In Case You Missed It…
Most discussions of implicit bias follow a familiar script. People may sincerely believe that they treat everyone equally, but lurking beneath the surface are unconscious prejudices favoring traditionally privileged groups: men over women, White people over Black people, the rich over the poor, the young over the old. Furthermore, if someone belongs to several disadvantaged groups at once, these prejudices may add up or even multiply, leaving people especially vulnerable to discrimination.
It’s an intuitively plausible picture. But is it actually true?
A fascinating paper by Paul Connor and colleagues, published in the prestigious Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, put the idea to the test. Across five studies involving more than 5,000 people, the researchers examined people’s implicit reactions to individuals varying simultaneously in race, sex, social class, and age.
In this post, I’ll outline three major findings from the research that challenge the entire edifice on which the social-justice narrative is built.