Only by recognising the problem, can we tackle it
Unconscious bias fosters inequality and stifles opportunity, but it doesn’t have to be this way, writes Dr Pragya Agarwal
In recent years, interest in unconscious or implicit bias has increased. These terms are now being used to explain everyday discriminatory behaviour, and references to research into unconscious bias as a key to understanding and tackling social discrimination are at an all-time high. My personal analysis of social media, particularly Twitter feeds, using analytical software tools, showed that as a rough indication, just in the first three months of 2019, there were more than three million mentions of the term ‘unconscious bias’ on social media.
Most recently, we had extensive discussion about bias and racial prejudice pertaining to the Duchess of Sussex as she navigated married life as a royal here in the UK. Gendered stereotypes occur in words, images and books around us without us even realising it. An in-depth study of the 100 most popular children’s picture books of 2017 shows that male characters are twice as likely to take leading roles and are given far more speaking parts than females. We often think that unconscious bias only covers race and gender, but it is far more pervasive than that. Disability, sexuality, body size and profession all influence the assessments we make of people.
Sometimes it can manifest in unexpected ways. For instance, when Youtube launched the video upload feature for their app, 5-10 per cent of videos were uploaded upsidedown, and for a while Google developers were baffled. Eventually they figured out it wasn’t poor design; they had only considered right-handed users. Their unconscious bias had overlooked the fact that left-handed users would turn the phone/app by 180 degrees. In fact, left-handedness has suffered from an unfavourable perception for a long time. Scissors, musical instruments and knives are all designed for people who are right-handed, disadvantaging left-handed users.
We also form stereotypes of people based on what they sound like. Our accents can reveal class and background – and they allow others to project their own biases onto us as soon as we open our mouths. Although our personal preferences come into play, there are some generalised perceptions that get ingrained into wider sensibilities which lead to stereotypes. Historic rivalries and cultural perceptions come into play as accents are assessed. This is why Queen’s English or Received Pronunciation (RP) is still assigned higher status since London was always the economic and political centre for many centuries. In a 1970 paper, William Cheyne, a researcher at the University of Strathclyde, showed that both English and Scottish subjects rated speakers with a Scottish accent lower on a scale primarily concerned with status, while on scales concerned with friendliness they were rated to have warmer personalities. Google speech recognition has also been shown to have only 53 per cent accuracy rate for Scottish English. I personally find Scottish accents very attractive (my husband is from Glasgow), and in some studies, it has also been shown that Scottish accents are perceived as more reassuring and soothing in a crisis. We all certainly need some of that right now.
The terms ‘implicit bias’ and ‘unconscious bias’ are often used interchangeably, referring to those biases that exist without our conscious knowledge, the ones that manifest themselves in our actions and reactions often without us realising it. We gather millions of bits of information and our brain processes that information in a certain way, unconsciously categorising and formatting it into familiar patterns. Some studies suggest that the brain is capable of processing approximately 11 million bits of information every second, but our conscious mind can handle only 40-50 of those bits. It is clear that much of our processing happens in our subconscious minds. Many of our biases are a result of our evolutionary response to threat. As humans create a sense of in-group and outgroup for the purposes of survival, our instincts help us to assess people and situations quickly, determine whether or not we can trust them, and make timely decisions. In this way, they are essential for our survival. The bad news is that in this process, we also form biases that cloud our instincts. Our unconscious biases change how our instincts react to certain situations, and the way we perceive others, and can compel us to choose one
Google speech recognition has also been shown to have only 53 per cent accuracy rate for Scottish English