotyping and institutional discrimination, but it may start with common instincts driven by the pressures of evolution.
We need not resign ourselves to a future of tribalism. On the contrary, our research suggests that people have the capacity to override their worst instincts — if they are able to reflect on their decision making as opposed to acting on their first impulse. These insights, for example, could inform the types of implicit bias training programs that the Department of Justice is now requiring for nearly 30,000 prosecutors and law enforcement officers.
https://www.amazon.com/Whos-Charge-Free-Science-Brain/dp/0061906115
https://www.amazon.com/Subliminal-Your-Unconscious-Rules-Behavior/dp/0307472256
This delightfully accessible yet intellectually rigorous book transcends traditional boundaries between neuroscience, psychology and philosophy, to tackle the riddle of the unconscious mind. Freud bashing is a popular intellectual pastime these days (I myself have been guilty on occasion) but Mlodinow shows that by emphasizing the unconscious he was on the right track: we are completely unaware of the vast majority of events going on inside our brains. The book presents compelling evidence gleaned from a variety of sources to show that much of our behavior is governed not so much by our conscious mind – which is prone to claim credit – but by a cauldron of motives, drives and unconscious propensities of which we are largely oblivious. Indeed, most of our actions are carried out by the unconscious mind (or minds ) which exists in peaceful harmony with the conscious person "inside" your body.
https://www.amazon.com/Subliminal-Your-Unconscious-Rules-Behavior/dp/0307472256/
"We choose the facts that we want to believe. We also choose our friends, lovers, and spouses not just because of the way we perceive them but because of the way they perceive us. Unlike phenomena in physics, in life, events can often obey one theory or another, and what actually happens can depend largely upon which theory we choose to believe. It is a gift of the mind to be extraordinarily open to accepting theory of ourselves that pushes us in the direction of survival, and even happiness..."
There have been a lot of books that describe the abysmal capability of humans to apprehend clearly anything they observe. Mlodinow describes the famous "Gorilla Test" in which an audience is asked to watch a video of kids passing a basketball around. How many times is the ball passed? I, too, watched this test years ago and counted 17 passes. But the question was a trick to get us to focus on the ball-passing activity (Oh, how the psychological community requires deception to conduct its business). When the film was repeated, the audience (and me, too) was astounded to see that during the ball-passing, a person in a gorilla suit was prominently and completely unnoticed walking around the play area.
This little test aptly illustrates that our conscious viewing of a scene is hugely influenced by our pre-conceived focus--in this case focusing on the ball being passed around. Many examples are given about how faulty "eye-witness" accounts are of criminal activity.
But that's just the tip of the iceberg, and a subject long acknowledged in the cognition industry. What Mlodinow brings to the table that is new are trenchant examples of how emotional predilection colors our seeing of the real world. Magnetic resonance scanning of brains in action shows that as information arrives into the brain, a precognitive censor switches it down one of two paths: the new brain of logic, abstract reasoning, etc., which we all feel we use and control, and the old brain of emotional processing and response. We are almost never aware of this switching which is why even the most egregious ideologues sincerely believe they always apply the same strict logical processing for which they may be famous in other realms of knowledge.
This is a horrifying discovery! What it says is that no matter how smart we are, in subjects in which we have strong ideological beliefs, we lose control of our logical facilities and are held hostage by emotion. And do so seamlessly and with no sense of the cognitive/emotional switch in thinking having occurred.
https://www.amazon.com/dp/B00I17JGR2/
https://www.amazon.com/Before-You-Know-Unconscious-Reasons-ebook/dp/B071YBGM1S/
https://www.amazon.com/Hidden-Brain-Unconscious-Presidents-Control-ebook/dp/B0031M7T1C/
THESE CLOWNS KNOW NOTHING! KNOW WHAT I KNOW ABOUT THEM THOUGH? I KNOW THAT THEY HAVE INNATE BIASES THAT INFLUENCE THEIR THOUGHTS AND PERCEPTIONS OF PEOPLE, I KNOW THAT THEY WATCH TOO MANY MOVIES, AND I KNOW THAT THEY DON'T HOLD AN EVOLUTIONARY AND GENETIC PERSPECTIVE ON HUMAN THOUGHT AND BEHAVIOR.
https://www.amazon.com/How-We-Decide-Jonah-Lehrer/dp/0547247990
The book starts with revealing the prediction-making system in our subconscious mind and why sometimes we are better off relying on our instincts than deliberate thinking. Then it moves on to discuss how this feeling-based mechanism should and can be corrected by the thinking-based rational decision making process occasionally... Lastly, the book discusses how we can combine our conscious and subconscious mind in decision-making.
https://www.amazon.com/Incognito-Secret-Lives-David-Eagleman/dp/0307389928/
Our conscious minds are also only a small part and not in control as much as we like to think.
https://www.amazon.com/Brain-Story-You-David-Eagleman/dp/1101870532
13. Describes consciousness. “…the conscious you is only the smallest part of the activity of your brain. Your actions, your beliefs and your biases are all driven by networks in your brain to which you have no conscious access.” “I think of consciousness as the CEO of a large sprawling corporation, with many thousands of subdivisions and departments [the unconscious parts of the brain] all collaborating and interacting and competing in different ways.”
https://www.amazon.com/Whos-Charge-Free-Science-Brain/dp/0061906115
A main topic here was that our unconscious is responsible for so many of our daily actions with our conscious mind only gives us a false explanation. A good example used here was that if you saw a rattle snake you would jump away quickly. You would say that it was because you were scared but in reality it would be because your unconscious mind made you jump.
