bias

I recently attended a lecture by Dr. Keith Payne, a Professor of Psychology and Neuroscience at the University of North Carolina, who is changing the way we understand implicit bias — how it forms, how it operates, and how it functions within particular contexts.

We often think implicit bias works like this: When we are young, we absorb stereotypes and beliefs about race and ethnicity that begin to operate at a subconscious level. Unless we bring them to consciousness and challenge them, we assume they’ll stay fixed, deeply embedded in us.

But Dr. Payne’s research reveals something unique. It turns out that the context, the place, and the setting we’re in have a much bigger impact on the development and expression of implicit bias than we realize. For example, if someone takes an implicit bias test twice in the span of a couple of weeks, we might expect their results to stay roughly the same, right? Surprisingly, they don’t. The results can vary, sometimes quite widely.

However, while individual scores fluctuate, the collective score of a given place —say, a county— tends to stay remarkably constant. What’s even more telling is that the average implicit bias score of a county is highly correlated with levels of socioeconomic inequality, stratification, and segregation between racial and ethnic groups within that place. The context, the structures, and the markers of socioeconomic status and race shape implicit bias collectively.

This research offers a powerful insight: Implicit bias isn’t just an individual phenomenon. It’s a collective one, influenced deeply by our environment. And this brings us to an important takeaway. Implicit bias is not fixed, nor is it solely an individual problem. It’s shaped by systems, histories, and the settings we occupy.

This means that the work of changing implicit bias involves tackling systemic barriers and inequalities, but it also offers a profound opportunity. By making intentional changes in our contexts, we can reduce implicit bias.

When we change the context — by increasing diverse representation in leadership roles, creating more opportunities for voices from underrepresented groups to be heard, and actively working toward equity in our spaces — we’re not only working toward righting past wrongs. We’re actively reshaping the context that influences how implicit bias forms and expresses itself.

Increasing diverse representation is a matter of justice. And this fundamentally changes contexts. When people of different racial and ethnic backgrounds are visible in leadership, in decision-making, and in day-to-day interactions, it transforms the environment. And when the environment is changed, we reduce implicit bias, not just at an individual level, but collectively.

Change the context, change the bias.

— Renee Roederer