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Given the ever-growing body of evidence surrounding implicit bias in and beyond the institution of the law, there is an equally growing need for the law to respond to the accurate science of prejudice in its aspiration to objective practice and just decision-making. Examined herein are the existing legal conceptualizations of implicit bias as utilized in the courtroom; implicit bias as peripheral to law and implicit bias as effectual in law, but not without active resolution. These views and the interventional methods, materials, and procedures they inspire are widely employed to appreciably “un-bias” legal actors and civic participants; however, without an accurate conceptualization of the science of prejudice in law, these interventions are likely doing more harm than good. On the basis that these interventional techniques are unscientific in their methodology, reliant upon a misleading theory of transparency of mind, deny the inherently emotional and biased origin of the court, and are disseminated largely technocratically, they fail to serve their intended purpose. In actuality, they reinforce systemic intergroup biases and are seen to produce a lesser objective justice. This project reiterates, as with so many aspects of justice, that there must be the same care taken in the address of those structural and institutional contributions to implicit bias that the enterprise of law perpetuates in and of itself as have been taken in the address of our individual cognitive predispositions toward discrimination.

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abstract: Social categories such as race and gender are associated by people with certain characteristics (e.g. males are angry), which unconsciously affects how people evaluate and react to a person of specific social categories. This phenomenon, referred to as implicit bias, has been the interest of many social psychologists. However, the implicit bias research has been focusing on only one social category at a time, despite humans being entities of multiple social categories. The research also neglects the behavioral contexts in which implicit biases are triggered and rely on a broad definition for the locus of the bias regulation mechanism. These limitations raise questions on whether the current bias reduction strategies are effective. The current dissertation sought to address these limitations by introducing an ecologically valid and multidimensional method. In Chapters 1 and 2, the mouse-tracking task was integrated into the implicit association task to examine how implicit biases were moderated in different behavioral contexts. The results demonstrated that the manifestation of implicit biases depended on the behavioral context as well as the distinctive identity created by the combinations of different social categories. Chapter 3 laid groundwork for testing working memory as the processing capacity for the bias regulation mechanism. The result suggested that the hand-motion tracking indices of working memory load could be used to infer the capacity of an individual to suppress the influence of implicit bias. In Chapter 4, the mouse-tracking paradigm was integrated into the Stroop task with implicit associations serving as the Stroop targets. The implicit associations produced various effects including the conflict adaptation effect, like the Stroop targets, which suggested that implicit associations and Stroop stimuli are handled by overlapping cognitive mechanisms. Throughout these efforts, the current dissertation, first, demonstrated that a more ecologically valid and multidimensional approach is required to understand biased behaviors in detail. Furthermore, the current dissertation suggested the cognitive control mechanism as a finer definition for the locus of the bias regulation mechanism, which could be leveraged to offer solutions that are more adaptive and effective in the environment where collaboration and harmony are more important than ever. / Dissertation/Thesis / Doctoral Dissertation Human Systems Engineering 2019

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The racial dynamic between teachers and students in the United States is increasing. The population of racial minority students continues to grow while the teacher population stays predominantly White. Equity and inclusion, often the foreground in an educational setting, are now being undervalued when needed the most. This study examined and compared pre-service and in-service teachers' implicit attitudes toward racial minority students while also looking at their self-efficacy beliefs in teaching diverse classrooms. Participants included nine pre-service teachers from a four-year university and nine PreK-3 in-service teachers. All participants were from the Southeastern part of the United States. To test the hypothesis that pre-service teachers will have more negative implicit attitudes toward racial minority students, this study used an Implicit Association Test. Although the t-test result comparing both groups, pre-service teachers versus in-service teachers, showed insignificant differences, raw data from participants' Implicit Association Tests showed that more pre-service teachers showed a slight bias towards students from racial majority groups. Results support recommendations and implications for practitioners to better understand how biases may occur in classrooms and how pre-service teachers can be better prepared to teach in diverse classrooms. Keywords: implicit attitudes, implicit bias, racial dynamics, racial minority students, early childhood education

Most research on the effects of race on people’s lived experiences focuses on how race affects the lives of people of color. Since the 1990’s, a growing body of literature has focused on “Whiteness” in society. Most “Whiteness Studies” focus on how “White” developed as a racial category and how various ethnic/national groups (e.g., Irish, Italians, Jews, Germans) came to be included under that racial label. However, nearly a century ago, in 1935, sociologist W.E.B. Du Bois referred to the public and psychological wage for Whiteness—in part, meaning the societal gravity or weight that the label “White” tends to carry. Du Bois’ oft-quoted proposition has never been empirically tested. The present study used the experimental method to empirically test Du Bois’ proposition. Using mock job applications that were identical except that (1) the applicant’s photograph had been electronically manipulated to vary race (Black or Caucasian) and sex (male or female) and (2) the application either did or did not suggest the applicant had a pending criminal charge. Each participant evaluated one mock applicant on a variety of employment and personality scales. Major findings show a main, usually negative, effect of criminal records status on ratings. Interaction effects show that participants ranked Black applicants with a pending criminal record higher than Whites with a pending record, while the reverse was true when applicants had no criminal record. Social desirability bias, and other possibilities (e.g., heightened socio-political consciousness and identification) – are discussed as possible explanation effects, including absence of prominent race or sex effects. / African American Studies

This thesis is concerned with philosophical perspectives on the stigma of mental illness, with each chapter exploring different philosophical issues. Chapter one delineates the central concept around which the rest of the work revolves: the stigma of mental illness. It provides an outline of the stigma mechanism, how it applies to mental illness, why it is such a large public health concern and what has been done so far to combat it. Chapter two is concerned with the application of recent literature in the philosophy of implicit bias to the topic of mental illness. It suggests that we have hitherto been preoccupied with explicit formulations of the stigma mechanism, but argues that there are distinctive issues involved in combatting forms of discrimination in which the participants are not cognisant of their attitudes or actions, and that anti-stigma initiatives for mental illness should take note. Chapter three applies the philosophical literature concerning the ethics of our epistemic practices to the stigma of mental illness. It contains an analysis of how epistemic injustice- primarily in the forms of testimonial injustice and stereotype threat- affects those with mental illnesses. The fourth chapter brings in issues in the philosophy of science (particularly the philosophy of psychiatry) to explore the possibility of intervening on the stigma process to halt the stigma of mental illness. The first candidate (preventing labelling) is discounted, and the second (combatting stereotype) is tentatively endorsed. The fifth chapter is concerned with how language facilitates the stigma of mental illness. It suggests that using generics to talk about mental illness (whether the knowledge structure conveyed is inaccurate or accurate) is deeply problematic. In the former, it conveys insidious forms of social stereotyping. In the latter, it propagates misinformation by presenting the category as a quintessential one.