READ THE BOOKS ABOVE. THEY'LL TELL YOU HOW YOUR UNCONSCIOUS MIND IS RESPONSIBLE FOR YOUR THOUGHTS AND BEHAVIORS (HOW YOU THINK OF PEOPLE AND INTERACT WITH THEM).
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NJ-IfVHJH58
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vcJm-y7UnLY
Leonard Mlodinow
https://www.amazon.com/Subliminal-Your-Unconscious-Rules-Behavior/dp/0307472256/
"We choose the facts that we want to believe. We also choose our friends, lovers, and spouses not just because of the way we perceive them but because of the way they perceive us. Unlike phenomena in physics, in life, events can often obey one theory or another, and what actually happens can depend largely upon which theory we choose to believe. It is a gift of the mind to be extraordinarily open to accepting theory of ourselves that pushes us in the direction of survival, and even happiness..."
There have been a lot of books that describe the abysmal capability of humans to apprehend clearly anything they observe. Mlodinow describes the famous "Gorilla Test" in which an audience is asked to watch a video of kids passing a basketball around. How many times is the ball passed? I, too, watched this test years ago and counted 17 passes. But the question was a trick to get us to focus on the ball-passing activity (Oh, how the psychological community requires deception to conduct its business). When the film was repeated, the audience (and me, too) was astounded to see that during the ball-passing, a person in a gorilla suit was prominently and completely unnoticed walking around the play area.
This little test aptly illustrates that our conscious viewing of a scene is hugely influenced by our pre-conceived focus--in this case focusing on the ball being passed around. Many examples are given about how faulty "eye-witness" accounts are of criminal activity.
But that's just the tip of the iceberg, and a subject long acknowledged in the cognition industry. What Mlodinow brings to the table that is new are trenchant examples of how emotional predilection colors our seeing of the real world. Magnetic resonance scanning of brains in action shows that as information arrives into the brain, a precognitive censor switches it down one of two paths: the new brain of logic, abstract reasoning, etc., which we all feel we use and control, and the old brain of emotional processing and response. We are almost never aware of this switching which is why even the most egregious ideologues sincerely believe they always apply the same strict logical processing for which they may be famous in other realms of knowledge.
This is a horrifying discovery! What it says is that no matter how smart we are, in subjects in which we have strong ideological beliefs, we lose control of our logical facilities and are held hostage by emotion. And do so seamlessly and with no sense of the cognitive/emotional switch in thinking having occurred.
https://www.amazon.com/Before-You-Know-Unconscious-Reasons-ebook/dp/B071YBGM1S/
https://www.amazon.com/Hidden-Brain-Unconscious-Presidents-Control-ebook/dp/B0031M7T1C/
THESE CLOWNS KNOW NOTHING! KNOW WHAT I KNOW ABOUT THEM THOUGH? I KNOW THAT THEY HAVE INNATE BIASES THAT INFLUENCE THEIR THOUGHTS AND PERCEPTIONS OF PEOPLE, I KNOW THAT THEY WATCH TOO MANY MOVIES, AND I KNOW THAT THEY DON'T HOLD AN EVOLUTIONARY AND GENETIC PERSPECTIVE ON HUMAN THOUGHT AND BEHAVIOR.
https://www.amazon.com/How-We-Decide-Jonah-Lehrer/dp/0547247990
The book starts with revealing the prediction-making system in our subconscious mind and why sometimes we are better off relying on our instincts than deliberate thinking. Then it moves on to discuss how this feeling-based mechanism should and can be corrected by the thinking-based rational decision making process occasionally... Lastly, the book discusses how we can combine our conscious and subconscious mind in decision-making.
https://www.amazon.com/Incognito-Secret-Lives-David-Eagleman/dp/0307389928/
Our conscious minds are also only a small part and not in control as much as we like to think.
https://www.amazon.com/Brain-Story-You-David-Eagleman/dp/1101870532
13. Describes consciousness. “…the conscious you is only the smallest part of the activity of your brain. Your actions, your beliefs and your biases are all driven by networks in your brain to which you have no conscious access.” “I think of consciousness as the CEO of a large sprawling corporation, with many thousands of subdivisions and departments [the unconscious parts of the brain] all collaborating and interacting and competing in different ways.”
https://www.amazon.com/Whos-Charge-Free-Science-Brain/dp/0061906115
A main topic here was that our unconscious is responsible for so many of our daily actions with our conscious mind only gives us a false explanation. A good example used here was that if you saw a rattle snake you would jump away quickly. You would say that it was because you were scared but in reality it would be because your unconscious mind made you jump.
READ THE BOOKS ABOVE. THEY'LL TELL YOU HOW YOUR UNCONSCIOUS MIND IS RESPONSIBLE FOR YOUR THOUGHTS AND BEHAVIORS (HOW YOU THINK OF PEOPLE AND INTERACT WITH THEM).
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NJ-IfVHJH58
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vcJm-y7UnLY
Leonard Mlodinow
