One of the core authors of the IAT paper administered here to measure implicit bias released a paper last year showing how the test doesn't actually measure bias, and how it is not clear what this kind of test actually measures.<p>Many of us wish that there was a simple link between an unconscious bias, as measured by the popular IAT test administered by Hardvard or similar tests, and biased behavior. This would give a clear path to fix any bias problem. However, Brian Nosek who is one of the co-authors of the IAT test just released a paper [1] that show that changes in implicit bias don’t lead to changes in behavior. You can find a summary of the article and its findings here [2].<p>The paper examining 499 studies over 20 years involving 80,859 participants that used the IAT and other, similar measures. They discovered two things: One is that the correlation between implicit bias and discriminatory behavior appears weaker than previously thought. They also conclude that there is very little evidence that changes in implicit bias have anything to do with changes in a person’s behavior. These findings, they write, "produce a challenge for this area of research." The finding that changes in implicit bias don’t lead to changes in behavior, Forscher says, "should be stunning."<p>"I see implicit bias as a potential means to an end, something that tells us what to do and some possible remedies for what we see in the world," Forscher says. "So if there’s little evidence to show that changing implicit bias is a useful way of changing those behaviors, my next question is ‘What should we do?’"<p>[1] <a href="https://www.researchgate.net/publication/308926636_A_Meta-Analysis_of_Change_in_Implicit_Bias" rel="nofollow">https://www.researchgate.net/publication/308926636_A_Meta-An...</a><p>[2] <a href="https://www.chronicle.com/article/Can-We-Really-Measure-Implicit/238807" rel="nofollow">https://www.chronicle.com/article/Can-We-Really-Measure-Impl...</a>
There is such focus on being tolerant regardless of sexual orientation, but many more people face much greater discrimination on a wider variety of issues, such as being handicapped, unattractive, mentally challenged, etc. I wonder why these groups don't get anywhere as much focus as the small number of gender non-conformist? Seems from a utilitarian perspective a much greater reduction of human suffering would be achieved by learning to appreciate the groups I mentioned, than the current mega focus on gender non-conformists. I think it is because gender-nonconformists can still be highly intelligent and attractive, thus are still useful from our society's image and performance driven perspective.
Fantastic comment on reddit regarding how unscientific these "implicit bias" tests are:<p><a href="https://www.reddit.com/r/science/comments/afmxkx/americans_unconscious_bias_on_the_basis_of_sexual/ee0t1xs/" rel="nofollow">https://www.reddit.com/r/science/comments/afmxkx/americans_u...</a>
Unlike being of a certain skin color or sexual orientation being overweight is actually bad for your health and both mental and physical performance. I'm not surprised bias is not falling.
Unsurprising, given that sexual orientation and race are not the result of choices. There is no decision to be made, no change in input will change the output.<p>Dietary habits are entirely active choices, it's an active decision making process, and weight is the outcome of those inputs. Gaining or losing weight is basic physics.<p>Perhaps obesity and food abuse/addiction should be looked at much the same way that drug abuse/addiction is looked at. Obesity is the natural outcome of food abuse.
There was some discussion about the methodology on Reddit, but I think there is some controversy over whether the methodology used to measure bias is sound. Basically, you're asked to categorize a series of items as quickly as possible, and the time taken is used to measure your "implicit bias".<p>You can try it out for yourself at: <a href="https://implicit.harvard.edu/" rel="nofollow">https://implicit.harvard.edu/</a>
The term "bias" is unhelpfully vague, as is the term "unconscious", so "unconscious bias" is a dialectical disaster zone.<p>The IAT tests measure association (that's what the "A" stands for), not "bias". Probably I associate "Norwegian" with "tall", but that doesn't necessarily mean I'll overestimate the height of a Norwegian person who is standing in front of me. Perhaps I will, but that's an entirely different question, and the bias might go in the other direction from the association: if you're expecting someone to be tall then they might look short when they're in fact average.
That makes sense, as orientation and race one are born with and we are also not born to be bias against them but nurtured. Where is weight (which we are certainly nurtured with every marketing element we see) its also nature and evolution to in general be attracted or find pleasing healthy people since that results in healthier communities and off spring in general. The same goes for the others they mentioned such as disability. So while the nurture part could certainly change our genetic bias towards healthy people most likely will not. Hopefully the nurture part will since people are bias against people who are healthy but not peak perfection healthy.
The weight one is really interesting. If we were to see a drop in the rates of overweight and obese people, I wonder if an increase in bias would be a precursor. Not in the sense that everyone hates them and they change their habits out of societal pressure, but even among that population, a negative bias toward obesity could be a shift toward a more healthy mindset.
Philosophy academics (the dreaded "post-modernists") have been saying how such biases are socially constructed for so long, that if the conditions in society change, people's perspectives will change. Looks like attitudes really are not so "natural" as people put them.